President Obama officially called for Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi to step down Saturday. Obama, Clinton: Qadhafi must go

In a significant escalation of rhetoric over the unrest and violence in Libya, President Barack Obama on Saturday appeared to call for Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi to vacate his office immediately.

The word from the White House came in a statement detailing a telephone call Obama had Saturday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.


“The president stated that when a leader’s only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now,” the White House said.

In a separate statement Saturday afternoon, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was even more explicit in calling for Qadhafi to resign. “Muammar Qadhafi has lost the confidence of his people, and he should go without further bloodshed and violence,” Clinton said.

In Switzerland on Sunday, Clinton elaborated: "We want him to leave and we want him to end his regime and call off the mercenaries and those troops that remain loyal to him. How he manages that is obviously up to him and to his family."

She added: "This change that is sweeping across the region is coming from inside societies. It is not coming from the outside. But each country is different, and each country must deal with the demands of their own people and pursue paths that will lead toward change."



Before Saturday, senior U.S. officials had repeatedly demurred when asked about whether Qadhafi should resign, saying that issue should be left for Libyans to resolve.

The more muscular U.S. stance emerged just hours before the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously in favor of a resolution imposing sanctions on the Libyan regime, including a referral of human rights violations to the International Criminal Court.

“When atrocities are committed against innocents, the international community must speak with one voice and today it has,” U.S. Representative to the United Nations Susan Rice said following the vote just after 8 p.m. Saturday. “The Security Council has come together to condemn the violence, pursue accountability and adopt biting sanctions targeting Libya’s unrepentant leadership. This is a clear warning to the Libyan government that it must stop the killing and those who slaughter civilians will be held personally accountable.”

Rice also described as historic the decision to refer atrocities in Libya to the prosecutor at the war crimes court.

“For the first time ever, the Security Council has unanimously referred an egregious human rights situation to the International Criminal Court,” Rice noted. “It’s very significant that the council has acted so swiftly and in unanimity.”

Libya’s Deputy Representative to the U.N., Ibrahim Dabbashi, who has broken with Qadhafi’s government but has not given up the U.N. post, hailed the resolution and expressed hope that it would end the carnage in his homeland.

“The Tripoli regime has no longer any credibility,” Dabbashi said as he addressed the council after the vote. “It goes without saying that this resolution represents moral support for our people who are resisting before the firing which has been imposed on them by the regime.”

“This resolution will be a signal in order to put an end to this fascist regime which is still in existence in Tripoli,” the Libyan official said. In an unusual move, Dabbashi also used his speech to the council to call on Libya’s military leaders to stop taking orders from Qadhafi. The ambassador issued “an appeal to all officers in the armed forces in in Libya that they support their own people and, finally, that they renounce their support for Qadhafi.”

The issue of the referral to the war crimes court was reportedly a sticking point during protracted deliberations over the resolution over the course of the day Saturday. Several countries, including China, Russia and India, resisted such a referral, but ultimately relented. Remarks from the various U.N. ambassadors suggested the council was swayed by personal appeals from Dabbashi and other Libyan diplomats who have broken with the Qadhafi regime and pleaded with their U.N. colleagues to make the high-profile referral.

“We would have preferred a calibrated and gradual approach,” Indian ambassador to the U.N. H.S. Puri declared, noting that any prosecution could not begin under court rules for at least 12 months. However, he said his country was convinced by arguments from Libyan diplomats and those from other African nations that the dramatic step of a war-crimes referral now might help end the violence in Libya.

The resolution did include at least one concession to countries that have not signed onto the International Criminal Court. One provision exempts nationals of countries other than Libya from prosecution at the tribunal if their home countries don’t belong to the court. That could allow some mercenaries to escape prosecution in the international forum.

France’s U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud said that exemption was insisted upon by one country — the United States. “It was absolutely necessary for one country,” Araud said. “It was a red line for the United States. It was a deal-breaker.”

Brazil’s U.N. Ambassador Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti publicly objected to the exemption for non-Libyan nationals, saying Brazil had a “strong reservation” to the exception.

Earlier Saturday, Clinton issued a statement stressing the global nature of the effort to respond to the Libyan crisis. “The United States is … working with our friends and partners to mobilize a strong and unified response from the international community to hold accountable the perpetrators of these unacceptable violations of universal human rights,” Clinton said. “This afternoon, I continued close consultations with our European allies, including [European Union] High Representative Catherine Ashton. Negotiations are under way at the United Nations Security Council on a resolution that would impose new sanctions and restrictions.”

Obama signed an executive order Friday, freezing the assets of Qadhafi, four of his children, and Libyan government institutions, including its sovereign wealth fund. The order allows the Treasury Department to sweep senior Libyan officials into the sanctions, but there was no immediate announcement of which officials would be covered by those provisions.

Clinton said she also acted Friday to prevent Libyan government officials from traveling to the United States. “I signed an order directing the department to revoke U.S. visas held by these officials, others responsible for human rights violations in Libya, and their immediate family members,” she said. “As a matter of policy, new visa applications will be denied.”

In their conversation Saturday, Obama and Merkel also “shared deep concerns about the Libyan government’s continued violation of human rights and brutalization of its people,” according to the White House.