U.S. President Obama hails ‘new chapter’ for Libya as rebels’ flag is hoisted at U.N.

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

U.S. President Barack Obama (R) met Libya’s National Transitional Council chief, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, for the first time at the United Nations in New York. (Photo by Reuters)

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By Al Arabiya with Agencies

U.S. President Barack Obama hailed a “new chapter” for Libya Tuesday as the victorious rebels’ red, black and green flag was hoisted at the United Nations ahead of its annual General Assembly.

Fugitive strongman Muammar Qaddafi issued an audio message dismissing the new government as a “charade” that would not outlive the NATO air and naval support that brought it to power.

But Obama warned Qaddafi loyalists still putting up resistance in their remaining bastions to lay down their arms and join the new Libya, promising that NATO-led air strikes would continue as long as they remained a threat.

“Today, the Libyan people are writing a new chapter in the life of their nation,” the U.S. president told world leaders at a U.N. meeting on Libya being held on the sidelines of the General Assembly.

“After four decades of darkness, they can walk the streets, free from a tyrant,” he told the meeting which was also attended by Libya’s new leadership.

Credit for the “liberation of Libya, belongs to the people of Libya,” he insisted, but stressed the international community was not pulling out yet.

“So long as the Libyan people are being threatened, the NATO-led mission to protect them will continue. And those still holding out must understand the old regime is over, and it is time to lay down your arms and join the new Libya,” the U.S. commander-in-chief said.

Obama met Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) chief, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, for the first time Tuesday and the U.S. leader said the focus should also now turn to a democratic transition after 42 years of dictatorship.

“We all know what’s needed. A transition that is timely. New laws and a constitution that uphold the rule of law. Political parties and a strong civil society. And, for the first time in Libyan history, free and fair elections,” Obama said.

Abdel Jalil praised the NATO-led coalition for its assistance in the uprising in which he said some 25,000 people had died, and he promised fair trials for captured members of the ousted regime.

Seeking to bolster Libya’s new leaders, Obama said the U.S. ambassador was now on his way back to Tripoli and “this week, the American flag that was lowered before our embassy was attacked will be raised again.”

Obama also delivered a staunch defense of his Libya strategy. He had faced criticism for an initially slow response to the Libyan uprising and then set strict limits on the U.S. role in the NATO air assault, which was officially justified as a means of stopping the massacre of civilians.

The White House felt vindicated in its approach when rebel forces took Tripoli. “Libya is a lesson in what the international community can achieve when we stand together as one,” Obama said. But he insisted that “we cannot and should not intervene every time there’s an injustice in the world.”

Obama held out promise the United States would build new partnerships with Libya, a top oil producer, to help unleash the country’s “extraordinary potential.”

In Benghazi, interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril failed to name a new cabinet on Sunday when his proposals did not receive full backing from all current members.

The political infighting reveals some of the fractures in an alliance that was united in civil war by hatred of Qaddafi but remains split among pro-Western liberals, underground Islamist guerrillas and defectors from Qaddafi’s government.

Nearly a month after Qaddafi was driven from power, his loyalists in the three towns are still beating back regular NTC assaults. Qaddafi taunted NATO in a speech broadcast by a Syria-based television station on Tuesday, but the station gave no new clues as to his whereabouts.

In his first message in nearly two weeks, Qaddafi told his remaining loyalists that the new regime was only temporary.

The flag of the new Libya was flying over the United Nations in New York ahead of the General Assembly, an event at which Qaddafi was for decades an outlandish fixture turning up with his trademark tent to deliver rambling speeches to other world leaders.

The red, black and green of the new Libya also took its place among the flags of U.N. member states at the world body’s European headquarters in Geneva in a ceremony on Tuesday, replacing the green flag of the Qaddafi era.

The African Union, which had long held out against according Libya’s seat to the NTC, on Tuesday finally announced it was recognizing the new leadership.

The bloc’s chairman, Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema announced that “the African Union recognizes the National Transitional Council (NTC) as the representative of the Libyan people as they form an all-inclusive transitional government that will occupy the Libyan seat at the African Union.”

Qaddafi was a major player in the A.U. before his ouster and bankrolled many of its poorer members.

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