Libyan dictator plans a gradual transition from autocratic rule, say officials, as ICC arrest warrant is prepared
From his hiding place in Tripoli, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is desperately trying to pave a way for an exit from public life.
Sources say the veteran autocrat's grand plan is to retire to a godfather-like role in the nation he has ruled for more than 40 years and then allow institutions to grow that will eventually replace his hold on power.
This, he hopes, will convince Nato to stop its two-month campaign of almost nightly air strikes, which have decimated Libya's military and defences and reinforced a rebellion that is steadily eroding the country's power base.
Interviews with four regime members have confirmed that Gaddafi knows his time is up. "But he isn't going to run away to Venezuela," one official said. "He wants to move to the background and lead a dignified life. He himself has said he wants to be like the Japanese emperor, or Castro."
"He knows and we know that Libya doesn't have a future through imposing his cult of personality on the people and the world," said a second official. "There is no question that the country needs reforms, many reforms."
Over the past fortnight, as rebels who sacked the east of the country have also started to tip the balance in the loyalist stronghold of Misrata, Gaddafi has tried to usher in the first changing of the guard since he seized power in 1969. He has empowered tribal leaders to talk on national issues and given Libya's low-profile prime minister an international stage. At his only public appearance, Gaddafi anointed them as arbitrators – a role officials say will increase through a gradual negotiated transition from autocratic rule.
Nato jets again struck the Gaddafi compound in the heart of Tripoli overnight on Friday, hours after the dictator had appeared to taunt European leaders whom he is convinced are trying to assassinate him. "I am in a place where you cannot reach me," he said in an audio recording. Gaddafi's advisers say that he has reportedly become so wary of his apparent pursuers that he no longer trusts video cameras, fearing that they transmit a signal that could lead to his location.
On the audio recording he condemned as "cowardly crusader aggression" a Nato strike on a guest house in the eastern city of Brega that killed 11 Muslim imams and wounded four more. Nine of the imams were buried amid angry scenes in Tripoli. Nato claims that the site it targeted in a pre-dawn raid on Friday was a "known command and control centre".
The Libyan government said it was a guest house where the imams were resting before leading a peace mission deep into rebel-held territory. They provided GPS co-ordinates in an attempt to prove that there were no military facilities near the site.
However, Sky News spoke to former engineer Frek Landmeter, from the Netherlands, who said he built a bunker beneath the site in 1988. He provided GPS co-ordinates, which matched those given by the government and said the bunker was unusually large and at the time was considered a top-secret installation for the Libyan regime.
Landmeter told Sky that the guest house bombed was not above the bunker entrance. He said it was next to it, but still covered the underground site.
Meanwhile, an international arrest warrant for Gaddafi will be ready as early as tomorrow.
The International Criminal Court has said it will also seek warrants for at least one of Gaddafi's sons and his intelligence chief.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/14/muammar-gaddafi-exit-halt-air-strikes
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