Wednesday, Feb 23, 2011
ROME (AFP)--Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini Wednesday accused Moammar Gadhafi of perpetrating a "horrible bloodbath" in Libya and said the veteran leader had lost control of the eastern province of Cyrenaica.
"Cyrenaica is no longer under the control of the Libya government and there are outbreaks of violence across the country," Frattini said.
The Italian government was calling for an immediate end to "this horrible bloodbath" that "the Gadhafi government has announced and is continuing to carry out," he added.
Speaking at a meeting organized by the Community of Sant'Egidio, a Christian organization, Frattini said that there had been recent proclamations in Cyrenaica that it was now an Islamic emirate and calls to break with the West.
"It is a worrying development if radical Islam is only a few hundred kilometers away from the European Union's front door, but nothing can justify the violent death of hundreds of innocent civilians," he added.
The minister said that an already serious situation had been exacerbated by a dramatic speech by Gadhafi Tuesday in which he threatened a door-to-door purge of his opponents.
"The comments by Gadhafi yesterday in which he expressed a will to beat his own people is a recipe for a state of civil war between areas and provinces, involving competing gangs and death squads."
"This is an analysis that I share with many European and non-European governments," he said.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has developed ties with Gadhafi, with Libya accounting for around 13% of Italy's gas supplies and almost a quarter of its oil.
But Frattini said the Rome government "cannot remain silent" in the face of the violence in a country that was an Italian colony between 1911 and 1942.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
23-02-11 1325GMT
