Libya: Attacks Rise Against Imperialist-Backed Regime

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published Feb 5, 2012 10:27 PM

A series of attacks have been launched against the U.S.- and NATO-installed National Transitional Council in Libya. The most significant events occurred on Jan. 23 when local forces still loyal to the former government of slain leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi retook the city of Bani Walid, located 120 miles southeast of Tripoli.

During the battles to reclaim the city, four people were reportedly killed and 20 others injured. Reports indicate that heavy weaponry was used by several hundred Libyan loyalists, including 106 mm anti-tank launchers.

The liberation of Bani Walid took place after a gun battle with the NTC rebels that lasted only a few hours. Immediately, green flags were hoisted. These flags are a symbol of the Jamahiriya government that was driven from power by a seven-month bombing campaign carried out by the U.S.-NATO forces.

NTC soldiers patrolling Bani Walid had recently arrested supporters of the former government, prompting outrage among the population. The city had been one of the last to fall during the war against Libya, which lasted for eight months and resulted in the wholesale destruction of the country’s infrastructure and the theft of its national wealth.

After holding out for many months against the U.S.-NATO forces and the NTC rebels, the local loyalist forces agreed to allow the Western-backed gunmen to enter the city. However, tensions have remained extremely high.

Just last November, gun fights erupted when NTC rebels entered the city in an attempt to arrest pro-Gadhafi supporters. On Jan. 23, loyalist forces attacked an NTC militia garrison, killing several guards before moving to occupy the center of the city.

Reports say it may be very difficult for the NTC to exercise authority over Bani Walid. Sentiments against the Western-backed “rebels” have not subsided.

Journalist Taha Zargoun wrote: “Taking back control of the town will be challenging because it has natural defenses. Anyone approaching from the north has to descend into a deep valley and then climb up the other side, giving defenders an advantage.” (Reuters, Jan. 23)

Bani Walid liberation
part of broader unrest

In various regions of Libya the NTC has been rapidly losing any semblance of control. Other attacks by loyalist forces have taken place in the eastern city of Benghazi, the base of the counterrevolution, and in Tripoli, the capital.

In Benghazi, pro-Gadhafi fighters mounted offensives against NTC rebels, killing at least three. In the capital of Tripoli, guerrilla units loyal to the former government launched attacks against NTC personnel in several neighborhoods across the city.

Overall dissatisfaction with the imperialist-backed regime is increasing daily. Even elements that supported the counterrevolution have rapidly grown disillusioned with the NTC regime, which has failed to rein in the militia groups that roam areas of the capital and other cities, committing atrocities against the people.

The Associated Press wrote on Jan. 23: “The bold attacks are the latest breakdown in security, three months after Gadhafi’s capture and killing. Protests have surged in recent weeks, with people demanding that the interim leaders deliver on promises of transparency and compensation for those injured in the civil war.”

There have also been reports of attacks launched by loyalist forces in the western Nafusa mountains. This has prompted the NTC rebel regime to heighten security in Misrata, setting up checkpoints in order to secure entrance into the city.

After the fall of Tripoli in August, many loyalist units took refuge in Bani Walid and other areas in the west of the country. Reports of clashes have been consistent from the area.

Imperialist media ignored
human rights violations

Since the beginning of the rebellion against the Gadhafi government last February, there have been gross human rights violations against people in Libya. Foreign nationals, Black Libyans and loyalist forces were subjected to harassment, beatings, illegal imprisonment, torture and deaths at the hands of the NTC rebels and their imperialist backers.

During the course of last year’s bombing campaign, 26,000 sorties and 10,000 air strikes were carried out between March 19 and Oct. 20. Estimates of deaths during this period range from 50,000 to 100,000.

At least 7,000 people remain imprisoned inside the country, including the son and heir-apparent to Gadhafi, Seif al-Islam. He was captured by the NTC in the south of the country late last year and has been held incommunicado since then.

Seif al-Islam reportedly had a hand severed and is not allowed to seek legal counsel. The International Criminal Court, which had indicted Gadhafi and Seif al-Islam for alleged war crimes during the bombing of the country, has now said that the son can be tried on Libyan soil under the purported laws of the NTC rebels.

A January report released by several human rights organizations says there are still widespread abuses, unjustified imprisonment and torture being conducted by the NTC rebel regime. The document, entitled “Report of the Independent Civil Society Fact-finding Mission to Libya,” reveals that there are victims of NATO and NTC war crimes in numerous areas throughout the country, including Tripoli, Sibrata, Khoms, ZIlten, Misrata, Tawergha and Sirte.

The authors of the report include the Arab Organization for Human Rights, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and the International Legal Assistance Consortium. The document further confirms the deliberate targeting of civilians during the bombing campaign between March and October 2011.

Farirai Chubvu wrote of the findings: “The report exposes the human rights and democratic pretexts employed by the U.S., France, Britain and their NATO accomplices to carry out a colonial-style war of conquest. It makes clear that U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973, imposing a ‘no-fly zone’ and arms embargo on Libya supposedly to protect civilians from repressive actions by Moammar Gadhafi, was in fact used to carry out a ruthless air war waged in coordination with ‘rebel’ forces on the ground.” (The Herald Online, Jan. 27)

Imperialist states cannot be relied upon to protect the basic human rights of peoples within countries where they are carrying out wars. When President Barack Obama boasted during his State of the Union address recently that the government of Gadhafi had been overthrown, no mention was ever made of the horrendous crimes committed by the U.S. and NATO against the people of Libya.

Anti-war, peace and social justice organizations in the U.S. and other Western countries must continue to speak out and organize against imperialist wars being waged against oppressed peoples. Despite their false claims of concern for human rights and civil rights, it is the Western states that are the main purveyors of violations of fundamental rights throughout the world.

Nigerian Troops Occupy Capital Following General Strike

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published Jan 21, 2012 4:15 PM

In the aftermath of the general strike, the government of President Goodluck Jonathan has deployed troops to the country’s commercial capital of Lagos. The leadership of the Nigerian Labor Congress and the Trade Union Congress declared the strike over on the evening of Jan. 15 after the administration reduced the amount of fuel cost increases that prompted the nationwide strike and other actions — but still kept the increase at 50 percent.

Members of the Civil Society Organizations and other forces within the labor movement expressed dissatisfaction over the decision to end the strike. Demonstrations have continued for several days in Ogun State and Kaduna.

In Lagos on Jan. 18, when several people attempted to march in protest against the troop deployments, police attacked using tear gas and broke up the demonstration. The protest action was led by Tunji Braithwaite, a 1999 presidential candidate who, like many others, have strongly condemned the use of soldiers against the civilian population.

In response to the ongoing discontent, Inspector General of Police Hafiz Ringim said that anyone demonstrating in the country could be charged with treason. (allAfrica.com, Jan. 18)

Leaders of the NLC and TUC pointed out that they did not agree with the unilateral decision by the Jonathan government to reduce the price of fuel by only 50 percent, after the cancellation of subsidies had raised the cost to consumers by over 100 percent. Nonetheless, the labor leaders said they decided to end the strike in order to prevent greater unrest in the oil-producing state, Africa’s most populous.

Corruption investigation begins

There are reports of massive corruption within the fuel distribution system that have resulted from the subsidies program. However, many Nigerians are asking: Why are these issues coming up now? Are the National Assembly and the federal government attempting to justify the cancellation of subsidies, or the half measures enacted, in an attempt to quell unrest in the country?

Of course, the not-so-hidden hand of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are present in the economic policy shifts that are going on now in West and Central Africa’s oil- exporting states. Nigeria is the largest oil exporter on the continent, and the U.S. is becoming more reliant on crude from that country.

Workers World Statement: Imperialists Murder Gadhafi

Published Oct 21, 2011 12:36 PM

From: Workers World
News spread around the world on Oct. 20-21 that NATO planes had struck a car caravan leaving Sirte in Libya, wounding Moammar Gadhafi, and that the Libyan leader was captured alive and subsequently killed. The details of his death are sketchy and may be purposely distorted or obscured by his killers. This main fact stands out: It took the intervention of the imperialist air forces — including a U.S. Predator drone and a French warplane — to end the life of this African leader.

Thus the assassination of Gadhafi was like the rest of the so-called uprising in Libya: a complete creation of the imperialist powers in NATO. As we have stated in this column before, the “rebels” — the Transitional National Council leaders, the monarchists from Benghasi and whatever other forces joined the rag-tag anti-government crusade in Libya — could not have won one battle without the air power, reconnaissance, logistics, funding, planning and direct intervention of NATO.

That means that especially France, Britain and Italy, with full U.S. logistical support, carried out a war — using meager Libyan puppet forces — in an attempt to recolonize Libya, just as these imperialists have attempted to recolonize Iraq and Afghanistan. As of yet none of these attempts have completely succeeded in subjugating the people, who are still resisting heroically in each location. True, the imperialists have brought misery wherever they sunk their claws, but nowhere is their rule secure.

Those who deceived themselves into believing this was an honest popular uprising in Libya — like those in neighboring Egypt or Tunisia — have to feel humiliated listening to the triumphant speeches today of NATO heads of government Nicolas Sarkozy, David Cameron, Silvio Berlusconi and Barack Obama. The words of the imperialist leaders ranting against the Gadhafi they murdered is proof enough that the Libyan leader died trying to fight for his oil-rich country’s independence from these very same predatory world powers.

The even more important lesson, however, is that the imperialist states and their leaders have no compunction about using force, breaking international laws and simply carrying out murders of government leaders. They are war criminals. They deserve no respect. They deserve instead to be put on trial.

In the past weeks hundreds of thousands of young people have been occupying the squares or demonstrating in the main cities of the countries headed by these imperialists. This latest murder should strengthen their determination to rid the world of the capitalist system, which not only robs them of their future at home but brings pain and misery to much of humanity.

Long live the struggle to liberate Libya, and the world, from imperialism and the banks and corporations that own it!

WW Editorial: The Vetoes This Time!

Published Oct 17, 2011 8:23 PM

From: Workers World

While demonstrations against austerity were going on in so many places, an unusual thing happened at the United Nations on Oct. 4. Both Russia and China cast vetoes against a resolution introduced by the governments of four European imperialist countries — Britain, France, Germany and Portugal — that would have opened the door to economic sanctions on Syria.

Only nine of the 15 members of the Security Council voted for the measure. Brazil, India, South Africa and Lebanon all abstained. The U.S. was the main force behind the resolution but did not formally sponsor it for fear that would stiffen opposition to the measure. Nevertheless, this effort to justify sanctions on Syria became “a diplomatic failure for the West,” in the words of the New York Times. (Oct. 5)

Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said she was “outraged” over the vetoes.

Back in the day when there was a Soviet Union, vetoes by both sides were much more common. Since then, however, it has been the U.S. that has exercised its veto most frequently — voting five times since 2004 against Security Council resolutions that mildly criticized Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, for example.

The U.S., Britain and France hold the record for double and even triple vetoes, according to Professor Stephen Zunes of the University of San Francisco. Zunes says there have been 23 double vetoes by the U.S. and Britain and 13 triple vetoes by the U.S., Britain and France, all imperialist countries with huge economic interests in Africa. Most of these vetoes, he pointed out, were in regard to sanctions and related matters involving South Africa, Namibia or Rhodesia in the 1970s and 1980s. (IPS, Oct. 5) The imperialist vetoes were an attempt to deny support for the national liberation struggles in these horribly repressive colonial settler-states.

So Rice’s “outrage” over this double veto by Russia and China is hypocritical, to say the least.

The U.S. ruling class is once again using the issue of “human rights” as a cover for its schemes for regime change in the oil-rich Middle East and North Africa.

Just last March, Washington was able to get a resolution through the Security Council that supposedly was to save lives in Libya. U.S. Ambassador Rice said creating “no-fly zones” over that country was to “protect Libyan civilians.”

The countries that vetoed the current resolution on Syria had only abstained on that vote, which allowed it to pass. That resolution was then used as justification by the U.S. and NATO to launch a full-scale air war against the Libyan government, freeze billions of dollars of its assets, and lavish money on the mercenary army that they call the “rebels.”

After nine months of devastating aerial bombardment to assist their mercenaries’ ground offensives, NATO still has not been able to overcome the Libyan people’s resistance.

In casting their vetoes this time, both China and Russia, determined not to repeat their earlier mistake, referred to how the vote on Libya had been used as justification for war.

What does all this mean for the Syrian people?

The Secretary General of the National Committee for the Unity of Syrian Communists, Qadri Jamil, led a delegation of Syrian progressives to Moscow on Oct. 10 to thank Russia for its veto preventing foreign interference in Syrian affairs.

Jamil said, “Noninterference opens the road for peaceful ways of resolving the crisis and carrying out reforms by Syrian means and gives the people’s movement an opportunity to get what they want.” (Ria Novosti, Oct. 6)

Also in the delegation was Ali Haidar, leader of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. “A lot has been said about Syria, but it does not reflect the real situation. We operate in all provinces of our country and we know what is going on there,” he said. He denied that the double veto of the U.N. resolution helped the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. “The veto of the Security Council resolution is a shield for the people’s movement,” Haidar said.

Whatever influence these groups may have in Syria, this is a far superior position to that taken 10 years ago by the Iraqi Communist Party when the U.S. threatened invasion. That party failed to oppose the imperialist intervention that overthrew Saddam Hussein, only to impose a neocolonial regime on that country.

Skulls & Hypocrisy - German Imperialism in Africa

By G. Dunkel
Published Oct 14, 2011 10:17 PM

As a gesture of “reconciliation,” the German imperialist government sent 20 skulls back to Namibia in early October. They had been removed from the bodies of Herero and Nama warriors killed by German soldiers who were occupying their country — then called South West Africa by Europeans — in the early 20th century.

The skulls had been taken to Germany more than a hundred years ago for racist experiments.

When the Herero people rose up in anger over these beheadings and attacks on their herds and lands, the German army began a campaign of genocide against them. In three years, 90,000 people were reduced to 15,000, who were then driven into the Namib desert. The German army even poisoned the water holes and wells, using a tactic that went back to the Middle Ages when Jews were accused and persecuted for something that Germans had done.

Gen. Lothar von Trotha, speaking as the Great General of the German Kaiser, issued his infamous Extermination Order on Oct. 2, 1904: “The Herero people must however leave the land. If the people do not do this I will force them with cannon. Within German borders every Herero, armed or not, with or without cattle, will be shot. I will no longer accept women and children, I will drive them back to their people or I will shoot them. These are my words to the Herero people.”

While the Namibian people welcomed the return of their ancestors’ bones, they were angered by the refusal of Germany, which has paid substantial reparations to the racist, Zionist state of Israel, to pay reparations to Namibia.

The kind of genocide unleashed in the 1940s against the Jews and Romani in Europe had its beginning 40 years earlier in Africa.

White farmers, descendants of German settlers who still speak German, and some racist white Boers from South Africa still farm the land seized from the Hereros more than a hundred years ago.

University professor Hoze Riruako, a senior adviser to the paramount chief of the Herero, warned that their patience was running out.

“If something is not done, we cannot guarantee that you will not see the same kind of land grabs that you see in Zimbabwe,” he said. (Associated Press, Oct. 4)

Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba decried the colonial-era abuses, but did not mention reparations when he addressed 1,000 people gathered at the Heroes’ Acre shrine outside Windhoek, the capital.

“German imperial troops committed horrendous atrocities” against Namibians, he said. (AFP, Oct. 4)

“Through their unselfish sacrifices, our ancestors laid a strong foundation for the modern liberation struggle,” leading to independence from South Africa in 1990.

“Their spirits were never broken and while their mortal remains were removed from Namibia amidst the ruins of war, they returned now to an independent, peaceful and stable Namibia.”

Namibia is a potentially very prosperous country but with an extremely high degree of economic inequality inherited from its colonial past. For Germany to pretend to strive for reconciliation without reparations is nothing more than a hypocritical attempt to hide its racist past in Africa.

Libya: One More Noose!

U.S. imperialism invaded China's territory of Taiwan and has occupied it for the past nine years. A short while ago it sent its armed forces to invade and occupy Lebanon. The United States has set up hundreds of military bases in many countries all over the world.

China's territory of Taiwan, Lebanon and all military bases of the United States on foreign soil are so many nooses round the neck of U.S. imperialism.

The nooses have been fashioned by the Americans themselves and by nobody else, and it is they themselves who have put these nooses round their own necks, handing the ends of the ropes to the Chinese people, the peoples of the Arab countries and all the peoples of the world who love peace and oppose aggression.

The longer the U.S. aggressors remain in those places, the tighter the nooses round their necks will become.

Mao Zedong
Speech at the Supreme State Conference (September 8, 1958).

Libya: NATO Escalates Bombing As "Rebels" Enter Tripoli

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published Aug 22, 2011 9:54 PM

A six-month-old war against the government of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya has reached a new stage as NATO escalated its intervention with air power, naval power, strategy and intelligence to push the Transitional National Council’s armed units into the capital, Tripoli.

On Aug. 21, the TNC moved into at least three areas of Tripoli and its surrounding suburbs. Meanwhile, NATO warplanes flew coordinated military actions aimed at toppling the government.

By nightfall in Libya, the corporate media began to repeat claims that Tripoli, a stronghold of the government, had largely fallen to the TNC forces. Reports indicated that the airport was under TNC control and that three sons of Gadhafi had been taken into custody by the armed opposition.

Beginning early on Aug. 22, there were reports of fierce fighting in several areas of Tripoli between government loyalists and the TNC forces. Although Western media claimed Tripoli’s Green Square was under TNC control, rebels and journalists embedded with them were forced to retreat from the central section of the city.

These developments followed fierce battles in and around Zawiya, Zlitan, al-Brega and other areas in the west of the oil-producing country. NATO has intensified its bombing of Libya in efforts to facilitate a takeover of Tripoli ahead of the upcoming United Nations Security Council deliberations on the renewal of the military operations that the U.S. and NATO first launched on March 19.

A U.S.-NATO war of destabilization and conquest

Since Feb. 17, at least a half-dozen imperialist states operating under a NATO banner have supported and supplied weapons for a series of attacks against the Libyan government by armed groups.

The imperialist role became obvious when France, Britain and the U.S. passed U.N. resolution 1970 through the Security Council allowing a naval blockade of Libya, allegedly to stop arms, and U.N. resolution 1973 on March 19, giving a pseudo-legal cover to military intervention.

Since March 31, U.S.-NATO air power carried out 19,877 sorties, which included approximately 7,459 rocket or bomb strike sorties. These bombing operations grew more devastating when 105 struck the capital and its environs on Aug. 20. (Center for Research on Globalization, Aug. 22) Later, on August 21-22, there were additional bombings of specifically targeted civilian areas of the capital.

“Tripoli has been the object of extensive bombings of residential areas, creating an atmosphere of panic. Rebel forces are not the decisive factor. The decisive forces are the extensive NATO bombings and the support provided by NATO to the rebels,” reports Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya from Tripoli. (CRG, Aug. 22)

“Operation Mermaid Dawn,” aimed at taking Tripoli, began on the evening of Aug. 20 with the armed actions of TNC cells involving several hundred people. Flaunting U.N. Resolution 1970, a NATO warship anchored off the shore of Tripoli delivered heavy weapons and additional TNC rebel forces. Government and medical sources said 350 deaths and 3,000 injuries took place that night.

“Fighting started again during the night. There were intense firefights. NATO drones and aircraft kept bombing in all directions. NATO helicopters strafed civilians in the streets with machine guns to open the way” for the opposition forces, writes Thierry Meyssan for CRG, Aug. 21.

Meyssan also reports that a convoy of governmental officials came under fire, and they eventually headed to the Hotel Rixos, where foreign journalists are based. By 11:30 p.m. in Libya, the Health Minister said that the hospitals were full of wounded and injured people.

NATO forces have been the most important factor in the war aimed at regime-change in Libya. According to the Aug. 22 New York Times, U.S. military aerial surveillance proved crucial in the recent fighting. Unnamed U.S. and NATO officials told the Times that “coordination between NATO and the rebels, and among the loosely organized rebel groups themselves, had become more sophisticated and lethal in recent weeks, even though NATO’s mandate has been merely to protect civilians, not to take sides in the conflict.”

The Pentagon and the CIA’s deployment of predator drones enhanced the ability to pinpoint targets for air strikes that allowed rebel forces to advance from Zawiya to the capital of Tripoli. “At the same time, Britain, France, and other nations deployed special forces on the ground inside Libya to help train and arm the rebels, the diplomat and another official said.” (New York Times, Aug. 22)

NATO’s bombing operations attacked thousands of targets, including rocket launchers, tanks and military installations as well as national infrastructure that severely damaged the ability of the Libya government and military to coordinate its response to the intensified air strikes and TNC attacks. “The cumulative effect not only destroyed Libya’s military infrastructure but also greatly diminished the ability of Colonel Gadhafi’s commanders to control forces, leaving even committed fighting units unable to move, resupply or coordinate operations.” (NYT, Aug. 22)

The TNC leaders credited NATO with providing an opportunity to advance in the eastern and western parts of Libya. In earlier battles on their own, the TNC forces were quickly sent running when in battle with the government forces, even after NATO warplanes had eliminated much of the government’s armor.

It was thus not these ragtag “rebels” that stormed Tripoli, but the combined force of Britain, France, Canada, Italy and the United States — and the support of more of the old colonialist allies. This most powerful military and economic alliance supplied air forces, intelligence and special forces as well as warships that have supplied the TNC with weapons, training and transportation to fight an oppressed African country of 6 million people.

Implications of the U.S.-NATO war against Libya

As of Aug. 22, the situation in Libya still remains fluid militarily and politically. A major aspect of the war against Libya has involved psychological operations and media-generated propaganda that seeks to demonize the Libyan leader Gadhafi, his family and government.

Much of the information circulated about the political and military situation in Libya has been designed to turn both the people inside the country and the international community against the Libyan government. International conferences convened by the imperialist states have bestowed “recognition” to the TNC rebels as the sole legitimate forces representing the country.

Nonetheless, the people of Libya and throughout the regions of North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf can only be alarmed by the Western military assault against the Libyan people. It is now possible to deploy U.S. and NATO ground forces into Libya, should the TNC forces appeal for “boots on the ground” to purportedly restore “stability” to the country.

Africa and the Middle East have a long history of struggles against colonialism, neocolonialism and imperialism. The uprisings throughout the region have set off panic among the ruling classes of North America and Western Europe due to the strategic minerals that are supplied to the world capitalist markets from various countries, especially oil.

However, the workers and oppressed of the region will not benefit at all from these imperialist military interventions. In all of the countries that are allied with the U.S. and other capitalist states in the region, the conditions of the masses of people have worsened.

As these conditions deteriorate along with those of the workers and oppressed in the imperialist countries, greater opportunities will arise for international solidarity among people throughout the world.

British Government Steps Up Repression

by Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published Aug 17, 2011 4:58 PM

By Aug. 15, some 2,800 people in Britain had been detained in connection with an Aug. 6 through Aug. 9 rebellion there. Police used photographs and news reports to target people in coordinated home invasions and arrests. Courts were kept in operation through the night in several cities so that people could be charged and imprisoned for various alleged crimes.

The four-day rebellion swept through various regions of England in response to police brutality and the worsening economic crisis facing the country. The spark was lit in Tottenham, North London, after police actions resulted in the death of 29-year-old African-Caribbean Mark Duggan. By the third night of the disturbances Black and other working-class youth had risen up in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Nottingham and other cities.

On Aug. 15, allheadlinenews.com reported that some 1,300 people had been charged. Furthering the repressive measures, Work and Pension Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has warned that those convicted would lose their welfare benefits, like unemployment, disability and housing, even if they do not get a custodial sentence. (Aug. 15)

London Mayor Boris Johnson has requested that the government permit the courts to send youth aged 11 to 15 to pupil referral units — alternative schools that some teachers consider to be dumping grounds for youth. Meanwhile, the city of Manchester reportedly prevented those suspected of involvement from entering 400 downtown stores. People who have family members charged with participating in the rebellion are already being evicted from social housing.

The rebellion proved to be an extreme embarrassment to London’s Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition government, which has imposed austerity measures on youth and the working class through increased layoffs, cutbacks in social spending and the raising of educational costs.

Creating even more embarrassment for the political elite, many of the leading ministers in the government, including Prime Minister David Cameron, were on holiday when the cities erupted. They were forced to return to London after images of the “shopping for free” and the burning of businesses and police cars were shown across the world.

Law enforcement agencies were completely overwhelmed by the sheer mass anger, generated by years of pent-up frustrations stemming from an unjust, racist class society.

Cameron was compelled to convene an emergency session of the British Parliament on Aug. 11. Rather than acknowledge the deep social and racial cleavages that have historically plagued British society, the prime minister denounced the people involved in the rebellions, who were predominantly Black and working class but also included more affluent sectors of the population. He backed his words by placing 16,000 cops on London streets and thousands more in other cities. Mass arrests took place even after calm was restored on Aug. 11.

Racist, class-biased response

Cameron’s address to Parliament dismissed any link between the outbreaks of demonstrations and rebellion and the social conditions inside the country. Cameron said: “It is criminality pure and simple. And there is absolutely no excuse for it.” Cameron has pledged to wage what he calls an all-out war on “gangs.”

With racist undertones, Cameron asserted: “This is not about poverty. It’s about culture. A culture that glorifies violence, shows disrespect to authority, and says everything about rights but nothing about responsibilities.” He stressed that “we will not let any phony concerns about human rights get in the way of the publication of these pictures and the arrest of these individuals. We need to fight back and a fightback is underway.”

In efforts to clamp down on the unrest throughout the country, the British government is looking for assistance from the United States. Cameron has requested the consultation of the so-called “supercop,” Bill Bratton, who is known for conducting massive law-enforcement sweeps as police chief in New York and Los Angeles.

Cameron has said that the police models used in Los Angeles during the 1990s and in Boston since would be examined for application in Britain. These statements have increased existing tensions between the government and the police over the handling of the rebellion.

The Metropolitan Police in Britain have faced tremendous pressure ever since members were accused of selling information to the tabloid press owned by Rupert Murdoch. The police commissioner and his deputy were forced to resign several weeks ago amid revelations of corruption.

Several police officials took exception to Cameron’s criticism of the police for not utilizing proper tactics to curb and suppress the disturbances. Former British senior officer Brian Paddick stated that Bratton’s invitation “adds insult to injury at Scotland Yard. Bratton’s style of policing would probably not have stood up against the European Convention on Human Rights, which may be one of the reasons why some on the right wing of UK politics want to abandon the law.” (CNN.com, Aug. 15)

The emphasis on heavy-handed police tactics and blaming the victims of state policy and the economic crisis for the social ills of capitalist society has created a sharpened racist atmosphere within British public opinion.

The British Broadcasting Corp. coverage of the rebellions has fostered increased hostility toward Black, Asian and working-class communities. On the BBC’s News Night program, London-based historian David Starkey used racist and class-biased slurs to denigrate the social character of millions of people in England.

Starkey indicated that he had been reading British politician Enoch Powell’s 1968 “Rivers of Blood” anti-immigration speech, in which Powell predicted civil war in England if more Caribbean people were allowed to enter the country. He said, “What happened is that substantial sections of the Chavs [classist derogatory term for working-class people without social skills and perceived to be without ambition] that you wrote about have become black. The whites have become black.” (NewsDay.co.zw, Aug. 15)

On another BBC program, longtime African-Caribbean activist and writer Darcus Howe was insulted by network presenter Fiona Armstrong. During an Aug. 9 interview Armstrong asked Howe: “You are not a stranger to riots yourself I understand, are you? You have taken part in them yourself.” (Telegraph, Aug. 10)

Howe responded saying: “I have never taken part in a single riot. I’ve been part of demonstrations that ended up in a conflict. You just sound idiotic — have some respect.” The government-controlled news service was later forced to apologize as a result of public outcry.

Forces throughout the international community have expressed solidarity with the rebellion. In Tehran, Iran, hundreds of Iranian students protested outside the British embassy on Aug. 14 against what they called the “savage aggression” used by the police.

The Iranian students chanted, “Death to England!” “Where are your human rights?” and “Protesters, we will support you!” The students were denied a meeting with the British ambassador to Iran.

In Libya, leader Moammar Gaddafi, who is fighting to defend the North African government against U.S., British and French military assaults, called upon Cameron to resign. Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe condemned the hypocrisy of the British government, urging London to “put out its fires first and to leave us alone.”

The Bail Out the People Movement issued a national call for demonstrations in defense of those being arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned. On Aug. 15 a picket line was held outside the British Consulate in New York.

A BOPM statement points out that “[Cameron‘s] government of bailouts for the rich and cutbacks for the poor has done so much to create an environment ripe for rebellion. Cameron and other establishment politicians are whipping up a lynch-mob atmosphere against rebel youths.

“In conditions of deepening poverty, joblessness and racist repression, it is inevitable that people will rise up. What happened in London could happen tomorrow in New York, Los Angeles or any other U.S. city.”

Solidarity With Libya Grows

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published Aug 14, 2011 10:34 PM

Although the corporate-controlled media in the U.S. has been full of propaganda against the Libyan people and their government, international solidarity with that North African state grows daily.

Since the bombing campaign initiated on March 19 by the Pentagon and NATO has failed to weaken the resolve of Tripoli, false reports of rebel advances have become even more absurd.

On Aug. 5 the rebel Transitional National Council (TNC) claimed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s youngest son was killed in a NATO airstrike. However, Khamis Gadhafi, in charge of one of the leading military brigades against the imperialists and their allies, was unharmed in the recent wave of attacks.

Solidarity meetings draw crowds across U.S.

Inside the U.S., where the Obama administration and its diminishing congressional supporters have sought to shape public opinion in favor of war against Libya, rallies and mass meetings across the country are growing in attendance and militancy.

In Los Angeles on Aug. 5, more than 300 people came out to hear Cynthia McKinney, who recently visited the war-ravaged country with the Dignity delegation. John Parker of the International Action Center and Rosie Martinez of the southern California trade union movement also spoke.

The audience was mainly people from the oppressed African-American and Latino/a communities. This meeting confirms widespread opposition to the war on Libya by key sectors that have been the electoral base of the Obama administration and the Democratic Party.

Boston held a similar meeting on Aug. 6, at which people from the African-American, Haitian, Cape Verdean and Latino/a communities joined with labor unionists and anti-war forces in packing a hall to hear the former Georgia congressperson describe the resistance of the Libyan people to NATO’s bombs.

In Detroit the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice is building a citywide meeting for Aug. 27 at the University of Michigan Detroit Center. The event has generated excitement since it will provide people with an opportunity to hear directly from McKinney on the illegal war being waged against this oil-rich African state that has long supported continental unity and development.

The Michigan Chapter of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Green Party of Detroit and Michigan, and Workers World Party Detroit Branch are co-sponsoring the Detroit meeting.

Inside the U.S., polls show only 30 percent support for the war on Libya. The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate have failed to pass any resolutions endorsing the war, even though both legislative branches have approved funding for its continuation.

U.S. Congressperson John Conyers Jr. of Detroit is a co-plaintiff in a lawsuit citing the Obama administration for violating the War Powers Act, which says the White House cannot wage war without the approval of Congress. Conyers has been invited to attend the Aug. 27 meeting.

Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe condemn NATO

Although in July the Libya Contact Group, a coalition of NATO states and their allies committed to regime change, recognized the Western-backed TNC opposition forces as the legitimate political force inside Libya, a growing number of organizations and governments are expressing support for the Libyan people in their struggle against this imperialist war.

On Aug. 4 Cuban President Raul Castro Ruz received Libyan Minister of Finance and Planning Abdulhafid M. Zlitni in Havana. Zlitni carried a message from Gadhafi detailing the government’s plans to battle the campaign of isolation fostered by the U.S./NATO states.

According to Granma International on Aug. 4, “Raul reiterated Cuba’s most energetic condemnation of the NATO military aggression against Libya, in particular the bombings of civilian facilities resulting in the death of innocent people. He also demanded an immediate cessation of these acts in order to facilitate moves toward a peaceful solution, with full respect for the country’s independence, territorial integrity, sovereignty over its natural resources and the self-determination of the Libyan people.

“The Cuban president also expressed his support of efforts being made by African Union leaders to achieve that.” The African Union has opposed the rebel insurgency and the U.S./NATO bombings since the beginning of the war.

On Aug.1 Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said the Bolivarian Revolution would not recognize the rebel groups claiming to be the legitimate government in Libya. He defended Gadhafi as Libya’s legitimate leader and urged the government to stand firm against the rebels and the imperialist forces.

The Venezuelan president said of Gadhafi: “I respect him a lot. He’s resisting there. Long live Libya. Live and be victorious. We’re with you.” (alarabiya.net, Aug. 3)

An al-Arabiya article reported, “President Chávez — one of Latin America’s most outspoken critics of Washington’s foreign policy — has repeatedly condemned what he calls ‘indiscriminate bombing’ by the U.S. and its allies in Libya, saying their military attacks are unjustified and will only unleash more bloodshed.”

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Aug. 8 blasted the U.S./NATO war against Libya, calling the alliance a “terrorist organization.” The president of this Southern African state, whose ruling party fought a war of national liberation for its independence from British settler-colonialists during the 1960s and 1970s, noted that his country must protect its people and territory in light of imperialist aggression on the continent.

“Zimbabwe must be in a state of preparedness,” said Mugabe. “It is clear that NATO wants to topple Gadhafi. It is not protecting civilians as it claims.” According to Mugabe the war is only designed to seize the largest oil reserves in Africa. (Deutsche Press-Agentur, Aug. 8)

Journalists hit bombing of Libya TV

In London a leading media organization, the International News Safety Institute, called for an investigation into NATO attacks on Libyan television satellite dishes, which were bombed during the first week of August. INSI asked U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to assess whether the airstrike, which reportedly killed three people and injured 15, was a violation of the 2006 Security Council resolution prohibiting attacks on journalists.

On Aug. 3 the International Federation of Journalists also condemned the attacks on Libyan television and requested an investigation.

NATO claims the attacks on media outlets are in line with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973, which has served as the pseudo-legal rationale for the war. INSI director Rodent Pincer said these bombing operations could not be justified “on the basis that you disagree with the point of view of the news organizations. NATO forces in Libya are acting under a Security Council mandate to protect civilians and journalists are civilians.” (Associated Press, Aug. 5)

In early August, a delegation of fashion models from Italy visited Tripoli as an act of solidarity with the government. Libya was formerly an Italian colony.

NATO & rebels in disarray

Criticism against the war is also building within NATO countries. In a recent article published in Gulf News, Simon Jenkins notes, “Britain’s half-war against Libya is careering onward from reckless gesture to full-scale fiasco. As it reaches six months’ duration, every sensible pessimistic forecast has turned out true and every jingoistic boast false.” (gulfnews.com, Aug. 8)

Whether the imperialist states withdraw sooner or later from Afghanistan and Libya, their failures in these theaters of war have exposed the contradictions in the military strategy of the U.S. and Europe. Facing the worst capitalist economic crisis since the Great Depression, the Western alliance seems incapable of moving beyond its political dilemma.

It will take an international movement of the working class and oppressed to end all imperialist wars and to rebuild the economies of the world. Capitalism is proving incapable of providing the basic needs of the people in the industrialized states as well as the developing countries.
Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Anti-War & Black Activists United Against War on Libya

By Deirdre Griswold
New York
Published Aug 3, 2011 8:21 PM

The destructive bombing attacks on Libya by the Pentagon and NATO are highly unpopular in the United States, although you wouldn’t know it from corporate media coverage.

Proof of this could be seen in a 15-city speaking tour, sponsored by the International Action Center, in which former Congressperson Cynthia McKinney is reporting on her June fact-finding trip to Libya with the Dignity delegation. McKinney has attracted large audiences in cities across the country.

New York on July 30 was no exception. McKinney spoke to a standing-room crowd here at historic Riverside Church in a room that seated more than 400.

The meeting was well attended by activists from various anti-war organizations. It also attracted an equal number of community organizers and leaders from nearby Harlem.

When she was in Congress, McKinney represented a largely African-American district in Georgia. She and other speakers characterized the attack on Libya as a “racist war” that is part of an imperialist strategy to recolonize Africa.

In her talk, McKinney put the war against Libya in the context of the continuing brutality in the U.S. against people of color, despite the election of a Black president. She called out the names of half a dozen innocent young Black men who have recently been gunned down by police, from San Francisco to New York.

Sharing the podium with McKinney were prominent fighters for justice in the New York metropolitan area, including Larry Hamm of the People’s Organization for Progress in Newark, N.J. Two days earlier, McKinney had spoken to another standing-room-only meeting in Newark organized by POP. Later, the Newark City Council gave McKinney an award for telling truth to power.

Minister Akbar Muhammed, International Representative of the Nation of Islam, who visited Libya with the Dignity delegation, stressed at the New York meeting the importance of the developing alliance among African-American forces, the anti-imperialist left and Muslims in opposing U.S. aggression in Africa and the Middle East.

The coalition of forces sponsoring the New York meeting and others showed that the active anti-war movement, especially those groups affiliated with the United National Antiwar Coalition and the Answer Coalition, had recognized the imperialist, predatory character of a war that the Obama administration claimed was to “protect civilians.”

Large crowds in Atlanta, other cities

A week earlier, McKinney had spoken before another large crowd in Atlanta in her home state. There, too, turnout was massive from the Black community, whose youth are constantly besieged by recruiters for the armed forces — often seen as the only alternative to nonexistent jobs and education for those in the U.S. who suffer racist oppression.

Ramsey Clark and Sara Flounders, of the International Action Center who spoke at both these meetings, stressed the responsibility of anti-war forces in the United States to stand up against the Pentagon and the corporate-military-industrial complex, especially at a time when the public treasury is being looted to pay for ever more frequent and costly aggression against poor countries.

Khalifa Elderbak, a young Libyan studying in the U.S., told the New York audience he was astounded by the media lies about what was happening in his country. He described how, seeing on the news that his home town had been bombed by the Gadhafi government of Libya, he called dozens of relatives and friends back home, only to be told that the story was totally false.

The New York program also featured speakers who raised issues of unemployment, hunger and homelessness, which are endemic in communities of color. High school student Dinae Anderson spoke eloquently about the hunger already gripping poor areas. She informed about a campaign in New York to restore and expand food stamps under the slogan “Feed the hungry, not the Pentagon.”

Johnnie Stevens, speaking for Workers World Party, got a warm response as he urged participation in an Aug. 13 protest in Harlem against imperialist intervention in Africa. He then recapitulated decades of deadly U.S. imperialist intervention in Africa, from the assassination of Congo’s independence leader, Patrice Lumumba, to today’s build-up of U.S. forces on the continent. He compared the “rebels” in Libya to the “rebels” in the U.S. Civil War who tried to perpetuate the enslavement of African people.

Glen Ford, of the Black Is Back Coalition, analyzed the role of President Barack Obama in carrying out the program of the financiers and warmongers. He reminded the audience that Obama, even while campaigning on the slogan of change, had said two weeks before his election that he would be a compromiser, and he certainly has kept that promise.

Teresa Gutierrez of the May 1 Coalition for Worker and Immigrant Rights, Rocio Silverio of the IAC and Professor Asha Samad co-chaired the rally, which opened with a welcome from the Rev. Robert B. Coleman of the Riverside Church Prison Ministries.

Johnnie Stevens: 'The War on Libya is Against All of Africa"

Johnnie Stevens of Workers World Party gave the following talk at the July 30 meeting in New York’s Riverside Church protesting the war against Libya.

Attacking Libya is attacking Africa!

The war against Libya is a colonial war against all of Africa!

I want to ask you all to come out on Sat., Aug. 13, to march in Harlem against the attacks on Libya and Zimbabwe and against the economic cuts of teachers and workers. Who’s all coming out for the march in Harlem, please stand up.

(The audience stood up.)

Our party’s first demonstration was in 1959 at Rockefeller Center in defense of Congo. This great country in the center of Africa was then still a colony of Belgium. Less than two years later, the CIA and Belgian colonialists tortured and murdered Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba on Jan. 17, 1961. President Eisenhower ordered Lumumba’s assassination.

The U.S., France, Britain and Italy are trying to recolonize Libya today, just like they recolonized Congo 50 years ago.

Back then the colonialists used a traitor named Moise Tshombe to seize mineral-rich Katanga province. Today the Libyan traitors have seized Benghazi.

The Rockefellers had a major stake in the Belgian mining giant Union Minière that exploited Congo’s incredible mineral wealth, particularly in Katanga province.

Everybody knows the current war against Libya is a bloody oil war. Libya has the greatest petroleum reserves of any country in Africa.

Big Oil ordered the bombs that have been dropped on the children of Libya. And the Rockefeller dynasty is still the biggest family among all the oil billionaires. These pigs have been exploiting Africa for a century.

It was David Rockefeller — then the chair of Chase Manhattan Bank — who saved South Africa’s apartheid regime from bankruptcy following the Sharpeville massacre in 1960.

Libya is a former Italian colony. Hundreds of thousands of Libyans were killed by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who was finally strung up by Italian workers.

Mussolini invaded Ethiopia. Just like oppressed people stood with Ethiopia in 1935, so do we stand with Libya today against imperialist assault.

These imperialists lie when they claim they’re for “democracy” in Libya. Who elected the so-called rebels in Libya? Nobody!

These rebels in Libya are no different than the Confederate rebels, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson. The Libyan rebels have lynched Black African workers. Racist murals attacking Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi can be seen in the rebel capital of Benghazi.

The great ally and servant of Big Oil — the military-industrial complex — has also made big bucks from attacking Libya. Hundreds of cruise missiles have been fired at Libya, and now the stockpile has to be replaced. That’s plenty of good business for Boeing, Lockheed and the rest of the merchants of death.

Each of these cruise missiles cost at least $1.4 million. That’s enough money to hire 20 teachers. Yet billionaire Mayor Bloomberg has cut thousands of teacher jobs in New York City.

The military-industrial complex is also making thousands of drones that are killing people from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Libya. Drones are being used to hunt Gadhafi.

And they’re going to be used by the cops right here in the U.S. — if they aren’t being used already. J. Edgar Hoover and Cointelpro would have loved to use drones to hunt the Panthers and Sister Angela Davis.

But as Dr. Huey P. Newton said, the power of the people is greater than the man’s technology. The people united will defeat the drones.

The war against Libya is a racist war. It’s accompanied by increased racism inside the United States.

The former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is a rapist pig. We stand with Nafissatou Diallo, the survivor of Strauss-Kahn’s rape. The media, like the vile New York Post, have smeared this brave hotel worker, who is an immigrant from Guinea.

Strauss-Kahn must be punished for raping Nafissatou Diallo. As the former head of the IMF, Strauss-Kahn must be punished for raping poor countries, from Asia to Africa to Latin America.

Libya — the real Libya of working people who resist the continual U.S./NATO bombing — is not alone. The countries of the world’s “South” have said no to the war against Libya. The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez Frías, has led the way in defending Libya. All of us here are wishing a speedy recovery to President Chávez!

The African Union has also denounced the war against Libya. But the capitalist media has ignored this real news. They’re too busy demonizing African leaders like Gadhafi and Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe.

Zimbabwe is also on imperialism’s hit list. Mugabe has given farms to thousands of Africans whose land was stolen by colonialists. This is what should have happened in the United States following the Civil War.

Get out of Libya! Hands off Zimbabwe!

Forward to a united socialist Africa!

Libya: Demonization and Self-Determination

By Sara Flounders
Co-Director, International Action Center
Published Jul 21, 2011 11:13 PM

If you went to a shopping center, a street corner or a graduate school of a top university in the U.S. and conducted a pop quiz asking who are the kings or crown princes of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco and Bahrain; the emir of Kuwait, Qatar or Dubai; and the sultan of Oman, most people would not be able to name any of them.

These dictators and feudal monarchs hold absolute control in corrupt and brutal regimes. Their rule is kept in place by U.S. arms, troops and mercenaries, but they are anonymous to the U.S. population and to most of the world’s people.

But if you went anywhere in the U.S. today and asked who lives in Libya, there is only one name that a large part of the population could tell you: Gadhafi. Many people, even if they do not know that Libya is in Africa, might tell you that Gadhafi is an evil man who “must go.”

The corporate media can demonize the leader of a country targeted by the Pentagon to the point that the consequences of using the most deadly weapons against a totally defenseless population are hidden and dismissed.

No other country in history has the capacity to wreak such havoc, using cruise missiles, bunker busters, drones, depleted uranium and dense inert metal explosive bombs, anti-personnel razor shredding bomblets, and anti-personal mines.

What should be the response to this terror?

Unfortunately, a minority of groups or individuals who present themselves as opponents of war spend more time cataloguing Gadhafi’s past real or alleged shortcomings than rallying people to respond to this criminal, all-out U.S. attack. Their influence would be small, except that it coincides with the opinions of the U.S. ruling class. Thus it is important to thoroughly answer their arguments.

Whatever mistakes made by the leaders of a small, underdeveloped country facing U.S. sanctions, sabotage and assassination attempts, they are not the reason the U.S. is hell-bent on destroying Libya today.

What is at stake?

U.S., French, British and Italian imperialists are determined to lay hold of Libya’s now well-developed infrastructure of oil refineries, pumping stations, gas lines, ports and pipelines directly into Europe, as well as billions of dollars in gold reserves, oil reserves — the largest in Africa — and Libya’s other rich assets. All of this has been built up over the four decades since U.S. and British imperialism were kicked out of the country.

The imperialists are especially determined to stop Libya’s assistance in the development of other African countries. The plans for a United Federation of Africa, which were put forth by Libya and backed with $90 billion in investment funds, deeply threaten the continued multinational corporate looting of the continent.

The people of Libya have resisted more than four months of nonstop aerial assault. The bombing has united the population. Their cohesion has grown. More than 1 million people hold giant rallies in Tripoli.

A government in fear of its population would never hand guns to the public, but Libya’s government has distributed more than 3 million weapons in a country of 6.5 million people to enable them to resist occupation.

Incredibly, it looks like the imperialists are facing still another failed war. A falling out among thieves seems to be taking place as NATO’s frustration mounts.

The response to this colonial war of aggression should be the same as the response to a racist mobilization, a racist lynch mob or a police attack on an oppressed community: Mobilize all possible forces to stand up to the crime and say “no!” Refuse to take part in the orchestrated campaign of vilification.

This may not be an easy position to take. But it is essential to reject the racist political onslaught that accompanies the military onslaught.

Demonization is meant to disorient and put the massive, criminal destruction planned by U.S. imperialism beyond debate. Enormous pressure is placed on every level of the U.S. population to accept the premise that the targeted country and its leadership are to blame. The attacks are presented as if only one person lives in Libya, and not 6.5 million people.

In preparation for a war of conquest, the role of the corporate media is to endlessly repeat every charge and statement made by the institutions of U.S. power. An almost frenzied level of lies, wild fabrications, racist stereotyping and ugly caricatures saturates all political discussion.

The corporate media spread the demands that the Pentagon death machine must act in the name of “humanity” in order to “save lives.” The war itself is cloaked in neutral terms. In the case of Libya, more than 16,000 bombing sorties against people are described as implementing a “no-fly zone.” The White House has assured the population that this bombing is not an act of war. The administration won’t even discuss it with Congress.

The response to media demonization in the midst of a war mobilization must be to focus on the outrageous crime being committed and refuse to accept or give weight to any justification for it.

Despite an ocean of propaganda, poll after poll has confirmed that from 60 percent to 65 percent of the U.S. population is against the U.S. war on Libya. This should give all opponents of this imperialist war great hope and confidence.

But the demonization and racist war propaganda have seeped down into a layer of the progressive and anti-war movement.

In every imperialist war for decades, a whole series of writers, commentators and political organizations considered to be progressive have buckled under enormous social pressure. While claiming to be against U.S wars, they allocate their greatest energies to focusing on and discussing every shortcoming, mistake and inconsistency of the targeted country — in the very same condemnatory tone as the corporate media.

They have said “neither NATO nor Milosevic,” “neither Bush nor Saddam,” “neither Israel nor Hizbollah,” thus helping to weaken the anti-war forces.

The responsibility of progressive intellectuals and groups in the United States is to utilize their considerable research skills to extract every piece of information that could explain the corporate stakes — the anticipated profits behind the imperialist war. And never to echo in left terminology the charges made in the imperialist media.

Working people need to know the real reason behind the attack. Thus every effort must be made to avoid reinforcing government propaganda. Progressives should look to build the broadest possible unity in order to speak with one voice against the war.

Of course, such misguided groups are a small minority in the progressive movement. But there are those political organizations, which six months ago had not bothered to mention Libya, that now suddenly seek out respectable venues to add their own reasons that the dictator Gadhafi “must go” — an echo of the imperialist demand. Some even insist that in order to be part of the political discourse, every anti-war voice must first join in condemnation of Gadhafi.

In a few places this chorus on the sidelines has even disrupted anti-war meetings, calling on the anti-war movement to fall in line and echo the racist ruling class.

The Cynthia McKinney tour

In their determination to join with all the “respectable voices” condemning Libya, some groups have even sounded just like the imperialist media by seeking to silence the courageous voice of former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney. This is how arrogant and offensive those who demand collusion in U.S. wars have become.

McKinney risked her life to visit Libya with a U.S. delegation in the midst of the U.S./NATO bombing. She deserves respect.

McKinney was first a target of national media condemnation as a young, first-term state representative in the Georgia Assembly, when she dared to speak out against the U.S. war on Iraq. The entire chamber of representatives stood up, turned their backs on her and walked out.

When elected to the U.S. Congress, her outspoken opposition to and questioning of the orchestrated national frenzy surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001, attack; her clear opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement; her defense of political prisoners; and her support of the Palestinian people generated national campaigns to pour funds into opposing candidates in her small Georgia congressional district. Again and again the district lines were redrawn in an attempt to disqualify McKinney from the U.S. Congress. She has earned international acclaim for her candidacy for president on the Green Party ticket, for her participation in humanitarian convoys to Gaza and for being jailed by Israel.

McKinney’s tour to six cities organized by the Answer Coalition, and now to 11 cities organized by the International Action Center — all of which have successfully mobilized forces against the U.S./NATO invasion of Africa — have also come under criticism and cowardly attack. Some of these elements are even writing and speaking against McKinney’s right to speak against the war in Libya.

Even more arrogant and insensitive are their attacks on the Nation of Islam and Pan-African voices opposing the war.

For more than three decades many Pan-African activists, African people and Muslims have followed developments in Libya with great interest and enthusiasm. Many people traveled to Libya and favorably compared the social accomplishments in Libya — which, according to the U.N., scored highest in Africa on the Human Development Index in education, housing, length of life, nutrition and infant mortality — to the enormous poverty and glaring underdevelopment of most of the continent. They have spoken out forcefully against the looting of Africa and defended Libya as a country that, although sanctioned, sabotaged and under continuing attack, managed to maintain a level of independence from imperialism.

It is criminal to dismiss those actually mobilizing, writing and speaking against war as just pro-Gadhafi.

Pentagon lynch mob

What should be the attitude toward a family or a town seized by a lynch mob?

How does one respond if a racist gang of thugs, with torches and gasoline, is ready to set fire to a home with children inside, or is determined to capture someone who they felt had not shown proper “respect?” Is that a time to wander off into analysis of the targeted victims’ credit card payments, driving record or other possible past mistakes or personal shortcomings?

Bombs are falling on Tripoli. Isn’t that a Pentagon lynching?

In the face of a criminal terror campaign against a whole country, it’s imperative not to do anything to support the attack. It’s essential to do everything in your power to mobilize people to resist.

To use every possible argument of defense, and not give a shred of legitimacy to the racists who are attempting to burn the whole country down, along with all of its proud accomplishments.

Don’t allow yourself to be on the same side as the imperialist war makers.

Leave it to the Libyan people to decide their own future without U.S./NATO bombs. Leave it to African, Arab and especially Libyan people to discuss and debate, without outside interference.

But here in the center of the U.S. empire, it is important to refuse to join in the demonization and attacks used to justify atrocities committed by corporate power. Most important: Don’t echo imperialist propaganda in the midst of a war of aggression. Don’t join in a lynch mob being organized by the Pentagon!

Unite behind one clear slogan: Stop the U.S./NATO war on Libya.

Despite U.S./NATO Bombing of Libya, Imperialist War Stalls

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published Jul 17, 2011 6:55 AM

After four months of heavy bombing, the U.S./NATO forces have failed to dislodge the Libyan government in Tripoli. The Western-backed Transitional National Council contra forces remain confined to select areas in the east and west of the oil-producing country of 6.5 million people.

There is no concrete evidence that the TNC and its imperialist backers are on the verge of taking the war to the capital, despite their constant claims. Hundreds of thousands of people in Tripoli continue to publicly demonstrate their opposition to the U.S./NATO war. The Libyan military continues to strike the rebels in areas around the port city of Misrata and in the Nafusa Mountains near the border with Tunisia.

With the escalation of the fighting in Misrata, which is being used as a transport area for rebel forces and Western humanitarian organizations, the conditions among the civilian population have worsened over the last several weeks.

In efforts to help the TNC gain a stronger presence in western Libya, NATO warplanes have escalated their anti-people bombing campaign. On July 9, NATO forces struck Libyan army units stationed outside Misrata. Nonetheless, the Associated Press admitted on July 9: “The civil war has fallen into a stalemate with rebels unable to make significant advances, even with NATO bombing Gadhafi’s forces to enforce a U.N. resolution protecting civilians.”

Actually, the war has never been geared toward protecting civilians. The actions of the rebel TNC and their U.S./NATO supporters have created dire conditions for the population in Libya and those who have fled the country by land and sea.

NATO, TNC cause humanitarian crisis

The beginning of the civil war in Libya on Feb. 17 prompted the worst humanitarian crisis in North Africa in modern times. Immediately the Benghazi-based rebel gangs set out to attack those perceived as supporters and allies of the central government in Tripoli. Dark-skinned Libyans and migrant workers from neighboring African states were harassed, beaten and even murdered.

Videos and photographs of these executions have been circulated broadly over the Internet. They remind some of the lynchings racist mobs carried out in the southern U.S. against African Americans during the late-19th and early-to mid-20th centuries.

The vast oil reserves in Libya, reputed to be the largest on the African continent, allowed the country to achieve the highest standard of living and per capita income in the region. Anywhere between 1.5 million to 2 million migrant workers were employed on oil, construction and service projects throughout the country.

The TNC and NATO attacks forced hundreds of thousands of these migrant workers to flee Libya. The International Organization for Migration, which monitors the dislocation of migrant workers as well as Libyan nationals, reports that 150,000 people have already left the country.

IOM spokesperson Jean-Philippe Chauzy said some 2,000 Chadian workers were left without transport in the southern Libyan town of Sebha: “They are really very vulnerable migrants — children, women and the elderly — very weak and sick,” too weak to continue traveling. Another 300,000 migrants who want to leave cannot due to the crisis caused by the U.S./NATO war. (AP, July 9)

A July 10 New York Times article exposed the political character of the TNC forces. When the TNC overran the village of Qawalish, many of the residents evacuated the area.

The Times noted that the shops were still well stocked with fresh fruits, vegetable and bread. However, almost immediately, “The [TNC] rebels began helping themselves to the fuel in Qawalish’s only gas station. ... A short while later rebels were shooting padlocks off the metal doors to shops, and beginning to sweep through them.” The article noted, “The town, in short, was being looted by the rebels, and vandalized, and worse.”

This report exposed the imperialist lie that the TNC army has mass support. After the NATO bombing of these villages and towns, the TNC forces move in to take nominal control. Yet the majority of the population flees in fear of the violence perpetuated in other areas of the country.

This is true even in the Nafusa Mountains where the Western corporate media have claimed that widespread support exists for the NATO bombing and the TNC. The village of El Harabah “still flies the green flag of the Gadhafi government,” the Times reported.

France calls for talks

On July 11 French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet called upon the TNC rebels to negotiate a settlement with the Libyan government. He emphasized that talks would be the only mechanism to end foreign intervention in the North African state.

At the same time Saif al-Islam, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi, announced that the government in Tripoli is currently in negotiations with Paris. In an interview, the Libyan official said that Libya’s government “was negotiating with France and not with the rebels. Our mediator met with President Nicolas Sarkozy. (El Khaber, July 11)

After four months of bombings and a naval blockade of Libya, the NATO forces have begun to have serious internal disagreements over the war. Norway announced several weeks ago that it would halt its operations by August. Italy, the former colonial power, called for a ceasefire during early July.

A July 5 article in the Philadelphia Tribune reported, “In the Netherlands, Defense Minister Hans Hillen complained last week of ‘mission creep’ and suggested that the campaign’s advocates were deluded to believe they could crush Gadhafi. ‘People who thought that merely by throwing some bombs it would not only help the people, but also convince Gadhafi that he could step down or alter his policy were a little bit naive.’”

Inside the U.S. Congress both the Republicans and Democrats, although expressing reservations about the war, have continued to support its funding. This comes at the same time that a proposed defense budget would provide another $17 billion in funding for the Pentagon.

Two Quotations on War and Imperialism

"A weak nation can defeat a strong, a small nation can defeat a big. The people of a small country can certainly defeat aggression by a big country, if only they dare to rise in struggle, dare to take up arms and grasp in their own hands the destiny of their country. This is a law of history."

"A new upsurge in the struggle against U.S. imperialism is now emerging throughout the world. Ever since the Second World War, U.S. imperialism and its followers have been continuously launching wars of aggression and the people in various countries have been continuously waging revolutionary wars to defeat the aggressors. The danger of a new world war still exists, and the people of all countries must get prepared. But revolution is the main trend in the world today."

- Mao Zedong, May 23, 1970

British Communist Harpal Brar Gives Press Conference In Libya

Virginia Commonwealth U. acknowledges African burial ground

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published Jun 11, 2011 9:10 AM

The African-American community won a major victory when the Shockoe Bottom Burial Grounds for enslaved and free Africans were acknowledged as sacred ground in the historic Southern city of Richmond, Va. The burial ground had been covered up by a parking lot owned by the Virginia Commonwealth University.

Activists in Richmond had demanded that the university remove the parking lot and establish a memorial in honor of the Africans buried there during the period of chattel slavery. Some reports say that Gabriel, the leader of a slave revolt plot in 1800, was hanged and buried at the site.

Ana Edwards, the chair of the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project, and Phil Wilayto, the editor of the Virginia Defender newspaper, issued a statement saying, “After a 20-year community struggle, the parking lot itself was closed on May 21. The land was then turned over to the City of Richmond for memorialization.”

Just three days after the official closing of the parking lot, city and state officials and community activists attended a ceremony on the grounds of the African burial site. The May 24 event was the culmination of a protracted struggle.

According to the Virginia Defender newspaper, “The site in question was used from approximately 1750 to 1816 as the only municipal cemetery for Black people in the Richmond area. Most of the hundreds if not thousands of people buried there were enslaved Africans or enslaved people of African descent.”

The newspaper pointed out the historical significance of the burial ground for people of African descent: “Because of Richmond’s central role in the internal U.S. slave trade, it is likely that millions of Black Americans could be descended from the ancestors buried there. The cemetery was abandoned and forgotten until the early 1990s, when a local historian found a reference to a ‘Burial Ground for Negroes’ on an old city map. Since then, many community organizations and activists have been demanding the land be reclaimed and properly memorialized.”

Significance to the history of slavery and Civil War

Virginia was the first British colony in North America where Africans were imported for the purpose of slavery, starting in August 1619. Throughout the history of slavery in the U.S., some of the most significant revolts to end the system of racial exploitation also took place in Virginia. Three of the most notable rebellions occurred there: the one in 1800 led by Gabriel in Richmond; the Nat Turner revolt of 1831 in Southhampton County; and the attack on Harper’s Ferry led by John Brown and Osborne Perry Anderson in 1859.

It was just 150 years ago that the U.S. Civil War began, when on April 12 President Abraham Lincoln ordered an attack on the Southern rebels at Fort Sumpter in South Carolina. At the conclusion of the war, it was the African troops fighting under the Union Army who are credited with being the first regiments to enter Richmond. The town was then set on fire by the retreating Confederate soldiers. The African troops played a central role in stabilizing Richmond amid the attacks by the retreating Confederates, who had fought for four years to preserve the slave system.

The recognition of the African burial grounds is significant in that the apologists for slavery have often attempted to revise the history of this period. By refusing to acknowledge the central role of slavery in the economic growth of the United States and as the real cause behind the Civil War of 1861-1865, the ruling class in both the South and the North seek to avoid responsibility for slavery — the horrendous crime against humanity that lasted in the British- and U.S.-controlled territory for nearly 250 years.

In recent years, the demand for reparations for stolen labor during the period of slavery has sparked contentious debates within the U.S. Typically, the white-dominated ruling class has denied reaping enormous profits through the slave system and denied slavery’s role in providing the economic resources that led to the rise of industrial capitalism in Europe as well as North America.

Activists acquitted

Several weeks prior to the memorial recognition ceremony at Shockoe Bottom, Virginia Commonwealth University had four activists — Rolandah “Cleopattrah” McMillan, Donnell C. Brantley, Autumn Barrett and Phil Wilayto — arrested for blocking the entrance into the parking lot that covers the African burial ground. These four and others had taped off the entrance to the parking lot and turned cars away for an hour and a half at the entrance.

The action commemorated of the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. The four activists were taken to court on May 25, but the charges were withdrawn.

Prior to the court hearing on May 25, some 45 people demonstrated outside the court demanding that the charges be dropped. Sixty people were present in the courtroom during the hearing that freed the activists of all charges.

Attorney Steven Benjamin, a well-known legal defense lawyer in the state of Virginia, represented the four pro bono. When the activists walked out of the courtroom in Richmond they broke into chants and cheers in celebration of another victory against Virginia Commonwealth University.

Brantley addressed the media after the hearing and called for the university to assist in the funding of the African Burial Ground’s memorialization. She pledged that community activists in Richmond would continue to monitor the handling of the memorial project.

For additional information on the struggle to reclaim Shockoe Bottom, visit the Virginia Defender website at www.defendersfje.org.
Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

African Union Call For End to NATO Bombing of Libya

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published Jun 6, 2011 8:50 PM

South African President Jacob Zuma paid a state visit to Libya on May 30 that proved to be a fruitless effort to bring about a ceasefire in the war launched by Western-backed rebels and NATO forces, which have intensified their bombing of the capital of Tripoli and other areas of the country. Zuma was acting on behalf of the African Union, which held an extraordinary meeting on May 25 aimed at bringing an end to the war against Libya.

Although South Africa was one of the countries whose government voted in favor of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973, which has served as the pseudo-legal basis for an all-out military onslaught against the North African state, Zuma has spoken out against the bombing and regime-change strategy that was the real motive behind the resolution. NATO has admitted that since March 19 nearly 4,000 bombing missions have been carried out against the Libyan people by the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, Canada and other imperialist states and their allies.

The NATO forces, which are providing arms, logistics, economic and political support for the rebel Transitional National Council, have stepped up airstrikes against Tripoli. At the same time the British and French governments have announced the deployment of Tiger and Apache helicopters, which will inevitably kill and injure more civilians.

U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron held a joint press conference in London on May 24 calling for the overthrow of the government of Moammar Gadhafi. Obama at first had said the war against Libya was limited, but he is now demanding immediate regime change. He faces growing opposition to the war inside the United States.

The U.S. Congress is being prodded to vote on whether the Pentagon should continue with the war in North Africa. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio is submitting a resolution in the House of Representatives challenging the legality of the war against Libya.

African Union holds special session on Libya

The extraordinary session of the African Union held on May 25 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, produced a statement calling for an immediate halt to the NATO bombing and the beginning of negotiations to end the war.

On March 11 the AU Peace and Security Council had issued a communiqué opposing foreign intervention in Libya. Numerous efforts by the AU and several Latin American states have been rejected outright by the imperialist states and their rebel allies operating inside eastern Libya.

The AU stressed that in light of the horrendous conditions facing Libyans and African migrant workers, who have been targeted in racist attacks by the counter-revolutionary forces, the NATO bombing should be immediately halted. Point five of the AU statement notes: “The continuation of the NATO-led military operation defeats the very purpose for which it was authorized in the first place, i.e., the protection of the civilian population, and further complicates any transition to a democratic dispensation in Libya.”

The opposition TNC forces that are fighting the Gadhafi government have not been elected by anyone, other than the Western imperialist states. The TNC is largely led by monarchists, defectors from the government, and numerous groups that have opposed the government for decades.

The AU statement addressed the deliberate failure of the rebels and their U.S./NATO supporters to acknowledge the role of the continent’s leaders in resolving the Libyan war, expressing “surprise and disappointment at the attempts to marginalize the continent in the management of the Libyan conflict” and recalled that “Africa, particularly the countries of the region, are those that bear the greatest impact of the conflict in Libya, both in terms of security and socio-economic consequences.”

The African National Congress Youth League of South Africa pointed out: “The rebels have wounded hundreds of black immigrants from the poorest African countries, who worked mainly as low-wage day laborers in Libya. From fear of being killed, some of them have refrained from going to a doctor. At the time of the outbreak of civil war, about 1.5 million black Africans were employed in Libya as laborers in the oil industry and the construction, agriculture and service sectors.” (ANC Today, May 27)

Conditions for refugees worsen

On May 25 a refugee camp in Tunisia housing more than 1,000 African migrant workers was attacked by the military and locals in the area, illustrating the precarious position facing those in border towns who have fled the fighting in Libya.

This camp housed African migrant workers from various countries, including Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia and Ivory Coast. It was reported that the tents providing shelter for the refugees were set on fire and the belongings of the inhabitants stolen; five Sudanese men were shot. (Guardian, May 25)

These attacks on refugees come amid reports of preparations for a land invasion by the U.S. and other NATO troops.

Manlio Dinucci wrote in Il Manifesto on May 28: “The U.S. has sent a naval attack group led by the most modern and powerful Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carrier, named George H.W. Bush. The ship is 333 meters long, 40 meters wide and has on board 6,000 personnel, 56 aircraft (which can take off at 20-second intervals) and 15 helicopters, and is equipped with sophisticated electronic warfare systems.” (Il Manifesto, May 28; translated from Italian by WW)

In the event of a ground invasion, the fighting inside Libya will intensify. With a purported “humanitarian” landing of European and U.S. troops, the war will enter a new and even more dangerous phase. Consequently, the anti-war and anti-imperialist forces in the U.S. and Europe must escalate their opposition to yet another war of occupation.
Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Exposing the Truth and Lies of Obama Middle East Pro-War Speech

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published May 31, 2011 11:30 AM

President Barack Obama delivered a foreign policy address related to developments in the Middle East on May 19. The speech — which avoided addressing the uprisings throughout North Africa, the Palestinian question and the U.S./NATO war against Libya — created even more hostility toward his administration domestically and internationally.

Obama stated, “Now, already, we’ve done much to shift our foreign policy following a decade defined by two costly conflicts. After years of war in Iraq, we’ve removed 100,000 American troops and ended our combat mission there.”

Yet the truth is that nearly 50,000 U.S. troops still remain in Iraq, along with more than 100,000 private contractors. The war of occupation against the country continues with an escalation in casualties among U.S. forces since the beginning of 2011.

Obama claimed that “in Afghanistan, we’ve broken the Taliban’s momentum, and this July we will begin to bring our troops home and continue a transition to Afghan leadership. And after years of war against al-Qaida and its affiliates, we have dealt al-Qaida a huge blow by killing its leader, Osama bin Laden.”

Nonetheless, the war of resistance against the U.S. and NATO has escalated in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Afghanistan there have been more deaths among U.S./NATO occupation forces as well as civilians since the administration intensified the war in December 2009.

In Pakistan, there have been mass demonstrations against the U.S. raid that brought the execution of Osama bin Laden and against the continuing drone attacks that kill more civilians than Taliban and al-Qaida fighters hunted down by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon. More attacks on NATO’s fuel supply lines are taking place in Pakistan and the military operations by the resistance forces in Afghanistan have hit key installations of the occupation forces.

Obama’s speech claims that the U.S. supports the democratic movements that have swept North Africa, but says nothing of the decades-long U.S. backing of neocolonial client regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. The administration’s response to the existing military-backed governments in Tunis and Cairo is a “Trade and Investment Partnership,” which will only increase debt and dependency for the masses within these North African states.

In response to the Obama speech, Dr. Gideon Polya wrote, “Obama’s speech on the Middle East is extraordinary for its comprehensive dishonesty involving egregious deceit, lying by commission and lying by omission. Obama’s ignoring of the U.S.-imposed Muslim genocide (about 12 million indigenous deaths in Palestine, Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan) is far worse than genocide denial or holocaust denial because at least ‘denial’ admits the possibility of public discussion.” (The Nation, May 23)

U.S. foreign policy is still guided by imperial aims, which is reflected in the backing of the counterrevolutionary rebels in Libya and the more than two months of bombing of that oil-rich state. In relationship to Libya, Obama stated, “As I said when the United States joined an international coalition to intervene, we cannot prevent every injustice perpetrated by a regime against its people, and we have learned from our experience in Iraq just how costly and difficult it is to try to impose regime change by force — no matter how well-intentioned it may be.”

Nonetheless, the bombing of Libya is not the result of an international coalition but rather an alliance of imperialist states in North America and Western Europe. The rebel destabilization campaign and the U.S./NATO bombing have resulted in the displacement of nearly 1 million people and the deaths of thousands.

United Nations Resolution 1973 was merely a cover for launching a full-scale war designed to overthrow the Libyan government and to impose a puppet regime compliant with imperialist objectives in the region. This war against Libya is also attempting to place on hold any genuinely revolutionary movement in either Tunisia or Egypt since the naval blockade, sanctions and bombings imposed by U.S./NATO military forces threaten the entire region.

Obama said of the leadership in Libya, “Now, time is working against Gadhafi. He does not have control over his country. The opposition has organized a legitimate and credible Interim Council. And when Gadhafi inevitably leaves or is forced from power, decades of provocation will come to an end, and the transition to a democratic Libya can proceed.”

However, the so-called “credible” counterrevolutionary forces would have been weakened and possibly defeated had it not been for the military intervention of U.S./NATO forces. Therefore, despite the stated reason for the bombing being to “protect” civilians, the administration’s real agenda is regime change.

U.S. gov’t violates War Powers Act

Just as the U.N. resolutions against Libya were in actuality designed to destroy the political and economic system inside the country, the flagrant disregard of U.S. law has gained almost no response from Congress. The War Powers Resolution of 1973, which was a byproduct of the popular opposition inside the U.S. to the genocidal war in Vietnam during the post-World War II period, has been blatantly violated in the Libyan war.

A recent online petition initiated by the International Action Center states that the War Powers Act “requires a president involved in a military conflict lasting longer than 60 days to come before Congress for authorization to continue the war. We believe the people of Libya, North Africa, the Middle East, the U.S. and the world deserve a debate on the need to immediately end this war.” (www.iacenter.org)

The petition explains that a May 13 NATO bombing that resulted in the deaths of 11 Islamic religious leaders and the injuring of 47 others, who were part of a peace delegation to end the war, represented “a most grievous war crime. It is an unprecedented new level of international lawlessness and it reveals a dangerous escalation of the war on Muslim people. It comes on top of the ongoing criminal assassination attempts on Col. Gadhafi, which have already killed his son and three of his grandchildren.”

Obama did submit a request for authorization to continue the war to the U.S. Congress, which has yet to act on it. Even though the 60 days that the War Powers Act allowed the president expired the day after his speech, the attacks against Libya are escalating. Jeffrey Feltman, Washington’s assistant secretary of state for the Near East, traveled to Benghazi and met with representatives of the rebel National Transitional Council in a further provocation against the government in Tripoli, which is being bombed daily.

Irrespective of the outcome of the congressional discussion on the U.S./NATO war against Libya, the imperialist states are committed to the ongoing destruction of this North African country, which had the highest income level and standard of living on the continent. The only real hope for ending the war is the continuing resistance of the people in Libya against this military onslaught and the opposition to the regime-change strategy by people in the U.S. and around the world.
Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.