IT IS now obvious that the NATO-inspired and organised ‘revolution’ to overthrow the Gadaffi regime in Libya has resulted in a complete catastrophe for the Libyan people. Their country is now split up and divided, with gangs of criminals selling off its oil wealth, and with murderous gangs controlling the streets of the different Libyan entities around the cities of Tripoli, Benghazi and the south of the country.
The shock to the population has been enormous. After all, this was the country of the Great Man-Made River that irrigated the Sahara, the country with the highest living standards in Africa, with completely free health and education for all.
It was also the country that championed African unity and had a record of giving big, low interest, or no interest, loans to struggling African states who now have to go begging to the imperialists.
The country is smashed. However, the imperialist powers are quite content with their work. They are not worried about the fate of the Libyan people.
Their thoughts are solely about the country’s oil wealth. They are sure that whatever gangs of murderous bandits emerge as the government, or even if Libya disintegrates into three states based on pre-capitalist provinces, they will be able to play the leading groups off against each other and keep the oil wealth in their grip.
Already, Italy and the UK are busy training the new ‘Libyan army’, despite the fact that it will not be able to withstand the strains of the tribalism that was rejected under Gadaffi.
Not only are the imperialist powers pleased with their work in Libya, they are distraught that the much better organised Assad regime in Syria has stopped them doing the same there, despite spending billions of dollars on the project.
Currently, the Libyan ‘government’ is under attack from all sides with the quarrel between Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan and Muslim Brotherhood ministers threatening to put an end to the government, and even to put an end to Libya by splitting into at least three ungovernable regions.
Two and a half years after the overthrow of Gadaffi, security and the economy have crumbled in Libya.
Violence killed thousands last year, amid a sharp rise in crime, according to a parliamentary report that laments a lack of policing.
There are almost daily reports of violence across large swathes of the country where ex-rebels rule, including Al-Qaeda-inspired groups which have taken advantage of the situation created by NATO.
The eastern city of Benghazi, cradle of NATO’s 2011 uprising, sees daily assassinations of security personnel and judges, and was the scene of a jihadist attack in 2012 against the US consulate that killed ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
The Americans took this murder in their stride. There have not been dozens of drones flying over Libya exacting vengeance. They see no need, since the chaos and disintegration suits their purpose.
Since last July, security guards at key oil export terminals in the east – many of them former rebel fighters – have blockaded exports, or sold the country’s oil for their own profit, delivering a devastating blow to hard currency receipts and government revenues.
This practice reached the point where the Prime Minister had to threaten to sink any oil tanker that approached one of the terminals that had been put under private ownership.
Last Saturday, the government declared a state of emergency in the mostly desert south, and made a call to arms in response to the open emergence of armed groups favouring the restoration of the Gadaffi state.
It is obvious that the majority of Libyans look upon the period of Gadaffi’s rule as some golden age and that they will flock to the Green Banner to bring it back.
It is only this ‘danger’ that could see the return of NATO forces to Libya, to secure their oil and support their counter-revolutionary gangsters.
UK workers must give their complete support to every effort of the Libyan people to overthrow the gangs that were imposed over them by NATO, and to bring about a workers’ and small farmers’ state that will take back the national wealth and use it for the benefit of the Libyan people, and the people of Africa.
