By IRNA,
London : British journalist Yvonne Ridley says that the Libyan people have shown they will go to “any lengths now for freedom and many are paying the blood price so their brothers and sisters can one day enjoy the taste of freedom.”
All the responses to the Arab uprisings have been “brutal,” Ridley said but believed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is the first to have ordered the use of fighter jets, attack helicopters and machine gun fire on unarmed, innocent people.
“However, far from saving his regime, it will destroy it. He has broken the trust with the religious leaders and tribal chiefs by his brutal response and the people have lost their fear,” she warned.
“What these revolutions have taught us is that no matter how much money there is in a country, this sort of wealth is meaningless without freedom,” she said in an interview with IRNA.
The UN Security Council on Tuesday night condemned the Libyan authorities for using force against protesters, calling for those responsible to be held to account.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said that Britain supports the resolution and also backs the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in calling for a full and transparent investigation into reports of attacks on Libyan citizens.
But Ridley criticised the hypocrisy of the west having put commercial relations with Arab regimes first, including the selling of arms.
“This isn’t just British policy it is the policy of most western countries. They have all been prepared to cut deals with Libya in the interests of trade and business,” she said.
“The weapons being used on the people of Libya, Bahrain, Egypt and Tunisia all have one thing in common. They were supplied by the West. This shows the West will jump in to bed with anyone if it is in the interests of their foreign policy.”
The British journalist told IRNA that Western governments really do not care about Arab people as “this brutalisation is nothing new.”
“Human rights organisations have been trying to raise awareness for years about the dungeons and dark places of torture and rendition used by these regimes,” she said.
“Shamefully, the US – often with the knowledge of the UK and other western powers – have sent people to these regimes to be tortured.’
Asked if the West would learn from their mistakes, Ridley said that “exactly how they are going to re-write their foreign policies remains to be seen.”
“Hopefully the people from the committees they will be dealing with in future are all people of integrity and beyond the bribes and corruption which the West exports to control its dictators,” she said.