Gaddafi said that the world did not understand the Libyan system that puts power in the hands of the people

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has said that he is not a president and so cannot resign his position, and that power is in the hands of the people, during a televised public rally in the capital, Tripoli.

“Muammar Gaddafi is not a president to resign, he does not even have a parliament to dissolve,” Gaddafi said on Wednesday, surrounded by dozens of supporters in a large ballroom for a ceremony to mark 34 years of “people power.”

“Attacks on me are seen by Libyan people as attacks on their symbol and dignity.

“The foreigners want Gaddafi to step down, to step down from what? Gaddafi is just a symbol for the libyan people… This is how the Libyan people understood it.”

He said that the world did not understand the Libyan system that puts power in the hands of the people.

“The people are free to chose the authority they see fit,” he said.

“We put our fingers in the eyes of those who doubt that Libya is ruled by anyone other than its people,” he said, referring to his system of “direct democracy” which he outlined in his Green Book political manifesto, launched in 1977.

“I have always said that the Libyan people are free [in managing their own business].”

Gaddafi said there were no protests in the second largest city, Benghazi, Derna, or the eastern town of al-Baida … that it all started with sleeping cells taking over weapons and security stations.

He said that terrorists released prisioners from jails and included them in their forces.

“These are criminals not political prisioners … there are no political prisioners in Libya … We had to destory the weapons storages to prevent them from falling into the hands of the terrorists.

He repeated his claim that al-Qaeda was behind the popular uprising against his 41-year rule and promised to fight it to the last man and woman.

“Sleeper cells from al-Qaeda, its elements, infiltrated gradually … Suddenly it started in al-Baida… The sleeping cell was told to attack the battalion … and it took arms from police stations.

“The soldiers went home and left their battalion” while the al-Qaeda cells “took the weapons and control of the town. It was the same situation in Benghazi,” whcih is under the control of the rebel forces.

But he said “we will fight to the end, to the last man, the last woman … with God’s help.”

Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland, reporting from Benghazi, said that Gaddafi’s claim that al-Qaeda is behind the unrest will have some resonance in the West.

Gaddafi also called for the United Nations and NATO to investigate what had happened in Libya, saying that he saw a conspiracy to colonise Libya and seize its oil.

“I dare you to find that peaceful protesters were killed. In America, France, and everywhere, if people attacked military
stores and tried to steal weapons, they will shoot them,” he said.

He urged the United Nations and NATO to “set up fact-finding committees” to find out how people were killed.

(Source: Al Jazeera)