A defiant Muammar Gaddafi vowed on Tuesday to remain in Libya as head of its revolution, saying he would die as a martyr in the land of his ancestors and fight to the "last drop" of his blood.
Saying the people were behind him, Gaddafi ordered the army and police to crush the popular uprising against his iron-fisted four-decade rule that has already left hundreds dead in the past eight days.
In a live, apparently unscripted speech on national television, the 68-year-old Gaddafi said, "Muammar Gaddafi is the leader of a revolution; Muammar Gaddafi has no official position in order for him to resign. He is the leader of the revolution forever."
"This is my country, my country," he shouted, in a speech consisting of short, angry bursts of words, which he punctuated by shaking his fist or pointing his finger.
"Those killed were from the police and the army; they were not youths"
--Muammar Gaddafi
"The Libyan people are with me," he said, calling on them to demonstrate from Wednesday. "Capture the rats," he said of anti-regime demonstrators. "Go out of your homes and storm them" wherever they are.
Dressed in a matching light-brown robe, scarf and turban, and wearing glasses, Gaddafi denied that the victims of fighting that has swept the country were young people.
"Those killed were from the police and the army; they were not youths," he said, adding that there was a "small sick group" that "gives drugs to these youths."
Reading from the country's penal code, he said "any Libyan who carries arms against Libyans will be punished by death."
Gaddafi's forces have been accused by various sources of killing demonstrators indiscriminately, even using heavy caliber weapons.
He said he would call the people to "cleanse Libya house by house" unless protesters on the streets surrendered.
"The only thing we can do now is not give up, no surrender, no going back. We will die anyways, whether we like it or not. It is clear that they don't care whether we live or not. This is genocide."
--Marai Al Mahry
