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Vol. 75/No. 12      March 28, 2011

 
Libya: Imperialists divide
on military action
 
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS  
With the Moammar Gadhafi regime digging in to hold onto power in Libya, the U.S. ruling class remains divided over whether to intervene militarily in the civil war there. Differences among the imperialist powers of Europe also continue to surface over how to reestablish stable political rule, as each seeks to position itself to continue profiting from the exploitation of this oil-rich but impoverished nation.

Meanwhile, the more than 1 million immigrants, most from sub-Saharan Africa, are among the millions of working people bearing the brunt of the Gadhafi regime’s violent repression.

We’re “slowly tightening the noose” against Gadhafi, President Barack Obama said, but “when it comes to U.S. military actions, whether it’s a no-fly zone or other options, you’ve got to balance costs versus benefits.”

In a public rebuke to the Obama administration’s stance, U.S. director of national intelligence James Clapper told Congress March 10 that Gadhafi’s superior military forces meant his “regime will prevail.” These comments, noted the Financial Times, “undermined a robust defence by Washington of its Libyan policy.”

Obama administration officials promptly rejected Clapper’s assessment. Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the Armed Services Committee, called for Clapper’s resignation.

Meeting in Brussels March 10-11 NATO defense ministers failed to reach agreement on establishing a no-fly zone over Libya. Planning will continue, “but that’s the extent of it,” said U.S. defense secretary Robert Gates, who has been outspoken against such action.

The government of France announced March 10 it was recognizing the opposition National Transitional Council based in Benghazi as the official Libyan government and has called for air strikes against Gadhafi forces.

An emergency European Union (EU) summit March 11 agreed to no longer recognize the Gadhafi government. At the same time, the meeting decided to consider the opposition as an “interlocutor,” not as representing the Libyan government, and did not back Paris’s proposal for military strikes.

Similarly, the White House has withdrawn recognition of the Libyan embassy in Washington, but has not said whether it intends to recognize the Libyan opposition.

U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton is meeting this week with representatives of the transition council. “We are attempting … to figure out who are the people that are now claiming to be the opposition,” she said, “because we know that there are some with whom we want to be allied and others with whom we would not.”

Among those leading the National Transitional Council are key figures from Gadhafi’s government who resigned when the civil war began in mid-February. They include former justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil, who heads the council, and former interior minister Gen. Abdel Fattah Younes.
 
Appeals to imperialist governments
Council leaders are appealing to imperialist governments to use air power to establish a no-fly zone in Libya. The Arab League recently made the same request to the UN Security Council.

More than 250,000 immigrant workers have fled Libya since the civil war began. Most have crossed into Egypt and Tunisia, with many stuck in refugee camps, facing food shortages and abysmal living conditions. Some 20,000 are stranded at the border crossing into Tunisia, reported Associated Press.

Among those facing the greatest difficulties leaving Libya are workers from sub-Saharan Africa, who comprise the majority of the 1.5 million undocumented workers in the country.

Over the past decade capitalist rulers in Italy and Spain have sought to block sub-Saharan workers from entering their countries through deals signed with dictatorial rulers in North Africa.

In 2004 Gadhafi signed an agreement with the Italian government agreeing to prevent sub-Saharan Africans from using Libya as a country of transit. In return, the EU lifted its nearly 20-year-old economic sanctions and arms embargo on Libya.

A follow-up “Treaty of Friendship” was agreed to by the Libyan dictator and Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in 2008. Under the pact Italy would invest $5 billion in Libya. In return, Italy’s coast guard could intercept and immediately deport boatloads of immigrants back to Libyan shores, denying them the right to file asylum applications.

These agreements led to a sharp drop in immigrants reaching Italy’s shores from Libya. According to Human Rights Watch, returned migrants faced torture, incarceration, and ransom demands from smugglers.

With the onset of the civil war the Italian government suspended the “friendship” pact. It’s now calling for militarizing the Mediterranean Sea with a flotilla of warships from NATO and the EU that will not only enforce an arms embargo against the Gadhafi regime but attempt to halt migration from North Africa to Europe.
 
 
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Saudi troops come to aid of monarchy in Bahrain  
 
 
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