Hands Off Libya!
When Tariq Ali wrote "An Arab 1848" in the first week of February 2011 expressing hope some sort of 'revolution' in the Arab world, surely he could not guess that a counter-revolution too was looming; doesn't the original 1848 reminds us of revolutions and also of counter-revolutions! But certainly there are differences: however loudly the bourgeois media depicts the change in Tunisia as 'democratic revolution', up till now the change there fall short of the term 'revolution' in true sense; and the said 'counter-revolution' is taking place through imperialist intervention in Libya, but not counter to any 'revolution' there.
The bourgeois media tried their best to portray 'rebellions' in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya as of same nature — people's rebellion against a despotic rule, and to rouse the same sympathy and support for the Libyan rebels as gained by the Tunisian and Egyptian popular revolt. Nevertheless, events in Tunisia and Egypt were different — and what is more, in both those countries the working class played important role in the change that has been taking place. Ben Ali of Tunisia and Mubarak of Egypt were both flunkeys of imperialism, Mubarak being the favourite man of both the USA and Israel. Like them Gaddafi is a dictator too. Price rise of food items, rise of unemployment etc were comparable in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. However, perhaps here end the similarities. Tunisian workers pushed their central TU (UGTT) to move against Ben Ali reversing the old alignment of UGTT; they were determining in ousting the ex-PM turned executive Chief of State after Ben Ali's removal; they compelled UGTT to recall its 4 nominees from ministerial berths in the interim government .... Egyptian workers yielded a major influence in driving out Mubarak; they raised their class demands along with call for overthrow of Mubarak, sometimes voiced demands against trade with Israel etc; they moved as an independent force and have started forming independent organisations .... But a separate expression of Libyan workers and other toilers is not noticeable yet; rather, the audible voice of anti-Gaddafi rebels was that of once insiders of Gaddafi regime backed by foreign powers.
Gaddafi was indeed a west-backed and west-favoured dictator as were Ben Ali and Mubarak. But unlike the latter two he had a weird past. When he coup-ed his way to power in 1969 dethroning the King who ruled Libya after it got independence from Italy after World War 2, he started practising his Pseudo-Socialist — Islamist — Arabist — Populist ideas as somewhat exemplified in his 'Green Book' (imitating China's Red Book, and on the cover of that book his name appears as Muammar Al Qathafi). He nationalised almost everything important; he outlawed all foreign linked libraries, cultural centres, etc and they had to close down by 1971; the famous Wheelus Airbase of USA, which once was termed 'a little America on the sparkling shores of the Mediterranean' by the US ambassador in Libya and hosted 4600 US personnel, was to be cleared out in 1970 along with British bases in Tobruk and elsewhere; he expelled thousands of Italians who stayed there even after Libya was decolonised from being an Italian colony; &c. Gaddafi became well known for his anti-US activities including sheltering the Pan-Am bombers and for those Libya was condemned to both US and UN sanctions. In President Regan's time the US govt even tried to kill Gaddafi by bombing his house and in the incident Gadaffi's daughter died! But those were the Cold War days when there was a countervailing force vis-?-vis western imperialism!
Oil wealth, to some extent, trickled down; Libya became the richest African country by per capita income: Libya still holds No 1 rank in Africa in terms of HDI (human development index), the rank being 53 among all nations and 11 among developing nations. Libya is not more 'unequal' than UK in terms of income disparity (by the latest GINI calculations available) and much more 'peaceful' than the USA in terms of Global Peace Index (which measures violence in social life).
After the fall of Warsaw Pact and dissolution of Soviet Union Gaddafi was at unease and felt isolated in the Globalised world which led him to take U-turn. Libya, being a rich country, had no reason at all to swallow IMF prescriptions of liberalisation-privatisation, but Libya willingly started taking that direction since 1993-94, though they took almost a decade to dash forward. Mr. Mohamed H. Layas, Chairman & General Manager of Libyan Arab Foreign Bank, in an interview dated, 13th July 2002, said, "For those who are interested in investing in Libya, this is a great country with tremendous opportunities for doing business. The media has not favoured us for long time and has only highlighted the negative aspects. There are many foreign companies who came long time ago and have successful business here. Foreign investors have to be patient, because this is new for us. We have strong values and they have to respect them but Libya can offer very good opportunities for the foreign investors who are willing to come here to establish a long term relationship." In Arabic News one can find "IMF commends the Libyan reforms" in a report dated 25/10/2003, and another report dated 24/11/2003 informed, "Libya announces vast plan for privatization: The Libyan prime minister Shukri Ghanem considered that Libya had prepared a large scale plan for privatizing state owned factories and companies and the plan is to be extended until 2008." Then, "According to an April 2010 report from the Libyan government, over the previous 10 years the regime privatised 110 state-owned companies. The same report promised to privatise 100% of the Libyan economy over time.
But let us have a second look now at Gaddafi's U-turn since 1990s to understand his compulsions or another of his eccentric ways to run the economy and side by side the worsening of condition of the people. Libyan economy showed signs of unease well back since mid 1980s when oil price internationally slid down; the consumer price index (at constant price), which was gearing up since mid 1980s reached a peak at end 1990s, then soothed somewhat till 2002-03, but again climbed to that peak in 2010; unemployment rate crossed 20% in 2009. A Tripoli Post article of 6th March 2009 says, "More than 16 percent of the country's total 886,978 families have none its members earning a stable income, while 43.3 percent of the households have just one ..." and presented some more disquieting fact regarding Libya. On Sep 17, 2010, Gregory White posted an interesting article "The 25 Countries That Will Be Screwed by a World Food Crisis" in the Business Insider website reporting "Japanese investment bank Nomura produced a research report detailing the countries that would be crushed in a food crisis." Libya stood there in position number 16 (and interestingly, there were Tunisia in Rank 18, Sudan in Rank 8, Egypt in Rank 6 and Algeria in Rank 3). For Libyans, Food expenditure as a percentage of total household consumption was 37.2% (for Egypt it was more than 47% and for Tunisia it was 38.3%).So everything was not rosy and shining (or oily smooth) in Libya lately. Indeed there was a ground of mass rebellion there as we shall see that first exploded on mid February 2011.
Anyway, the prospect of the privatisation of the oil refineries and other downstream sectors of the oil industry promises lucrative profits (from a Facebook page who's interest is in libya?)". Simultaneously rapprochement efforts were underway since mid-1990s. All such efforts brought results. UN sanctions were lifted in 1999 and by 2006 the US lifted its own sanctions and normalised relations. In 2006 Libya even requested entry to the World Trade Organization. As a 'moral certificate' to Libya, in 2008 the aggressive US Secretary of State Ms Condoleeza Rice said that Libya and the United States shared common interests such as "fighting terrorism, trade, nuclear proliferation, Africa, human rights and democracy."
No wonder the European big Oil companies including BP and Shell jumped on Libya. Multi billion dollar European arms export started. Italy became a very close ally and Berlusconi became a true partner of Gaddafi — they together own Quinta Communications. Gaddafi supposedly owns a good stake in Italian giant Fiat and some other European companies. This motivated US companies to jump on the bandwagon quickly so as not to be out-competed by Europeans. "A group of powerful US companies (including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical, ExxonMobil, Fluor, Halliburton, Hess Corporation, Marathon Oil, Midrex Technologies, Motorola, Northrop Grumman, Occidental Petroleum, Raytheon, Shell and United Gulf Construction Company) set up a US-Libya Business Association to catch up. Several major US oil companies, including ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil and Hess Corp, now have significant stakes in Libya's oil industry, according to a fact sheet prepared by Reuters on February 23. However, 80-85% of Libya's oil exports go to Europe and companies such as British Petroleum, Italy's Eni, Spain's Repsol and Royal Dutch Shell have some of the biggest stakes" (the same Facebook page).
Libya is indeed a lucrative place — it is the 17th largest oil producing country producing more than 2% of world petroleum; it is the 10th largest oil exporting nation, and what is more, it has the 9th largest proven oil reserve of the world!
But then what was the need of military intervention in a country which already opened its gate to imperialists? Only plundering the oil-wealth? Surely that is a reason, but that does not explain military intervention on a close collaborator.
The most plausible Reason no: 1 is — though Gaddafi was a close collaborator of the imperialists he was not a trusted 'yes-man' like Ben Ali or Mubarak. He has an untrustworthy past. And his 'present' is not 'reliable' either — Gaddafi maintains a close rapport with countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia etc that are eyesores to the USA. If some yes-men do emerge from Libya, and the leading 'rebels' or once insiders of the same regime of course will provide some (we shall see the nature of the rebels and rebellion-intervention synchronization later), then in the garb of helping the 'peoples rebellion' imperialists may intrude to help them ascent to state power. Even if anything else were not there only the interest of BP and Shell to have more was enough to push UK in the war. France was always more interested in its erstwhile zone of influence, Africa, where it had the 'natural right' to police. Italy, after some initial hesitation became interested, and why not, Libya was their colony once! US has an additional reason — they, by their enterprising endeavour in the intervention game, want to push ahead of European competitors in Libya. [The famous Economic Hit Man John Perkins has supplied another subtle reason — just months before the Libyan intervention, Gaddafi was planning to float a pan-African or pan-Islamic Gold Dinar which could challenge the hegemony of $ or ? or €. (http://www.johnperkins.org/?p=1051)]
Plausible reason no: 2 — particularly the US is interested to clip the wings of China being worried about China's rising influence in Africa. Not long ago, China saved Angola from falling into the trap of IMF by doling out very soft loan, and Angola is the 16th largest oil producing country in the world with 18th largest proven oil reserve. China is also the largest foreign investor in Sudan which is world's 30th largest oil producing country with 23rd largest reserve. In this year, Asia surpassed North America in petroleum consumption and China is keenly interested in having more access to petroleum. She has also a craving for African agricultural land and other geographic resources.
Gaddafi is a turncoat and so there is no reason why he cannot turn his coat again — perhaps taking this into account observer Michel Collon supplies another conjecture or plausible Reason no: 3 — the possibility of emergence of anti-US governments in Tunisia and Egypt cannot be written off. In that case Gaddafi may join that axis taking another U-turn to make North Africa quite disturbing for the US, and this axis is not only an oil producing area with great oil reserve, but also it is geopolitically very important: in near future nearly half of world's oil trade will flow through the trade route facing Tunisia-Libya-Egypt, all bordering the Mediterranean (Libye r?volte populaire, guerre civile ou agression militaire - Investig'action - Michel Collon - Presse alternative d?di? au d?codage des m?dias et analyse de la mondialisation).
(When this article was being written, in the first weeks of April, a friend informed us that another reason of imperialist intervention might be Libya's another asset — The Subterranean Blue or the potable water reserve deep beneath the Sahara. Later, when this magazine was going to press we came to know about an article 'Water Emerges as a Hidden Weapon' By Simba Russeau which was posted in the IPS news on May 27. There it was mentioned that under the Sahara Desert "Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) is the world's largest fossil water aquifer system, covering some two million square kilometres and estimated to contain 150,000 cubic kilometres of groundwater." Gaddafi has started exploring this resource by his famous Man Made River system. If the capacity of the water reserve be true, in future even if earth's population shoots up to 10 billion and if each person drinks 5 litres of water a day then this reserve alone can serve the whole of humankind for years after years after ... though that will cause major ecological imbalance, but then, who cares ... For a future 'warmed' globe with severe scarcity of drinking water this is indeed a lucrative business proposition!)
Libyan rebels were quite unlike their Tunisian or Egyptian counterparts. There are reports that the rebels were hoisting a flag akin to the flag of the old Libyan monarchy, who ruled Libya after decolonization till Gaddafi deposed them.
But when the rebellion started between February 15-19 in Bengazi, the second largest city of Libya and in the eastern Libya, which has the major oil wealth, the situation was not like what it was afterwards. The first news item served by shabab libya (shabab, in Arabic and also in Urdu, means youth), through their website shows a posting on16th February from www.alarabiya.net which says, "Dozens of people were injured in clashes in Benghazi, a hospital in the eastern city said Wednesday, as Libya braced for a "Day of Anger" following revolts in neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia. ... Dozens of people were injured in clashes in Benghazi, a hospital in the eastern city said Wednesday ... A local human rights activist, meanwhile, told Reuters that Libya will release 110 prisoners jailed for membership of banned militant organisation the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. ... Witnesses say protesters in the port city of Benghazi chanted slogans Wednesday demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi. There were no calls, however, for long-time leader Moammar Gaddafi to step down. ... The online edition of Libya's privately-owned Quryna newspaper, which is based in Benghazi, said the crowd were armed with petrol bombs and threw stones. It said they protested outside a local government office to demand the release of a human rights activist, and then went to the city's Shajara square where they clashed with police and government supporters. ... "Last night was a bad night," said the witness, who did not want to be identified. "There were about 500 or 600 people involved. They went to the revolutionary committee (local government headquarters) in Sabri district, and they tried to go to the central revolutionary committee ... They threw stones," he said. ... Under the banner "The February 17 Intifada (Uprising): A Day of Strikes in Libya," one Facebook group has called for a popular uprising. Another group of nearly 8,000 members called for Libyans to take to the streets for a "Day of Anger against corruption and nepotism." ..." etc. All these show some amount of mass spontaneity at the initial phase of the rebellion.
Surprisingly, within February 21 the scenario changed a lot ? many Libyan diplomats and a serving minister of Gaddafi resigned. France quickly gave 'recognition' to the rebel coalition as a government! Arms, weapons started pouring in from abroad and also a sizeable section of Libyan army joined the rebel camp in the very onset — armed clashes were there in Bengazi and around — not peoples pouring into streets like in Tunisia and Egypt. Next, a recent report noted that British and US special forces entered Libyan port cities of Benghazi and Toburk on February 23 and 24; two weeks before the UN Security Council vote that sanctioned armed intervention, a report says, US, France and Britain have already set up Bases in Libya (for more such info visit http://912communique.ning.com/)!
What is more disturbing: Glen Ford, Yoshie Furuhashi in MRZine, Michael McGehee in Znet and other African news sources mentioned a queer thing — black Africans were facing torture in the rebel held zones, they were being accused of being 'mercenaries', whereas they constitute almost a third of Libyan population!
And most importantly it is still not known — what the workers and other toilers of Libya are doing, whether they are conducting their rebellion independently in their own way or not yet.
In this situation it is impossible to support that Libyan rebellion which is backed by imperialist powers. But what may be affirmed is that the Libyan peoples have the sole right to solve their own problem, they will install real democracy, and imperialists have no business to intrude there. Libyan workers' and peasants' own rebellion for democracy and against imperialist intervention will get support from the toiling billions all over the world.
Moreover we feel ashamed as Indians as India along with China, Russia, Brazil and Germany did not vote against the US proposal in the UN Security council, they only abstained from voting! As citizens of India we strongly condemn such action of the government of India. Russia and China had veto power and unashamedly they did not utilize that! This only shows their shaky (and obliging) attitude in front of the western superpowers, the same thing they did in the case of imperialist invasion in Afghanistan and Iraq. Later these governments may pretend that they are not backing the US led invasion, but by their deeds they already showed that they are not against this imperialist invasion either.
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