VARIOUS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez calls Muammar Gaddafi a martyr as other Latin American leaders including Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff and Colombia's Juan Manuel Santos react to death of Libyan leader

Record ID: 480018

  • Title: VARIOUS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez calls Muammar Gaddafi a martyr as other Latin American leaders including Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff and Colombia's Juan Manuel Santos react to death of Libyan leader
  • Date: 21st October 2011
  • Summary: MEXICO CITY, MEXICO (OCTOBER 20, 2011) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF LIBYAN EMBASSY PLAQUE OUTSIDE EMBASSY COUNSELLOR OF LIBYAN EMBASSY IN MEXICO, YOUSEF HADADA SITTING ON SOFA (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) COUNSELLOR OF LIBYAN EMBASSY IN MEXICO, YOUSEF HADADA, SAYING: "I congratulate myself and the Libyan people for the death of this tyrant and for the end of that regime that choked
  • Embargoed: 5th November 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Conflict,Domestic Politics,People
  • Reuters ID: LVA53LH7SY1ZP4JEOPEA7XU1801M
  • Story Text: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez referred to his ally, former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, as a 'martyr' while other Latin American leaders praised Libya's democratic advances on Thursday (October 20).
    "Unfortunately, the death of (Libyan leader Muammar) Gaddafi was confirmed. They assassinated him. Well, one more crime against life. What else can we say? Even past Gaddafi, who we remember for being a great fighter his entire life, like a revolutionary and now a martyr, that story is just beginning in Libya. It's just beginning because there are a people there, there's dignity there. The Yankee empire can't dominate that world," Chavez said, shortly after returning to Venezuela from his latest cancer treatment.
    Chavez considered Gaddafi a friend and ally and has blamed the U.S., which he often refers to as the 'empire,' for the Libyan revolution.
    Officials with the African country's National Transitional Council (NTC) said that Gaddafi was killed when a gunfight broke out after his capture between his supporters and government fighters, and no order was given to kill him.
    The officials, speaking at a news conference in Tripoli, said that Libya's liberation -- the signal for the creation of a new government and the start of a democratic transition -- would be announced in the eastern city of Benghazi on Saturday (October 22).
    Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who is on a week-long African trip, avoided hailing the death of the deposed dictator and said she hoped Libya could achieve peace and democracy.
    "I think that Libya is going through a democratic change, but this doesn't mean that we will celebrate the death of a leader, whoever he is. The fact that it (Libya) is going through a democratic process is something that everyone should -- I don't think the best word is celebrate, but, support and stimulate. Indeed, what we want is for countries to have the ability of living in peace and having a democracy inside their territories," she told reporters in Luanda after holding a closed meeting with Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos.
    Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said he hoped that the Libyan people would enjoy self-determination.
    "With Gaddafi's death, we hope that that country will return to normal as soon as possible and that democracy and freedom can at last prevail, that Libyans themselves take control of their lives and of the situation in their country," he said.
    Meanwhile a counsellor at the Libyan Embassy in Mexico City was delighted Gaddafi's death marked the end of a regime.
    "I congratulate myself and the Libyan people for the death of this tyrant and for the end of that regime that choked us during 42 years," said Yousef Hadada.
    Hadada added Libyans hoped to establish a calm and peaceful country.
    "We intend to establish a country that is calm, stable, peaceful and developed in order to cooperate with the rest of the world," Hadada said.
    Two months after Western-backed rebels ended 42 years of eccentric, often bloody, one-man rule by capturing the capital Tripoli, Gaddafi's death and the fall of the final bastion ended a nervous hiatus for the new interim government, which is now set to declare formal "liberation" with a timetable for elections.
    The killing or capture of senior aides, including possibly two sons, as an armoured convoy braved NATO air strikes in a desperate bid to break out of Sirte, may ease fears of diehards regrouping elsewhere - though cellphone video, apparently of Gaddafi alive and being beaten, may inflame his sympathisers
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