Clashes over Federalism Kill One in Libya

Clashes pitting backers and opponents of federalism in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi killed one person and wounded at least five on Friday, a medical official said.

"One person was killed and at least five others were wounded," Basma Mohammed told Agence France Presse.

The chairman of the Supreme Security Committee of Benghazi, Fawzi Wanis, said "matters were brought under control and the clashes between the two sides are over."

But he said there had been no fatalities, only that two people had suffered gunshot wounds and three others had been knifed or stoned.

The violence erupted after hundreds of people demonstrated in favor of federalism, a political project that calls for the division of the country into three self-governed regions, an Agence France Presse journalist at the scene said.

After Friday prayers, the marchers went to Freedom Square, where Ahmed Zubair Senussi, who is calling for autonomy in the oil-rich east of the country, delivered a speech.

Stones and gunfire were exchanged in clashes between those who favor a federal system of governance and those who, like the ruling National Transitional Council, reject the idea.

A week ago, demonstrators flooded the streets of Tripoli and Benghazi in protest against federalism, and one person was killed when a market was set ablaze.

That came after a conference in Benghazi of tribal and political leaders unilaterally declared Cyrenaica autonomous, or Berqa in Arabic, prompting fears the country might split up.

Libya was a federal union from 1951 to 1963 during the monarchy of Idris Senussi, which split the country into three states -- Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan.

Thousands of people converged at the seaside courthouse of Benghazi last Friday chanting slogans against federalism and Senussi.

In Tripoli, thousands of people amassed in the symbolic Martyrs Square, singing "No, no to federalism" and "Libya is one."

A huge fire, thought to be the work of arsonists, ripped through a Benghazi furniture market and other blazes erupted in shops across the coastal city, an AFP correspondent reported.

A conference hall where advocates of federalism were expected to meet was also targeted, witnesses said.