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Pro-government protest attacked in Libya

Gunmen controlled a number of ministry buildings in Tripoli after occupying them earlier this week [Reuters]

Pro-democracy advocates come under attack in the latest sign of turmoil that threatens the first elected government.

Hundreds of Libyan pro-democracy advocates have come under attack by supporters of a law to exclude Gaddafi-era officials from top government jobs, in the latest sign of the turmoil that threatens the country’s first elected authorities.

Several hundred people gathered in Tripoli’s central Algeria Square on Friday to protest against armed groups that have been laying siege to the justice and foreign ministries to call for the sacking of officials from the ousted regime of Muammar Gaddafi.

Protesters waved placards reading “The era of the militias is over” and “Attacks on the ministries are attacks on the Libyan people” as well as “No to weapons, yes to dialogue.”

The crowd marched to Martyrs’ Square where they were attacked by demonstrators calling for the adoption of the law to exclude Gaddafi-era officials from top government posts, although no one was hurt.

The main demonstration then left the square for the prime minister’s office to “express Tripolitans’ solidarity with the government and the legitimate authorities in the country,” an organiser said.

Libya’s army had taken up positions earlier on Friday at strategic sites around the capital, and soldiers in pickup trucks mounted with machineguns were also deployed on Martyrs’ Square ahead of the protests.

Examining the bill

Gunmen in Tripoli have encircled the foreign ministry since Sunday and the justice ministry since Tuesday, to demand that the General National Congress (GNC) adopt a bill that would purge former officials of the ousted regime.

The same groups, most of them former rebels who fought to oust Gaddafi in 2011, briefly occupied the finance ministry on Monday.

The GNC, Libya’s highest political authority, has been studying proposals for a law that would see top figures from the former regime removed from their posts.

That has caused a stir among Libya’s political elite, as several current senior officials could be affected.

Under increasing pressure from demonstrators, the GNC said on Monday that it was suspending plenary sessions until Sunday.

It said the delay was needed to give political blocs in the GNC time to examine the bill to reach a compromise on the law.

GNC Vice President Salah al-Makhzoum said a compromise had been reached among the political blocs by adding “exceptions” in the bill in order to retain key individuals.

He said the bill is expected to be voted on next week.

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Categories Colonialism, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Libya
Author The Red Phoenix

Editorial: Why North Korea Needs Nuclear Weapons

25 Apr

By Stephen Gowans

Is North Korea’s recent nuclear test, its third, to be welcomed, lamented or condemned? It depends on your perspective. If you believe that a people should be able to organize their affairs free from foreign domination and interference; that the United States and its client government in Seoul have denied Koreans in the south that right and seek to deny Koreans in the north the same right; and that the best chance that Koreans in the north have for preserving their sovereignty is to build nuclear weapons to deter a US military conquest, then the test is to be welcomed.

If you’re a liberal, you might believe that the United States should offer the DPRK (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name) security guarantees in return for Pyongyang completely, permanently and verifiably eliminating its nuclear weapons program. If so, your position invites three questions.

• Contrary to the febrile rhetoric of high US officials, the United States is not threatened by North Korea. North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability is a defensive threat alone. The DPRK’s leaders are not unaware that a first-strike nuclear attack would trigger an overwhelming US nuclear retaliatory strike, which, as then US president Bill Clinton once warned, “would mean the end of their country as we know it”. Since a North Korean first-strike would be suicidal (and this is not lost on the North Korean leadership), whether Pyongyang has or doesn’t have nuclear weapons makes little difference to US national security. What, then, would motivate Washington to offer genuine security guarantees? It can’t be argued that US national security considerations form the basis of the guarantees, since the threat to the United States of a nuclear-armed North Korea is about the same as a disarmed North Korea—approximately zero.

• How credible could any security guarantee be, in light of the reality that since 1945 Washington has invested significant blood and treasure in eliminating all expressions of communism and anti-imperialism on the Korean peninsula. The argument that the United States could issue genuine security guarantees would have to explain what had transpired to bring about a radical qualitative shift in US policy from attempting to eliminate communism in Korea to détente with it.

• Why is it incumbent on North Korea alone to disarm? Why not the United States too?

The conservative view, on which I shall not tarry, is simple. Anything North Korea does, except surrender, is blameworthy.

Finally, you might lament Pyongyang’s nuclear test for running counter to nuclear non-proliferation, invoking the fear that growth in the number of countries with nuclear weapons increases the risk of war. But this view crumbles under scrutiny. The elimination of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq didn’t reduce the chances of US military intervention in that country—it increased them. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s voluntary elimination of his WMD didn’t prevent a NATO assault on Libya—it cleared the way for it. The disarming of countries that deny the US ruling class access to markets, natural resources, and investment opportunities, in order to use these for their own development, doesn’t reduce the risk of wars of conquest—it makes them all the more certain.

The radical view locates the cause of wars of conquest since the rise of capitalism in the drive for profits. This compulsion chases the goods, services and capital of corporate-dominated societies over the face of the globe to settle everywhere, nestle everywhere, and establish connections everywhere, irrespective of the wishes, interests, development needs and welfare of the natives. If territories aren’t voluntarily opened to capital penetration through trade and investment agreements, their doors are battered down by the Pentagon, the enforcer of last resort of a world economic order supporting, as its first commitment, the profit-making interests of the US ruling class.

Background

Because North Korea has long been vilified and condemned by the Western press as bellicose, provocative and unpredictable, it’s difficult to cut through the fog of vituperation that obscures any kind of dispassionate understanding of the country to grasp that the DPRK represents something praiseworthy: a tradition of struggle against oppression and foreign domination, rooted in the experience of a majority of Koreans dating back to the end of WWII and the period of Japanese colonial rule. This tradition found expression in the Korean People’s Republic, a national government, created by, for, and of Koreans, that was already in place when US troops landed at Inchon in September, 1945. The new government was comprised of leftists who had won the backing of the majority, partly because they had led the struggle against Japan’s colonial occupation, and partly because they promised relief from exploitation by landlords and capitalists. The USSR, which occupied the north of the country until 1948, worked with the KPR in its occupation zone, but the United States suppressed the KPR in the south, worked to exterminate leftist forces in its zone, and backed conservatives reviled by Koreans for their oppressions and collaboration with the Japanese. By 1948, the peninsula was divided between a northern government led by guerrillas and activists who fought to liberate Korea from Japanese rule, and a southern government led by a US-installed anti-communist backed by conservatives tainted by collaboration with colonial oppression. For the next 65 years, the essential character of the competing regimes has remained the same. Park Geun-hye, the incoming South Korean president is the daughter of a former president, Park Chung-hee, who came to power in a military coup in 1961. The elder Park had served in the Japanese Imperial Army. Kim Il Sung, grandfather of North Korea’s current leader, Kim Jong-eun, was an important guerrilla leader who, unlike the collaborator Park, fought, rather than served, the Japanese. The North represents the traditions of struggle against foreign domination, both political and economic, while the South represents the tradition of submission to and collaboration with a foreign hegemon. Significantly, there are no foreign troops stationed in North Korea, but are in South Korea. North Korean troops have never fought abroad, but South Korea’s have, odiously in Vietnam, in return for infusions of mercenary lucre from the Americans, and later in Iraq. As regards repression, South Korea’s authoritarianism on behalf of rightist causes is long and enduring, typified in the virulently anti-communist National Security Law, which metes out harsh punishment to anyone who so much as publicly utters a kind word about North Korea. The South Korean police state also blocks access to pro-North Korean websites, bans books, including volumes by Noam Chomsky and heterodox (though pro-capitalist) economist Ha Joon-chang, and imprisons anyone who travels to the North.

Pressure

Since the Korean War the United States and South Korea have maintained unceasing pressure on North Korea through subversion, espionage, propaganda, economic warfare and threats of nuclear attack and military invasion. Low-intensity warfare sets as its ultimate objective the collapse of the North Korean government. Unremitting military pressure forces Pyongyang to maintain punishingly high expenditures on defense (formalized in the country’s Songun, or “army first” policy). Massive defense expenditures divert critical resources from the civilian economy, retarding economic growth. At the same time, trade and financial sanctions heap further harm on the economy. Economic dislocations disrupt food supplies, make life harsh for many North Koreans, and breed discontent. Discontent in turn engenders political opposition, which is beaten back and contained by measures of repression and restriction of civic and political liberties. In response, Washington disingenuously deplores Pyongyang’s military expenditures at a time North Koreans “are starving”; denounces Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program as a “provocation” (rather than a defense against US military threat); dishonestly attributes the country’s economic difficulties to allegedly inherent weaknesses in public ownership and central planning (rather than sanctions and financial strangulation); and chastises the DPRK for its repressive measures to check dissent (ultimately traceable to US pressures.) In other words, the regrettable features of North Korea that Washington highlights to demonize and discredit the DPRK are the consequences, not the causes, of US North Korea policy. To view US policy as a reaction to the DPRK’s nuclear weapons program, economic difficulties, and repressions is to get the causal direction wrong.

US foreign policy

US foreign policy aims to secure and defend access to foreign markets, natural resources and investment opportunities and deny communists and nationalists control because access might be blocked, limited or freighted with social welfare and domestic development considerations.

As a general rule, the American government’s attitude to governments in the Third World …depends very largely on the degree to which these governments favour American free enterprise in their countries or are likely to favour it in the future…In this perspective, the supreme evil is obviously the assumption of power by governments whose main purpose is precisely to abolish private ownership and private enterprise…Such governments are profoundly objectionable not only because their actions profoundly affect foreign-owned interests and enterprises or because they render future capitalist implantation impossible [but also] because the withdrawal of any country from the world system of capitalist enterprise is seen as constituting a weakening of that system and as providing encouragement to further dissidence and withdrawal. [1]

North Korea is one of the few countries left that commits “the supreme evil.” Allowed to develop in peace, unimpeded by military pressure and economic warfare, it might become an inspiration for other countries to follow. From the perspective of the US ruling class, the United States’ North Korea policy must have one overarching objective: the DPRK’s demise. Asked by The New York Times to explain the aim of US policy on North Korea, then US under secretary of state for arms control John Bolton “strode over to a bookshelf, pulled off a volume and slapped it on the table. It was called ‘The End of North Korea.’” “‘That,’ he said, ‘is our policy.’” [2]

On top of profit-making goals, and crippling North Korea economically, politically and socially to prevent its emergence as an inspiring example to other countries, Washington seeks to maintain access to its strategic position on a peninsula whose proximity to China and Russia provides a forward operating base from which to pressure these two significant obstacles to the United States’ complete domination of the globe.

Threats of nuclear war

According to declassified and other US government documents, some released on the 60th-anniversary of the Korean War, from “the 1950s’ Pentagon to today’s Obama administration, the United States has repeatedly pondered, planned and threatened the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea.” [3] These documents, along with the public statements of senior US officials, point to an ongoing pattern of US nuclear intimidation of the DPRK.

• The United States introduced nuclear weapons to the Korean peninsula as early as 1950. [4]

• During the Korean War, US president Harry Truman announced that the use of nuclear weapons was under active consideration; US Air Force bombers flew nuclear rehearsal runs over Pyongyang; and US commander General Douglas MacArthur planned to drop 30 to 50 atomic bombs across the northern neck of the Korean peninsula to block Chinese intervention. [5]

• In the late 1960s, nuclear-armed US warplanes were maintained on 15-minute alert to strike North Korea. [6]

• In 1975, US defense secretary James Schlesinger acknowledged for the first time that US nuclear weapons were deployed in South Korea. Addressing the North Koreans, he warned, “I do not think it would be wise to test (US) reactions.” [7]

• In February 1993, Lee Butler, head of the US Strategic Command, announced the United States was retargeting hydrogen bombs aimed at the old USSR on North Korea (and other targets.) One month later, North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. [8]

• On July 22, 1993, US president Bill Clinton said if North Korea developed and used nuclear weapons “we would quickly and overwhelmingly retaliate. It would mean the end of their country as we know it.” [9]

• In 1995, Colin Powell, who had served as chairman of the US joints chiefs of staff and would later serve as US secretary of state, warned the North Koreans that the United States had the means to turn their country into “a charcoal briquette.” [10]

• Following North Korea’s first nuclear test on October 9, 2006, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice reminded North Korea that “the United States has the will and the capability to meet the full range—and I underscore full range of its deterrent and security commitments to Japan [emphasis added].” [11]

• In April 2010, US defense secretary Leon Panetta refused to rule out a US nuclear attack on North Korea, saying, “all options are on the table.” [12]

• On February 13, 2013, Panetta described North Korea as “a threat to the United States, to regional stability, and to global security.” He added: “Make no mistake. The US military will take all necessary steps to meet our security commitments to the Republic of Korea and to our regional allies [emphasis added].” [13]

As the North Koreans put it, “no nation in the world has been exposed to the nuclear threat so directly and for so long as the Koreans.”[14]

“For over half a century since early in the 1950s, the US has turned South Korea into the biggest nuclear arsenal in the Far East, gravely threatening the DPRK through ceaseless manoeuvres for a nuclear war. It has worked hard to deprive the DPRK of its sovereignty and its right to exist and develop….thereby doing tremendous damage to its socialist economic construction and the improvement of the standard of people’s living.” [15]

Economic warfare

The breadth and depth of US economic warfare against North Korea can be summed up in two sentences:

• North Korea is “the most sanctioned nation in the world” — George W. Bush. [16]

• …”there are few sanctions left to apply.” – The New York Times [17]

From the moment it imposed a total embargo on exports to North Korea three days after the Korean War began in June 1950, the United States has maintained an uninterrupted regimen of economic, financial, and diplomatic sanctions against North Korea. These include:

o Limits on the export of goods and services.
o Prohibition of most foreign aid and agricultural sales.
o A ban on Export-Import Bank funding.
o Denial of favourable trade terms.
o Prohibition of imports from North Korea.
o Blocking of any loan or funding through international financial institutions.
o Limits on export licensing of food and medicine for export to North Korea.
o A ban on government financing of food and medicine exports to North Korea.
o Prohibition on import and export transactions related to transportation.
o A ban on dual-use exports (i.e., civilian goods that could be adapted to military purposes.)
o Prohibition on certain commercial banking transactions. [18]

In recent years, US sanctions have been complemented by “efforts to freeze assets and cut off financial flows” [19] by blocking banks that deal with North Korean companies from access to the US banking system. The intended effect is to make North Korea a banking pariah that no bank in the world will touch. Former US president George W. Bush was “determined to squeeze North Korea with every financial sanction possible” until its economy collapsed. [20] The Obama administration has not departed from the Bush policies.

Washington has also acted to sharpen the bite of sanctions, pressing other countries to join its campaign of economic warfare against a country it faults for maintaining a Marxist-Leninist system and non-market economy. [21] This has included the sponsoring of a United Nations Security Council resolution compelling all nations to refrain for exporting dual-use items to North Korea (a repeat of the sanctions regime that led to the crumbling of Iraq’s healthcare system in the 1990s.) Washington has even gone so far as to pressure China (unsuccessfully) to cut off North Korea’s supply of oil. [22]

Drawing the appropriate lesson

On the day Baghdad fell to invading US forces, John Bolton warned Iran, Syria and North Korea to “draw the appropriate lesson from Iraq.” [23] There can be no doubt that Pyongyang drew a lesson, though not the one Bolton intended. The North Koreans did not conclude, as Bolton hoped, that peace and security could be achieved by relinquishing WMDs. Instead, the North Koreans couldn’t fail to grasp the real lesson of the US assault on Iraq. The United States had invaded Iraq only after Saddam Hussein had cleared the way by complying with US demands to destroy his weapons of mass destruction. Had he actually retained the weapons he was falsely accused of hiding and holding in reserve, the Americans would likely have never attacked.

Subsequent events in Libya have only reinforced the lesson. Muammar Gaddafi had developed his own WMD program to protect Libya from Western military intervention. But Gaddafi also faced an internal threat—Islamists, including jihadists linked to Al Qaeda, who sought to overthrow him to create an Islamist society in Libya. After 9/11, with the United States setting out to crush Al Qaeda, Gaddafi sought a rapprochement with the West, becoming an ally in the international battle against Al Qaeda, to more effectively deal with his own Islamist enemies at home. The price of being invited into the fold was to abandon his weapons of mass destruction. When Gaddafi agreed to this condition he made a fatal strategic blunder. An economic nationalist, Gaddafi irritated Western oil companies and investors by insisting on serving Libyan interests ahead of the oil companies’ profits and investors’ returns. Fed up with his nationalist obstructions, NATO teamed up with Gaddafi’s Islamist enemies to oust and kill the Libyan leader. Had he not surrendered his WMDs, Gaddafi would likely still be playing a lead role in Libya. “Who would have dared deal with Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein if they had a nuclear capability?” asks Major General Amir Eshel, chief of the Israeli army’s planning division. “No way.” [24]

Having unilaterally disarmed, Gaddafi was hailed in Western capitals, and world leaders hastened to Tripoli to sign commercial agreements with him. Among Gaddafi’s visitors was the South Korean minister of foreign affairs, and Ban Ki-moon, later to become the UN secretary general. Both men urged the “rehabilitated” Libyan leader to persuade the North Koreans to give up their nuclear weapons. [25] Whether Gaddafi acceded to the Koreans’ request is unclear, but if he did, his advice was wisely ignored. In the North Korean view, Gaddafi fell prey to a “bait and switch.” The lesson the DPRK drew from Libya was that the only guarantee of peace on the Korean peninsula is a powerful military, backed by nuclear weapons. [26]

This is neither an irrational view, nor one the West, for all its pieties about nuclear non-proliferation (for others), rejects for itself. Britain, for example, justifies its own nuclear weapons program with reference to the need “to deter and prevent nuclear blackmail and acts of aggression against our vital interests that cannot be countered by other means.” [27] If the UK requires nuclear weapons to deter and prevent nuclear blackmail and acts of aggression, then surely the North Koreans—long on the receiving end of these minatory pressures—do as well. Indeed, the case can be made that the North Koreans have a greater need for nuclear arms than the British do, for whom nuclear blackmail and acts of aggression are only hypotheticals.

General Kevin P. Chilton, head of the US Strategic Command from 2007 to 2011, told Washington Post columnist Walter Pincus in 2010 that, “Throughout the 65-year history of nuclear weapons, no nuclear power has been conquered or even put at risk of conquest.” [28] On the other hand, countries that comply with demands to abandon their WMDs soon find themselves conquered, by countries with nuclear weapons aplenty and no intention of giving them up. Pincus used Chilton’s words to advocate a pre-emptive strike on North Korea to prevent the country from developing a large enough nuclear arsenal to make itself invulnerable to conquest. That no nuclear power has been conquered or put at risk of conquest is “a thought others in government ought to ponder as they watch Iran and North Korea seek to develop nuclear capability,” Pincus wrote. [29]

Conclusion

Nuclear arms have political utility. For countries with formidable nuclear arsenals and the means of delivering warheads, nuclear weapons can be used to extort political concessions from non-nuclear-armed states through terror and intimidation. No country exploits the political utility of nuclear weapons as vigorously as the United States does. In pursuing its foreign policy goals, Washington threatened other countries with nuclear attack on 25 separate occasions between 1970 and 2010, and 14 occasions between 1990 and 2010. On six of these occasions, the United States threatened the DPRK. [30] There have been more US threats against North Korea since. (The United States’ record of issuing threats of nuclear attack against other countries over this period is: Iraq, 7; China, 4; the USSR, 4; Libya, 2; Iran, 1; Syria, 1. Significantly, all these countries, like the DPRK, were under communist or economically nationalist governance when the threats were made.)

Nuclear weapons also have political utility for countries menaced by nuclear and other military threats. They raise the stakes for countries seeking to use their militaries for conquest, and therefore reduce the chances of military intervention. There is little doubt that the US military intervention in Iraq and NATO intervention in Libya would not have been carried out had the targets not disarmed and cleared the way for outside forces to intervene with impunity.

A North Korean nuclear arsenal does not increase the chances of war—it reduces the likelihood that the United States and its South Korean marionette will attempt to bring down the communist government in Pyongyang by force. This is to be welcomed by anyone who opposes imperialist military interventions; supports the right of a people to organize its affairs free from foreign domination; and has an interest in the survival of one of the few top-to-bottom, actually-existing, alternatives to the global capitalist system of oppression, exploitation, and foreign domination.

1. Ralph Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society, Merlin Press, 2009, p. 62.

2. “Absent from the Korea Talks: Bush’s Hard-Liner,” The New York Times, September 2, 2003.

3. Charles J. Hanley and Randy Hershaft, “U.S. often weighed N. Korea nuke option”, The Associated Press, October 11, 2010.

4. Hanley and Hershaft.

5. Hanley and Hershaft.

6. Hanley and Hershaft.

7. Hanley and Hershaft.

8. Bruce Cumings, Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History, W.W. Norton & Company, 2005. p. 488-489.

9. William E. Berry Jr., “North Korea’s nuclear program: The Clinton administration’s response,” INSS Occasional Paper 3, March 1995.

10. Bruce Cumings, “Latest North Korean provocations stem from missed US opportunities for demilitarization,” Democracy Now!, May 29, 2009.

11. Lou Dobbs Tonight, October 18, 2006.

12. Hanley and Hershaft.

13. Choe Sang-hun, “New leader in South criticizes North Korea,” The New York Times, February 13, 2013.

14. “Foreign ministry issues memorandum on N-issue,” Korean Central News Agency, April 21, 2010.

15. Korean Central News Agency, February 13, 2013.

16. U.S. News & World Report, June 26, 2008; The New York Times, July 6, 2008.

17. Neil MacFarquhar and Jane Perlez, “China looms over response to nuclear test by North Korea,” The New York Times, February 12, 2013.

18. Dianne E. Rennack, “North Korea: Economic sanctions”, Congressional Research Service, October 17, 2006.http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rl31696.pdf

19. Mark Landler, “Envoy to coordinate North Korea sanctions”, The New York Times, June 27, 2009.

20. The New York Times, September 13, 2006.

21. According to Rennack, the following US sanctions have been imposed on North Korea for reasons listed as either “communism”, “non-market economy” or “communism and market disruption”: prohibition on foreign aid; prohibition on Export-Import Bank funding; limits on the exports or goods and services; denial of favorable trade terms.

22. The Washington Post, June 24, 2005.

23. “U.S. Tells Iran, Syria, N. Korea ‘Learn from Iraq,” Reuters, April 9, 2003.

24. Ethan Bronner, “Israel sense bluffing in Iran’s threats of retaliation”, The New York Times, January 26, 2012.

25. Chosun Ilbo, February 14, 2005.

26. Mark McDonald, “North Korea suggests Libya should have kept nuclear program”, The New York Times, March 24, 2011.

A February 21, 2013 comment by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (“Nuclear test part of DPRK’s substantial countermeasures to defend its sovereignty”) noted that,

“The tragic consequences in those countries which abandoned halfway their nuclear programs, yielding to the high-handed practices and pressure of the U.S. in recent years, clearly prove that the DPRK was very far-sighted and just when it made the option. They also teach the truth that the U.S. nuclear blackmail should be countered with substantial countermeasures, not with compromise or retreat.”

An article in the February 22, 2013 issue of Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of North Korea’s ruling Workers Party (“Gone are the days of US nuclear blackmail”) observed that “Had it not been the nuclear deterrence of our own, the U.S. would have already launched a war on the peninsula as it had done in Iraq and Libya and plunged it into a sorry plight as the Balkan at the end of last century and Afghanistan early in this century.”

27. http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/AC00DD79-76D6-4FE3-91A1-6A56B03C092F/0/DefenceWhitePaper2006_Cm6994.pdf

28. Quoted in Walter Pincus, “As missions are added, Stratcom commander keeps focus on deterrence,” The Washington Post, March 30, 2010.

29. Pincus.

30. Samuel Black, “The changing political utility of nuclear weapons: Nuclear threats from 1970 to 2010,” The Stimson Center, August 2010, http://www.stimson.org/images/uploads/research-pdfs/Nuclear_Final.pdf

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Categories China, Colonialism, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Editorials, History, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Republic of Korea, Revolutionary History, Russia, Soviet Union (USSR), Syria, United Kingdom, United States History, World History
Author The Red Phoenix

Libyan Women Face Islamist Rise Since Gaddafi Fall

8 Mar

By MAGGIE MICHAEL

On her way back from her job as a lecturer at a university near Tripoli, Libyan poet Aicha Almagrabi was stopped by a group of bearded militiamen. They kicked her car, beat up her driver and threatened to do the same to her. Her offense: being alone in a car with men without a male relative as a guardian.

“You have violated the law of God,” the militiamen told her, Almagrabi said.

“I said, I teach male students, so should I bring a male guardian with me to classroom?” she told The Associated Press.

Not that the university is immune to increasingly bold conservatives’ views on the role of women. Almagrabi said one student recently told her she shouldn’t be giving lectures because a woman’s voice is “awra” — too intimate and shameful to be exposed in public.

The incident in February, which ended with the militiamen allowing Almagrabi to drive home, underlined the bitter irony for women in post-revolution Libya. Women played a major role in the 8-month civil war against dictator Moammar Gadhafi, massing for protests against his regime, selling jewelry to fund rebels, smuggling weapons across enemy lines to rebels.

But since Gadhafi’s fall more than 18 months ago, women have been rewarded by seeing their rights hemmed in and restricted.

Women fear worse may yet to come. The country is soon to begin work drafting a new constitution, which activists fear will enshrine the relegation of women to second-class status, given the influence of hard-line Islamists.

“What we aim for right now is not to lose what we had,” said Hanan al-Noussori, a lawyer in Libya’s second biggest city, Benghazi. “I don’t know which path we are heading in. But this is a matter of life or death for us.”

Women can cite any number of worrying signs.

Libya’s lawlessness is in part to blame. Islamist militiamen have grown more aggressive in unilaterally imposing their own rules on women. Militias, which were initially formed from rebel brigades that battled Gadhafi’s troops, hold sway in many cities. They operate with impunity because, with national police and the army in a shambles, the state relies on them as parallel security forces. The state funds a security body made up of militias, trying to keep them loyal, but that has only made them larger and bolder.

More generally, the deeply conservative nature of much of Libyan society is being expressed more freely, often impinging on women. Powerful clerics speak out against the mixing of the sexes and Libya’s political leaders themselves have set the tone for a more conservative stance on women.

Almagrabi says the opening salvo came right after Gadhafi’s fall in late 2011, in one of the first addresses by then-head of state Mustafa Abdul-Jalil. He declared invalid all laws not conforming to Shariah and specifically vowed to end limits on polygamy. Islamic law allows men to take up to four wives, if they are treated equally, but under Gadhafi men had to get court permission and often permission from their first wife to do so.

“I felt like we were taken like spoils of war,” Almagrabi said. “This nation rose up for the sake of the supremacy of the law and now there is a plan to push women back into their homes.”

In February, the Supreme Constitutional Court consecrated Abdul-Jalil’s announcement, formally ending any conditions on polygamy.

In 2012, at a televised ceremony celebrating the transfer of power to a newly elected parliament, Abdul-Jalil ordered a young presenter, Sarah al-Massalati, to leave the hall because she was not wearing a headscarf.

“We believe, respect and emphasize personal freedoms, but we are also a Muslim nation,” Abdul-Jalil said at the time, to cheers from the audience. “I hope everyone understands these words.”

Al-Massalati broke into tears. “I felt I was slaughtered,” she later told Libyan media.

More recently, militiamen stormed a conference on women’s rights and the constitution, held by Magdalene Ubaida and other women rights activists in Benghazi. The gunmen detained Ubaida and two of her colleagues. When they were released and heading to the airport to return to Tripoli, they were seized by more militiamen and beaten.

The incident came after one of the top security officials in Benghazi, Wanis el-Sharif, accused Ubaida of “spoling women” and criticizing Libya’s top Muslim official, the grand mufti. The 25-year-old Ubaida, a co-founder of a rights organization called My Right, has since fled to Britain, saying she fears for her life.

The mufti, Sheik Sadeq al-Gharyani, took a hardline on women in a speech he delivered a year ago to a conference titled “the role of Muslim women in reconstruction.”

“The state must put an end to the mingling of the sexes in the university, to close this door, this big door for corruption,” he said. He urged school and university directors to start separating men and women without waiting for the state to order it.

He also cited a warning by the Prophet Muhammad that women who wear revealing clothing or don’t cover their hair are “the people of hell.”

Al-Gharyani is considered by some a hero of the revolution, since early on in the uprising against Gadhafi he issued a fatwa or religious edict permitting war against his regime.

Under Gadhafi’s 42-year rule, women had a mixed bag.

Gadhafi often presented himself as a defender of women rights and at times made a point of defying strict interpretations of Shariah, since Islamists were among his main enemies.

Female lawyers say the country had one of the Arab world’s most pro-women personal status laws, covering marriage, divorce and family law. Unlike Egypt and some other Arab nations, there is no “house of obedience” law by which courts can force women who flee their husbands to return. Women have children’s custody rights after divorce.

Libyan society is generally conservative and tribal, and the majority of women wear headscarves. But at the same time, women make up a significant proportion of the work force, run their own businesses and were part of the armed forces. More women are pursuing postgraduate decrees than men.

But women lived under the same repressive regime as men under Gadhafi — and he often implicated women in regime abuses. He created a female security force of “nuns of the revolution,” members of which participated in hangings of opposition figures in public or in extractions of confessions aired on TV.

Former aides have told lurid tales of Gadhafi’s private life, reporting in books and interviews that he had young women brought forcibly to his Tripoli compound as sex slaves.

Women were prominent in the opposition to Gadhafi. For years, the mothers, sisters and wives of some 1,200 political prisoners massacred by the regime in the Abu Salim prison in 1996 held weekly protests at the security headquarters in Benghazi.

That eventually provided the spark for the revolution in February 2011. When one of the women’s lawyers was arrested, they expanded their protest. When regime forces cracked down on them, the entire eastern half of Libya quickly rose up in revolt.

Since Gadhafi’s fall, women’s rights activists have seen at least one reassuring point. In the first free parliament elections last July, a liberal-leaning coalition came out the victors. The Muslim Brotherhood finished second while a party founded by a prominent jihadi-turned-politician got no seats. Women won 33 of parliament’s 200 seats.

Now comes the drafting of the constitution. Rights activists worry that few if any women will be in the 60-member drafting assembly, which will be chosen either by national elections or by parliament.

There is also a consensus among all political parties, liberal and Islamist that the charter will enshrine Shariah as the main source of legislation and forbid any laws contradicting it. The last constitution Libya had — a 1951 charter that Gadhafi annulled — made no mention of Shariah.

Salwa Bugaighis, a rights lawyer, said debate over a Shariah clause is out of the question. “Shariah is a big taboo in Libya.”

But she places her hopes on getting other articles into the document explicitly guaranteeing women’s rights.

“We are fearful. We are worried and we are watching,” she said.

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Categories Colonialism, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Libya, Reactionary Watch, Women's Rights
Author The Red Phoenix

‘New race for colonies begins in Africa’

23 Feb

Earlier this week, France sent its special forces to Cameroon in search of seven French tourists who were kidnapped in the north of the country on Tuesday. Paris accused the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram of being behind the abduction. On Thursday, the kidnapped tourists were reportedly found alive in an abandoned house in Nigeria.

France – whose presence in Africa used to be rather strong – still has several military bases and hundreds of troops on the continent. In the past several years, Paris’ has intensified its activity in former colonies.

First, there was its mission in the Ivory Coast. And in January this year, France launched a military operation in Mali to help the local government fight Islamist rebels. Finally, this week its troops entered northern Cameroon.

RT asked Ken Stone from Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War if French involvement in West Africa has become a trend.

Ken Stone: Yes, I’m afraid so. And the trend is called ‘neo-colonialism.’ It’s a part of the old colonial powers reaching back to Africa for its resources where they used to operate a century ago.

France was the colonial power in West Africa and during its many decades there it literally enslaved the people of West Africa to work in their mines, in their factories and on their plantations. In fact, slavery wasn’t even abolished in Mali until 1905.

After WWII, the colonial powers of Africa were kicked out by national liberation movements which were somehow supported by the former Soviet Union.

However, after the Soviet Union collapsed and the US war on terror began, the former neo-colonial powers were once again flexing their muscles. And they were starting to reach back to Yugoslavia, and to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now into West Africa.

If the main product of Mali, for example, were mushrooms, there would be no French troops there or in Niger. But the main export is uranium. And that’s very important to the French. And that’s why the French are there, that’s why NATO is there, that’s why – unfortunately – Canada is there as well.

I think the main point is this is unfortunately a trend. Like the 19th century race for colonies, we have we have the 21st century race for colonies beginning. That’s a tragic fact.

RT: With militants being active in Algeria, Mali, Nigeria, and Cameroon – what is really happening in West Africa?

KS: It’s a complicated situation. Many of the national boundaries that were drawn by the colonial powers have no parrying at all on the location of the indigenous nations of Africa. So, people are divided on different sides of boundaries. Most people don’t even recognize many of the boundaries in the Saharan region and the sub-Saharan region.

There’s a further problem. The West has introduced Al-Qaeda-type terrorists into Africa where they want them, where they didn’t exist in any significance before. So that has created a can of worms.

The main point though is that the Western powers – the European neo-colonial powers, the US and NATO – have no right to act as the police of the world.

In the 19th century race for colonies, they said that they had the white man’s burden to carry on their shoulders to civilize the people of Africa. In the 21st century they call it the “humanitarian intervention to protect the human’s rights.” Those are both frauds and the Western countries really have absolutely no say in what goes on in West Africa. They should have no say.

RT: What are the chances the special-forces deployment in Cameroon could escalate into a full-scale operation, like in Mali?

KS: It could. But it’s not likely. Ever since their colonial rule ended, the French’s had a policy of ‘force de frappe’ – which is striking force, an expeditionary force, a special force – where they go in and they deal with a certain immediate problem and they leave. They do not have the stomach to maintain an occupation for a long period of time.

The problem for neo-colonial powers like France is that the so-called ‘rebels’ or Jihadists or whoever it may be, merely have to melt into the bush wait and out the expeditionary force. And when the expeditionary force leaves they come right back in. And the problem is that there is no permanent fix to this.

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Categories Afghanistan, Algeria, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Colonialism, France, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Libya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Soviet Union (USSR), Statements
Author The Red Phoenix

Former Drone Operator turned Whistleblower: “I saw men, women and children die”

3 Feb

FE_DA_121712_drone425x283

by Ezra Van Auken

American drones have been a problem around the world since their inception in the early 2000s; in the past year or so, the advocacy against drones has increased immensely. This could be partly due to the acceleration of drone strikes that have occurred in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya – along with Afghanistan. Within the drone world has come about a whistleblower to the operations.

Former United States drone operator, 27-year-old Brandon Bryant from Montana worked for nearly a decade flying predator drones. A turn for the worst made Bryant decide that the predator drone job wasn’t the best job for him after conducting and witnessing the killing of a child in Afghanistan. “I saw men, women and children die during that time,” Bryant explained to Spiegel Online. The former drone pilot went on to say, “I never thought I would kill that many people. In fact, I thought I couldn’t kill anyone at all.”

Replaying his experience, Bryant noted that after killing his first two men by drone strike, he then “cried on his way home” from work. The 27-year-old commented about how he felt lost from sanity, “I felt disconnected from humanity for almost a week.” Shockingly, Bryant detailed the accounts of a time he mistakenly, but by orders, killed a young boy in Afghanistan.

Before the hellfire missile hit the target and the mud-roofed house was destroyed, a boy walked around the corner. Bryant recalled asking, “Did we just kill a kid?” In response, his operational partner said, “Yeah, I guess that was a kid.” As the Guardian reported, “One day he collapsed at work, doubling over and spitting blood. The doctor ordered him to stay home, and not to return to work until he could sleep more than four hours a night for two weeks in a row.”

If more honorable and moral individuals who have been in the drone business were to come out about what is going on, I’m positive we would hear more of the same stories.

Without much transparency from the Obama administration regarding drones, it is likely that these practices will not change anytime soon. For instance, Obama’s counterterrorism advisor, John Brennan is looking forward to an expansion of overseas drone use. Brennan explained earlier this year, “There are aspects of the Yemen program that I think are a true model of what I think the U.S. counterterrorism community should be doing.”

Members in Washington including Rep. from Texas, Ron Paul and Rep. Dennis Kucinich have been heavy advocates for reforming the drone programs and learning more about what the drones are doing overseas.

Image Reference

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/12/17/report-regulatory-mess-may-hold-up-domestic-drone-revolution

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Categories Afghanistan, Anti-War, Government, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Libya, Pakistan, Reactionary Watch, Somalia, Statements, U.S. Military, U.S. News, Yemen
Author The Red Phoenix

Mali forces accused of myriad abuses in Western-backed fight

30 Jan

Malian soldiers patrol in a street of Diabaly on January 23, 2013 (AFP Photo / Eric Feferberg)

Mali’s army has been carrying out summary executions in its war with Islamist rebels, an international human rights group claims. Meanwhile Russia’s FM says Mali’s insurgency is made up of groups that got NATO backing in its 2011 Libyan excursion.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) says Mali’s army has been killing people it accuses of being “infiltrators” or rebel “accomplices” – but also those who are seen carrying weapons, or who are simply unable to produce identification.

Summary executions have been documented in at least three towns, while ethnic Tuaregs in the capital Bamako have had their houses raided by Malian troops, the group says.

“In Sévaré, at least 11 individuals were executed in the military camp, near the bus station and near the hospital. Reliable information report close to 20 other executions in the same area where bodies are said to have been buried very hastily, in particular in the wells,” the FIDH said in a statement.

“Other allegations of summary executions continue to come from all areas of the west and center of the country,” it continued.

Malian Army Captain Modibo Traore called the allegations “completely false,” as quoted by AP.

The Malian and French forces are fighting the same rebels Western powers armed in the Libyan uprising that ended in the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press conference Wednesday.

“Those whom the French and Africans are fighting now in Mali are the people … our Western partners armed so that they would overthrow the Gaddafi regime,” he said.

“Terrorist acts have become almost daily in the region, arms are spreading in uncontrollably, infiltration by militants is taking place,” Lavrov continued.

He denied claims that Russia had offered France help in transporting its forces to Mali earlier in the month.

The Kremlin notes the aftermath of the Libyan revolution, which saw arms delivered by Western powers funneled to foreign extremists – a charge confirmed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her testimony to the Congress Wednesday – as an example of what may follow the conflict in Mali.

“The situation in Mali feels the consequence of events in Libya. The seizure of hostages in Algeria was a wake-up call.”

“This will be a time bomb for decades ahead,” he said.

Ready for talks?

Mali’s Ansar Dine rebel organization has fragmented and formed a new movement, claiming it wants to reach a solution to the crisis through diplomacy.

Former Ansar Dine head Alghabass Ag Intalla told Malian radio RFI that the breakaway organization was looking for a“negotiated solution” to the conflict. He said the offshoot group would be called the Islamic Movement.

Additionally, the group has stated that it “rejected all forms of extremism and terrorism.”

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Categories Colonialism, France, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Libya, Mali, Reactionary Watch, Russia, Statements
Author The Red Phoenix

Al Qaeda’s enemy in Mali, friend in Syria, and air force in Libya

18 Jan

By Stephen Gowans

New York Times reporters Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt, writing on January 16 about the “hazy threat from Mali militants,” note that, “The group most worrisome to American officials is Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which emerged out of Algeria’s civil war in the 1990s and originally was strictly focused on overthrowing Algeria’s government.”

US officials didn’t find AQIM so worrisome when the Islamist group was focused on overthrowing Libya’s government. At the time, Washington was happy to allow Islamist militants to destabilize a government that wasn’t wholly congenial to US business interests.

As the Ottawa Citizen’s David Pugliese reported last year, Libyan leader Muamar Gaddafi had “said the rebellion had been organized by AQIM and his old enemies the (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group), who had vowed to overthrow the colonel and return the country to traditional Muslim values, including Sharia law.”

AQIM’s goals for Libya raised no alarm in Washington, but according to Mazzetti and Schmitt, the organization’s vow to convert Mali to Sharia law is setting off alarm bells in Washington.

To assist AQIM and other Islamist rebels in Libya, the United States led NATO into an air war against the Gaddafi government. Acknowledging AQIM’s role in the Libyan rebellion, some of the Canadian pilots who participated in the NATO air campaign jokingly referred to themselves as part of “Al-Qaeda’s air force.”

Washington’s use of jihadists to topple leftist and nationalist governments stretches back to its 1980s alliance with Islamist rebels, including Osama bin Laden, in Afghanistan. Today, al Qaeda-linked militants play an important part in the US-backed effort to overthrow the Syrian government.

To mobilize public support for jihadist rebellions, US officials and news media sanitize Islamist militants as “freedom fighters” or part of a “popular movement for democracy.” Few people anymore believe that the Islamists seeking to overthrow the Syrian government represent a popular movement for democracy. They are, instead, a movement for Sunni religious domination.

After the AQIM triumph in Libya, the organization turned to attacking the US consular building in Benghazi. With its transition from US cat’s paw to US enemy, Washington changed its naming protocol. Now AQIM would go by the moniker Gaddafi favored–terrorists. Which is also how Western officials and news media prefer to describe the organization today, now that AQIM’s goals in Mali collide with the West’s goal of maintaining a puppet regime in the country.

Were the AQIM working in Mali to topple a leftist or economically nationalist government, Washington and Western news media would be hailing the jihadists as a force for democracy.

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Categories Afghanistan, Colonialism, Government, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Libya, Mali, Syria, U.S. Military, U.S. News
Author The Red Phoenix

Time to Invade, the U.S. Military Seeking Deployment in as many as 35 African Countries in 2013

31 Dec

by Ezra Van Auken

With United States officials itching to occupy another region of the world, they’ve set their sights on Africa. Since the installment of AFRICOM or the United States African Command in 2007 there has been an increased military presence in areas of Africa. Some of the nations include Uganda, Libya and as U.S. officials announced less than a month ago, Mali by next year.

As AntiWar.com reports, “But what they don’t have compared to, say, CENTCOM, is an established collection of nations with US troops stations waiting for wars to break out.” However, the thought of numerous nations being occupied in Africa is about to transform. The AssociatedPress has detailed a plan by the Army to start deploying small units into “as many as 35 African nations”, which is being justified as a part of training against extremists.

The AP noted, “The sharper focus on Africa by the U.S. comes against a backdrop of widespread insurgent violence across North Africa, and as the African Union and other nations discuss military intervention in northern Mali.” Gen. David Rodriguez, head of the U.S. Army Forces Command told the AP, “If they want them for (military) operations, the brigade is our first sourcing solution because they’re prepared”.

While the mainstream media remains empty-gutted about the upcoming “fiscal cliff”, it seems the military, U.S. officials and defense contractors are rather lax about the thought of an economic collapse; even though these operations will probably cost the American public tens of millions, it’s a risk worth taking when a profit is being received on the other end.

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Categories Colonialism, Economic Exploitation, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Libya, Mali, U.S. Military, Uganda
Author The Red Phoenix

International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations: Resolution on the Situation in Syria

18 Dec

The plenary of the ICMLPO, held for the first time in Africa, reaffirms its support for the right of the Syrian people to live under a democratic regime: a regime that guarantees freedom, equality, social justice and dignity, as well as assures the unity and total independence of the country, including the recovery of the Golan Heights occupied by Zionism since 1967.

The ICMLPO:

1. Denounces the dangerous development of events in Syria. The popular movement of protest has been transformed into a destructive civil war. The bloodthirsty repression is striking the people, and since the beginning, the Assad regime has rejected any democratic reform that would satisfy the aspirations of the Syrian people. This situation is the consequence of the foreign reactionary, imperialist and Zionist intervention, through Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which masked by the so-called “Free Syrian Army” and under the pretext of “saving the Syria people”

2. We reaffirm that this war has nothing to do with the interests of the Syrian people and their aspirations. On the contrary, it serves the reactionary forces of the country, the region and internationally. Syria is at the moment the place of confrontation between, on the one side the U.S., France and Israel and Arab and Turkish reaction that are trying to subject Syria to Western rule and make it break its ties with Iran and Hezbollah. On the other side, Russia and China are supporting the regime to preserve their strategic interests in Syria and the region, after having lost their influence in Libya.

3. We reject all intervention by NATO in Syria under any pretext, given the dangers that this represents for the Syrian people, the peoples of the region and world peace in general. The Conference calls on the Turkish people to oppose Turkey’s intervention in Syria. It sends a call to the workers and peoples of the Western countries, in the first place of the United States, Great Britain and France, whose leaders are threatening military intervention in Syria, to pressure their governments to stop them from carrying out their criminal strategy that caused disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, etc. in the past

4. It is up to the Syrian people, in all cases, to determine their own future. The ICMLPO calls on the Syrian patriotic and democratic forces to unite to save their country from the claws of the Assad regime and the armed gangs and to prevent the foreign powers from mortgaging their future and making use of a part of their minorities to undermine their unity. The ICMLPO calls on those forces to strive to build a new, democratic, secular, independent and united Syria in which the different religions and nationalities live together in freedom and equality.

5. Calls on the patriotic, democratic and progressive forces of the region to urgently mobilize and to undertake the necessary measures of solidarity to support the patriotic and democratic forces of Syria, forces that must act to end the slaughters perpetrated against the Syrian people, to stop the destruction of the country and prevent the foreign intervention, to facilitate dialogue among its inhabitants to achieve their aspirations and break with the tyranny and foreign domination.

Organisation pour la construction d’un parti communiste ouvrier d’Allemagne

Parti Communiste des Ouvriers du Danemark – APK

Parti Communiste d’Espagne (marxiste – léniniste) – PCE(ml)

Plateforme Communiste d’Italie

Parti Communiste des Ouvriers de France – PCOF

Organisation Marxiste Léniniste Révolution de Norvège – Revolusjon !

Parti Communiste Révolutionnaire de Turquie – TDKP

Parti des Travailleurs de Tunisie – PT

Parti Communiste Révolutionnaire de Côte d’Ivoire – PCRCI

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Categories Afghanistan, China, Colonialism, France, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Reactionary Watch, Russia, Somalia, Statements, Syria, Theory, Turkey, United Kingdom, Workers Struggle, Zionism
Author The Red Phoenix

Secretary Clinton won’t testify before Senate on Benghazi attack

16 Dec

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.(AFP Photo / Kevin Lamarque)

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will not have to testify before a Senate hearing concerning the deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi after she fainted and sustained a concussion last week.

Clinton, 65, is currently recovering at home following last week’s incident, when extreme dehydration caused by a stomach virus resulted in her losing consciousness on Thursday. The concussion that she sustained while falling further aggravated her condition, which required regular medical attention.

Clinton had to cancel a number of trips last week, as well as visits to North Africa and several Gulf countries scheduled to start on Monday because of her health. She promised to return to work soon, but has thus far carried out her duties from home.

The fainting incident occurred a week before Clinton was scheduled to testify in House and Senate hearings on the results of the investigation into the September 11 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi.

Clinton was expected to be grilled in the Senate hearing on Thursday by her Republican rivals over foreign security issues and US intelligence concerning the attack which killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

Republicans have repeatedly attacked the Obama Administration for its handling of the investigation into the Benghazi incident, arguing that the incident could have been prevented.

The Obama Administration insisted that Islamic extremists hijacked a spontaneous protest against the US-made anti-Islam video ‘The Innocence of the Muslims.’

Republicans criticized the White House’s version of events, naming an inadequate reaction by the State Department to security threats to US diplomats in Libya as among the reasons the tragedy unfolded in the manner it did.

Now it has become clear that neither the Senate Foreign Relations Committee nor the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hear Hillary Clinton’s scheduled testimony on Libya next Thursday.

Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations and the man most likely to succeed Clinton as Secretary of State, has announced through his communications director Jodi Seth that given Clinton’s condition, she “could not and should not appear” for the hearings.

Earlier, it was the Republican chairman who insisted that Clinton “has committed to testify before the committee before the end of the session [of Congress].”

It is expected that at both hearings, Clinton will be replaced with senior State Department officials William Burns and Thomas Nides.

The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced earlier she would step down from the Obama administration early next year. America’s top diplomat has also denied rumors of a presidential bid for the 2016 elections.

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Categories Government, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Libya, Reactionary Watch, Statements, U.S. News
Author The Red Phoenix

Tunisia’s ‘unfinished revolution’ — interview with Workers’ Party militant

16 Dec

By Peter Boyle

November 16, 2012 – Green Left Weekly – Abdel Jabbar Madouri (pictured above) has been a militant in Tunisia since his early secondary school days. He was jailed three times (in 1987,1993 and 2002) because of his political activism. After every arrest, he was tortured and then sentenced to more then 12 years in jail. Madouri spent four years in hiding during the Ben Ali regime. He was also deprived of the right to work or to obtain a passport.

Madouri is also novelist and member of the League of Free Writers and some of his novels were banned by the dictatorship. Today he is member of the national committee of the Tunisian Worker’s Party and is editor of its newspaper Sawt Echaab(People’s Voice).

Green Left Weekly interviewed Madouri by internet with with the assistance of and translation from Arabic by Tunisian journalist Haithem Mahjoubi.

* * *

The sacrifice of the young Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi opened a new wave of popular revolt across the Arabic countries and beyond to Spain and eventually the whole world through the Occupy movement. But how much has been gained by the revolution in Tunisia? Is the democratic space still opening up?

We can say that this revolution has achieved certain aims such as the abolition of the ex-ruling party (though elements of it still operate freely but with little public support), freedom of expression and media and also the dissolution of the hated secret police, if only in a formal way.

The revolution also achieved for the first time a democratic election despite some failures and lack of transparency and equal opportunity in the election campaigns. The election of the constituent assembly was one of the goals that people fought to achieve, unfortunately, the Islamic Ennahdha coalition exploited the revolution win a majority in those elections.

Many of the tasks of the revolution remain unfinished because of the strength of the forces of counter revolution seeking to circumvent the revolution. Among these unfinished tasks are the enforcement of accountability; an investigation and end to corruption in government institutions; a purge state agencies, bringing those responsible to account for crimes against the people – especially putting on trial those who murdered the martyrs of the struggle – and redress for their victims.

What has been achieved by the one-year-old Constituent Assembly? And did the workers’ movement and the left have much input into its decisions?

More then a year after the election, the Constituent Assembly has still not drafted laws that reflecting the demands of the revolution. With the majority of assembly members, of representatives, Ennahdha is able to pass laws for its own benefit. This has made it clear to the people that this is no revolutionary government but a government of a new dictatorship working against the completion of the tasks of the revolution.

The people’s rejection of this government can be seen in the growing demonstrations and sit-ins in public squares and in the streets in front of government offices.

So the revolutionary process is moving slowly along with the transitional to equality.

Amnesty International says there have been some reversals of the democratisation. Protesters, activists and journalists have been attacked. What is the situation for freedom of political expression and organisation?

The Ennahda government has used the Islamic fundamentalist Salafist militias to attack independent journalists so that it dominate public media and put its loyal supporters and allies in charge of the main media institutions. It has refused to put to into practice laws guaranteeing media freedom and establishing an independent commission for information.

So, journalists are still fighting for independence and freedom.

What is the state of the trade union movement? How strong is your party in the trade union movement? Is there a problem with corruption and co-option of trade union leaders by the capitalist parties and the state?

The General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) is the biggest union in Tunisia. The UGTT has been organised since 1952 and is playing a very important role in fighting the government’s plans.

It is true that this union suffered from corruption during the Ben Ali regime, but after the revolution it has regained its integrity, energy and a leading role social and political struggles in cooperation all with other popular organisations.

The Worker’s Party is is very strong in the UGTT. The trade union movement is working with the newly formed Popular Front, which was launched in October by 12 political parties that are all active in the UGTT.

The constituent parties of the Popular Front are left-wing parties and progressive nationalists that participated in the revolution and suffered repression under former dictatorship.

The Popular Front is the now largest political force apart from the ruling Ennahda and the “Tunisia Appeal” party, which represents the remnants of the old regime.

How much danger does Tunisia face from the religious fundamentalists?

Islamic fundamentalism remains part of the political landscape of Tunisia and occasionally expresses itself through attacks on bars, artists and police. Some fundamentalists have been killed in clashes with the police.

But the popular resistance has led to the isolation and decline of the influence of the fundamentalists. The recent manifestations of Salafist violence is due to growing government complicity with these groups.

There have been some recent significant strikes in Tunisia. Can you explain what this was about?

We’ve been organising several workers’ campaigns to claim three main things. First, the passing and implementation of the laws to regulate working conditions which remain precarious for most workers. Second, wage increases to keep up with the rising cost of living and better working conditions, especially working hours and occupational safety. Third, regulation of employment and dismissal of workers in public institutions.

Can you explain the recent protests about women’s rights in Tunisia?

Since it came to power the current government has tried to circumvent the demand for women’s rights, especially in relation to polygamy, the regulation of the minimum age of marriage and gender equality in rights and duties. But its attempts have failed because of the resistance from civil society, including the women’s associations which are very strongly engaged. Still the struggle women’s rights in Tunisia remains strong challenge.

Will the elections promised for June 2013 satisfy the popular will in Tunisia? How well do you expect the left to do in this elections? What are the prospects of a new revolutionary upsurge?

The revolutionary forces are aiming to be influential in next June’s election and to use these elections as an opportunity to achieve the demands for which the people revolted.

Our most important goal is providing employment, freedom and ending our country’s dependency on the great imperialist powers.

It is certain that the left led by the Popular Front will be active and influential in this election. According the last opinion poll, the Workers Party had 6% of the vote and is in the fourth place. But it is expected that the Popular Front would get more than 15% of the vote in the coming elections.

Because of the deterioration of the living conditions of the Tunisian people and the government’s inability to deal with these situations, a second revolution in Tunisia is also expected. The Popular Front is ready for this eventuality and prepared to lead such a revolution to achieve its goals.

What is your party’s view of the developments in Libya and Syria? Are the imperialist powers beginning to successfully manipulate the “Arab Spring”?

The imperialist powers are collaboration with reactionary regimes in the Arabic region especially Qatar and Saudi Arabia and they have succeeded in thwarting revolution in Syria by converting it from a popular uprising to a devastating and dirty civil war.

In Libya, the situation looks somewhat different, especially since the Libyans began rebuilding state institutions. But the Libyan revolution needs to make a lot more struggle to achieve Libyan people’s demands.

The imperialist powers are working hard to control the situation in the countries of the so-called “Arab spring” so they are aiming to find help customers in the area especially after the coming to power of Islamist parties in Tunisia and Egypt and their collaboration with the imperialist-Zionist agenda. In the other side, there are the ongoing revolutionary processes and the parties that lead them in both these countries.

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Categories Colonialism, Editorials, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Labor, Libya, Qatar, Reactionary Watch, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Statements, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Uncategorized, Women's Rights, Workers Struggle, Zionism
Author The Red Phoenix

US-Created “Syrian Opposition” Led by Big Oil Rep

30 Nov

T6-IMGL0501

As in Libya, Syrian “opposition” is led by long-time servants of Western corporate-financiers.

November 26, 2012 (LD) - A year ago, it was reported that Libya’s new NATO-installed prime minister, Abdurrahim el-Keib, was in fact a long-time US resident, having taught at the University of Alabama and was formally employed by the Petroleum Institute, based in Abu Dhabi, UAE and sponsored by British Petroleum (BP), Shell, France’s Total, the Japan Oil Development Company, and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. El-Keib is listed as a “Professor and Chairman” in his Petroleum Institute profile which also describes extensive research conducted by him sponsored by various US government agencies and departments over the years.

His long history of serving and working in coordination with Western governments and corporations made him and his collaborators the ideal candidates to prepare Libya for its place within the Wall Street-London international order.

Now it is revealed that the US-handpicked opposition, announced in Doha, Qatar earlier this month, is led by a similarly compromised figure, Moaz al-Khatib. The corporate-financier-funded Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reported of al-Khatib that:

Moaz al-Khatib, an oil sector engineer and former imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, has garnered substantial praise since his designation, while Riad Seif and Suhair al-Atassi bring their own credibility to the coalition. They have now set up shop in Cairo and have received the full endorsement of France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council as the “sole representative” of the Syrian opposition. The European Union and the United States have endorsed the group in a more general fashion.

Even more importantly, from Syrian citizens of various affiliations with whom I have met recently, it is clear that al-Khatib and his associates seem to draw praise for their opposition to the regime—as an imam, al-Khatib refused to follow the speeches imposed by the regime and was imprisoned—their resistance, and their tolerance. These endorsements are a first achievement, but a number of steps are necessary before Moaz al-Khatib becomes the real head of the Syrian opposition and enters into a substantive relationship with EU leaders.

However, this resounding praise should be kept in the context that among the Carnegie Endowment’s sponsors are in fact many “oil sector” giants including British Petroleum (BP), Chevron, Exxon, and Shell.

VoltarieNet’s Thierry Meyssan reported in an article titled, “The many faces of Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib“ that:

Completely unknown to the international public only a week ago, Sheikh Moaz al-Khatib has been catapulted to the presidency of the Syrian National Coalition, which represents pro-Western opposition in the Damascus government. Portrayed by an intense public relations campaign as a highly moral personality with no partisan or economic attachments, he is in truth a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and an executive of the Shell oil company.

Indeed, al-Khatib had worked at the al-Furat Petroleum Company for six years, according to the BBC, which is partnered with Shell Oil. Al-Khatib is also said to have lobbied for Shell in Syria between 2003-2004, and has likewise taught classes in both Europe and the United States, this according to his biography featured on his own website.

Video: The smirking crypto-sectarian extremist, and new Western proxy of the recently re-contrived “Syrian National Council,” Moaz al-Khatib admits that he’s been promised legitimacy and weapons despite openly declaring his intention of overthrowing the secular nation-state of Syria, and installing an “Islamic state.” Qatari state propaganda walks al-Khatib through the all-too-familiar talking points repeated by the US, UK, EU, Turkey and their Persian Gulf collaborators. Qatar’s minister of state for foreign affairs sells the “legal” argument for circumventing the United Nations Security Council.

….

While the global public is repeatedly told that the violence in Syria is the result of “pro-democratic” forces fighting against the “brutal regime” of President Bashar al-Assad, it is Moaz al-Khatib himself who inexplicably states that two certified autocracies, those of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are propping him up and that it is an “Islamic state” he hopes to create upon the rubble of a destroyed Syria.

Qatari state media front, Al Jazeera, credits the Qatari minister of state for foreign affairs for the very creation of al-Khatib’s new “opposition coalition. Al-Khatib, in an Al Jazeera interview, counts the two absolute monarchies of Qatar and Saudi Arabia as his “friends,” and admits – that while he cannot say who – “friends” have promised him weapons as he embarks on the creation of this “Islamic state.” Despite his assurances that his planned “Islamic state” will exhibit tolerance, festering extremist regimes such as Libya and Egypt, created with the same Western-backed formula now at work in Syria, have already proven such assurances are merely rhetoric aimed at placating public opinion long enough for Syria’s secular institutions to be irrevocably disfigured.

Already in Syria, al-Khatib’s “freedom fighters” are exposed as, both foreign extremists – affiliates of Al Qaeda, as well as sectarian-driven Muslim Brotherhood militants that have plagued Syria’s sociopolitical landscape for decades. Clearly, al-Khatib has played a role in perpetuating this plague, clearly he plans to continue well into the foreseeable future – this time with Western, Turkish, Qatari and Saudi support.

Source

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Categories Colonialism, Government, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Libya, Qatar, Reactionary Watch, Saudi Arabia, Syria, U.S. Military, U.S. News, Uncategorized, Zionism
Author The Red Phoenix

How US Ambassador Chris Stevens May Have Been Linked To Jihadist Rebels In Syria

9 Nov

by Michael Kelley

The official position is that the US has refused to allow heavy weapons into Syria.

But there’s growing evidence that U.S. agents—particularly murdered ambassador Chris Stevens—were at least aware of heavy weapons moving from Libya to jihadist Syrian rebels.

In March 2011 Stevens became the official U.S. liaison to the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan opposition, working directly with Abdelhakim Belhadj of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group—a group that has now disbanded, with some fighters reportedly participating in the attack that took Stevens’ life.

In November 2011 The Telegraph reported that Belhadj, acting as head of the Tripoli Military Council, “met with Free Syrian Army [FSA] leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey” in an effort by the new Libyan government to provide money and weapons to the growing insurgency in Syria.

Last month The Times of London reported that a Libyan ship “carrying the largest consignment of weapons for Syria … has docked in Turkey.” The shipment reportedly weighed 400 tons and included SA-7 surface-to-air anti-craft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Those heavy weapons are most likely from Muammar Gaddafi’s stock of about 20,000 portable heat-seeking missiles—the bulk of them SA-7s—that the Libyan leader obtained from the former Eastern bloc. Reuters reports that Syrian rebels have been using those heavy weapons to shoot down Syrian helicopters and fighter jets.

The ship’s captain was ”a Libyan from Benghazi and the head of an organization called the Libyan National Council for Relief and Support,” which was presumably established by the new government.

That means that Ambassador Stevens had only one person—Belhadj—between himself and the Benghazi man who brought heavy weapons to Syria.

Furthermore, we know that jihadists are the best fighters in the Syrian opposition, but where did they come from?

Last week The Telegraph reported that a FSA commander called them “Libyans” when he explained that the FSA doesn’t “want these extremist people here.”

And if the new Libyan government was sending seasoned Islamic fighters and 400 tons of heavy weapons to Syria through a port in southern Turkey—a deal brokered by Stevens’ primary Libyan contact during the Libyan revolution—then the governments of Turkey and the U.S. surely knew about it.

Furthermore there was a CIA post in Benghazi, located 1.2 miles from the U.S. consulate, used as “a base for, among other things, collecting information on the proliferation of weaponry looted from Libyan government arsenals, including surface-to-air missiles” … and that its security features “were more advanced than those at rented villa where Stevens died.”

And we know that the CIA has been funneling weapons to the rebels in southern Turkey. The question is whether the CIA has been involved in handing out the heavy weapons from Libya.

In any case, the connection between Benghazi and the rise of jihadists in Syria is stronger than has been officially acknowledged.

Source

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Categories Colonialism, Former Eastern Bloc, Government, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Libya, Reactionary Watch, Statements, Syria, Turkey, U.S. Military, U.S. News
Author The Red Phoenix

‘War crime’: Gaddafi, his son and over 60 loyalists executed by rebel fighters – HRW

26 Oct

A National Transitional Countil (NTC) fighter pulls Libya’s former leader Muammar Gaddafi onto a miltary vehicle in Sirte in this still image taken from video shot on October 20, 2011 and released on October 22, 2011 (Reuters/Reuters TV)

Libyan rebels abused and mass murdered Colonel Gaddafi, his son Mutassim, and 66 loyalists, after their capture a year ago, Human Rights Watch says. It calls for an investigation and prosecution of those responsible for what they slam as a war crime.

The 50-page report “Death of a Dictator: Bloody Vengeance in Sirte” details the last hours of Muammar Gaddafi’s life on October 20, 2011, when he was caught trying to leave the city with his remaining supporters.

HRW admits difficulty in reconstructing the final days of Libya’s ex-leader since “he was surrounded by a small circle of trusted confidants and bodyguards, most of whom were killed in the attempted escape from Sirte,” stated the report.

The report relies heavily on interviews with Mansour Dhao, a senior security official and head of the pro-Gaddafi People’s Guard, and other surviving witnesses of the event. The interviews took place in Libya two days after Gaddafi’s death.

Bodies of apparent execution victims found at the Mahari Hotel in Sirte on October 21, 2011.(Image from HRW report)

Capture, abuse, murder

Gaddafi is said to have fled Tripoli with a handful of his trustful men in the end of August to his hometown of Sirte, where he “spent most of his time reading the Koran and praying,” Dhao told HRW.

“His communications with the world were cut off. There was no communication, no television, no news,” he added.

On October 20, Gadaffi’s son Mutassim deemed the situation unsafe and organized a 50-vehicle convoy for all to flee the city in the morning. The convoy consisted of 250 people, including civilians who supported Gaddafi.

As the cars were trying to make their getaway they were struck by a NATO air-fired missile, which exploded next to the car carrying Gaddafi. In defense, the convoy turned on to a dirt road, but was pinned down by militia fighters and then further bombed by NATO fighter jets.

After the bombings Gaddafi, accompanied by 10 other people, including his bodyguards, tried to take shelter by a drainage pipe, but was once again attacked by militia.

One of Gaddafi’s bodyguards reportedly threw three grenades at the rebels, but one of the grenades hit a cement wall and bounced back, injuring Gaddafi and leading to his capture.

“As soon as the militia fighters had custody of Gaddafi, they began abusing him. Blood was already gushing from the shrapnel wound in his head. As he was being led to the main road, a militiaman stabbed him in his anus with what appears to have been a bayonet, causing another rapidly bleeding wound,” described the report.
Video clips taken of the capture suggest that after enduring abuses Gaddafi was shot by militia fighters.

Report suggests that rebels took “bloody revenge” against Gaddafi and his loyal supporters in light of the eight-month civil war.

Muammar Gaddafi apparently just moments after his capture on the outskirts of Sirte by Misrata-based opposition fighters. (Image from HRW report)

An HRW team on the ground counted that 103 pro-Gaddafi supporters died during that escape. Half of those were killed by NATO bombings, and the other half was either killed in combat or executed.

On top of that, 140 Gaddafi loyalists were taken prisoner, but instead of being transferred to prison authorities, 66 of them were executed in a nearby hotel.
Gaddafi’s son Mutassim was also captured alive, according to YouTube videos taken by his captors. However, by the afternoon of the same day, Mutassim was dead with a large new wound in his throat, suggesting he was murdered, HRW concluded.

“The throat wound thus must have been inflicted after the videos of a captured Mutassim were recorded, strongly indicating that he was killed in the custody of his captors just hours after he was detained.”

HRW points out that “these killings apparently comprise the largest documented execution of detainees committed by anti-Gaddafi forces during the eight-month conflict in Libya. The execution of persons in custody is a war crime.”

Map detailing locations along the path of Muammar Gaddafi’s convoy’s attempted escape from Sirte.(Image from HRW report)

Libya’s powerless authority

HRW also accuses Libyan transitional government of lack of control and unity for failing to properly investigate and prosecute those responsible for the killings in Sirte, a year after the incident.

“To some extent, the failure of Libya’s authorities to investigate shows their continuing lack of control over the heavily armed militias, and the urgent need to bring Libya’s numerous militias under the full control of the new authorities.”

UN and International Criminal Court (ICC) have already been calling upon Libya to investigate Gaddafi’s death back in October 2011.

ICC had spoken out that there were strong indications Gaddafi was killed in custody, yet it left things be by letting Libya to investigate on its own.

Libya announced it had created a committee to look into circumstances of death. However, there has not been a proper update into the investigation in just under a year.

Back in January, Gaddafi’s daughter Aisha hired Nick Kaufman, an Israeli lawyer, to convince the International Criminal Court to investigate the full circumstances of her father’s death, arguing that time for a proper probe is running out.

“[The investigation] would involve forensic analysis of the crime scene, ballistic analysis of the crime scene, it would involve taking detailed statements from objective and independent witnesses,” Kaufman told RT. And with time memories deteriorate, people forget, and evidence goes missing.
Yet Aisha’s efforts failed to yield results.

When HRW contacted Libya government imploring them to take action, local authorities stated that all murders were the result of Gaddafi regime’s “dictatorship” and that rebels were defending themselves. However, they failed to account for those evident executions.

Bodies of apparent execution victims found at the Mahari Hotel in Sirte on October 21, 2011.(Image from HRW report)

Source

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Categories Anti-War, Colonialism, Government, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Libya, Media & Culture, Reactionary Watch, Statements, U.S. Military, U.S. News
Author The Red Phoenix

Libyan forces take control of Bani Walid after fighting pro-Gaddafi fighters

23 Oct

Pro-government forces fire a mortar launcher as fighting flared in Bani Walid, a former bastion of slain dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Picture: Mahmu Turkia/AFP Source: AFP

LIBYAN pro-government forces seized control of Bani Walid, one of the last bastions of Muammar Gaddafi’s ousted regime, an AFP correspondent in the town said.

Hundreds of fighters, mostly former rebels from the rival town of Misrata, converged on the centre of Bani Walid, firing in the air to celebrate and hoisting the Libyan flag on abandoned public buildings, he said.

Some of the fighters blasted the walls and windows with anti-tank rockets and Kalashnikov rifles.

Several rebel chiefs, whose fighters patrolled in vehicles mounted with heavy weapons, told AFP the town was “almost liberated,” with only a few pockets of resistance left in its southern sector.

The town itself was deserted, with residents and foreign workers having fled since Sunday.

Fierce clashes in Bani Walid, which was accused of harbouring die-hard Gaddafi loyalists, cast a pall over celebrations for the first anniversary this week of the overthrow of his regime in a bloody conflict.

The fighting fanned old tribal feuds and underscored the difficulties of achieving national reconciliation.

A scaled-up offensive against Bani Walid since last week came in response to the death of Omran Shaaban, 22, a former rebel from the city of Misrata who was credited with capturing Gaddafi.

Shaaban spent weeks held hostage in Bani Walid, where he was shot and allegedly tortured, before the authorities managed to broker his release.

He later died of injuries sustained during the ordeal, stoking tensions between his hometown Misrata and Bani Walid, long-time rivals which fought on opposite sides of the 2011 conflict, and galvanising the authorities to act.

Pro-government fighters gather near the northern entrance to the town of Bani Walid. They have reportedly taken control of the town. Picture: Mahmud Turkia/AFP

The victorious fighters on Wednesday carried a massive portrait of Shaaban.

Clashes between pro-government forces and Bani Walid fighters over the past week killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds, in scenes evocative of the civil war that led to Gaddafi’s overthrow and death.

Tribal leaders and commanders in Bani Walid, 185 kilometres southeast of Tripoli, had accused “lawless Misrata militias” of seeking to annihilate their historic rival.

Source

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Categories Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Libya, Reactionary Watch
Author The Red Phoenix

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‘War crime’: Gaddafi, his son and over 60 loyalists executed by rebel fighters – HRW

Libyan forces take control of Bani Walid after fighting pro-Gaddafi fighters

LIBYAN pro-government forces seized control of Bani Walid, one of the last bastions of Muammar Gaddafi’s ousted regime, an AFP correspondent in the town said.

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As in Libya, Syrian “opposition” is led by long-time servants of Western corporate-financiers.

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LIBYAN pro-government forces seized control of Bani Walid, one of the last bastions of Muammar Gaddafi’s ousted regime, an AFP correspondent in the town said.

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