Ranting Gaddafi declares war on Libyan protesters

Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi pulled his country towards the abyss of civil war yesterday, delivering a speech hissing with injured malice and vowing: “I will die here as a martyr.”

During an address on state television, he drew on every trick of his theatrical rhetoric, attacking overseas governments, blaming recent bloody unrest on “cowards and traitors” and conjuring up the spectre of al-Qaeda.

He urged supporters to take to the streets to help crush a revolt that has seen eastern regions of Libya break free from his rule.

Amid reports that nearly 300 people have been killed so far as pro-Gaddafi militia crack down on protests, he warned opponents would be executed.

In his first major speech since anti-government protests flared a week ago, he vowed to “cleanse Libya house by house” if protests were not brought to a halt.

Streets in several parts of the capital Tripoli were littered with the bodies of dead protesters yesterday after a fierce crackdown overnight, according to witnesses.

State TV showed what it said was live footage of hundreds of government supporters in Tripoli’s Green Square waving portraits of Colonel Gaddafi and banners supporting the veteran leader. But refugees streaming across the border into Egypt said the Libyan leader had been using tanks, aircraft and foreign mercenaries to fight the growing rebellion.

The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting last night after calls from western diplomats for it to demand an end to retaliation against protesters.

With international condemnation mounting – and oil prices reaching their highest level for two and a half years – many countries were desperately trying to get their citizens out of Libya by air and sea.

Foreign Secretary William Hague signalled a mass evacuation of Britons, revealing the first of several planned charter flights would leave within the next two days. A Royal Navy frigate is being dispatched in readiness for a possible sea rescue.

Libyan diplomats around the world have resigned in protest at the violent crackdown, urging foreign governments to help halt the bloodshed.

But Col Gaddafi, who regularly raised his voice and banged his fist on a table during his TV address, accused “forces affiliated to foreign forces” of seeking to “disfigure, undermine and tarnish the reputation of the country”.

Facing the greatest challenge to his 41-year authoritarian rule, he branded protesters “rats and mercenaries” who wanted to turn Libya into an Islamic state.

He said: “I am not going to leave this land. I will die here as a martyr … I shall remain here defiant. Muammar Gaddafi is the leader of the revolution, I am not a president to step down … This is my country. Muammar is not a president to leave his post, Muammar is leader of the revolution until the end of time.”

It was unclear whether the speech, which lasted about 75 minutes, was live or had been pre-recorded.

It was apparently filmed at his Bab al-Azizia barracks in Tripoli, which still shows damage from the US bombing raid in 1986 in which Gaddafi lost his adopted daughter Hannah. The cameras occasionally cut away to a sculpture of a giant fist crushing a US war plane.

Swathed in brown robes and a turban, Col Gaddafi called on supporters to take to the streets to attack protesters. “You men and women who love Gaddafi … get out of your homes and fill the streets,” he said. “Leave your homes and attack them in their lairs … Starting tomorrow, the cordons will be lifted, go out and fight them. They are only a few, they are terrorists. You are millions while they are only 100.

“Withdraw your children from the streets. They are drugging your children, they are making your children drunk and sending them to hell.

“From tonight to tomorrow, all the young men should form local committees for popular security,” he said, telling them to wear a green armband to identify themselves. “The Libyan people and the popular revolution will control Libya.”

Tripoli’s streets were largely empty during the day yesterday, except for people venturing out for food, wary of attacks.

But one man in his 50s said residents had been piling up roadblocks of concrete, bricks and wood to try to slow militiamen. He said he had seen several streets with funeral tents mourning the dead. He described spending the previous night barricaded in his home, with blankets over the windows, as militiamen rampaged in the streets until dawn.

He said buses had unloaded militia fighters – both Libyans and foreigners – in several districts. Others sped in vehicles with guns mounted on the top, opening fire, including at people watching from windows. “One family had a four-year-old who was shot and killed on a balcony in the eastern part of the city, and another lady on the balcony was shot in the head,” he said.

The exiled crown prince of Libya, whose family was toppled by Col Gaddafi in a 1969 coup, predicted from London that his violent struggle to remain in power would not last long.

Prince Muhammad as-Senussi said Libyans protesting against the leader’s rule would be “victorious in the end”. He added: “His fight to stay in power will not last long, because of the desire for freedom by the Libyan people.”

German chancellor Angela Merkel described Col Gaddafi’s speech as “very, very frightening” and said he had declared war on his own people.

“We urge the Libyan government to halt immediately the use of violence against its own people, and if the use of violence does not cease, then Germany will exhaust every possibility to exert pressure and influence on Libya,” she said.

Tens of thousands of foreign workers are trying to leave Libya, with many oil companies desperate to remove expatriate staff. Turkey has a huge presence in Libya, with about 25,000 citizens there and more than 200 Turkish companies involved in construction projects.

Two civilian ferries from Turkey and one military ship were expected to arrive in the eastern city of Benghazi today to evacuate about 3,000 Turkish citizens after Ankara was unable to get permission to land at the city’s airport. About 5,000 Egyptians have returned home from Libya by land and about 10,000 more are believed to be waiting to cross the Libya-Egypt border.

Greek officials said the country was ready to evacuate 15,000 Chinese nationals, using merchant ships to take them to the Greek island of Crete.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said HMS Cumberland was being redeployed from the eastern Mediterranean to help with a possible evacuation. “The safety of British nationals in Libya is of paramount concern to us,” he said.