YESTERDAY, David Cameron formally announced that the Tory government would be sending a Royal Navy warship to the coast of Libya as part of the escalating military intervention by the EU and US imperialism into a country already smashed up by previous ‘interventions’.
Speaking at the G7 summit in Japan, Cameron boasted that the UK was ready to take an ‘active role’ in dealing with the crisis of refugees fleeing the war-torn country by making the highly dangerous sea crossing from North Africa to Italy.
The warship, as part of the EU force already operating in international waters off the coast of Libya, will be tasked with turning back boats containing refugees and destroying these boats when they reached port.
According to a government spokesman, the warship will be used to ‘intercept boats off the coast, both those carrying migrants and those carrying arms’ destined for IS forces operating in Libya.
This would require the agreement of the puppet Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA) for these ships to enter territorial waters. The GNA, which exists solely by virtue of being recognised by the imperialist powers and whose authority does not extend beyond the capital Tripoli, has so far resisted calls to OK the EU flotilla entering its waters, fearful of being labelled as nothing more than ‘puppets of the West’ by the Libyan people.
They are now been whipped into line, as Britain, the EU and US prepare for open military involvement. With the Turkey/EU deal to deport any refugees making it to Europe from Turkey, Libya is becoming a focal point for the hundreds of thousands risking their lives in pursuit of sanctuary in Europe from the carnage wrought by imperialism throughout the region.
Already this week, nearly 200 have drowned in shipwrecks off the Libyan coast with hundreds more having to be rescued from sinking boats adding to the thousands killed over the past few years attempting the crossing to Italy. There is nothing humanitarian about the use of warships – the intention is to blockade Libya and ensure that any escape route from war is sealed off by force.
It is another step in the increasing move for direct military involvement in Libya, the extent of which was partially revealed this week with reports that British troops were already operating in Libya despite denials by government ministers of ‘boots on the ground’.
The Times newspaper revealed that UK troops operating clandestinely in Libya had fired a missile at a truck allegedly carrying IS explosives. It will not be long before the Royal Navy is firing on refugee boats on the grounds that they are also carrying IS members and arms and explosives.
According to the BBC, British ‘special forces’ have been operating in Libya for more than a year and the Tories are preparing to send 1,000 military personnel into Libya. All this military intervention and build-up of forces mean that Britain is once again preparing to go to war in Libya – once the most advanced and modern state in North Africa before it was reduced to rubble and destroyed by NATO bombs in 2011.
Five years later, these same imperialist powers are preparing to invade in a desperate attempt to impose their own order on the chaos they themselves created, and seize physical control of the highly prized Libyan oil reserves from IS and the other former Islamist ‘rebels’ they bombed into power, and who control key parts of the country.
Cameron is forced to carry out his war preparations under the cloak of denials because yet another murderous imperialist adventure is opposed by the vast majority of the people. The Tories are determined that there will be no prior vote, instead relying on dragging the country into a new war by stealth and banking on the support of the Labour right-wing who will unquestionably rally to the recent call by Tony Blair for ‘boots on the ground’ in Syria and throughout the region.
The plans by the Tories and the other imperialist powers for an all-out war in Libya can only be stopped by the working class taking action to make the TUC call a general strike to kick out the Tories and advance to a workers government and socialism. This is the only way to end imperialist war.
