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Ex-Gadhafi Colonel Says Regime Crumbling
[An Nahar] An imprisoned Libyan army colonel who surrendered to the rebel forces two months ago told Agence La Belle France Presse on Saturday that Moammar Qadaffy...dictator of Libya since 1969. From 1972, when he relinquished the title of prime minister, he has been accorded the honorifics Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriyaor Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution. With the death of Omar Bongo of Gabon on 8 June 2009, he became the longest serving of all current non-royal national leaders. He is also the longest-serving ruler of Libya since Tripoli became an Ottoman province in 1551. When Chairman Mao was all the rage and millions of people were flashing his Little Red Book, Qadaffy came out with his own Little Green Book, which didn't do as well. Qadaffy's instability has been an inspiration to the Arab world and to Africa, which he would like to rule... 's regime is ridden with divisions and in the process of collapse. Speaking from a prisoner of war camp in the rebel enclave of Misrata, Colonel Wissam Miland said Qadaffy's military hangs together through coercion and mercenary-enforced martial law, but that infighting is rife. "I think it will soon collapse," he said, offering a rare glimpse inside Qadaffy's three-pronged loyalist force, made of up army regulars, militia fighters and mercenaries. "Among the militias, the Libyan soldiers were starting to fight with the foreign mercenaries, there are many problems," he said in an interview. "Qadaffy is losing now because of this," he said, pointing to a series of recent military losses suffered by the regime. The prospect of mounting divisions among Qadaffy's fighters will be an encouraging sign for many NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... countries, which have warned that there can be no clear-cut military solution to Libya's nearly six-month-old civil war. Since the beginning of the revolt, the alliance -- along with Libya's rebels -- has used sanctions, diplomacy and brute force to try to cleave off parts of Qadaffy's inner circle in the hope of hitting the regime's tipping point. The prospect that Qadaffy's use of foreign mercenaries may be backfiring will also offer hope that the once oil-rich regime could be running out of options. While it has long been known that Qadaffy has used paid fighters from Chad, Niger, Mauritania and other Sahel nations, their role has not always been clear. "Within my unit there were a lot of mercenaries," Miland said. "But they are not fighting with the army -- they surround the army. They don't let anyone fall back. If you retreat, they will kill you." But, Miland warned, Qadaffy is also successfully using economic, social and political levers to sustain his regime. "Most of the soldiers are illiterate, they are just trained very hard and they are told that Qadaffy is the most important person in the world -- 'Your life depends on Qadaffy, if Qadaffy loses, you lose'," he said. "Most soldiers fight, because they do believe that without Qadaffy they cannot leave." And as the corpse count mounts, there are also signs that Qadaffy's war effort has gathered some self-sustaining momentum. "Some people are fighting not because they like him, but because their cousins or relatives have been killed," Miland said. Posted by: Fred 2011-08-14 |
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