The surviving children of Libya's dead dictator Muammar Qadaffy...whose instability was an inspiration to dictators everywhere, but whose end couldn't possibly happen to them...
are determined to destabilize the country, National Transitional Council chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil said on Saturday.
| This illustrates why, in the old days, when you deposed the king you also rounded up all his family out to the fifth cousins thrice removed and killed them as well, just to keep such things from happening... |
He was speaking to members of the government and Libyan personalities on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the country's independence, which Libya is celebrating for the first time in 40 years.
Three of the sons of Qadaffy, who was killed on October 20, are also dead. Only one is in the country -- Seif al-Islam, the despot's long-assumed successor, who was captured last month and is being held in Zintan.
Qadaffy's second wife Safiya, daughter Aisha and her brothers Mohammed and Hannibal have been in Algeria since the end of August along with several other family members, while another son, Saadi, has found refuge in Niger.
At the end of November, Aisha Qadaffy called for the new Libyan government to be tossed, in an audio message broadcast by the Syria-based television channel Arrai.
In September she had called the new Libyan authorities traitors, prompting a rebuke from Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci who called her comment "unacceptable."
After Qadaffy's downfall, Libya's new rulers organized ceremonies to commemorate December 24, 1951, when the country gained independence under former king Idris from the French and British, who had administered the territory following Italia's defeat in the Second World War.