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The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes the United Nations Security Council decision to impose a no-fly zone over Libya. We are pleased that South Africa was one of the 10 countries that voted yesterday to adopt the resolution, which will provide some measure of protection to the embattled citizens of Libya under attack from their own government forces.
We also note that five Arab nations, namely Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have stated their support of the no-fly zone.
We hope that this resolution, and the fact that it is supported by these five nations, will send a strong message to Muammar Gaddafi that further persecution of Libya’s civilian population will not be tolerated. The international community has almost uniformly condemned the violent clampdown by government forces and we believe this resolution is a step in the right direction.
This decisive step by the UN, and key members of the League of Arab States, will hopefully also inform the actions of the African Union’s five-member presidential panel on Libya, which is set to enter into negotiations with the government and rebel forces within the next week. As one of the members of the panel, South Africa has a key role to play in bringing democratic reform to Libya, and we trust that its recommendations to the panel will reflect this recent development.