WASHINGTON - As more Libyan towns and
cities fell to anti-government forces on
Wednesday, United States President Barack Obama
said Washington was preparing "the full range of
options" to respond to the ongoing violence in the
oil-rich North African state.
In a
five-minute televised statement from the White
House, Obama stressed that Washington preferred to
act in concert with other nations and
international institutions.
"This is not
simply a concern of the United States," he said as
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stood by his
side. "The entire world is watching, and we will
coordinate our assistance and
accountability measures with
the international community."
But he also
hinted that Washington may consider taking
unspecified unilateral action against the regime
of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
"I've
asked my administration to prepare the full range
of options that we have to respond to this
crisis," he said. "This includes those actions we
may take and those we will coordinate with our
allies and partners, or those that we'll carry out
through multilateral institutions."
Obama's statement, which came amid reports
that Gaddafi's control over the country had
receded to little more than the capital, Tripoli,
was his first since the weekend when Libyan
security forces and, according to a number of
reports, foreign mercenaries unleashed a wave of
violence, including strafing by Libyan warplanes
and helicopters, against anti-government
demonstrators in Benghazi and other cities.
Franco Frattini, the foreign minister of
Italy, the European country with perhaps the
closest ties to its former colony, said on
Wednesday that reports that "some 1,000" people
have died as a result of the repression were
"credible", while the Paris-based International
Federation for Human Rights estimated that least
700 people had died since late last week.
And while Gaddafi's son and heir apparent,
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, insisted in a televised
broadcast late on Wednesday that the situation had
returned to "normal", Tripoli residents told
foreign media by telephone that the capital's
population was staying in their homes for fear of
being attacked in the streets by security forces
and pro-Gaddafi militias.
Meanwhile,
foreign reporters in Benghazi, Libya's
second-largest city, reported that residents there
had established a provisional governing authority,
while Misurata, the third-largest city located
just east of Tripoli, fell to anti-Gaddafi forces
on Wednesday. The government has also abandoned
positions along the country's western border with
Tunisia, and hundreds of people have fled across
the frontier, according to eyewitness accounts.
Despite a number of statements by lesser
officials condemning the violence, Obama has faced
a rising tide of criticism - mainly from
neo-conservatives and other hawks, but also from
human-rights activists - this week over what they
have called his "silence" on the situation and his
failure to date to impose sanctions against the
regime.
His remarks late in the afternoon
appeared intended in part to answer that
criticism. By way of introduction, he stressed
that his "highest priority" was to do "everything
we can to protect American citizens", of whom
there are believed to be about 6,000 residing in
Libya.
United States officials told
reporters on background this week that one reason
Obama had been reluctant to personally denounce
Gaddafi during the crisis was fear that US
nationals could be taken hostage by the regime.
Analysts noted on Wednesday that Obama did not
mention Gaddafi by name in his remarks.
At
the same time, Obama's statement was the harshest
by Washington to date. "The suffering and
bloodshed is outrageous and it is unacceptable,"
Obama said.
"So are threats and orders to
shoot peaceful protesters and further punish the
people of Libya. These actions violate
international norms and every standard of common
decency. This violence must stop," he declared.
Obama also suggested for the first time
that Washington was actively considering imposing
sanctions against the regime. "Like all
governments, the Libyan government has a
responsibility to refrain from violence, to allow
humanitarian assistance to reach those in need,
and to respect the rights of its people," he said.
"It must be held accountable for its
failure to meet those responsibilities, and face
the cost of continued violations of human rights,"
he added.
On Tuesday, John Kerry, the
Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee who often acts as a stalking
horse for the administration, called for the
imposition of targeted sanctions against the
regime.
Both German Chancellor Angela
Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have
also urged the European Union (EU) to immediately
take similar action.
Obama made clear that
he preferred to coordinate US action with other
countries and specifically praised the United
Nations Security Council statement issued on
Tuesday that condemned the violence and called for
accountability for its perpetrators.
"This
same message, by the way, has been delivered by
the European Union, the Arab League, the African
Union, the Organization of the Islamic Conference,
and many individual nations," he emphasized.
"North and south, east and west, voices are being
raised together to oppose suppression and support
the rights of the Libyan people."
He also
implicitly rejected charges by Gaddafi and other
autocratic regimes in the region that the United
States was behind the uprising.
"The
change that is taking place across the region is
being driven by the people of the region," he said
in a reference as well to the ouster over the past
six weeks of the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt
and the continued popular unrest in Bahrain and
Yemen.
"This change doesn't represent the
work of the United States or any foreign power,"
he insisted. "It represents the aspirations of
people who are seeking a better life."
He
announced that he was sending Undersecretary of
State for Political Affairs William Burns, who has
been in Cairo this week, to Europe and elsewhere
in the Middle East to "intensify our
consultations" about possible measures regarding
Libya. He also announced that Clinton would travel
to Geneva on Monday for a foreign ministers'
meeting of the UN's Human Rights Council, of which
Libya is a member.
A number of critics in
Washington have called on the administration to
include among any sanctions it takes against Libya
the country's expulsion from the council.
They have also called for Washington and
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to impose a
"no-fly" zone over parts of Libya to prevent the
regime's aircraft from attacking anti-government
forces. Some critics, mainly from the right, have
urged the administration to provide arms to the
rebels, as well. Jim Lobe's blog on
US foreign policy can be read at
http://www.lobelog.com.
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