April 10, 2011 African Union Says Gadhafi Accepts Cease-Fire Plan
TRIPOLI, Libya - A delegation of African leaders said Sunday that their Libyan counterpart Moammar Gadhafi accepted their "road map" for a cease-fire with rebels, whom they will meet with Monday. They met hours after NATO airstrikes battered Gadhafi's tanks, helping Libyan rebels push back government troops that had been advancing quickly toward the opposition's eastern stronghold.
The terms of the African Union's road map were unclear - such as whether it would require Gadhafi to pull his troops out of cities as rebels have demanded.
"We have completed our mission with the brother leader, and the brother leader's delegation has accepted the road map as presented by us," said South African President Jacob Zuma. He traveled to Tripoli with the heads of Mali and Mauritania to meet with Gadhafi, whose more than 40-year rule has been threatened by the uprising that began nearly two months ago.
"We will be proceeding tomorrow to meet the other party to talk to everybody and present a political solution," Zuma said. He called on NATO to end airstrikes to "give the cease-fire a chance." -Gadhafi has ignored the cease-fire he announced after international airstrikes were authorized last month, and he rejects demands from the rebels, the U.S. and its European allies that he relinquish power immediately.
Gadhafi enjoys substantial support from countries of the AU, an organization that he chaired two years ago and helped transform using Libya's oil wealth. So it is not clear whether rebels would accept the AU as a fair broker.
Though the AU has condemned attacks on civilians, last week its current leader, Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, decried foreign intervention in Libya's nearly two-month-old uprising, which he declared to be an internal problem.
An official from the African bloc, Khellaf Brahan, said previously that its proposals call for an immediate cease-fire, opening channels for humanitarian aid and talks between the rebels and the government.
Through the rebels have improved discipline and organization, they remain a far less powerful force than Gadhafi's troops. Members of the international community have grown doubtful that the opposition can overthrow Gadhafi even with air support, and some are weighing options such as arming the fighters even while attempting diplomatic solutions.
A rebel battlefield commander said four airstrikes Sunday largely stopped heavy shelling by government forces of the eastern city of Ajdabiya - a critical gateway to the opposition's de facto capital of Benghazi. NATO's leader of the operation said the airstrikes destroyed 11 tanks near Ajdabiya and another 14 near Misrata, the only city rebels still hold in the western half of Libya.
NATO is operating under a U.N. resolution authorizing a no-fly zone and airstrikes to protect Libyan civilians. -The fighting in Ajdabiya on Sunday killed 23 people, 20of them pro-Gadhafi forces, said Mohammed Idris, the supervisor of a hospital in the city. A total of 38 people were killed in fighting over the weekend, including 11 rebels and seven civilians, Idris said.
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