FEB 21, 2011 Gaddafi’s son warns of “rivers of blood” in Libya AL ARABIYA

Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi’s son warned early Monday that the country faces a bloody civil war if protesters refuse to accept reform offers, in a speech broadcast as gunfire rang out in the capital, saying that his father remained in charge with the army’s backing and would “fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet.” Saif al-Islam Gaddafi condemned the unprecedented uprising against his father’s 41-year rule as a foreign plot, but admitted mistakes were made in a brutal crackdown and urged citizens to build a “new Libya”. “Libya is at a crossroads. If we do not agree today on reforms, we will not be mourning 84 people, but thousands of deaths, and rivers of blood will run through Libya,” he said.

The unrest has spread from the flashpoint city of Benghazi, where demonstrations began on Tuesday, to the Mediterranean town of Misrata, just 200 kilometers (120 miles) from Tripoli. “This is an opposition movement, a separatist movement which threatens the unity of Libya,” Gaddafi said in a fiery but rambling speech which blamed Arab and African elements for fomenting the troubles. “We will take up arms… we will fight to the last bullet,” he said. “We will destroy seditious elements. If everybody is armed, it is civil war, we will kill each other.”

“Libya is not Egypt, it is not Tunisia,” he said, adding that attempts at another “Facebook revolution” would be resisted. “Moammar Gaddafi, our leader, is leading the battle in Tripoli, and we are with him.” “The armed forces are with him. Tens of thousands are heading here to be with him. We will fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet,” he said in a rambling and sometimes confused speech of nearly 40 minutes.

But Saif al-Islam Gaddafi’s threats betrayed a note of desperation, and he suggested that the eastern city of Benghazi, Libya’s second city, was now out of government control. “At this moment there are tanks being driven by civilians in Benghazi,” he said, insisting the uprising was aimed at installing Islamist rule and that it would be ruthlessly crushed. And despite the tough talk and finger-wagging, Gaddafi also made some concessions — pledging a new constitution and new liberal laws with more media freedom. He also admitted “mistakes” on the part of the army in containing the riots, saying they were “not trained to contain riots” and were responding to attacks by “people on drugs.”

“Destructive and terrorist” plans

In a performance which veered between threats and concessions, Gaddafi underscored Libya’s vast oil wealth and issued a trenchant warning to foreign companies. “We have one resource that we live on and that is petrol,” he said. “All the foreign companies will be forced to leave the country.” Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmoudi meanwhile told EU ambassadors in Tripoli that there are “very precise plans, destructive and terrorist, that want Libya to become a base for terrorism.”

Witnesses told AFP by telephone that security forces also clashed with anti-regime protesters in Misrata, saying security forces, backed by “African mercenaries,” fired on crowds “without discrimination.”

International condemnation

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, meanwhile, called for “the non-use of force and respect for basic freedoms” in North African and Middle Eastern countries wracked by mass uprisings. “The secretary-general reiterates his call for the non-use of force and respect for basic freedoms,” a U.N. spokesman said in a statement, adding that Ban, who had been in contact with regional leaders to discuss the situation, stressed the importance of exercising utmost restraint by all concerned. The United States and the European Union strongly condemned the use of lethal force in Libya.

Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the Obama administration was “very concerned” about reports that Libyan security forces had fired on peaceful protesters in the eastern city of Benghazi. “We’ve condemned that violence,” Rice told “Meet the Press” on NBC. “Our view is that in Libya, as throughout the region, peaceful protests need to be respected.”

Isolation

68-year-old Gaddafi has been trying to bring his country out of isolation, announcing in 2003 that he was abandoning his program for weapons of mass destruction, renouncing terrorism and compensating victims of the 1986 La Belle disco bombing in Berlin and the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Those decisions opened the door for warmer relations with the West and the lifting of U.N. and U.S. sanctions. But Gaddafi continues to face allegations of human rights violations. Gaddafi has his own vast oil wealth and his response to protesters is less constrained by any alliances with the West than Egypt or Bahrain, both important U.S. allies.

Libya has the largest proven oil reserves in Africa with 44 billion barrels as of January 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, but it’s still a relatively small player compared with other OPEC members.