Qadaffy's side in recent days.The eight officers - five generals, two colonels and a major - spoke at a hastily-called news conference organised by the Italian government on Monday.
"What is happening to our people has frightened us," said one officer, who identified himself as General Oun Ali Oun.
"There is a lot of killing, genocide ... violence against women. No wise, rational person with the minimum of dignity can do what we saw with our eyes and what he asked us to do."
Another officer, General Salah Giuma Yahmed, said Qadaffy's army was weakening day by day, with the force reduced to 20 per cent of its original capacity.
"Qadaffy's days are numbered," said Yahmed.
Abdurrahman Shalgam, the Libyan UN ambassador, who has also defected from Qadaffy, said all 120 military personnel were outside Libya now but did not say where they were.
South African intervention
Meanwhile,
...back at the Council of Boskone, Helmuth had turned a paler shade of blue. Star-A-Star had struck again...
Jacob Zuma, South Africa's president, has travelled to Tripoli for talks to end Libya's conflict, as calls mount from the international community for the Libyan leader to stand down.
Zuma's office said the main objectives of his visit include negotiating an immediate ceasefire, enabling the delivery of humanitarian aid and adopting and implementing reforms to eliminate the causes of conflict.
Zuma walked down a red carpet at Tripoli's airport to meet assembled dignitaries to the sound of a band and children chanting "We want Qadaffy!" in English, while waving Libyan flags and pictures of the leader.
There was no sign of the Libyan leader, however.
Al Jizz's Cal Perry, reporting from the opposition-held Libyan city of Benghazi, said there was much confusion surrounding the South African president's visit.
"We heard initially that [president's Zuma's] visit was to 'find an exit strategy for Colonel Qadaffy', [but] his aides have since knocked down these reports, calling them misleading and framing this visit as more of a regional visit to discuss humanitarian concerns.
"One of the issues that this visit raises is a political question ... certainly here in the eastern part of the country, or what they might call liberated Libya. People here are fearful that if a political deal is struck, what would the cost of that political deal be and would this mean a divided Libya?
"There is concern on the ground that this could potentially happen."
'Roadmap for peace'
Libyan state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
said that Zuma was going to discuss the implementation of the AU "roadmap" for peace, as it reported fresh NATO raids on the Nafusa mountains in the far west and the town of Bani Walid, near Misrata.
In a statement on the eve of Zuma's visit, his ruling African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa condemned the NATO bombing of Libya.
"We also join the continent and all peace loving people of the world in condemning the continuing aerial bombardments of Libya by Western forces," it said after a two-day meeting of its executive council.
On Friday, G8 leaders from Perfidious Albion, Canada, La Belle France, Germany, Italia, Japan, Russia and the United States called for Qadaffy to step down after more than 40 years in power.
The Libyan government responded by saying any initiative to resolve the crisis would have to go through the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
.
"The G8 is an economic summit. We are not concerned by its decisions," said Tripoli's deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaaim.
"We are an African country. Any initiative outside the AU framework will be rejected."
United front
Over the weekend, more than 100 Libyan community and tribal leaders met with members of the opposition National Transitional Council at a conference in Turkey in a bid to show a united front against Qadaffy.
The delegates, mostly from the powerful Warfalla clan based in the western city of Baniwalid, were calling for an end to the violence and the departure of Qadaffy and his sons.
Baniwalid is said to hold a position of vital strategic importance, and was thus being aggressively targeted by Qadaffy.
The meeting was billed as a possible game-changer for the Qadaffy government as the Warfalla are said to have been supporting Qadaffy militarily, especially around the western city of Misrata.
Meanwhile
...back at the pound, Zebulon finally found just the friend he'd been looking for...
on Monday, Navi Pillay, the UN rights chief, condemned the brutality of the government's crackdown on protesters in Libya and Syria, saying the actions were shocking in their disregard for human rights.
...not to be confused with
individual rights,mind you...
"The brutality and magnitude of measures taken by the governments in Libya and now Syria have been particularly shocking in their outright disregard for basic human rights," he said.
Separately on Monday, two French lawyers said they planned to bring legal proceedings against Nicolas Sarkozy
...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit...
, La Belle France's president, for crimes against humanity
over the NATO-led military campaign in Libya.Ibrahim Boukhzam, a Libyan justice ministry official in Tripoli, said Jacques Verges and Roland Dumas had offered to represent families he said were victims of the NATO bombing campaign.
Dumas said the NATO mission, which was meant to protect civilians, was killing them.
He denounced what he described as "a brutal assault against a sovereign country" and said he was ready to defend Qadaffy should he ever be brought before the International Criminal Court
... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ...
(ICC) in the Hague.