Malabo, Equatorial Guinea - The alleged rejection by the Libyan Transitional National Council (TNC) of the new peace deal proposed by the African Union (AU) on Libya could be blamed on external pressure and not its own internal governing body, an African Union official told PANA on Monday in Malabo. The official said a rejection of the proposal would be surprising and raise doubts about the credibility and seriousness of the TNC, especially as its mandated delegation to the AU summit accepted the document in Malabo.  'The big problem is that the TNC is run from outside the country, particularly by NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). This type of decision cannot but come from NATO because TNC has not objected to the proposal adopted by the 17th AU summit in Malabo,' the source said.

Information since Sunday from Benghazi, seat of TNC as the political governing body of the armed rebellion in Libya, says the movement had rejected the AU plan, as it did not advocate 'specifically' for the departure of the Libyan leader Mouamar Kadhafi from power.

According to the information, although the plan dismisses the Libyan leader from the negotiation that should lead to free and fair elections in Libya, the AU proposal 'enables Kadhafi to continue to be in power', which is against the main wish expressed by the TNC.

However, the AU source stressed that the dismissal of Kadhafi from the negotiations that should lead to the setting up of a transition government 'is a starting point and can involve several points, for it is not all details that are negotiated in the media'.

On the other hand, the fact that the withdrawal of Kadhafi from power is not expressly clarified in the text of the proposed plan 'does not mean that he would be left aside or prevented from being the object of talks during the planned negotiations'.

'Let them continue negotiations and they will realise that there are solutions to everything. What we did as the African Union was to facilitate the setting up of a framework for inclusive dialogue for a peaceful political transition because it is not for AU to do all the job,” the source said.

Another African diplomat contacted by PANA in the Equatorial Guinea capital said he was surprised at the development.

'The initial tendency was to fear that such attitude does not come from the other party (government) seeing the possibility of Kadhafi leaving power, and not the opposite,” he said.

He said for this reason, the negative reaction of Kaddafi’s regime made public by his son Seif Al-Islam, who described as 'impossible' any plan for the resolution of the Libyan crisis without the involvement or active participation of his father as set by the AU proposal, 'was not surprising'.

The diplomat also pointed out that the text contained no censure, explicit or implicit, against the NATO air bombardments, which had been condemned by African leaders in their individual declarations.

For several African leaders, those attacks 'go beyond' the framework of UN Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973 on Libya.

The new AU proposal, whose adoption coincided with the announcement of  international arrest warrants against Kadhafi and his family, calls for the rigorous application of those resolutions that imposed a no fly zone on Libya and the freezing of assets of the main officials of the regime.

Resolution 1973 allows UN member countries, who demanded intervention in Libya, acting nationally or within the framework of international and regional organizations, to 'take all the needed measures to protect populations and civilian areas facing attacks in Libya' from the government forces.

Pana 06/07/2011

By Fred Cawanda, PANA special envoy to Malabo