Lies about the war on Libya

Intifada-Palesine
Thierry Meryssan

Hillary Clinton, Nicolas Sarkozy and
Alain Juppé at the Paris summit on Libya.

It has been said that truth is the first casualty of war. The Libyan military operations and Resolution 1973, which functions as their legal basis, are not an exception to the rule. These are presented to the public as a necessary measure to protect the civilian population against indiscriminate repression at the hands of Colonel Gaddafi. In reality they are classic imperial goals. Let us look at the following elements for clarification.

Crimes Against Humanity

To paint a black picture of the situation, the Atlanticist press pretended that the hundreds of thousands of people who were fleeing from Libya were doing so to escape from a massacre. Press agencies reported on thousands of deaths and spoke of “crimes against humanity“. Resolution 1970 referred to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court “the widespread and systematic attacks against the civilian population“.

In fact, the Libyan conflict can be read both in political terms and from a tribal perspective. Immigrant workers were the first to fall victim, being brutally forced to leave the country. The clashes between Gaddafi’s supporters and the insurrection have certainly been bloody, but never in the purported proportions. There has never been a systematic repression against civilian population.

Support for the “Arab Spring”

During his speech before the Security Council, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé sang the praises of the “Arab Spring” in general and the Libyan insurrection in particular.
His lyrical speech cloaked dark intentions. Juppé didn’t utter a single word about the bloody repressions in Yemen and Bahrain, yet he paid tribute to King Mohamed VI of Morocco as if he were one of the revolutionary agents of change [1] thus contributing to worsen France’s already disastrous image in the Arab world thanks to the President Sarkozy.

Support from the African Union and the Arab League

Since the beginning of these events, France, Great Britain and the United States have persisted in denying the fact that this is a West-sponsored war, although French Interior Minister Claude Guéant did refer to Nicolas Sarkozy’s “crusade“ [2].

The three countries in question brought into play the alleged support from the African Union and from the Arab League. In reality, however, the African Union condemned the repression and recognised the legitimacy of the democratic claims but invariably pronounced itself against a foreign armed intervention

Recognition of the Libyan National Transitional Council

There are three rebellious regions in Libya. A National Transitional Council was constituted in Benghazi; it then merged with a Provisional Government set up by Gaddafi’s Minister of Justice, who subsequently aligned with the rebels [4]. According to the Bulgarian authorities, this is the same character who arranged for the torture of the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian medic that were held by the Libyan regime for an extended period of time.

By recognizing the Libyan National Transitional Council and absolving its new president, the Western coalition picked their own interlocutors and foisted them on the rebels as their leaders. This enabled the coalition to weed out the revolutionary nasserists, khomeinists and communists.

The coalition’s aim was to be ahead of the game and avoid what had happened in Tunisia and Egypt when they imposed a government tied to the official Party without Ben Ali or a Suleiman government without Mubarak, both of which were also ousted by the revolutionaries in the end.

Arms Embargo

If the objective were to protect the population, the embargo would have been crafted to target the mercenaries and the weapons funneled to the Gaddafi regime. Instead, the embargo was extended to the rebels to prevent any possible victory. Therefore, this is obviously about stopping the revolution in its tracks.

No flight zone

If the objective were to protect the civilian population, the no-fly zone would have been limited to the rebel territory (as was done in Iraq with Kurdistan). In fact, the restriction affects the entire national territory. In this way the coalition hopes to maintain the balance of power between the forces on the ground and divide the country in 4 areas: the 3 rebel areas and the area loyal to Gaddafi. This de facto division of Libyan territory goes hand in hand with the one in Sudan and the Ivory Coast, which mark the first stages of the “Remodeling of Africa”.

Assets freeze

If the objective were to protect the civilian population, only the personal assets of the Gaddafi family plus those belonging to the regime’s dignitaries would have been frozen to prevent them from violating the arms embargo. But the freeze has also been enforced against the assets of the Libyan state. Now, it just so happens that Libya – a wealthy oil-producing country – possesses considerably large assets, part of which are invested in the Bank of the South, an institution dedicated to the funding of projects in the Third World.

As pointed out by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, freezing the assets will not protect the civilians. The real aim here is to re-establish the monopoly of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Coalition of the willing

If the objective were to protect the civilian population, the organisation in charge of implementing Resolution 1973 should have been the UN. Instead, the military operations were being coordinated by the US AfriCom and currently by NATO [5] It was precisely for that reason that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was incensed at the French initiative and requested an explanation from NATO.


Less diplomatically, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin referred to Resolution 1973 as “is flawed and inadequate. If one reads it, then it immediately becomes clear that it authorises anyone to take any measures against a sovereign state. All in all, it reminds me of a medieval call to crusade,” he concluded. [6]





Thierry Meyssan is a French political analyst, founder and chairman of the Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace conference. He publishes columns dealing with international relations in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. Last books published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate.

European Union prepares to send ground troops to Libya

Rogue Government

The European Union is seeking to utilise the humanitarian cover of the fate of the besieged city of Misrata to send ground troops to Libya under its command. The operation could be mounted within a matter of days. In a reversal of previous policy, the German government of Angela Merkel has offered to play the leading military role.

The EU set up a military mission (EUFOR) ostensibly to back humanitarian aid efforts in Libya on April 1, giving the United Nations a four-month window to call on it to intervene. Misrata, or Misurata, Libya’s third largest city, looks set to be the initial focus of an operation that can then be easily expanded. The city has suffered heavy shelling for several weeks, though last week it received more than 600 tons of World Food Program food—enough to feed over 40,000 people for a month—and Turkey has already mounted efforts to evacuate civilians.

The €7.9 million EUFOR operation has its headquarters in Rome, under the command of Italian Rear Admiral Claudio Gaudosi. The EU has two battle groups, contingents of about 1,500 troops, ready to deploy at a few days’ notice.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has officially requested a go-ahead from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The German Press Agency DPA reported that Ashton wrote to Ban on April 7 “telling him about the EU’s readiness to act.”

“It’s an encouragement” for the UN to ask the EU to get involved, a diplomatic source said.
Another official said, “Everybody is aware that something has to be done… You can expect that there will be a mobilization of the international community in the coming days.”

A meeting of EU foreign ministers will take place as early as Tuesday in Luxembourg to discuss the plan, to be followed by a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Berlin.

The UN has called for a “temporary cessation of hostilities” to allow it to evacuate foreign workers and Libyans who want to leave. If this does not materialise, it will likely accuse the regime of Col. Muammar Gaddafi of defying the “international community” and utilize this alleged defiance as a casus belli for military intervention.

UN Security Council resolution 1973, which authorized the US-NATO air war against Libya, bans “foreign occupation,” but it allows for military forces to be despatched by the major powers on the grounds of an asserted “right to protect” civilians from harm. It also sanctions the use of “all necessary measures” to this supposed end.

France has cited the same “right to protect” to justify its ongoing operations in the Ivory Coast, where French troops and helicopters are fighting directly on the side of Paris’s chosen leader, Alassane Ouattara, to dislodge the incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo. France played a leading role in advancing UN Resolution 1973, alongside the United States and Britain. It also secured UN authorisation and the participation of a UN force in the Ivory Coast.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert told a news conference Friday that German forces would be available for such a European Union “humanitarian” mission. “If there was a request from the United Nations, we would naturally not shirk our responsibility,” Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told the Bundestag (parliament) on Friday.

Defence Ministry spokesman Christian Dienst said that if Germany did take part in the EU mission “it’s clear that German troops would then have their boots on the ground in Libya.”

The Tagesspiegel newspaper also reported that plans were in process to send German ships back to Libya. Germany is part of European Battlegroups I/2011, which is commanded by the Netherlands. It contributes 990 troops—giving it two-thirds of the manpower of the entire nominally EU combat force.
Germany had joined with China, Russia, India and Brazil in abstaining in the United Nations Security Council vote authorising military action and even withdrew its ships from the NATO mission to enforce the UN-mandated arms embargo on Libya.

What is essential in this shift is Germany’s determination not to be excluded from the re-division of oil contracts that will inevitably follow the planned installation of the opposition Transitional National Council (TNC). To date, this body is dominated by forces close to Washington and London, and Germany fears it could be deprived of a significant share of the spoils of war.

The Economist commented pointedly on the implications of German military involvement, asking, “So are we about to see the return of German troops to North Africa for the first time since the defeat of Erwin Rommel’s Afrikakorps in the Second World War?”

The magazine continued: “The EU has felt sidelined in the military phase of the Libya crisis (it has been the main forum to discuss sanctions). It has long wanted to develop more muscular military capabilities, but has been repeatedly thwarted, especially by Britain. Now it thinks that, precisely because it has a softer and less martial reputation, it may be ideally placed to help out in Misrata. ‘Until recently everybody thought European defence was dead,’ says one senior source, ‘But now it may be rising from the ashes.’”

The United States’ response to the EU initiative could be to seek direct involvement as a means of bypassing President Barack Obama’s pledge that US ground troops would not be sent to Libya. But it feels constrained in its actions and is keen not to be seen as openly dominating the war against Libya, so it can conceal its imperialist war aims.

Unlike France, Italy and Qatar, Washington has not officially recognized the opposition as the legitimate government of Libya, and has to date rejected arming it. Since transferring operational command to NATO, the US has cut its naval presence from eleven to three warships and the number of its planes involved from 170 to 90.

Last week, in his testimony to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Gen. Carter Ham, commander of the US Africa Command and leader of the Libyan military operation until it was transferred to NATO, warned of the hostility generated in Africa by the attack on Libya.
“There is an impact and there will be an impact in the region,” he said.

There is a widespread sense in Africa that the war on Libya has nothing to do with humanitarianism and everything to do with oil. Even hitherto pliant bourgeois heads of state are worried that the eruption of neo-colonial militarism in Libya and now the Ivory Coast bodes ill for their own future.
The head of the African Union, Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, has voiced open support for Gaddafi and demanded an end to foreign interference into an internal Libyan conflict.
“I believe that the problems in Libya should be resolved in an internal fashion and not through an intervention that could appear to resemble a humanitarian intervention. We have already seen this in Iraq,” he said.

Referring to the French/UN intervention in Ivory Coast, Nguema said that it should not “imply a war, an intervention of a foreign army.”

This weekend, the African Union sent a high-level diplomatic mission to meet with both the Libyan opposition forces and the government to urge a ceasefire. The mission was headed by South African President Jacob Zuma and included leaders from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Mauritania and Uganda.

The Saudi journal Arab News published a comment Sunday by Syed Rashid Husain entitled “Geopolitics Rears Its Ugly Head in Libya’s Turmoil.” The article begins: “‘So it was all about oil.’ Skeptics had a heyday, as the Liberian-flagged oil tanker departed the northeastern Libyan port of Marsa Al-Hariga, carrying one million barrels of oil. The shipment marked the first sale of oil by the rebel government since the uprising that began on Feb. 17.

“Traders said they believed that the payments for the sale will be made via an offshore bank account. ‘The value of this first shipment is around $112 million and will be made in a bank account outside of Libya that the rebels would have access to,’ one of the traders was quoted as saying.”
Recognition of the TNC by “several governments, including some in Europe” meant there “would be no legal obstacle to buying oil from it or even paying it directly,” said J. Peter Pham, Africa director of the US think tank Atlantic Council.

After noting that the first cargo from rebel-held areas is heading for China, Arab News quoted former Libyan energy minister Omar Fathi Ben Shatwan, who has since fled to Malta. Shatwan led the opening up of Libyan oil contracts to the major oil conglomerates for Gaddafi. He said that in the long term, Russia and China will have lost the chance to take part in developing oil and gas fields in Libya by not supporting the rebels. “The new democracy will be good for those who helped it,” he said, such as France and Italy.

BRICS Rails at Financial Status Quo

Dmitry Medvedev

Moscow Times

President Dmitry Medvedev and other BRICS leaders called for sweeping reforms of international financial mechanisms, hinted at displacing the U.S. dollar as the world's major trade currency and condemned the NATO bombing of Libya at a summit of leading emerging economies in China on Thursday, but there were few actions to match the words.

Speaking at the summit of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in Sanya, China, Medvedev said he and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao had "agreed to intensify work on the eastern and western gas supply routes before the end of the year" during a bilateral meeting earlier in the day.

"We are talking about this year, I mean the basic conditions for approval. Naturally, the deliveries will begin later," he told reporters, adding that, although each side would push its own business interests in price negotiations, positions had generally moved closer.

China is a growing foreign policy priority for Russia. It is the world's biggest energy consumer and became Russia's main trading partner last year.

Medvedev promised during a visit to Beijing in September to supply China with all the gas it needs for economic development.

In 2009, China extended a $25 billion preferential-rate loan to Rosneft and Transneft in exchange for a 20-year oil supply contract.

Medvedev will go on an extended visit to China, following the BRICS meeting, with an appearance at China's Boao Forum and a visit to Hong Kong on Saturday.

Although the BRICS forum had criticized the world's reliance on the U.S. dollar, Medvedev played down speculation that the five countries might adopt the Chinese yuan as a trade currency.

"Of course, the Chinese economy is huge, and in this sense the role of the yuan is growing, but we haven't made any special decisions regarding the yuan, nor are they being discussed," he told reporters.
Earlier Thursday, the five countries signed a memorandum on cooperation among their national financial development institutions that paves the way for the countries to grant one another loans in their national currencies.

Vladimir Dmitriyev, head of Vneshekonombank, told Interfax that the document marked "the first practical step toward using national currencies in economic cooperation between these countries."
China Development Bank was the first institution to take advantage of the new measures, saying it was ready to extend 10 billion yuan in loans to Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa.

The loans are expected to focus on large oil and natural gas projects. China Development Bank chief Chen Yuan cited deepening cooperation with Brazil's Petro Bas when asked for specifics, Reuters reported.

No specific deals relating to Russian companies have emerged so far.

Medvedev also held bilateral meetings with Hu, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and South African President Jacob Zuma during the meeting.

Thursday's was the first summit since South Africa joined the club of emerging economies, prompting Medvedev to make a flat joke.

"I don't know who came up with the BRIC abbreviation … but we've come up with a different acronym, and it has already become quite popular."

"After the accession of South Africa, the Russian abbreviation BRYuKI emerged," Medvedev told reporters in Sanya, China. Bryuki means "pants" in Russian.

It may have been a weak joke, but he was right to say the group has changed.

BRIC — Brazil, Russia, India and China — was born as an acronym thought up by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill as shorthand for the world's leading emerging markets.

But it has become a club for countries — including now South Africa — with a common interest in turning their growing economic strength into political clout on the world stage.

All five are currently members of the UN Security Council.

In this spirit, the five issued a joint statement calling for an overhaul of the international financial system and reform of the International Monetary Fund, criticizing dependence on traditional reserve currencies like the U.S. dollar and condemning NATO-led air strikes against Libya.

"This is not a format where countries decide things; it is much more about showing the emergence of new structures as opposed to old organizations," said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs.

Nonetheless, there are differences in the group.

In the March 17 Security Council vote authorizing military action in Libya, Brazil, Russia, India and China abstained. South Africa voted in favor, along with other African Union countries.