Libya’s fugitive leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi has dismissed as lies and psychological warfare the speculation that he has fled south to neighbouring Niger.
The comments, made in a telephone call to a pro-Gaddafi TV channel in Syria, apparently came from inside Libya. Col Gaddafi also promised his forces would defeat Nato and the National Transitional Council (NTC).
Earlier, Niger said it was considering how to deal with him if he decided to enter the country to seek refuge. Niger would decide later whether to accept Col Gaddafi or hand him to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the country’s foreign minister told the BBC.
There has been speculation that Col Gaddafi may go to Niger after groups of loyalists fled there in recent days.
Libya’s transitional authorities have asked Niger not to take him in.
According to Mark Doyle, the BBC’s Correspondent in Niger, Niger’s foreign minister says the [former Gaddafi aides] are in the capital Niamey. That would be the logical thing for them to do: the authorities want to assure security, insofar as they can in this vast and mainly desert nation.
Niamey would be the place where they have most of their security operatives to do that. If anyone wanted to hide or melt away into the desert, it would be relatively easy for them to do so without the Niger authorities knowing where.
Doyle says the fact is that Niger really is in a dilemma.
It is a poor country compared to Libya, and for many years now, a whole tissue of relationships has built up with Col Gaddafi’s Libya. His organisations and agencies have been investing here, in terms of business and aid operations and so on. And hundreds of thousands of Niger citizens are seeking work in Libya.
Niger recognises the ICC, which is seeking the arrest of Col Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and his former intelligence chief Abdullah Sanussi.
Col Gaddafi told the Arrai channel, which is based in the Syrian capital Damascus, that there was nothing unusual about convoys going to Niger.
However, in a BBC interview on Wednesday, Niger’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Bazoum admitted that officials from his government were among those people who had recently crossed into Niger.
But he said that neither Col Gaddafi nor any of his sons were currently in his country, dismissing reports in some media.
“There is no news about Gaddafi in Niger, we have no news about him, it is not true that he has tried to come into Niger or he came into Niger.”
Regarding the recent Libyan refugees, Mr Bazoum said, “We told them that we can accept them to stay for humanitarian reasons, but they have to respect what the international law allows them to do or not allow them to do.”
The minister said at least three convoys had crossed from Libya into Niger, and that none of Col Gaddafi’s sons was travelling in them.
Officials in Niger have said Col Gaddafi’s security chief, Mansour Daw, was among those who entered the country in the convoys over the weekend or on Monday.
Mr Bazoum added that those who had arrived from Libya – of whom there were fewer than 20 – were free to stay in Niamey, or to continue to Burkina Faso.
The foreign minister also stressed that Niger simply had “no means to close the border” with Libya, describing it as “too big”.
And Niger’s government has belatedly recognised Libya’s interim authorities, the NTC, the BBC’s Mark Doyle in Niamey says.
But the government in the capital Niamey clearly feels it cannot just abandon Col Gaddafi completely, a man with whom it has had a long relationship, the correspondent adds.
Burkina Faso – which borders Niger to the south-west – has denied reports that it had offered to welcome Col Gaddafi.
Meanwhile, Fathi Baja, a senior official from the NTC, said the Libyan transitional authorities would ask Niger to send any Gaddafi aides back to Libya. He also said people in the area had reported seeing gold and money in the convoys that drove to Niger.
“If that happened, we want that money back,” AFP news agency quoted him as saying.
Col Gaddafi’s wife, two of his sons and his daughter fled to Algeria last week.
His own whereabouts remain the subject of speculation – though the NTC say they believe he is still in Libya.
Senior Western officials say they have no information about where Col Gaddafi may be, but have no indication he has left the country.
A Nato spokesman, Col Roland Lavoie, told the BBC that Col Gaddafi was not a target, but Nato would continue to strike “command and control centres”.
“If we have intelligence revealing that from a specific location attacks are being co-ordinated or communications are being received or sent to conduct attacks or the threat of attacks, we would take action,” he said.
The NTC has been trying to negotiate a peaceful resolution to stand-offs in a handful of Libyan towns or cities still controlled by Gaddafi loyalists.
These include Bani Walid, Jufra, Sabha and Col Gaddafi’s birthplace of Sirte.
The NTC has positioned forces outside Bani Walid, and says talks will continue there until a deadline on Saturday.
Leave a Reply