CounterVortex

THE TWO WARS IN LIBYA

Revolutionary Struggle and NATO Intervention

by Art Young, Green Left Weekly

Two wars are being waged simultaneously in Libya. One has grown out of a revolutionary struggle for democracy. The other is an attempt by imperialism to strengthen its domination of the country.

Both wars appear to share the goal of “regime change,” but they stand at opposite ends of the political spectrum.

The regime change that the revolutionary struggle seeks to achieve is the overthrow of the Muammar Gaddafi dictatorship and the establishment of a system of democratic rule.

As is the case elsewhere in the Arab world, the struggle for democracy in Libya encompasses diverse layers of society. The more thorough the democratic transformation, the stronger will be the position of Libyan workers and their allies in the ensuing social struggles.

The Libyan struggle for democracy is an integral part of the great Arab awakening of 2011, a movement of millions of people that threatens the imperialist status quo.

Victory or defeat in Libya will have a huge impact on revolutionary struggles across the region. It deserves our wholehearted support.

The military form of the struggle (now with many aspects of a civil war) was largely imposed on the movement by Gaddafi’s regime.

During the first couple of weeks, the liberation struggle took the form of largely spontaneous uprisings in one city after another, spreading quickly across the country.

Sections of the army and major regime figures defected. The pro-Gaddafi forces were paralysed by the movement’s speed and power, and the readiness of many to die for the cause of freedom.

It looked like Libya would follow the path of Tunisia and Egypt. But Gaddafi had other ideas—and the resources to implement them.

He unleashed a systematic bloodbath. The insurgents were forced to take up arms to defend themselves as best they could.

Gaddafi’s forces took no quarter, murdering many peaceful demonstrators and reducing entire cities to rubble. Gradually, they gained the upper hand and began to march toward Benghazi, the heart of the insurrection.

The United States and NATO are waging a very different war. It only took a few days for them to transform the supposed United Nations-sponsored police action to protect civilians into an all-out war against Libya.

The “regime change” they want is to replace the Gaddafi clique with clients who can defend their interests more reliably. The NATO allies also hope to cow the rebellious Arab peoples with a demonstration of how foreign powers can still frustrate their attempts to win freedom.

This is a reactionary war without an ounce of progressive, humanitarian content.

Resolution 1973 of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), adopted on March 17, gave the green light to foreign intervention in Libya.

A wide-ranging debate in liberal and left-wing circles has ensued. Figures such as Gilbert Achcar and Juan Cole supported the resolution’s call for a no-fly zone to protect civilians.

I was in the other camp, but the debate over the no-fly zone has been superseded by subsequent events.

There is little value in continuing to discuss whether the intervention authorised by the UNSC resolution “saved” Benghazi from imminent massacre, whether one may in principle somewhere at some time support foreign intervention, or whether certain historical precedents apply in this case.

The Libyan people are not facing an abstract no-fly zone. They are the victims of a far-reaching imperialist assault that includes cruise missile attacks, a naval blockade, bombing of military and strategic infrastructure targets, close-in air attacks (the so-called no-drive zone) and any other facilities and assets the NATO commanders wish to destroy.

A growing number of reports attest to the presence of “boots on the ground” of special forces from France, Britain and the US.

This assault on the Libyan people was the real objective behind the smokescreen of a no-fly zone. The UNSC resolution was carefully worded to allow for an open-ended escalation of the conflict.

The fighting in Libya has produced a somewhat unstable equilibrium.

On the eve of the foreign intervention, the rebellion was reeling from a string of military defeats. Now the rebel forces have consolidated their position in Benghazi, the country’s second-largest city, and in the cities and towns further east.

West of Benghazi, a see-saw battle continues on the road from Ajdabiya to Brega.

Further west, Misurata, the third-largest city located between the Gaddafi strongholds of Tripoli and Surt, remains largely in the hands of the insurgent local population, which has resisted weeks of merciless heavy bombardment from loyalist forces.

The Gaddafi loyalists have consolidated their hold on the western part of the country, often through ruthless repression.

However, the pro-democracy forces have paid a huge political price for the respite that they have achieved in the east. The imperialists have succeeded in entangling Libya’s war for democratic freedoms with their war against the country’s sovereignty.

The rebel bands are far too weak to defeat the loyalists without military assistance from the outside powers.

The air war and the advance or retreat of the rebels on the ground appears as complementary activities of a single strategy. It strains credulity to believe that the fighting and bombing are not being closely coordinated.

The indigenous character of the struggle risks being overshadowed by the great powers’ war of aggression. Meanwhile, the imperialists lay claim to the mantle of the freedom fighters.

We should not close our eyes to the political retreat from the moral high ground, independent of the ebbs and flows of the military struggle.

Whether the insurgency could have pursued another course is a different matter. They had to contend with many constraints over which they had little or no control—not only Gaddafi’s murderous refusal to yield an inch, but also the specific history, culture and social structure of Libya.

They were forced to wage their struggle under conditions much less favourable than those faced by their counterparts in Egypt.

It is also apparent that the imperialist war has greatly strengthened Gaddafi’s political standing in Libya and internationally. It has allowed him to appear as the defender of the unity and sovereignty of Libya, thereby appealing to wavering elements and strengthening the resolve of his loyalists.

The disintegration of the dictator’s forces came to an end and the loyalist counteroffensive began just as the NATO powers’ threats of war reached their peak.

Gaddafi’s hand is further strengthened by the “collateral damage” produced by the Western air attacks. Despite the silence of the mainstream media, the civilian victims are no doubt many.

Does the entanglement of the two wars mean the revolutionary democratic struggle has been defeated?

Has the anti-Gaddafi rebel movement been reduced to a simple appendage of the NATO forces who aim to conquer and rule Libya in the interests of imperialism? Are the rebels the new quislings?

That is one possible outcome. But in my opinion such a conclusion is premature.

It is also unduly pessimistic. The revolutionary struggle for democracy is still alive and its future course remains an open question.

We should note the repeated complaints from the British and US leaders that they “do not know” the leaders in Benghazi. Of course they know them.

They are saying that they do not trust them—they are not sure that the rebels’ armed base will submit to the big powers’ plans for the country or that the Benghazi leaders will be able to keep their base under control, above all in the context of the wave of change sweeping the region.

Moreover, the continuing resistance in Misurata and the lengthy resistance in Zawiyah, a city just west of Tripoli, attest to the deep-rooted, plebeian, and nation-wide character of the freedom struggle.

Future developments in the region, particularly in neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt, will also influence the struggle’s outcome.

—-

Art Young is a long-time socialist and solidarity activist based in Toronto, Canada.

This story, abridged from Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, first ran April 17 on Australia’s Green Left Weekly.

From our Daily Report:

Qaddafi shells Misrata, calls for ceasefire
World War 4 Report, April 30, 2011

See related story, this issue:

SYRIA: THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL
by Rene Wadlow, Transcend Media Service
World War 4 Report, May 2011

——————-
Reprinted by World War 4 Report, May 1, 2011
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingTHE TWO WARS IN LIBYA 

LIBYA AND THE LEFT

by Seth Weiss, World War 4 Report

The Libyan uprising and subsequent NATO intervention have already, much in the manner of the conflict in the Balkans in the 1990s, precipitated considerable debate and acrimony, along with disorientation and paralysis, within the Left. Some opposed to intervention, displaying a narrow and reflexive anti-imperialism, lend support, tacitly or otherwise, to Qaddafi’s forces. Others opposed to intervention endeavor a principled “neither/nor” position, neither Qaddafi nor NATO. Here, committed to opposing both Western imperialism and the Qaddafi regime, we ask if a strict anti-interventionist position—specifically, opposition to the rebels’ call for a “no-fly zone”—is consistent with a commitment to protecting civilian populations and supporting freedom struggles in Libya and throughout the region.

The Arab Spring Reaches Libya
On February 15th, four days after Hosni Mubarak was toppled in Egypt, Fathi Terbil, a prominent Libyan human rights advocate and attorney, was arrested by security agents at his home in Benghazi, an eastern port city and the country’s second largest. With Terbil’s arrest, the Arab Spring, which began in Tunisia and Egypt and has now spread to Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, and Yemen, reached Libya. Terbil, along with a handful of other lawyers, was representing the families of the more than 1200 political prisoners murdered at Benghazi’s Abu Salim prison in 1996. According to the New York Times, “a crowd armed with gasoline bombs and rocks” gathered in Benghazi to demanded Terbil’s release, and “demonstrators, estimated at several hundred to several thousand, marched to the city’s central square, where they clashed with riot police officers.” (“Protests Take Aim at Leader of Libya,” New York Times, Feb. 16, 2011)

By February 17—a date which apparently previous to the February 15 events had been designated as a “Day of Rage” via social media websites like Facebook and Twitter—protest had spread across the country, reaching the capital, Tripoli. By the 19th, as reported in the Times, thousands were in the streets, including a demonstration of 20,000 at the courthouse in Benghazi; protestors were met with brutal force, the Times also reported, producing a death toll in Human Rights Watch’s estimation of 104 people (“Cycle of Suppression Rises in Libya and Elsewhere,” New York Times, February 19, 2011)

By the 20th, the rebels had taken Benghazi, and mass unrest rocked Tripoli and a number of other towns and cities. According to the Times, “Though the Libyan revolt began with a relatively organized core of longtime government critics in Benghazi, its spread to the capital was swift and spontaneous, outracing any efforts to coordinate the protests… [T]he revolt in Tripoli appears far more genuinely spontaneous and unorganized than the Benghazi uprising or, for that matter, the revolutions that toppled the leaders of Tunisia or Egypt.” (“Qaddafi’s Grip on the Capital Tightens as Revolt Grows,” New York Times, February 22, 2011)

Popular councils materialized in cities and towns throughout the east. On March 5, the official establishment of the Interim Transitional National Council was announced in Benghazi. The Council, in a statement on its website, recognizes its obligation to “Guarantee every Libyan citizen … the right to vote in free and fair parliamentary and presidential elections” and to “denounce violence, terrorism, intolerance and cultural isolation…” As well, the Council recognizes its obligation to ensure “[t]he nation’s economy to be used for the benefit of the Libyan people… in order to eradicate poverty and unemployment” and that “the state will guarantee the rights and empowerment of women in all legal, political, economic and cultural spheres.” (“A Vision of a Democratic Libya,” National Transitional Council).

The leadership of the Interim Transitional National Council, including its chairman, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, a former Justice Minister, comes largely from elite sectors of Libyan society. A piece in Foreign Policy—which describes allegations by Admiral James Stavridis, NATO’s commander for Europe, of “flickers in the intelligence of potential al-Qaeda, Hezbollah” present among the rebel forces as “representing a new level of irresponsibility”—characterizes the Council as “led by a group of well-known and respected Libyan professionals and technocrats.” (“Getting Libya’s Rebels Wrong,” Foreign Policy, March 31, 2011).

Still, this is not reason to lose sight of the popular and democratic character of the uprising that some on the Left have endeavored to downplay, focusing instead on the opposition’s purported links to al-Qaeda, CIA support, and co-optation by Western powers (see, for instance, the commentary of Alexander Cockburn and Vijay Prashad in Counter Punch). Bill Weinberg offers a more nuanced portrait, noting the different layers composing the rebel force, in his World War 4 Report:

…the Libyan opposition does indeed seem to be a “hodge-podge”: In one corner, a small coterie of aspiring bourgeois-democratic technocrats (now in ascendance thanks to deals being quietly made in Paris and Washington); in the other, a few fanatical cells of jihadi types like the “Islamic Emirate of Barqa”; and in the middle, a very large swath of very angry Libyans who have no particular ideological commitment but basically secular and progressive instincts. [“Libya: What is the imperial agenda—and where do anti-war forces stand?” World War 4 Report, March 27, 2011]

Jihan Hafiz, reporting on the ground in Libya for the Real News Network, also draws out the popular character of the rebellion. Her video reporting from the International Women’s Day march in Benghazi is especially worth viewing. (“Libyan Women March in Support of Rebellion,” Real News Network, March 10, 2011). According to Hafiz, this was an unprecedented event, in which thousands of women, most for the first time in their lives, marched and protested. Also notable in Hafiz’s reporting is her documentation of the shift on the ground in Benghazi from opposition to Western intervention to calls for assistance. (“Jihan Hafiz on Reporting From Libya,” Real News Network, April 2, 2011)

In March, Qaddafi’s forces had decisively regained the offensive. The rebels reported more than 8,000 killed in the regime’s brutal crackdown. (“Libya rebel spokesman: More than 8,000 Libyans killed in revolt,” Haaretz, March 20, 2011)

On March 12, in an unprecedented move, the Arab League, meeting in Cairo, voted in favor of a no-fly zone over Libya, and on March 17th the United Nation Security Council, with Russia and China abstaining, also voted in favor a no-fly zone. By this point an attack on Benghazi, with the likely possibility of a massacre of civilian populations, was imminent.

At present, it seems the NATO bombing campaign has yielded a stalemate between the rebel armies and Qaddafi’s forces, as the Financial Times reports. (“West sees Libyan conflict heading for lengthy stalemate,” Financial Times, April 1, 2011). Meanwhile, there are reports of Qaddafi’s sons proposing a transition to a constitutional democracy under the leadership of one of his sons, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, the London School of Economic’s doctorate who had threatened Libyans with “rivers of blood” in February. (“2 Qaddafi Sons Are Said to Offer Plan to Push Father Out,” New York Times, April 3, 2011).

With events still unfolding, we turn now to the Left’s response to the question of intervention.

Left Anti-imperialist Response
Those on the Left advancing an anti-interventionist position can be divided into two camps. The first camp supports the Qaddafi regime, some explicitly and others tacitly, as a bulwark in a struggle against Western imperialism. Most prominent here are Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Also in this camp are many of the same Left intellectuals and journalists—including Alexander Cockburn, Jean Bricmont, Michel Chossudovsky, and Diana Johnstone—who carved out an anti-imperialist position on the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s by way of genocide denial and apologetics for Slobodan Milosevic and his henchmen. Here, a narrow and reflexive anti-imperialism—that is, an “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of mentality—prevails.

Consider, for instance, a recent announcement by a Trotskyist group in New York City for a meeting on Libya at the CUNY Graduate Center. It stresses:

Unlike Tunisia and Egypt, Libyan rebels have avidly sought Western aid,
and eventually bombs against Qaddafi. Rebels who fly the flag of the 
monarchy while allying with religious reaction and the CIA are appealing 
to imperialism instead of fighting it. [“Forum: Obama’s African War,” New York Activist Calendar, posted April 10, 2011]

As Trotsky himself noted in reply to this kind of mechanical anti-imperialism:

In ninety cases out of a hundred the workers actually place a minus sign where the bourgeoisie places a plus sign. In ten cases however they are forced to fix the same sign as the bourgeoisie but with their own seal, in which is expressed their mistrust of the bourgeoisie. The policy of the proletariat is not at all automatically derived from the policy of the bourgeoisie, bearing only the opposite sign—this would make every sectarian a master strategist … [“Learn to Think: A Friendly Suggestion to Certain Ultra-Leftists,” May 1938, online at Marxists Internet Archive]

A second camp of the Left anti-interventionists endeavors a principled anti-imperialist position which rejects both NATO intervention and the Qaddafi regime. Most in this camp also, although not all, share a genuine commitment to supporting popular forces for freedom within Libya. However, a narrow anti-imperialism, although of a different sort, also prevails here. This camp faces a real antinomy between its anti-imperialist principles and its interest in supporting freedom struggles in Libya and throughout the region. It has been unable to find a positive resolution to the contradiction, and it has allowed opposition to Western intervention to trump both solidarity with freedom struggles and protection of civilian populations from massacre by tank brigades and aerial bombardment.

As Gilbert Achcar argues in a recent interview with Stephen Shalom on Z Net:

…if Gaddafi were permitted to continue his military offensive and take Benghazi, there would be a major massacre. Here is a case where a population is truly in danger, and where there is no plausible alternative that could protect it. The attack by Gaddafi’s forces was hours or at most days away. You can’t in the name of anti-imperialist principles oppose an action that will prevent the massacre of civilians. In the same way, even though we know well the nature and double standards of cops in the bourgeois state, you can’t in the name of anti-capitalist principles blame anybody for calling them when someone is on the point of being raped and there is no alternative way of stopping the rapists. [“Libyan Developments,” Z Net, March 19, 2011]

At stake, as well, was the fate of the Libyan revolution and perhaps that of the other Arab revolutions, too. A victory for Qaddafi, draining the confidence of the masses and emboldening other despots in the region, might well have spelled the end of the Arab Spring.

In the Z Net interview, Ashcar goes on to argue that:

…without coming out against the no-fly zone, we must…advocate full vigilance in monitoring the actions of those states carrying it out, to make sure that they don’t go beyond protecting civilians as mandated by the UNSC resolution. In watching on TV the crowds in Benghazi cheering the passage of the resolution, I saw a big billboard in their middle that said in Arabic “No to foreign intervention.” People there make a distinction between “foreign intervention” by which they mean troops on the ground, and a protective no-fly zone. They oppose foreign troops. They are aware of the dangers and wisely don’t trust Western powers.

Such qualifications, especially on the issue of boots on the ground, are extremely important. The issue of military aid to the rebels also needs careful consideration. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 doesn’t affirm the right of the rebels to arm themselves or loosen up the arms embargo to the rebels’ advantage. As well, calls for Qaddafi’s frozen assets to be handed over to the rebels to fund arms purchases have gone unanswered.

Military aid is not likely, of course, to come without strings attached, and the Western powers are free to favor groupings more compliant to their interests over others for aid. Some have argued that such circumstances present a case for advocating a no-fly zone rather than military aid. Still, others argue that what distinguishes NATO planes from arms in the rebels’ hands is direct control over the weapons by the rebels. Regardless, one thing is clear: The Left has no immediate way of coming to the aid of the rebels on its own, no international brigades to send to fight, and no resources to provide military assistance.

To be sure, solidarity with the Libyan freedom struggles doesn’t demand uncritical support. (And there may be much that deserves strong criticism and condemnation; allegations of reprisals against black Africans alleged to be in the pay of the Qaddafi regime are especially disturbing.) It should also go without saying that NATO intervention is not motivated by humanitarian concern, and the rhetoric of Obama, Sarkozy, and Cameron has reached astounding levels of hypocrisy. Moreover, Western intervention may well have very negative repercussions, including drawing the rebels into positions of accommodation. (This latter argument may be overstated by some—is there not some possibility that the Libyan masses, having thrown off the yoke of one tyrant, will not readily accept a new one?) Still, for all of this, what is the alternative to supporting the rebels’ call for assistance?

—-

From our Daily Report:

Qaddafi shells Misrata, calls for ceasefire
World War 4 Report, April 30, 2011

See related story, this issue:

THE TWO WARS IN LIBYA
Revolutionary Struggle and NATO Intervention
by Art Young, Green Left Weekly
World War 4 Report, May 2011

——————-
Special to World War 4 Report, May 1, 2011
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingLIBYA AND THE LEFT 

SYRIA: THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL

by Rene Wadlow, Transcend Media Service

The United Nations has tried to stop the downward spiral of Syria into repression and potential chaos. It has been five weeks that what began as peaceful protests and demands for limited reforms have been increasingly met by government violence. Discussions on what the UN could do to help the Syrian people and to speed up necessary reforms started in both New York and Geneva. Governments and UN Secretariat members discussed different possibilities against the backdrop of the UN Security Council resolutions on Libya and the continued fighting there.

The representatives of China and Russia who had not blocked the resolution to use “all necessary force” to protect the civilian population in Libya but who have grown increasingly ill-at-ease with the NATO-led attacks did not want to open the door to a possible repeat over Syria. Thus all possibility of action within the Security Council was blocked with the insistence on the part of China and Russia that the situation was an internal affair of Syria and did not pose a danger to regional peace.

Thus the UN focus moved to Geneva and the UN Human Rights Council, for if events in Syria did not pose a danger to peace in the area, the events were still an open violation of the UN human rights standards. Syria is a party to all the major UN human rights conventions. Thus, on April 29, 2011—when the eyes of much of the world were turned to London and a Royal wedding—in Geneva a path-making Special Session of the UN Human Rights Council was being held. A Special Session is the “highest profile” which the Council can give to a situation. It can be called on short notice, but before a Special Session is held, there are usually intense negotiations among governments. The representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) also have a short time to prepare common positions and statements for a Special Session. Since NGOs speak after the governments, there is usually time for only a few statements prior to voting on the outcome resolution. However, for this Special Session, government representatives stuck to their time limits, and 16 NGOs were able to speak even if few said anything which had not already been said by governments.

The human rights situation in Syria was well set out at the start by Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kyung-Wha Kang of Korea:

Information gathered since mid-March points a disturbing picture: the widespread use of live fire against protestors; the arrest, detention, and disappearance of demonstrators, human rights defenders, and journalists; the torture and ill-treatment of detainees; the sharp repression of press freedoms and other means of communication; and the attacks against medical personnel, facilities and patients.

Yet even these deplorable practices have been exceeded over the past week. According to reports, entire towns have been besieged. Tanks have been deployed and shelled densely-populated areas. The delivery of food has been impeded. Access to electricity has been cut. And transportation systems have been shut down. There have been reports of snipers firing on persons attempting to assist the injured or remove dead bodies from public areas.

We have noted with concern that military and security officers have been among those killed. Still, the preponderance of information emerging from Syria depicts a widespread, persistent and gross disregard for basic human rights by the Syrian military and security forces. Syrian and international human rights organizations have already documented more than 450 killings and around four times that number of injuries…

Let me conclude by emphasizing the importance of holding perpetrators of serious human rights violations accountable, and in this regard, the urgent need for an independent, impartial, effective and prompt investigation into recent events in Syria. The convening of this Special Session should not only convey to the people of Syria that the international community is aware of their plight and supports their struggle for fundamental rights and freedoms. It should affirm to people everywhere that the Human Rights Council will be resolute in ensuring justice for victims of human rights worldwide.

As with all serious UN meetings, the decisions have been negotiated before the meeting starts. There was broad agreement that the Human Rights Council would vote the creation of a working group for an independent, impartial investigation to be named by the President of the Council after consultation. The consultations have started, but the names of the members have not yet been announced. It is unclear at this stage if Syria will allow the group to enter to carry out interviews and other investigations. The working group on the situation in Darfur was not able to enter Sudan, and Israel did not allow the working group chaired by Justice Goldstone to enter Israel.

However, some countries have allowed Special Rapporteurs on country situations named by the Human Rights Council or the earlier Commission on Human Rights to visit the country in question. Much of the debate during the Special Session concerned basic attitudes on general human rights matters over which negotiations would not lead to any compromise. There are States which do not want country-specific discussions, basically by fear that they might one day be discussed. This is the long-standing position of China and Cuba and can be taken up by others depending on the specific case. With the situation in Syria, there was a newer and more interesting balance to be found between those States who, in addition to the creation of an investigation body, wanted a condemnation of the current violations in Syria on the basis of information now available and those States which wanted “constructive dialogue.” Those for constructive dialogue stressed that while not opposing an investigation, felt that there was an opportunity to “engage in constructive dialogue with the Syrian government.” They maintained that condemnation measures would hinder finding peaceful solutions. This group of States, largely led by Pakistan and the Russian Federation, put an emphasis on the reforms which had already taken place after the start of the demonstrations, in particular the lifting of the state of emergency, abolishing the State Security Court, the granting of citizenship to 250,000 Kurds who had been registered until then as “aliens” and the replacement of the Cabinet and some governors of provinces.

The Syrian Ambassador, Faysal Khabbas Hamoui, could have played on these calls for engagement and dialogue, and he may have done so in private. In his public statements prior to the start of the debate and again just prior to the vote, his position was so “hard line” as to destroy any idea that “constructive dialogue” was possible at all. He attacked the idea of having a Special Session at all and then went on to attack the protesters as agents of a foreign-led conspiracy and as extremists wanting violence. His presentation left no visible door open for dialogue, and there was no call for a possible national reconciliation.

The vote on the only resolution, A/HRC/S-16/1 came with few surprises:

Votes in favor: 26
Against, 9: Bangladesh, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Gabon, Malaysia, Mauritania, Pakistan, Russian Federation
Abstentions, 7: Cameroon, Djbouti, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Uganda, Ukraine
Left the room so they could not be counted in any category, 4: Angola, Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar

The motivations of Angola are unclear. However, given the solid structuring of power in Syria, the inter-twinning of power and wealth, the mosaic of security services, quick reforms are unlikely. As President Bashar al-Assad has said “haste comes at the expense of the quality of reforms.” There may be a possibility for external NGOs, civil society organizations in Syria and the Syrian government to discuss peaceful advances toward a more just and inclusive society. We need to keep looking for possible doors even as people are being killed on the ground.

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Rene Wadlow, is representative to the United Nations at Geneva for the Association of World Citizens

This story also appeared May 1 on Transcend Media Service.

From our Daily Report:

Syrian security forces split over “day of rage” repression?
World War 4 Report, April 30, 2011

See related story, this issue:

LIBYA AND THE LEFT
by Seth Weiss, Marxist-Humanist Initiative
World War 4 Report, May 2011

——————-
Reprinted by World War 4 Report, May 1, 2011
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingSYRIA: THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL 

LIBYA: THE WASHINGTON-LONDON DILEMMA

by Paul Rogers, OpenDemocracy

The emerging pattern of resistance and repression in Libya following the outbreak of protest in the eastern city of Benghazi on February 15 is very different from that in other parts of the Arab world. In part this reflects the distinctive nature of the country, and of the regime of Moammar Qaddafi which has ruled Libya for 42 years.

The military-political standoff there, and the degree of violence the regime is using (and seems prepared to use) to maintain and restore its control, raises the acute question of what and how much the international community can do to support Libyans’ rights and security.

The question has been forcefully raised in the United States and Britain in the first week of March 2011, where domestic pressures from senior members of the media and the foreign-policy community have combined to press the respective governments to take a firm stand.

The hardening rhetoric has included talk (especially from Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron) of some form of military action against Libya, including the imposition of a “no-fly zone”; though states such as Russia and Turkey instantly discounted this suggestion, and the US defense secretary Robert M. Gates—with a reference to “loose talk” that represents a coded rebuke of Cameron—is notably cautious about the logistics of enforcing such a zone.

There may be elements of diplomatic bluff in the efforts of Washington and London in particular to exert pressure on the Qaddafi regime. But words have consequences, and the effect of the rhetoric is also to create expectations (including among Libyans) that action will be taken to resolve the crisis in a positive way. The relatively tough resolution passed on February 26 by the United Nations Security Council, and the International Criminal Court’s declaration on March 3 that it would investigate leading figures of the Qaddafi regime for possible crimes against humanity, contribute to the sense of momentum here.

Yet the international community and its leading states still face broader problems over whether and how to intervene in relation to Libya. They involve calculations over how the complex and fluid conflict inside Libya will unfold, assessments of the capacity and impact of the instruments at their disposal, and issues relating to the legitimacy and inheritance of earlier interventions in the wider region—especially those led by the United States and Britain in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Libyan Prospect
The immediate problem is the uncertain course and outcome of the crisis within Libya. The regime appears to be maintaining reasonably firm control of the greater Tripoli district; this contains nearly a third of Libya’s population of 6.1 million, including many of those with direct or indirect links to the regime (including key army units).

It is just possible that Moammar Qaddafi and his key allies (including his immediate family) will seek to consolidate this area and refrain from serious attempts to regain control of the whole country—in turn providing a degree of space for some new form of governance to be introduced.

The assaults on Libyan oil-terminal towns such as Brega towards the east on March 2-3 make this option look even less likely, however. Against it, the evident determination and effectiveness of those resisting his rule may succeed in eroding the confidence of some of his forces and create a tipping-point of change towards a different order.

But perhaps a more feasible development (and in many ways the worst-case one) is that the regime deploys extensive force against lightly-armed protesters, inflicting many casualties and much destruction. The regime has greatly superior military resources at its disposal: strike-aircraft, helicopter-gunships, and elite forces, such as the 32nd Brigade and paramilitary units attached to the security and intelligence organizations.

The Military Response
The problem of what the international community should do is highlighted by the rapid switch in David Cameron’s position towards greater denunciation of Qaddafi, which followed stinging criticism of the delays and inefficiency of his government’s response to the crisis (especially in evacuating British civilians from Libya).

The new approach soon proved equally vulnerable, as it coincided with the revelation of weaknesses in national defense—over the Eurofighter project (now costing around £100 million per plane), the announcement of cuts of 11,000 in armed-forces personnel (including soldiers returned from Afghanistan), and a report from a parliamentary foreign-affairs committee critical of the military-political strategy in Afghanistan.

The Barack Obama administration too has been obliged to take account of a wider climate of opinion. This is composed of both belligerent Republicans who see in every foreign-policy crisis a military solution, and policy experts concerned that the US develop a more coherent policy towards the Arab uprisings (and, in the case of Libya, explore ways of implementing the “responsibility to protect”—that is, the obligation of United Nations member-states to act together to protect people’s lives and safety when these are under attack, including from their own government).

The administration’s response has centered on the redeployment of the US Navy’s sixth fleet. The fleet is headquartered near Naples; its carrier battle-group (headed by the USS Enterprise), recently on anti-piracy patrol off Somalia, transited the Suez Canal into the eastern Mediterranean on March 2. This powerful amphibious-assault capability includes the USS Kearsarge and the USS Ponce. The Kearsarge alone is a 41,000-ton Wasp-class ship twice the size of Britain’s recently decommissioned aircraft-carrier, HMS Ark Royal; it is normally deployed with 1,850 marines, forty-two CH46 transport helicopters and five AVH-8B jump-jets.

This build-up, together with that of other naval and US aerial forces in the region, is significant. But in itself it does not offer a solution to the interventionist dilemma.

The Interventionist Dilemma
The combination of events on the ground, public pressure and limited military re-deployments (as well as the humanitarian crisis resulting from the large-scale flow of displaced workers of many nationalities inside Libya) is difficult enough for Western governments to handle. It would become even more so if a war of attrition develops further in Libya, with greater suffering and increased calls (including by Libyans at the sharp end of conflict) for direct foreign military intervention.

The broad-based appeals for international action from within the region include one from a coalition of over 200 Arab non-government organizations drawn from eight countries, including Egypt, Morocco, Qatar, Syria and Saudi Arabia (see Thalif Deen, “Arab Civil Society Calls for No-Fly Zone over Libya,” TerraViva/IPS, March 1).

Even the proposal of a no-fly zone over the Tripoli area would be a huge operation that would require several carrier battle-groups and aircraft with permission to operate out of neighboring countries. The effort to stop Libyan strike-aircraft from flying would (as the US defense secretary outlined before a congressional panel on March 2) require the suppression of air-defense missile systems, associated radar stations and command-and-control centers; after all this, even more difficult would be preventing the use of helicopters (an issue whose omission from the ceasefire agreement that concluded the war over Kuwait in 1991 allowed Saddam Hussein to crush the Shi’a uprising in southern Iraq with extreme violence).

Moreover, there remains a possibility that—even were a no-fly zone to be established and succeed in controlling aircraft movements—the regime might still be able to maintain control via the intensive use of ground forces. In that event, the coalition enforcing the zone would be required either to acknowledge failure or escalate.

The Political Dilemma
The current scenario plans of leading states must take such concerns into urgent account. But there is a further problem over military intervention (as opposed to other forms), which is at heart political.

Any successful campaign to protect Libyans from the Qaddafi regime by military means would need to be organized by the United States, and be aided by supportive countries such as Britain. The reputation of these states across the region remains in key respects very negative, however, after what is perceived as their history of self-interested and illegitimate intervention (most of which had minimal United Nations approval).

Thus, the imposition of a no-fly zone (and its accompanying attacks) would be portrayed by the Qaddafi regime as part of a campaign to colonize Libya and grab its oil—a narrative that would almost certainly resonate even among many of the Libyans who had called for such a policy (and many other people in the region).

The immediate transformation from an internal war to one of “external aggression” would also have many implications beyond Libya, including in the Arab countries whose citizens have been mobilizing in support of freedom and democracy. It would not take many air-strike targeting disasters of the kind that have become so common in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia for ambivalence at western action to revert to deep hostility.

All this emphasizes the position of the United Nations in relation to the debate over intervention, and in particular the doctrine of the international “responsibility to protect” (R2P) developed in the late 1990s following the disastrous failures to prevent genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda. The work of putting this doctrine into practice at the highest level then collided with rival geopolitical agendas, especially following 9-11 and the George W. Bush administration’s declaration of the “war on terror.”

The UN was from the start central to the discussions over R2P, many of which led to a recommendation that a UN standing force supported by a full logistics capability was essential to put the idea into effective practice. In the event, this proposal has so far come to nothing, leaving a handful of individual states with any kind of rapid-intervention capability: Britain and France (on a small scale), India (in theory, and close to its borders), and the United States (the only state with a global reach).

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have had appalling human consequences. But their damage goes far wider, for they have made genuine international cooperation in pursuit of shared human interests—including the “responsibility to protect”—much more difficult. In the absence of a sudden capitulation by Libya’s regime, the costs of this damage may continue to be demonstrated in the coming days and weeks.

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This story first ran March 3 on Open Democracy.

See related story, this issue:

THE LAST CIRCLE IN LIBYA
by Rene Wadlow, Toward Freedom
World War 4 Report, March 2011

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Reprinted by World War 4 Report, March 6, 2011
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Continue ReadingLIBYA: THE WASHINGTON-LONDON DILEMMA 

THE LAST CIRCLE IN LIBYA

by Rene Wadlow, Toward Freedom

While the People’s Revolution in Tunisia and Egypt was largely non-violent, the revolution in Libya may turn still more violent as the last of the palace guard circle around Colonel Qaddafi, his family and a small number of people with tribal ties to him.

Somewhat too late in the day, the UN Security Council demanded an embargo on arms sales to Libya. However, the country has more arms than it can use. The Security Council also requested the International Criminal Court to investigate if there have been war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Libya as well as freezing the foreign bank holdings of the Qaddafi family.

The UN Human Rights Council, like the Commission on Human Rights, had been silent on human rights violations in Libya for years. In fact, the then Libyan Ambassador, Najat al-Hajjaji, a former wife of one of the Qaddafi sons, had chaired the Commission on Human Rights in 2003. There is now discussion of expelling Libya from the Human Rights Council; however, the Libyan representatives in both New York and Geneva have resigned in order to join the opposition. At this stage, Colonel Qaddafi is not interested in diplomatic symbols.

The representatives of the European Union are worried, especially of a possible migration of Africans through Libya towards Europe. Colonel Qaddafi had signed an agreement that he would try to control migration through Libya toward Europe, and he had been given speed boats from Europe to help him in his task. The Europeans are also worried about energy supplies from Libya, although Libya represents a very small—some 2 percent—of energy to Europe, easily replaced from other sources. However, revolution in Libya and unrest in other parts of the Arab world has moved oil prices upward, and they are not likely to go down soon. NATO planners are meeting, reflecting the same worries as those of the EU officials.

The EU and US officials remind one of the aristocrats watching the French Revolution from safety in London or Belgium. They had not seen that the people were getting tired of the contempt in which they were held, nor that there was a rise of an educated middle class that could take care of itself without the nobles and the clergy. Likewise many in the Arab world can do without the kings and tribal chiefs, without the higher military officers who played a role of nobles and without the preaching of the Islamic clergy.

Today’s People’s Revolution, like that of France in 1789, is the victory of an educated middle class bringing along with it in its current a mass of the unemployed, small merchants, regular soldiers often from the rural farming milieu which has little prospered from modernization.

The question now is how will the young and educated middle class in the Arab world be able to structure a new society based on relative equality and justice. In each country, there are remains of the old society with some power, some skills, and a continuing sense of their own importance. We have seen in Tunisia how some of the old structure wanted to continue in power though this was met with continuing street protests.

Creation of new structures in a society is never easy. Both Tunisia and Egypt face an influx of workers fleeing Libya. Just as the French Revolution did not have only friends abroad, the People’s Revolution of the Arab world has more sceptical observers saying “what next?” than friends.

The governments, such as those of Algeria, Morocco and Jordan where only the first shocks have been felt, are promising “reforms” or “bread and circuses” but probably too little and too late.

The People’s Revolution is just that, the rise of a new people, not yet structured into a real social class. It has some leaders but rarely on a national level, and interest groups are only partly structured. This is not chaos except in the sense described by the classical Greek thinker Hesiod who saw chaos, creativity, and transformation working together. For Hesiod, chaos was not confusion but a richly creative space which flowed from the dual cosmic forces of heaven and earth or as in Chinese philosophy, from Yin and Yang. From this chaos comes new and more mature organization, one with more complexity and greater adequacy for dealing with the challenges of life.

Thus we need to find ways to support the People’s Revolution, to keep an eye open for counter-revolutionary activities and to watch closely as the next structures are put into place.

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Rene Wadlow is a representative to the United Nations, Geneva, for the Association of World Citizens. This story first ran March 3 in Toward Freedom.

See related story, this issue:

INTERNATIONALISM, LIBYA AND THE ARAB REVOLTS
by Pierre Beaudet, Viento Sur
World War 4 Report, March 2011

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Reprinted by World War 4 Report, March 6, 2011
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingTHE LAST CIRCLE IN LIBYA 

INTERNATIONALISM, LIBYA AND THE ARAB REVOLTS

by Pierre Beaudet, Viento Sur

The right-wing press in Venezuela and throughout the world is raving against the government of Hugo Chávez for its expressed support for the regime of Qaddafi. The Venezuelan exterior minister, Nicolás Maduro, has declared that the repression in Libya was necessary in the name “of peace and national unity.” The same Venezuelan right recalls that Chávez has visited Libya frequently since 2001, most recently in October 2010, with the aim of signing various accords relating to oil, agriculture, communications and higher education. In his turn, Fidel Castro emphasizes that the destabilization of Qaddafi’s regime forms part of a NATO strategy to invade Libya, implying that we consequently must support the regime.

This is all amazing, and brings back bad memories. For several years, Hugo Chávez has been seeking to reinforce his cooperation with states whose principal characteristic, from his point of view, is opposition to United States hegemony (Iran, Belarus, Zimbabwe, etc.). In Iran, the reactionary regime of Ahmadinejad vaingloriously boasts the good relations maintained with his Venezuelan “brother.” Certainly Fidel Castro has a point in at least one aspect: US imperialism is ready to intervene to “save”” Libya as in its day “save” Iraq and Afghanistan. For the anti-imperialist and other-worldist movements of the world, the dilemma is not trivial.

It is impossible to defend these reactionary regimes on the pretext that they oppose the United States. There is no room for doubt that Libya or Iran are ruled by autocratic and predatory regimes that beat back popular aspirations. The repression in the form of massacres of innocent civilians or the denial of fundamental rights (arbitrary detentions, torture, etc.) have nothing to do with the vulgar “anti-Americanism” of Qaddafi and Ahmadinejad, but reflects a pathological obsession with maintaining power. Even so, the fact is certain that the current crisis opens the door for imperialist intervention that will hoist, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, the “humanitarian” flag.

It is already known that the “humanitarian aid” operations on the part of US imperialism only generate still more repression, still more massacres. After the programmatic destruction of these states and their peoples by US occupiers, Saddam Hussein and Mullah Omar seem retrospectively to be mere heads of criminal bands.

The Double Standard
Likewise, it is not necessary to emphasize the absolute hypocrisy of the Western powers that are “scandalized” by the repression in Libya as they “ignore” that carried out by their Israeli, Saudi or Colombian allies. Said powers not only support these dictatorships, but they maintain commercial and military links with “strong” states whose merit is to maintain “stability.” Do we recall that Qaddafi himself, today condemned by Washington and its allies, was just recently a “partner” in oil exploitation, and was welcomed in the “endless war” of the United States against “international terrorism”?

Where does this leave us? Should we support the enemy of our enemy at the expense of the truth and struggle for justice?

In a time not long distant, this Manichean logic acquired caricatured forms. Movements of the left across the world declaimed their support for the Soviet Union, for China (or Albania!). They said, “the world is divided in two and we have to choose sides, like it or not.” We had to swallow a lot of toads [accept the unacceptable—ed.] in regard to the brutal Soviet invasions of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. There were parties of the extreme brain-damaged left that defended the same Chinese government that supported repression in Chile and Sudan, or that invaded Vietnam under the pretext of opposing “Soviet hegemony.”

This antique political culture that has done so much damage to the left vanished after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the monstrosity that called itself the “international communist movement.” Later, unprecedented mobilizations and movements surged in many parts of the world, and especially in Latin America, finally liberated of this sickly vision: it was no longer necessary to support the Soviet “Big Brother,” which in any case had ceased to exist. It was no longer necessary to be afraid to solidarize with the Chinese people in Tiananmen Square. There was no longer doubt in condemning dictatorships such as those of Khomeini in Iran or Saddam Hussein in Iraq, because failing to do so would be playing the game of the United States’ “humanitarian” imperialism. In this way, the social movement reinforced its legitimacy, reaffirming untouchable principles, beginning to support all people who struggle against oppressors, no matter who they are.

New Threats
Today, things have become a little complicated. US imperialism is retreating, yet at the same time on the offensive. It has been exposed as incapable of winning the “endless war” in pursuit of the foolish dream of “re-ordering the world.” Nonetheless, it has not suffered a strategic defeat, and maintains under Obama the same strategy, even if many of the tactics have changed. In the center of this effort is the will of the US, together with its subalterns in the European Union, Japan and Canada, to establish absolute supremacy in the world. The real adversaries in this project are above all China and Russia, in a competitive logic that is the soul of capitalism and imperialism. But given that these states are powerful, it is not possible to attack them head-on; therefore the tactic consists of waging conflicts on “secondary” fronts—weak or fragile states that refuse to submit to the Empire. This was the case with Saddam and today it is the case with Ahmadinejad.

Clearly, this offensive against “rogue states” thusly defined by Washington forms part of a long-term strategy to shore up its supremacy and prevent real or potential adversaries from expanding their influence. Evidently, to not let these “competitors” reinforce themselves, capitalist and imperialist practices are consolidated on the backs of the world’s peoples.

Epicenter of the Crisis
In the current phase, the epicenter of the crisis is in that vast arc that crosses Asia and Africa through the Middle East, where the main energy resources are located, and where persists a culture of anti-imperialist resistance that has caused hard reverses for United States hegemony on several occasions—and where the present rebellions have surged. There is no doubt that for the US and its strategic partner Israel, the prisons, the tortures and massacres are acceptable when the dictatorships demonstrate their “effectiveness.” But now they have ceased to be so.

Nonetheless, the battle has not ended. Washington is seeking to stabilize the situation and assure an orderly “transition,” which implies maintaining essentially the same politics as before. They need to support the repressive apparatuses, modernizing them and maintaining them under the authority of US military mechanisms. They also seek to seduce part of the so-called “middle class” which has acquired privileges, but which also seeks to loosen archaic and antiquated autocracies, installing “liberal democracies” whose mission consists of maintaining neoliberal policies and controlling the region to the benefit of the US and at the expense of its multiple enemies. The operation is risky, but has at times been obtainable, as occurred in Indonesia, the Philippines and other countries. In this “crisis management,” it can also be very tempting to totally or partially occupy select countries, as much to install in them new centers of military command as to eliminate “free radicals” or uncontrollable elements in the mode of Qaddafi (or Saddam Hussein in his moment).

This could also come to pass in Yemen, in Sudan, in other places where repressive regimes persist that have occasionally confronted the US and which now “dissimulate” in order to gain a place in the sun under the “Pax Americana.” If this project materializes, the consequences will be disastrous for the peoples of these countries. In any case, Libya in the hands of the imperialists will be a real threat for the emancipation struggles throughout the region.

History Continues
Meanwhile, on the ground, the popular revolt continues. In Egypt and in Tunisia, the popular classes begin to enjoy their freedom and (self-)organization. Every day, new popular organizations appear in the factories and barrios. The people continue occupying the streets and reminding the “renovated” dictatorships that they will not accept subterfuges.

The task of this new popular movement is enormous, especially considering that during the years of the dictatorships, with the aid of their Western mentors, they repressed everything that moved. Thousands of activists were assassinated, imprisoned, exiled. All opposition movements were crushed or—when they played by the “rules of the game,” as the Islamist movement did in Egypt—co-opted, content to occupy a subaltern space and collaborate with the regime. It is understood, therefore, that now the proletarian masses seek new instruments, new identities. This cannot be constructed from one day to the next.

It is correct and justified to expose Western hypocrisy—but not to portray the “anti-imperialist” dictators as allies of the “cause.” In this sense, the policy of the Hugo Chávez government is not acceptable. Worse still, it threatens to delegitimize that state which has had the courage to impose new priorities in response to the popular expectations in Venezuela. It is necessary to find the way to say this in a way that will not be exploited by the discourse of “humanitarian” imperialism.

But in the end, this is not the highest priority. That must be to support, seriously and systematically, our true allies in the womb of the popular movements. In the first place, they lack everything, including the indispensable resources which are now monopolized by the middle classes, little prone to facilitate the organization of the masses. It is in this point that internationalist mobilizations can intercede. We maintain our course towards Helwan and Gafsa [working class cities in Egypt and Tunisia, respectively] and the various places of popular mobilization by those little spoken of, and see what we can do to assist them in a concrete and immediate manner.

In the second place, it is mandated to incorporate and involve these sectors in the construction of the world social movement, where they can and wish to contribute much, and also where they can fertilize the popular dynamic of all the world. In this sense, the World Social Forum must redefine its priorities for 2011 and 2012, and concentrate is forces in North Africa and the Middle East.

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Pierre Beaudet is a professor at the University of Ottawa, an editor of the French-language Journal des Alternatives, and an organizer of this year’s World Social Forum, to be held in Dakar. This story first ran March 4 in the Spanish-language publication Viento Sur, which translated it from the French. It was in turn translated into English by World War 4 Report.

From our Daily Report:

Libya: rebels retake oil port, US sends warships
World War 4 Report, March 3, 2011

Libya: rebels tighten circle around Tripoli; Western intervention next?
World War 4 Report, Feb. 25, 2011

See related story, this issue:

FROM LATIN AMERICA TO THE ARAB WORLD
What’s going on in Libya?
by Santiago Alba Rico & Alma Allende, Rebelión
World War 4 Report, March 2011

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Reprinted by World War 4 Report, March 6, 2011
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingINTERNATIONALISM, LIBYA AND THE ARAB REVOLTS 

FROM LATIN AMERICA TO THE ARAB WORLD

What’s going on in Libya?

by Santiago Alba Rico & Alma Allende, Rebelión

We have the impression that a great worldwide liberation process may be aborted by the unappeasable ferocity of Qaddafi, US interventionism, and a lack of foresight in Latin America.

We might describe the situation like this: in a part of the world linked once again to strong internal solidarities and from which only lethargy or fanaticism was expected, a wave of popular uprisings have arisen which have threatened to topple the allies of Western powers in the region, one after the other. Independent of local differences, these uprisings have something in common that radically distinguishes them from the orange- and rose-colored “revolutions” promoted by capitalism in the former Soviet bloc: they demand democracy, certainly, but far from being fascinated by Europe and the United States, they are the holders of a long, entrenched, radical anti-imperialist tradition forged around Palestine and Iraq. There’s not even a hint of socialism in the popular Arab uprisings, but neither is there one of Islamism, nor—most importantly—of Euro-centric seduction: it is simultaneously a matter of economic upheaval and democratic, nationalistic and anti-colonial revolution, something that, 40 years after their defeat, suddenly opens an unexpected opportunity for the region’s socialist and pan-Arabist left.

Progressive Latin America, whose pioneering liberation processes constitute hope for world-wide anti-imperialism, ought to support the Arab world right now without reservation, moving beyond the strategy of the Western powers overtaken by events, as well as those who are providing an opportunity for Qaddafi’s return—perhaps militarily, but above all, propagandistically—as a champion of human rights and democracy. That discourse is hardly credible in this part of the world, where Fidel and Chávez enjoy enormous popular credit; but if Latin America aligns itself, actively or passively, with the tyrant, the contagious popular advances that are already extending toward Europe, and have gone as far as Wisconsin, will not only see themselves irreparably halted but will also produce a new fracture in the anti-imperialist camp, so that the world’s ever-vigilant timekeeper, the United States of America, can seize advantage in order to recover lost ground. Something like this may already be occurring as a result of a combination of ignorance with schematic and summary anti-imperialism. The Arab people, who are returning to history’s stage, need the support of their Latin American brothers and sisters. But above all, it is the relationship between world powers that cannot allow for vacillation by Cuba and Venezuela without having Cuba and Venezuela also suffer the consequences, with Latin America and the hopes for transformation at a global level suffering along with them.

We might say that we know very little of what it happening in Libya and are suspicious about the condemnations coming from the Western media and institutional powers in recent days. We might leave it at that. The imperialists are more intelligent. With many specific interests in the area, they have defended their dictators to the bitter end, but when they have understood that those dictators were unsustainable, they have let them fall and chosen another strategy: that of supporting controlled democratic processes, choosing and deploying post-modern minorities as a driving force for limited change, a new rainbow of democratic rhetoric, in the sure knowledge that memory is short and leftist reflexes quite immediate. Any kind of Western interference must be opposed, but we don’t believe, truly, that NATO is going to invade Libya; it seems to us that this threat, just barely hinted at, has the effect of entangling and blurring the anti-imperialist camp, even to the point of making us forget something that we ought to know: who Qaddafi is. Forgetting this produces three terrible effects in the end: breaking the ties with the popular Arab movements, giving legitimacy to the accusations against Venezuela and Cuba, and granting new prestige to the very damaged imperialist discourse on democracy. All without a doubt, a triumph for imperialist interests in the region.

Over the past ten years, Qaddafi has been a great friend to the European Union and the United States, and its dictator allies in the region. We need only recall the inflammatory statements of support from the Libyan Caligula for the deposed Ben Ali [of Tunisia], to whose militias he quite probably provided weapons and money in the days following January 14. It’s sufficient as well to recall Qaddafi’s docile collaboration with the US in the framework of the so-called “war on terrorism.” The political collaboration has been accompanied by close economic ties with the EU, including Spain: the sale of oil to Germany, Italy, France and the United States has paralleled the entry into Libya by the large Western oil companies (the Spanish Repsol, the British BP, the French Total, the Italian ENI and the Austrian OM), not to mention the juicy contracts for European and Spanish construction firms in Tripoli. Moreover, France and the US have continued providing the weapons that are now killing Libyans from the air, following imperial Italy’s example from 1911 [the year Italy took Libya from the Ottoman Empire]. In 2008, the former US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice made it quite clear: “Libya and the United States share permanent interests: cooperation in the fight against terrorism, trade, nuclear proliferation, Africa, human rights and democracy.”

When Qaddafi visited France in December of 2007, [French-based commentator] Ayman El-Kayman summarized the situation in the following paragraph: “Almost ten years ago, as far as the democratic West was concerned, Qaddafi was no long a reprehensible individual: in order to get off the US terrorist list, he took responsibility for the bombing over Lockerbie; in order to normalize his relations with the United Kingdom, he turned over the names of all the Irish Republicans who’d trained in Libya; for normalization with the United States, he turned over all the information he had about Libyans suspected of participating in jihad along with bin Laden, and renounced his ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ as well as calling on Syria to do the same; in order to normalize relations with the European Union, he became the guardian of concentration camps where thousands of Africans headed for Europe are held; in order to normalize his relations with his sinister neighbor Ben Ali, he turned over the opponents of the Tunisian regime who had been living as refugees in Libya.”

As is apparent, Qaddafi is neither a revolutionary nor an ally, not even a tactical one, of the world’s revolutionaries. In 2008 Fidel and Chávez (along with Mercosur) rightly denounced what was known as the “shameful directive” from Europe that reinforced an already very severe persecution in Europe of defenseless immigrants who’d been stripped of everything. Of all Qaddafi’s crimes, perhaps the most serious and least known is his complicity in the EU’s immigration policy, particularly that of Italy, as the executioner of African migrants. Anyone seeking a wealth of information on the subject can read Il Mare di Mezzo, by the courageous journalist Gabriele del Grande, or consult his website, Fortresseurope, where there is a collection of horrifying documents. By 2006 Human Rights Watch and AFVIC [Association des amis et familles des victimes de l’immigration clandestine] denounced the arbitrary arrests and tortures taking place in Libyan detention centers financed by Italy. The Berlusconi-Qaddafi agreement of 2003 can be read in its entirety at Gabriele del Grande’s site, and its consequences summarized succinctly and painfully in the cry of Farah Anam, the Somali fugitive from Libyan death camps: “I’d prefer to die at sea than return to Libya.” Despite the denunciations of the real extermination practices taking place—or precisely because of them, proof of Qaddafi’s efficiency as Europe’s guardian—the European Commission signed a “cooperative agenda” [with Tripoli] in order to “direct migration flows” and “control borders,” valid until 2013 and accompanied by the delivery of 50 million Euros to Libya.

Europe’s relationship with Qaddafi has been a submissive one. Berlusconi, Sarkozy, Zapatero and Blair received him with open arms in 2007 and Zapatero himself visited him in Tripoli in 2010. Even the Spanish king, Juan Carlos, was dispatched to Tripoli in January of 2009 in order to promote Spanish business. On the other hand, the EU didn’t hesitate to humiliate itself and make a public apology on March 27, 2010, through the Spanish foreign minister at the time, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, for having prohibited 188 Libyan citizens entry into Europe due to the conflict between Switzerland and Libya over the arrest of one of Qaddafi’s sons in Geneva where he was accused of assaulting his maids. More than that: the EU didn’t issue the slightest protest when Qaddafi imposed economic, trade and human reprisals against Switzerland, nor when he effectively called for a holy war against that country and made a public statement about his wish that it be wiped from the map.

And so now when Qaddafi’s imperialist friends—who’ve seen how the Arab world revolted without their intervention—condemn the Libyan dictatorship and talk about democracy, we vacillate. We apply the universal template of the anti-imperialist struggle, with its conspiracy theories and its paradoxical distrust of the people, and ask for time so that the clouds of dust thrown up by the bombs dropped from the air might clear—to be sure that there are no CIA cadavers underneath. That is, when we don’t offer direct support, as the Nicaraguan government did, to a criminal with whom the slightest contact can only stain forever anyone who claims to be leftist or progressive. It’s not NATO who’s bombing the Libyans, but Qaddafi. “Rifle against rifle” is how the revolutionary song goes; “Missiles against civilians” is something that we cannot accept and that, without even asking ourselves, we ought to condemn with all our might and indignation. But let’s ask ourselves the questions as well. Because if we ask ourselves, the answers that we have—few as they might be—provide further proof of which side the revolutionaries of the world should be on right now. With any luck, Qaddafi will fall—better today than tomorrow—and Latin America will understand that what is happening right now in the Arab world has to do, not with the Machiavellian plans of the EU and the US (which without a doubt are maneuvering in the shadows), but with the open processes of Our America, that America which belongs to everyone, that of ALBA and dignity, since the beginning of the 1990s, following in the wake of the Cuba of 1958.

The opportunity is great, and possibly the last for a definitive reversal in the balance of forces, and for isolating the imperialist powers within a new global framework. We ought not to fall into such a simple trap. We ought not to underestimate the Arabs. No, they aren’t socialists, but in the last two months, in an unexpected way, they have stripped away the hypocrisy from the EU and the United States, have expressed their desire for authentic democracy, far removed from any colonial tutelage, and have opened a space for the left to thwart capitalism’s attempts to recover lost ground. It’s the Latin America of ALBA, of Che, and Playa Girón [Bay of Pigs], whose prestige in this area remained intact until yesterday, that must support the process before the world’s timekeeper manages to turn the hands back and to its favor. The capitalist countries have “interests,” the socialist ones only “limits.” Many of these “interests” were with Qaddafi, but none of these “limits” have anything to do with him. He is a criminal and moreover, a hindrance. Please, revolutionary comrades of Latin America, the revolutionary comrades of the Arab world are asking that you not support him.

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This story first ran in Spanish Feb. 24 on the Mexico-based website Rebelión. This translation by Machetera, of the multi-cultural translators’ network Tlaxcala, first appeared March 3 on VenezuelAnalysis. It has been slightly edited by World War 4 Report.

From our Daily Report:

Libya: battle for Tripoli begins; more massacres reported
World War 4 Report, March 6, 2011

Hugo Chávez to mediate in Libya crisis?
World War 4 Report, March 3, 2011

Latin leftist leaders in love-in with Libyan lunatic
World War 4 Report, Feb. 26, 2011

See related stories, this issue:

INTERNATIONALISM, LIBYA AND THE ARAB REVOLTS
by Pierre Beaudet, Viento Sur
World War 4 Report, March 2011

LIBYA: THE WASHINGTON-LONDON DILEMMA
How Will the Empire React?
by Paul Rogers, OpenDemocracy
World War 4 Report, March 2011

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Reprinted by World War 4 Report, March 6, 2011
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingFROM LATIN AMERICA TO THE ARAB WORLD