Tripoli: Libya's new rulers are ready to
forgive the forces of slain leader Muammar Gaddafi who battled
rebels trying to topple his autocratic regime, National
Transition Council Chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil said on Saturday.
"In Libya we are able to absorb all. Libya is for all,"
Abdel Jalil said in Tripoli as he launched a national
reconciliation conference organised by the NTC.
"Despite what the army of the oppressor did to our cities
and our villages, our brothers who fought against the rebels
as the army of Gaddafi (did), we are ready to forgive them,"
he said.
"We are able to forgive and tolerate," he added.
The conference, the first of its kind since the NTC on
October 23 declared the total liberation of Libya, was
attended by delegates from the major Libyan tribes and ethnic
groups, as well as from Qatar and Tunisia.
Libya's new interim Prime Minister Abdel Rahim al-Kib
echoed Abdel Jalil.
"National reconciliation is an essential condition to
build the constitutional institutions of a state," he told the
conference.
"The future cannot be built with revenge as a base."
Kib announced his government on November 22, just a month
after the capture and lynching of Gaddafi who ruled the
country with an iron fist for 42 years.
A statement issued last month said the new government
will help efforts by the NTC "to achieve national
reconciliation" in Libya.
It will also strive to rebuild the army and the security
forces and promote "the integration of interested citizens
into these institutions," said the statement.
Meanwhile Kib's government is under heavy pressure to
disarm hundreds of former rebels who toppled Gaddafi's regime
and who are now enforcing security on the streets.
PTI
First Published: Saturday, December 10, 2011, 23:49