Gadhafi’s Son: It’s Just A Big Misunderstanding, No Attacks On Civilians
In an interview with “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, the son of Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi and one of his chief advisers, insisted Libya was calm, the military has not attacked any civilians and reports of Libyan diplomats abandoning their posts were simply a ‘miscommunication. : There was a “big, big gap between reality and the media reports,” Gadhafi told Amanpour. “The whole south is calm. The west is calm. The middle is calm. Even part of the east.” In response to President Barack Obama’s call for Moammar Gadhafi to step down and the UN Security Council’s unanimous vote to impose an arms embargo on Libya and urge nations to freeze Libyan assets, Gadhafi’s son was defiant. “Listen, nobody is leaving this country. We live here, we die here,” he insisted. “This is our country. The Libyans are our people. And for myself, I believe I am doing the right thing.” “The President of the U.S. has called on your father to step down. How do you feel about that?” Amanpour asked. “It’s not an American business, that’s number one,” said Gadhafi, who was dressed casually as he spoke with Amanpour. “Second, do they think this is a solution? Of course not.” “[Obama] says if a person can only keep control by using force, then legitimacy is gone,” Amanpour pressed. Gadhafi responded, “Right, but what happened? We didn’t use force. Second, we still have people around us.” Amanpour noted the extensive reports of attacks on Libyan civilians in recent weeks.”Show me a single attack, show me a single bomb,” he told her. “The Libyan air force destroyed just the ammunition sites. That’s it.” “Show me a single attack”? Okay, since you asked: Amanpour also sat down with Gadhafi other son, Saadi, in Tripoli. A professional soccer player who is less involved with politics than his brtoher, Saadi Gadhafi still had an ominous warning about what would happen if his father were to step down.”If he were to leave today, there would be war,” he said. “Civil war in Libya.” He also described the massive protests in his country spreading like a “fever.””It’s going to spread everywhere. No one can stop it,” he said. “That is my personal opinion, and the chaos will be everywhere…they think it’s about freedom. I love freedom. You love freedom, but it’s powerful, this earthquake. No one can control it.” Regarding the UN vote calling for the freezing of Libyan assets, Saif Gadhafi said, “First of all, we don’t have money outside. We are a very modest family and everybody knows that. And we are laughing when they say you have money in Europe or Switzerland or something. C’mon, it’s a joke.” Translation: No, my $15 million mansion in London doesn’t count! Neither do those kickbacks . Hey, that’s just the cost of doing business! Amanpour asked Gadhafi about the Libyan diplomats who have resigned from their posts in DC, New York and elsewhere. “You know, we are the victims of miscommunication,” he said. “And they were under the influence of a strong media campaign, well-organized. So, you know, they are human beings at the end.” “But they’ve defected,” Amanpour noted. “Not defected, none of them defect. They were so moved because they–” Amanpour interrupted. “But they are calling on your father to step down,” she said. “C’mon, they are employees working for the government,” Gadhafi said. “It’s not their business.” Until civil unrest in Libya exploded over the few last weeks, Gadhafi, the second oldest of Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s children, had been seen as the western face of the regime. Educated at the London School of Economics, he promoted Libya’s potential, telling The New York Times in February 2010 that Libya “can be the Dubai of North Africa.” Now one year later, he is defending his father’s regime. Amanpour asked, what about all those western-oriented reforms he tried to implement? “I worked very hard to implement many ideas, but things went wrong,” he said. “So now we are [in] a difficult situation,” Gadhafi added.
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Gadhafi’s Son: It’s Just A Big Misunderstanding, No Attacks On Civilians
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on February 27, 2011. Filed under