By Jamal Adel,
Tripoli, 17 December 2013:
Representatives of the Tebu activists who blockaded the Sarir power station for a fortnight until last . . .[restrict]week met briefly with the Prime Minister last night to press their economic and political demands for community in the south-east of the country.
Also at the meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office were the Defence Minister Abdullah Al-Thinni and the group of elders from the east of the country who negotiated the suspension of the blockade last week,
The meeting lasted only for 20 minutes according to the protestors’ leader , Tebu civil rights activist Hussain Aya. “We pointed out to Ali Zeidan the demonstrators’ demands and made our position clear,” he told the Libya Herald.
The protestors are demanding that the Tebu town of Rebyana be linked to the national electricity grid, that it have a municipal council of its own and that a sub-municipal council be established for the Tebu districts in Kufra where, at present, all council members are Arab.
The Prime Minister, he said, promised the demands would be given to the General National Congress to discuss tomorrow, Wednesday.
Aya said that protestors would be looking for a response from Zeidan by Thursday evening. He added that they were encouraged by the Prime Minister’s response and believed that he would meet their demands. However, they would abandon the protests only when they saw real steps being taken to meeting the demands, he said. [/restrict]