(NEWZIMBABWE) Gaddafism: An African hero’s legacy lives on
20/10/2013 00:00:00
by Garikai Chengu
THIS week marks the two-year anniversary of the Western-backed assassination of one of Africa’s greatest leaders: Libya’s former president, Muammar Gaddafi.
His crime was Gaddafism: an ideology advocating for a strong, united Africa, which prioritized the interests of the indigenous masses over those of the foreign corporate bourgeoisie.
Gaddafi inherited one of the poorest nations in Africa; however, by the time he was assassinated, Gaddafism had turned Libya into Africa's most prosperous nation. Libya had the highest GDP per capita and highest life expectancy in Africa. Less people lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands.
After NATO’s intervention in 2011, Libya’s economy is now in shambles. As the government’s control slips through their fingers and into to the militia fighters’ hands, oil production has all but stopped.
The fall of Gaddafi’s administration has precipitated all of the country’s worst-case scenarios: the rise of Islamists’ to power, tribal massacres, genocide of black Libyans, an economy on the verge of collapse, and the concentration of oil profits in the hands of corrupt, well-connected elites.
A central pillar of Gaddafism was the equal distribution of wealth and oil profits. Prior to the colonel, King Idris let Standard Oil essentially write Libya's petroleum laws. Gaddafi silenced these corrupt, foreign voices. The redistribution of oil money meant that these profits were deposited directly into every Libyan citizen's bank account.
Standard Oil was the monopoly created by John D. Rockefeller sr., and today does business as ExxonMobil (Standard Oil of New Jersey and Standard Oil of New York), and Chevron (Standard Oil of California). - MrK
Nowadays, the new NATO backed regime in Libya has granted Exxon Mobil and British Petroleum hefty oil concessions. Unsurprisingly, neither company appears inclined to continue dishing out money to every Libyan. History, once again, circles back around to favour foreign corporations over citizens.
Libya’s oil output has plummeted from 1.4 million barrels per day, a matter of months ago, to only 160,000 barrels per day.
As the new government continues to lose control of large parts of the country, black market oil sales are skyrocketing. Libya’s Prime Minister has even threatened to “bomb from the air and the sea” any oil tanker trying to pick up black market oil.
For over 40 years, Gaddafism promoted economic democracy and used the nationalized oil wealth to sustain progressive social welfare programs for all Libyans. Under Gaddafi’s rule, Libyans enjoyed not only free health-care and free education, but also free electricity and interest-free loans.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is currently shredding Gaddafi’s progressive social safety nets. The IMF team, which helped the Libyan Finance Ministry craft its annual budget, has raised a “red flag” surrounding these programs. The IMF called these programs “unsustainable pervasive discretionary subsidies”. Again, we see history circling around to secure Western power, while weakening the local populace.
Another pillar of Gaddafism was the championing of women’s rights. Unlike many other Arab nations, women in Libya had the right to education, hold jobs, divorce, hold property and have an income. The United Nations Human Rights Council praised Gaddafi for his promotion of women’s rights.
When the colonel seized power in 1969, few women went to university. Today, more than half of Libya’s university students are women. One of the first laws Gaddafi passed in 1970 was an equal pay for equal work law.
Nowadays, the new ‘democratic’ Libyan regime is clamping down on women’s rights. Immediately after Gaddafi’s fall, Libya’s new leader, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, declared invalid all laws not conforming to Shariah, and vowed to end limits on polygamy.
With Gaddafi assassinated, the strongly patriarchal, tribal warlords and their militias have largely taken his place. The central government in Libya is weak and, under the present conditions, has little chance of controlling them. Islamist militiamen have grown more aggressive in unilaterally imposing their own strict rules on women.
Just recently, a renowned Libyan poet and University lecturer, Aicha Almagrabi, was stopped and beaten by militiamen. Her offence: being alone in a car with men without a male relative as a guardian. One can only imagine what countless other women are enduring in the new “democratic” Libya.
Despite Libya being a small nation, Gaddafi paid one quarter of the African Union’s bills. Now the African Union has been reduced to begging the European Union for funds to keep the lights on. By losing Gaddafi, Africa may also have lost Libya.
Africans, who supported the intervention in Libya, now have a similar look on their faces as the Arabs who supported the intervention in Iraq.
Perhaps, Gaddafi’s greatest crime, in the eyes of NATO, was his desire for a strong and United States of Africa. In fact, in August 2011, President Obama confiscated $30 billion from Libya’s Central Bank, which Gaddafi had earmarked for the establishment of the African IMF and African Central Bank.
Over the last decade, whilst China’s investment in Africa has risen ten-fold, America has used the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) to establish 10 new military bases on the continent. While China invests in free trade, America tightens its military control. We should all agree that Africa does not need more guns and soldiers; however, the one thing America still forces upon Africa is more guns and soldiers.
Gaddafi stood as a major obstacle to Washington’s military expansion on the continent. Any African government that America offered money to host AFRICOM, Gaddafi would offer double that amount, in order to facilitate their refusal. In stark contrast, the new regime in Libya has recently expressed interest in hosting a new U.S. military base.
Of course for AFRICOM, it was a mission well accomplished. The objective was not to help the Libyan people, who had the highest standard of living in Africa, but to oust Gaddafi, install a Western-controlled central bank, and gain control of Libya’s natural resources.
Perhaps, the greatest legacy of Gaddafi’s life was the manner of his death. He did not look for a sacrificial lamb, but instead chose to be one himself. As Caesar Zvayi once remarked, “while Muammar Gaddafi may lie in an unmarked grave in the desert somewhere, he lives on in the hearts and minds of progressive Libyans and Africans”.
Garikai Chengu can be contacted at chengu@fas.harvard.edu
Labels: AFRICOM, LIBYA, MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI, NEOCOLONIALISM
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Once derided, Gaddafi’s warnings about jihadists now used to justify Mali intervention
January 20, 2013
By Stephen Gowans
In today’s New York Times, Steven Erlanger justifies the French intervention in Mali on these grounds:
• It responds to “a direct request from a legitimate government.”
• It combats “the spread of radical Islamists, some of them foreign jihadists, strongly connected to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.”
Erlanger uses the word “legitimate” to describe Mali’s government. “Democratic” carries more weight, but the description doesn’t fit. Mali is governed by a military dictatorship, a truth one suspects Erlanger would prefer not to draw attention to. Being every bit a salesman, Erlanger presses “legitimate” into use as an inferior, though still high-sounding, surrogate for “democratic”. A military operation to help a legitimate government must be legitimate, right?
Wrong. How can a French military operation in a North African country be legitimate, when not too long ago France undertook what was then called a legitimate intervention in another North African country, Libya, with the opposite aims:
• Not to support, but to topple a legitimate government;
• Not to stop the spread of radical Islam, but to help radical Islamists, some of them foreign jihadists, strongly connected to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, overthrow a legitimate government?
In other words, the Mali operation is the very antithesis of the Libyan one. Yet, according to state officials in France, the United States and Britain and their jingoist Western mass media cheerleaders, both interventions are legitimate. Where the Mali intervention protects a legitimate government, the Libyan intervention toppled one. Where the Mali operation opposes radical Islamists, the Libyan operation aided them.
It can’t possibly be true that Western governments are against radical Islamists as a matter of principle, when the principal financial and ideological backer of militant Sunni Islamism, Saudi Arabia, is a treasured ally. Nor can it be true when Western powers backed radical Islamists against:
• The leftist Afghan government in the 1980s,
• Yugoslavia’s social democracy in the 1990s,
• Gaddafi’s economic nationalism in Libya,
• Assad’s secular nationalist government in Syria.
It can’t be true that Western powers are against despots, dictators, and absolutist monarchs, when they’ve backed so many of them in the past, and continue to back them in the present, from the potentates of the Gulf Cooperation Council to the military regime in Mali.
Neither are Western powers committed to backing struggles against tyrannies as struggles against tyrannies. On countless occasions, they’ve either stood idly by as tyrannies repressed democratic rebellions, or energetically aided their autocratic allies’ efforts to crush opposition. For a recent example, we need only turn to the crackdown on the rebellion in absolutist Bahrain, assisted by the same countries which supplied arms to misnamed “democrats” in Libya and equip the Muslim Brothers and foreign jihadists in Syria. Washington has done nothing to stop the crackdown in Bahrain, let alone vigorously protested it. The British, for their part, invited the offending tyrant to the royal wedding of Kate and William.
Erlanger notes that the Mali intervention “has been popular” and that it commands the support of three quarters of the French, according to one poll. This is a nod to the prowess of Erlanger’s cohorts in the trade of shaping public opinion, and the superficial attention most people pay to foreign affairs. It’s also an attempt to prop up his argument that the intervention is legitimate. After all, a military operation supported by a solid majority can hardly be a base affair, corrupted by hypocrisy and crass commercial interests, can it? And if you should happen to be against the French helping an ally defend itself against jihadists, Erlanger’s letting you know you’re on the wrong side of public opinion.
“The French people are ready to support a military operation as long as the objectives are clear and seem legitimate,” a French analyst told the Times’ reporter. Well, no, the French people are willing to support a military operation so long as no one calls upon them to risk their lives and pay higher taxes, what “support for war” used to mean. No longer. Today, support means feeling good about France and nothing more.
The French will continue to feel good about themselves so long as there are few French fatalities in Mali and so long as the connection between covering the costs of the war and higher taxes, is obscured. Payment must be deferred, and then concealed, preferably in tax hikes on the poor and middle class to cover (wink-wink) skyrocketing social welfare expenditures.
So here we are. Gaddafi was sneered at when he said that the rebellion that erupted against him in Benghazi was the work of radical Islamists, some of them foreign jihadists, strongly connected to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. He was just as contemptuously dismissed when he warned, “if he fell, chaos and holy war would overtake North Africa.” Now that chaos and holy war threaten to overtake a Western client, Gaddafi’s words are being treated with new respect. In death, the man once ridiculed as a buffoon has become a sage.
Labels: AL-QAEDA, LIBYA, MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI, NEOCOLONIALISM, STEPHEN GOWANS, TERRORISM
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Leaked UN report reveals torture, lynchings and abuse in post-Gaddafi Libya
Kim Sengupta
Kim Sengupta is Defence Correspondent at The Independent.
Solomon Hughes
Thursday 24 November 2011
Thousands of people, including women and children, are being illegally detained by rebel militias in Libya, according to a report by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Many of the prisoners are suffering torture and systematic mistreatment while being held in private jails outside the control of the country's new government.
The document, seen by The Independent, states that while political prisoners being held by the Gaddafi regime have been released, their places have been taken by up to 7,000 new “enemies of the state”, "disappeared" in a dysfunctional system, with no recourse to the law.
The report will come as uncomfortable reading for the Western governments, including Britain, which backed the campaign to oust Gaddafi. A UN resolution was secured in March in order to protect civilians from abuses by the regime, which was at the time mercilessly suppressing the uprising against the Gaddafi regime.
There was evidence, says the report by Ban Ki-moon, due to be presented to the Security Council, that both sides committed acts amounting war crimes in the bitter battle for Colonel Gaddafi's hometown, Sirte. The Secretary-General who recently visited Libya, echoes the concern expressed by many world leaders over the killing of the former dictator by rebel fighters pointing out that Gaddafi was captured alive before being put to death.
The report also stresses that it is a matter of great praise that the country has been liberated after 42 years of totalitarian rule. The victorious opposition - which formed a new interim government this week - fully intends to follow a democratic path and introduce a functioning legal system, he says. The report is due to be circulated among members of the UN Security Council, and discussed next week.
However, Ban Ki-moon also presents a grim scenario of the growing power of the armed militias that control of the streets of many towns, including those of the capital, Tripoli, and the settling of internecine feuds through gun battles resulting in deaths and injuries.
Meanwhile the lawlessness has resulted in the vast majority of the police force not being able to return to work. In the few places where they have been back on duty under experienced officers, such as Tripoli, their role has been restricted largely to directing traffic.
Libya is the only Arab uprising to have attracted direct Western military support, despite the closer links forged with the West in recent years by the Gaddafi regime. The resistance in London, Washington and elsewhere to Nato-led intervention in other Arab countries has centred largely on a lack of coherent opposition. Political backers of the air strikes in Libya had cited the National Transitional Council (NTC) as a credible alternative to the Gaddafi regime.
The scope of escalating strife, inside the country as well as the wider region, is highlighted by the caches of weapons abandoned by the regime and subsequently looted. These include shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, known as Manpads, capable of bringing down commercial airliners.
The Report of the Secretary-General on United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) states that: “Libya had accumulated the largest known stockpile of Manpads, of any non-Manpad-producing country. Although thousands were destroyed during the seven-month Nato operations, there are increasing concerns over the looting and likely proliferation of these portable defence systems, as well as munitions and mines, highlighting the potential risk to local and regional stability.”
But the continuing human rights abuses, says the Secretary-General’s report, are the most pressing concern. The report says that “while political prisoners held by the Gaddafi regime have been released, an estimated 7,000 detainees are currently held in prisons and makeshift detention centres, most of which are under the control of revolutionary brigades, with no access to due process in the absence of a functioning police and judiciary.”
Of particular worry was the fate of women being held for alleged links with the regime, often due to family connections, sometimes with their children locked up alongside them.
“There have also been reports of women held in detention in the absence of female guards and under male supervision, and of children detained alongside adults,” says the report.
A number of black Africans were lynched following the revolution following claims, often false, that they were hired guns for the Gaddafi regime. The city of Tawerga, mainly comprised of residents originally from sub-Saharan countries, was largely destroyed by rebel fighters from neighbouring Misrata. The port city had withstood a prolonged and brutal siege in the hands of the regime forces during which, it is claimed, fighters from Tawerga were particularly aggressive and brutal.
The report says that ”sub-Saharan Africans, in some cases accused or suspected of being mercenaries, constitute a large number of the detainees. Some detainees have reportedly been subjected to torture and ill treatment. Cases have been reported of individuals being targeted because of the colour of their skin.”
The document continues: “Tawergas are reported to have been targeted in revenge killings, or taken by armed men from their homes, checkpoints and hospitals, and some allegedly later abused or executed in detention. Members of the community have fled to various cities across Libya.”
The UN findings chart the vicious abuse carried out by the regime until the final days of the civil war. In a personal note in the document, Ban Ki-Moon said: “I was deeply shocked by my visit to an agricultural warehouse in the Khallital-Ferjan neighbourhood of Tripoli where elements of the Gaddafi regime had detained civilians in inhuman conditions, had subjected some to torture and had massacred as many as they could and burned their bodies.
“The international community must support the efforts to establish the fate of missing persons and to bring to justice perpetrators with the greatest responsibility for such crimes.”
Labels: LIBYA, MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI, WAR CRIMES
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Besieged Gaddafi Stronghold Bani Walid Under Attack
By Stephen Lendman
Global Research, October 20, 2012
Region: Middle East & North Africa
Washington’s war on Libya rages. Fighting didn’t stop after NATO said its seven-month 2011 “mission” ended. Ravaging a nonbelligerent country wasn’t good enough.
Occupation harshness inflicts more pain. Jamahiriya Green Resistance is strong. Its struggle continues. It won’t stop until Libya regains freedom. Loyalists want no part of NATO control, puppet leaders, imperial plundering, and ordinary Libyans used and abused.
Frequent freedom fights erupt. Tribes are involved. Local militias have their own agenda. Insurgents battle each other and Green Resistance for control. Government forces serve Washington and key NATO partners.
Since early October, Bani Walid’s been besieged. Thousands of militiamen are involved. Food, medical supplies, fuel and other essentials are in short supply. Armed men block vehicles with medical and other essential supplies from entering.
Residential neighborhoods are attacked. Nearby villages were looted and burned. Libya’s so-called General National Congress (GNC) approved the assault.
Puppet rulers want residents to hand over individuals allegedly responsible for killing Omran Shaaban. He’s an insurgent involved in Gaddafi’s capture and death.
Last fall, NATO ravaged Bani Walid. For weeks, terror bombing, indiscriminate shelling, and ground attacks left it looking like a ghost town. It was one of Libya’s last cities to fall. It’s home to over 80,000 residents.
They paid a huge price. Casualties were high. Many died or were wounded. Thousands were displaced. Hundreds were arrested and imprisoned. Their crime was wanting to live free.
Bani Walid residents again are under attack. So far they’re holding out valiantly. Last fall, NATO and insurgent forces used chemical and other illegal weapons. Reports suggest they’re used now.
Injuries are unrelated to conventional weapons. Israel does the same thing to Gazans. So do US forces in Pentagon war theaters.
Mathaba reported that hospitalized residents have severe burns, “hallucinations, muscle spasms, foaming at the mouth, coughing, eye irritations, dizziness, breathing difficulties, and loss of consciousness.”
NATO and enlisted proxy forces fight all their wars dirty. Civilians suffer most. Media scoundrels suppress what they should headline.
Mathaba quoted Dr. Taha Muhammad saying:
“(W)e started receiving patients with strange symptoms that I have not seen before. Those affected were having difficulty breathing, reported dizziness and were coughing.”
“Not everybody displayed the same symptoms, but some were also suffering from hallucinations, foaming at the mouth and loss of consciousness. We believe they had been exposed to some sort of gas.”
Available medical facilities and equipment can’t properly diagnose or treat victims. Doctors cope best they can. Patients suffer. Human rights abuses continue daily.
On October 19, Reuters headlined “Libyan army to head to Bani Walid after clashes,” saying:
Army head Yussef al-Mangoush said troops are “ready to enter Bani Walid, and we expect (it to go) peacefully. The army is going to take control of the security situation.”
Resistance fighter Col. Salem al-Wa’er said “Bani Walid has been shelled since this morning from three sides – the south, the east and southeast.”
City residents say shelling continues. Commerce is shut down. Essentials are running out. Tensions are high.
On October 18, Russia Today headlined “Eleven killed as Libyan militia shell Gaddafi stronghold,” saying:
“Libyan authorities continue to struggle against multiple militia groups in the midst of growing political disarray.”
On October 19, AFP headlined “Fighting keeps mediator out of Libya’s Bani Walid,” saying:
Pro-regime militia fighters pound the city. So far, resistance fighters kept them from entering and gaining control. GNC president Mohammed Megarief promised to come, but fighting kept him away.
Earlier he founded the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL). It’s a CIA/Saudi financed anti-Jamahiriya group. It operated from October 1981 – May 2012. It actively opposed Gaddafi.
Several times it tried to oust him by coup d’etats and failed. After his demise, it transformed itself into the National Front Party. It won three of 59 seats in the July 2012 GNC election. Mahmoud Jabril’s National Forces Alliance (NFA) got 39 seats.
On October 18, the London Guardian headlined “Confusion rife as Libyan army storms town of Bani Walid.”
So far, army units hadn’t succeeded as planned. Fierce fighting continues. “We started to enter Bani Walid. We are not far away from the center,” said army spokesman Mohammed al-Gandus. “There was a big battle between Bani Walid people and our army.”
Gaddafi supporters are “hiding” there, he added. “They are fighting very well because they know they are going to die soon.”
Reports of their demise may turn out exaggerated. Last fall, NATO said Bani Walid resistance was defeated. A year later, their struggle continues. Millions of Libyans want freedom, not repressive occupation under puppet pro-Western rule.
They haven’t quit fighting and won’t throughout the country. Bani Walid is one of many battlegrounds. Eruptions can break out anywhere anytime. They won’t stop until freedom is won.
At the same time, daily violence causes so much harm to so many. So-called NATO liberation delivers living hell. Mass killing, destruction, and human misery accompany every NATO campaign and remain when they end.
Bani Walid lies 180 km southwest of Tripoli. It’s home base for Libya’s largest Warfalla tribe. It remained loyal to Gaddafi during fighting last year.
Bani Walid fighters are resisting best they can. At least 10 deaths are confirmed and dozens of injuries. The Al-Mardoum valley is most affected. It’s being defended valiantly.
Two earlier attempts this year to take over the city failed. For months it was independent and militia free. Residents assumed responsibility for local security. They’re battling to keep what militias and GNC officials want to destroy.
On October 19, Mathaba headlined “Full Assault on Bani Walid Underway,” saying:
GNC Resolution No. 7 enacted on September 27 calls for army units to arrest those responsible for Omran Shaban’s death. Ground forces attacked the city. Numerous casualties were reported on both sides.
Army commander al-Gandus claimed his troops began entering Bani Walid. They’re heading for the center of town, he said. He claimed winning this fight will free Libya. Residents know he has something else in mind.
Regime officials are largely silent. They said little about their belligerent plans. Expect illegal chemical use again on city residents.
Around 2,000 army forces are involved. Militia fighters supplement their numbers. Casualties on both sides could be high. Bani Walid resident Ibrahim Warfalli denied official reports.
He said resistance fighters maintain airport control and prevented army units from entering the city. At stake is freedom or imperial occupation and control.
Fighting is intense. Army spokesman said he doesn’t know how long it will take to control Bani Walid. “Maybe it will take some days,” he said
“Maybe something unexpected will happen. It will take time if the people supporting Bani Walid use civilians as a shield. We do not want to kill civilians.’ ”
In fact, they’re willfully targeted. During last year’s siege and this year’s, indiscriminate bombing, shelling, and toxic gases caused horrific injuries and many deaths.
Videos and other images show badly wounded children. Some remain on life support. Others succumbed to fighting.
While Bani Walid remains besieged and assaulted, resistance continues elsewhere across Libya. Expect protracted struggle until Jamahiriya triumphs over tyranny. Courageous freedom fighters won’t settle for less.
A Final Comment
On October 17, Human Rights Watch (HRW) headlined “Libya: New Proof of Mass Killings at Gaddafi Death Site. A Year On, No Progress on Inquiry Into Deaths.”
Evidence implicates Misrata-based insurgents. They severely beat and murdered dozens of Gaddafi loyalists they captured. Libyan authorities promised to investigate and did nothing.
According to HRW’s Peter Bouchaert:
“The evidence suggests that opposition militias summarily executed at least 66 captured members of Gaddafi’s convoy in Sirte.”
“It also looks as if they took Mutassim Gaddafi, who had been wounded, to Misrata and killed him there. Our findings call into question the assertion by Libyan authorities that Muammar Gaddafi was killed in crossfire, and not after his capture.”
International law is clear. “Under the laws of war, the killing of captured combatants is a war crime, and Libyan civilian and military authorities have an obligation to investigate war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law.”
Instead of investigating and prosecuting those responsible, Libyan authorities whitewashed their crimes. Washington, NATO partners, and complicit regional allies bear full responsibility. Their installed Libyan stooges do as they’re told.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled “How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War”
http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour
Labels: GREEN RESISTANCE (LIBYA), MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI, NATO, WAR CRIMES
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COMMENT - The way I see it is that these are just rumours, so far. But it is interesting know all theories as long as they comply with the known facts.
Libya: How Many Dirty Western Hands?
By Felicity Arbuthnot
Global Research, October 01, 2012
Oh what a tangled web they weave
When first they practice to invade
A sovereign nation and deceive
The world about their dark crusade.
Michael Leunig, Poet, Cartoonist, 1945
This weekend a detailed article (i) suggested that
a: “French secret serviceman, acting on the express orders of the then President Sarkozy, is suspected of ”the murder of Colonel Quaddafi”, on 20th October last year.
Whilst bearing in mind that the NATO-backed insurgents now in power, who have near destroyed much of Libya, de-stabilised, terrorized and hope to carve up Libya’s resources for their, rather than the country’s benefit, have every reason to wish to disassociate themselves from the butchery of Colonel Quaddafi’s terrible death, the new allegations illuminate interesting points.
The French assassin, it is claimed, infiltrated the mob rabidly manhandling the Colonel, and shot him in the head.
“The motive, according to well placed (Libyan) sources”, was to prevent any chance of interrogation into Sarkozy’s links with Colonel Quaddafi.
The Mail previously revealed (ii) quoting a French governmental briefing note published by an investigative website, that fifty million euros has been: “laundered though bank accounts in Panama and Switzerland … from Colonel Quaddafi, to fund (Sarkozy’s 2007) election as President”, which if correct: “would have broken political financing laws.” Sarkozy’s: “numerous visits to Libya” were also cited.
Further claims are that: “The Swiss account was opened in the name of the sister of Jean-Francois Cope, the leader of Mr Sarkozy’s ruling UMP party, and the President’s right-hand-man.”
Quaddafi’s son, Saif alIslam, whose life hangs in the balance and no doubt further so, should he be subject to the Libyan “judicial system”, has stated unequivocally regarding the Sarkozy campaign funding: “We have all the details and are ready to reveal everything … We funded it.”
No wonder Saif, also generous funder (£1.5 million) to his former place of, advanced study, the prestigious London School of Economics – where he also delivered the annual Ralph Miliband Lecture in May 2010, named for the renowned academic and father of the former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband and his brother Ed, current Leader of the Labour Party – has been abandoned by the Western powers who had formerly welcomed him – then conspired in another illegal coup, this time in his country.
Sarkozy of course, on becoming President, memorably welcomed Colonel Quaddafi on a State Visit to Paris in December 2007, greeting him as “Brother Leader” and hosting his famed Bedouin tent next to the Elysee Palace.
Tony Blair, of course visited Quaddafi on many occasions, even flying in the Colonel’s private plane, pushing mega business deals. He too is mute on the horrors of the death and the fate of his children, grandchildren and country.
The Mail also makes the points that: “ The United Nations mandate which sanctioned (the misnamed ‘no fly zone’) expressly stated that the Western allies could not interfere in the internal politics of the country.”
“Instead the almost daily bombing runs ended with Quaddafi’s overthrow, while both French and British military ‘advisors’ were said to have assisted on the ground.”
“Now Mahmoud Jibril, who served as interim Prime Minister following Gaddafi’s overthrow, has told Egyptian TV: ‘It was a foreign agent who mixed with the revolutionary brigades to kill Gaddafi.’ “
Another Tripoli source, according to the paper, stated: “Sarkozy had every reason to try to silence the Colonel and as quickly as possible”, with a further “diplomatic source” also stressing Quaddafi’s threats to reveal the financial details of the funding to the 2007 French Presidential elections donations.
An interesting point, if correct, is made by Rami El Obeidi, the : “former head of foreign relations for the Libyan Transitional Council (who) said he knew that Quaddafi had been tracked through his satellite telecommunications system as he talked to: “the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.” Which begs an elephantine question: are the two murderous Western backed rampages against Libya and Syria and their leaders connected?
How much of alleged murky financial deals does Syria’s President also know?
Interestingly, Ben Oman Shaaban (22) one of those who attacked Colonel Quaddaffi was badly injured, seemingly by those loyal to the Colonel, in an attack in July. Flown to Paris for treatment, he died in hospital last week. Shabaan was said to have frequently brandished the handgun said to have killed the Colonel. If true, he would have interesting knowledge about the appalling events of the day.
Sarkozy has consistently denied receiving money from the Libyan Leader and was not available to give a comment to the Mail. Enquiries into “alleged financial irregularities “, are ongoing.
Worthy of mention is that in November 2007, just before Quaddafi’s Paris visit: “A US State Department cable had warned that those ‘who dominate Libya’s political and economic leadership are pursuing increasingly nationalistic policies in the energy sector’ and that there was ‘growing evidence of Libyan resource nationalism.’ ”
“The cable cited a 2006 speech in which Quaddafi said: ‘Oil companies are controlled by foreigners who have made millions from them. Now, Libyans must take their place to profit from this money.’ ”
“Quaddafi’s government had forced oil companies to give their local subsidiaries Libyan names. Worse, ‘labor laws were amended to ‘Libyanize’ the economy’, that is, turn it to the advantage of Libyans.” Goodness, shocking.
“Oil firms ‘were pressed to hire Libyan managers, finance people and human resources directors.’ ” (iii)
Perhaps then it is no wonder all round, that on hearing of Colonel Quaddafi’s horrific death, President Nobel Obama declared it was a: “momentous day.” (BBC, 20th October 2011.) Madam Clinton followed with a raucous laugh and: “We came, we saw, he died.”
There is only one certainty, in the whole shaming “regime change” in Libya, there are no clean hands.
And where is Colonel Quaddafi’s body?
Notes
i.
ii.
iii.
Labels: LIBYA, MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI, NEOCOLONIALISM
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Libya’s Green Resistance Did It… And NATO Powers Are Covering Up
US Ambassador’s Killing Had Nothing to Do With Al Qaeda, Islamist Blowback or Anti-Islamic Video
By Mark Robertson and Finian Cunningham
Global Research, September 20, 2012
The NATO powers and the bureaucrats they installed in Libya want you to think that all 5.6 million Libyans are happy that NATO and its proxy terrorists destroyed Libya, a country which had the highest standard of living in Africa under Gaddafi.
They want you to think that NATO brought “freedom and democracy” to Libya, not chaos and death. They want you to think that there is no Green Resistance to the NATO imperialists or NATO’s Islamist allies in Benghazi.
In reality, the Resistance has been increasingly active since shortly after the murder of Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011, as will be shown below. They strike any NATO target they can, and they execute key Libyans who betrayed Gaddafi and sided with NATO. The Benghazi incident was merely their latest blow against what they see as NATO’s illegal occupation of their country.
Everyone in Libya knows about the Green Resistance, whose members are called “Tahloob” (Arabic for “Gaddafi loyalists”). The denial only happens outside of Libya, by the NATO powers and their dutiful Western mainstream media.
Because of this denial, and because most of the world’s people have forgotten about Libya, the internet is filled with blind guesses, unfounded claims, and ridiculous counterclaims regarding the Benghazi incident last week in which US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and at least three other American personnel were killed. And the NATO lie factory is operating at full blast.
CLAIMS, COUNTER-CLAIMS AND DISINFORMATION
The Obama regime says “protesters” irate over an anti-Islam video did it.
The NATO-installed bureaucrats in Libya say that “foreign extremists” did it.
US Congressmen say “Al Qaeda did it”. So does CNN, as well as the alternative media web site Prison Planet, which denounces any reference to the Green Resistance as “absurd”. (1)
Media outlets, such as the UK Guardian, say “an organized terror network did it”.
Turkey’s government says “Syria’s Assad did it”.
Israel says “Hezbollah did it”.
The Sunni monarchs of the Gulf Cooperation Council oil sheikdoms say “Iran did it”.
Even reputable alternative media writers and progressive bloggers have attributed the attack to “the Benghazi Islamists”, and that this is “blowback from imperialism”.
Wikileaks says the attack happened because the US had backed Britain’s threat to storm the Ecuadorian embassy in London and remove Julian Assange. (2)
Some media outlets claim that “Al Qaeda” carried out the attack in revenge for the supposed death in Pakistan (by US drone strike on 4 June 2012) of Libyan-born Abu Yahya Al Libi (aka Hassan Mohammed Qaid) who was supposedly a key aide to Osama bin Laden, and was supposedly the “number two man” in Al Qaeda.
This claim is nonsense, since Al Qaeda has been a group of mercenaries employed by Washington and London since 1980. President Reagan called them “heroes” and “freedom fighters”. The US and Britain sends its Al Qaeda mercenaries to the Balkans, Libya, Syria, Chechnya, Somalia, Sudan, and other places that NATO wants to infiltrate, destroy or destabilize.
NATO pays Ayman Al Zawahiri, the so-called leader of the Al Qaeda mercenaries, to advance NATO imperialism by recording videos and audio-tapes; over 60 of them so far. Zawahiri repeatedly called for the death of Gaddafi, and now he repeatedly calls for the death of Syria’s President Bashar Al Assad. He also calls for Pakistanis to support the Taliban, in order to make the world think the Taliban still exists. He sometimes records in English, and his true identity and whereabouts are a NATO secret. On 11 September 2012, in commemoration of 9/11, he released a video that eulogized Abu Yahya Al Libi, the one supposedly killed by a US drone in June. This “eulogy” had nothing to do with the Benghazi incident, which happened later that night on Tuesday 11 September.
Some claim that Salafists carried out the fatal attack on the US premises. This is more nonsense, since Salafists are NATO allies. Salafists and Wahhabists connote a strict, literalist, and puritanical approach to Islam. They are mainly associated with Saudi Arabia’s feudal style of Islam, and they were allied with NATO against Gaddafi. Now they are allied with NATO against Assad, Iran, Hezbollah, and Shiites generally.
An example of Salafists in Libya is the Ansar Al Sharia – a blanket term for various militias that want to apply strict Sharia law in Libya. Its members are pro-NATO and anti-Green Resistance. They had no reason to attack the US government site in Benghazi which had been instrumental in galvanizing the Islamist insurgency to topple the Gaddafi government, beginning at least from March 2011 and under the supervision of the late Christopher Stevens. Stevens was Washington’s point man in Benghazi and is known to have cultivated strong ties with the Islamists.
In short, it does not make sense that such Benghazi contacts would have wanted or have been motivated to kill their American paymaster.
The most obvious explanation is that cadres – the Green Resistance – loyal to Gaddafi and in opposition to the NATO-imposed regime carried out the attack. NATO and its Libyan quislings don’t want to admit this subversive reality. The fact of a resistance – a potent and growing resistance at that – has to be denied, erased from the record.
TIMING
It was a mere coincidence that the Benghazi attack happened on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11. The Green Resistance was angry that Abdullah Al Senoussi (Gaddafi’s chief of intelligence) had been arrested upon his arrival at Nouakchott airport in Mauritania on 17 March 2012. Then, six days before the Benghazi attack, Mauritania extradited Senoussi to Libya for trial by the NATO-installed bureaucrats.
One day before the Benghazi attack, the NATO puppets put two senior Gaddafi loyalists on trial, accusing them of wasting public money by paying $2.7 billion to families of people killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The two Gaddafi loyalists are Abdul Ati Al Obeidi (who had been Gaddafi’s Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and Head of State) and Mohammed Zwai (former Secretary General of the General People’s Congress – that is, head of the legislature under Gaddafi).
Also, Baghdadi Ali Mahmudi had been Secretary of the General People’s Committee (that is, Prime Minister) under Gaddafi, but escaped from Tripoli on 21 August 2011 as NATO-backed terrorists swept into the city. Mahmudi was arrested in Tunisia for illegal border entry and jailed for six months until his charges were overturned on appeal. On 24 June 2012, Tunisia’s Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali (acting on NATO orders) suddenly had Mahmudi re-arrested and sent back to the NATO puppets in Tripoli, who promptly imprisoned Mahmudi.
Tunisia’s Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali is pro-NATO, and a friend of American hawkish senators McCain and Lieberman. His re-arrest and extradition of Mahmudi angered Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, who denounced the extradition as illegal, and it also enraged the Libyan Green Resistance. (3)
As for US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, he had promoted Libya’s destruction, having arrived in Benghazi in April 2011 for that purpose, and remained there throughout the NATO seven-month aerial bombardment of Libya. His job was to coordinate the NATO-backed terrorists.
After Libya was destroyed, Stevens had used a Tripoli hotel as his base, since the Green Resistance had burned down the US embassy in the capital, Tripoli. When the Resistance tried to kill him with a car bomb outside the hotel, Stevens moved to the villas in Benghazi, a city in the east of the country whose inhabitants tend to be pro-US and which has long been a hotbed of Islamist jihadis, many of them furnishing the ranks of NATO’s Afghan Mujahideen in the 1980s and later Al Qaeda. (4)
That was over a year ago. (Stevens formally became Obama’s ambassador to Libya in May 2012.)
Stevens was outgoing, and had so underestimated the Green Resistance that he enjoyed jogging in the streets of Benghazi and elsewhere in Libya. (5)
Everyone knew that he and his American staff were present. One figure among the pro-NATO terrorists, Ahmed Al Abbar, says of Stevens: “He was loved by everybody [that is, in Benghazi]”. (6)
Stevens’ popularity with the Benghazi traitors added to the fury of the Green Resistance when they eventually attacked the US site in Benghazi.
Thus, contrary to claims by Western media outlets such as the British Independent, there were no “major security breeches,” and no “mystery” about the attack. All such claims are red herrings designed to distract from the reality of the Green Resistance.
THEY ALL ADMITTED THE TRUTH AT FIRST
The morning after the Benghazi attack, on 12 September, the NATO puppets unwittingly admitted the truth about the “Tahloob” (Green Resistance), and whined that NATO was not doing enough to help crush it. Libyan Deputy Interior Minister Wanis Al Sharif admitted this in a Benghazi news conference, which was later broadcast on Al Jazeera television. (7) (8) (29)
Libya’s Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib also admitted it, as did Libya’s President Mohammed El-Megarif, as well as Ali Aujali, Libya’s Ambassador to Washington, plus Ibrahim Dabbashi, Libya’s ambassador to the UN. All of them said that Gaddafi loyalists had attacked the US site in Benghazi. They would quickly change their change tune under pressure from their NATO masters.
Back on 24 August 2012, Time magazine had noted that Gaddafi “still commands silent admiration in many parts of Libya”.
The article quoted President El-Magariaf as saying:
“We know that Gaddafi loyalists are behind these bombings [since the overthrow of Gaddafi]. In the last few months, the security services have intensified their campaign against Bani Walid and Tarhuna.” (9)
Bani Walid is a loyalist stronghold whose people held key positions in Gaddafi’s security services. It was also the last city outside of Gaddafi’s birthplace of Sirte to fall to NATO-backed terrorists on 23 January 2012. Magariaf is from Benghazi, and spent 30 years in the US being groomed for the time when NATO would destroy Libya. On 9 August 2012, NATO installed him as Libya’s head of state after an “election”. Magariaf is allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is aligned with NATO.
The initial admissions of the truth about the Green Resistance were made on the morning after the attack. Within hours, however, all top Libyan officials, acting under NATO orders, changed their tune, merely calling the attackers “foreign extremists”. Magariaf, the president installed by NATO, went to Benghazi three days after the attack, and declared that “Al Qaeda did it”. (10)
One bureaucrat who would not adopt the NATO spin was Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib, who continued to insist that Gaddafi loyalists were the perpetrators. Therefore, NATO dismissed him as Libya’s prime minister, and replaced him with Mustafa Abushagur, the day after the Benghazi incident. Abushagur had lived most of his life in the USA, and had always been an enemy of Gaddafi. Like so many other US-installed bureaucrats, he had returned to Benghazi in May 2011 during the NATO-instigated insurgency.
Some alternative news outlets acknowledge the truth about the Green Resistance, for example, the Inter Press News Service, which is a non-profit outlet.
IPS spoke with armed Gaddafi loyalists who vowed that they will step up their fight. Government sources alternately claim the perpetrators are former Gaddafi loyalists or Islamists. Further confusion arises from a government clampdown on the dissemination of information in the local media, and by Libyan security forces preventing foreign journalists from covering the scenes of attacks first-hand, or taking pictures. (11)
The Libyan bureaucrats’ clampdown on media information is understandable, since they want to hamper solidarity with the Green Resistance.
MASS DENIAL
Regarding the Benghazi incident, the mass denial begins with basic facts. For example, most people refer to “the US consulate,” when in reality the US site in Benghazi was not an embassy or a consulate, or even a “compound”. It was a collection of villas (that is, a gated community) privately owned by one Mohammad Al Bishari, who was leasing the villas to US State Department personnel. (12)
Collectively the villas were what the US State Department calls an “interim facility”. It had a level of security known as “simple lock and key,” meaning it had no bulletproof glass, reinforced doors, US Marines, or other features common to embassies and consulates. (In Mexico, for example, Washington has an embassy and 22 consulates, but in Libya the US government had only a single embassy in Tripoli – and then, after the NATO bombardment campaign, used the Benghazi villas.)
The corporate media falsely use the term “US consulate” to make it seem that “terrorists attacked US sovereignty”. This justifies the “war on terror,” plus the past destruction of Libya.
Furthermore, the Obama regime calls the privately owned group of villas a “compound” in order to make it seem that the (non-existent) “protesters” brazenly stormed a fortress similar to the massive US embassy complex in Baghdad.
THERE WERE NO PROTESTERS IN BENGHAZI
The White House claims that protesters against that anti-Muslim video “spontaneously” attacked the so-called “consulate.” In reality there were no protesters anywhere in Benghazi at the time of the attack. When Fox News questioned US officials about this, the officials admitted the truth. (13)
Nonetheless, the Obama administration/regime continues to insist that “protesters did it”. This lie not only conceals the Green Resistance; it also makes Muslims all seem irrational and blood-lusting, thereby justifying imperialist aggression (that is, the “war on terror”).
The absence of protesters was confirmed by one of the eight Libyans guarding the private group of villas used by Ambassador Stevens and his staff. The eyewitness, aged 27, is being treated in a hospital for five shrapnel wounds in one leg, and two bullet wounds in the other. He asked that his name be withheld, and that the hospital not be identified, for fear that “militants” (that is, the Green Resistance) would track him down and kill him.
Of the eight Libyan security guards, the eyewitness and four others had been hired by a British firm. The remaining three were members of Libya’s 17th of February Brigade, a group of pro-NATO terrorists formed at the start of the NATO campaign to destroy Gaddafi and Libyan society.
In an interview with McClatchy news service last Thursday (13 September 2012) the eyewitness said there were no protesters at all.
“The Americans would have left if there had been protesters, but there wasn’t a single ant. The area was totally quiet until about 9:35 pm, when as many as 125 men attacked with machine guns, grenades, RPGs, and anti-aircraft weapons. They threw grenades into the villas, wounding me and knocking me down. Then they stormed through the facility’s main gate, moving from villa to villa.”
That does not sound like a “spontaneous protest” against a blasphemous B-movie that suddenly appeared on the internet, as the White House and others claim; rather, it was a sharply executed military strike that must have been planned meticulously well in advance.
The eyewitness managed to escape by telling one of the attackers that he was only a gardener in the gated community. His account is consistent with that of Mohammad Al Bishari, who owns the villas, and was leasing them to the US government. Bishari gave his own account on 12 September, the day after the attack. (12)
Ambassador Stevens was overcome by “severe asphyxia” (smoke inhalation), and was still alive after the attack. Pro-US Libyans in Benghazi carried him to the Benghazi Medical center, where he died later in the night. (14)
RESISTANCE GROWS
NATO destroyed Libya and reduced its people to poverty and violence. In the post-destruction chaos, there are family feuds and inter-militia rivalries. There are long-standing disputes over land, plus long-standing friction between Arabs and Berbers.
However, we shall focus on Resistance attacks against NATO targets, and Resistance assassinations of Libyan figures that betrayed Gaddafi and sided with NATO. The following are only some of the “scores”.
On 18 March 2012, in the Tripoli neighborhood of Abu Salim (a pro-Gaddafi stronghold) local members of the Green Resistance had a shoot-out with a pro-NATO militia group from Zintan led by one Mohammed El-Rebay. (Zintan is a province in Libya’s western mountains.) The Resistance managed to kill one of the Zintan terrorists, who had been using a Tripoli school as their base. (15)
In April 2012, the Resistance detonated a roadside bomb beside a UN convoy that included Ian Martin, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative for Libya. (16)
On 29 April 2012, the lifeless body of Shukri Ghanem, Gaddafi’s former oil minister, was found floating in the River Danube. In May 2011, Ghanem had joined NATO, and went off to reside in London and then Vienna. (17)
On 2 May 2012, the Green Resistance claimed responsibility for assassinating General Albarrani Shkal, a former military governor of Tripoli who had demobilized the 38,000 men of his guard and opened the gates of Tripoli to foreign troops during Operation Mermaid Dawn, the sacking of Tripoli that began on 20 August 2011. (Tripoli’s nickname is “The Mermaid”.) (18)
On 15 May 2012, Khaled Abu Salah, a candidate for the Constituent Assembly controlled by NATO, was assassinated near the oasis town of Ubari in southwest Libya. (19)
On 22 May 2012, a rocket-propelled grenade targeted the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Benghazi, but caused only structural damage to the premises. The ICRC is headquartered in Geneva, and its foreign offices are often used as cover by Western intelligence agencies, such as MI6 or the CIA.
On 26 May 2012, Mukhtar Fernana, head of the Military Council for the Western Region, survived an assassination attempt.
On 5 June 2012, the Resistance detonated a bomb in front of the US-operated building in Tripoli, damaging its gates.
On 11 June 2012, in Benghazi’s al-Rabha neighborhood, the Resistance fired an RPG at a convoy that carried British Ambassador Dominic Asquith, wounding two of his bodyguards. (20)
Back in July 2011, Abdel-Fattah Younis, the former Qaddafi loyalist turned “rebel” military commander, was assassinated. On 22 June 2012, the judge investigating the death of Younis was himself assassinated in Benghazi.
On 28 July 2012, Suleiman Buzraidah was killed in a drive-by shooting while he was en route to a Benghazi mosque. Buzraidah had been a military intelligence official under Gaddafi, but betrayed him to join the NATO-backed terrorists. (21)
On 29 July 2012, Khalifa Belqasim Haftar narrowly survived an assassination attempt. Formerly one of Gaddafi’s army commanders, in 1988 he betrayed Gaddafi and lived for 23 years under US government protection near CIA headquarters in Virginia. He returned to Libya during the NATO-led insurgency, hoping that after Gaddafi’s death, he would be made commander-in-chief of the Libyan military (controlled by NATO). However, he had to settle for third place in the hierarchy, and was given the rank of Lt. General before the Resistance caught up with him.
Last month was an especially active four weeks for the Resistance. Security buildings and hotels in Benghazi were rocked by bomb attacks and attempted attacks. Foreign diplomatic staff and embassies were targeted. US embassy staff in Tripoli escaped an attempted carjacking.
On 10 August 2012, eight Resistance members escaped from the Al Fornaj prison in Tripoli after a coordinated attack. Gunmen in pickup trucks outside the prison shot at security guards, while prisoners inside set sections of the prison on fire and managed to overpower a number of guards. This was the third Resistance attack on the prison since the murder of Gaddafi. (22)
On 18 August 2012, the Green Resistance detonated a car bomb outside the Four Seasons Hotel on Omar Al Mukhtar Street in Tripoli. The target was a vehicle being used by Benghazi security officials (installed by NATO) who were staying at the hotel. (22)
Afterwards, the NATO-installed bureaucrats sent heavily armed soldiers to prevent photographs being taken, and to forbid journalists from entering the area, so that word of the Green Resistance would not get out. A Libyan interior ministry official refused to comment further. (22)
The following day, the Resistance set off more car bombs in Tripoli. One bomb was near the administrative offices of the Interior Ministry (controlled by the NATO powers). Two other car bombs exploded minutes later near the former headquarters of a women’s police academy, which NATO now uses for interrogation and detentions. (The latter two bombs killed two passersby.)
The next day in Benghazi (20 August 2012) Resistance members tossed a bomb into the car of Abdel Hamid Refaii, the first secretary of the Egyptian Embassy. This was outside Refaii’s house. However, the assassination bid failed.
The day after that, the then Libyan Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib condemned the Green Resistance in a televised speech, saying: “Desperate and malicious forces among the supporters of the former regime are trying to create tension, send Libya backwards to violence, and sabotage the country’s political process.” (23)
Tripoli’s security chief, Col Mahmoud Sherif, said Gaddafi loyalists were responsible for the spate of violent attacks. He ordered the arrest of 32 suspected Resistance members for interrogation. (24)
Indeed, the police in Tripoli (who now work for the NATO powers) are constantly occupied with defusing car bombs set by the Resistance. (25)
After the Resistance bombing of the former headquarters of a women’s police academy, the NATO puppets sent soldiers to raid a farm where Resistance members were holed up. Several of the Gaddafi loyalists were killed.
One of the members who survived was alleged to have set up sleeper cells in Libya and to have been criss-crossing the border with Tunisia from where he and several comrades were smuggling weapons into Libya for the Resistance. (26)
On 23 August 2012, Abdelmenom Al Hur, official spokesperson for the Supreme Security Committee, installed by NATO, held a press conference in which he admitted that Gaddafi loyalists had penetrated many official security units. He said that a whole barracks full of heavy armaments was under the control of a pro-Gaddafi cell that he called the Awfia Brigade. (The group’s members call themselves the “Martyr Gaddafi Brigade”.) The same Resistance brigade had briefly occupied Tripoli International Airport back in June 2012.
After the attack that killed Ambassador Stevens on 11 September 2012, the Resistance managed to shut down the Benina airport in Benghazi, which the US military was using as a drone base. (27)
With the Resistance firing at US drones, the airport had become unsafe. A Turkish Afriqiyah Airlines flight with 121 people onboard was forced to turn back to Istanbul. (28)
CONCLUSION
The foregoing is only a partial list of Resistance activity over the past year, which has dramatically increased during the last three months, reaching a crescendo in August, and leading to the death of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens last week.
The NATO powers had shifted their focus to destroying Syria, and on continuing their preparations to destroy Iran, while letting their Tripoli bureaucrats handle the Green Resistance in Libya. Now, however, the NATO powers realize that Libya is far from subjugated and that they are being seriously tasked with crushing the Resistance before it gains critical mass.
Marines, drones, and warships have been sent to quash the Gaddafi loyalists – but how to find them? Even the FBI declined to “investigate” the latest attack in Benghazi, realizing that it would be pointless.
Libya presents Washington with another Afghan nightmare – only perhaps worse. If US drones start blasting Libyans, and the US military rounds up tens of thousands of suspected loyalists, then the Resistance can only become stronger. Of Libya’s 5.6 million people, only one in 10 (that is, the population of the eastern city of Benghazi) welcomed the NATO bondage and destruction of their country.
Meanwhile, the NATO powers do not want the Western public to realize any of this awkward truth. They want you to think that all Libyans are happy under NATO’s “liberation” with their Islamist terrorist proxies. Some 50,000 Libyans lost their lives due to NATO’s bombing and ground campaign during 2011. And for what? Only for a Resistance to rise up to illustrate to the world that Libyans had their country stolen from them by NATO powers in a criminal war of aggression.
The more the Libyan Green Resistance gains strength and challenges the NATO-imposed regime, the more clear it becomes that the Western governments and their media lied in their pretexts of “responsibility to protect (R2P)” human rights and democracy. Recall that these were the pretexts invoked by the NATO powers to justify setting up No-Fly Zones in Libya in March 2011. (The same pretexts are again being reiterated with regard to Syria.)
But, as the growing Resistance illustrates, the Western powers did not “liberate” Libya; they invaded a sovereign country and killed massively to execute their real, criminal agenda of regime change and theft of oil resources. Now the people of Libya are resisting this criminal conquest. And that damning truth has to be expunged at all costs.
Before the Benghazi incident, the corporate media had occasionally mentioned Gaddafi loyalists. After the incident, all such mention has suddenly ceased. The media say that “extremists” attacked the US site in Benghazi. Or “Al Qaeda” or “Islamists” or “terrorists,” or “protesters” – anyone but the Resistance.
Not true. The Green Resistance lives, and furthermore it is only getting started.
Mark Robertson is a political analyst based in Mexico City quatloos.x@gmail.com
Finian Cunningham is a freelance journalist based in East Africa cunninghamfinian@gmail.com
Notes
1)http://www.prisonplanet.com/consulate-attack-nato-stooge-ludicrously-points-finger-at-gaddafi-loyalists.html
(2)http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9540728/WikiLeaks-blames-US-stance-on-Julian-Assange-for-Libyan-embassy-attack.html
(3)http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/06/2012624135853340329.html
(4)http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/world/middleeast/for-veteran-envoy-return-to-libya-was-full-of-hope.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast
(5)http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/13/us-usa-libya-stevens-idUSBRE88B13B20120913
(6)http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Chris-Stevens-US-envoy-to-the-Arab-world-3860408.php#ixzz26t2Xx6Zi
(7)http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/12/us-libya-usa-attack-loyalists-idUSBRE88B0K920120912
(8)http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/09/20129112108737726.html
(9)http://world.time.com/2012/08/24/the-bomb-attacks-in-libya-are-gaddafi-loyalists-behind-them/
(10)http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/15/despite-arrests-in-consulate-attack-confusion-persists-in-libya.html
(11)http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/08/gaddafi-loyalists-up-in-arms/
(12)http://www.examiner.com/article/eyewitnesses-no-protest-at-u-s-consulate-libya-before-attack-began
(13)http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/17/obama-administration-libyan-president-clash-over-explanation-on-consulate/
(14)http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57511234/libyan-doctor-u.s-ambassador-christopher-stevens-died-of-severe-asphyxia/
(15)http://rt.com/news/libya-clashes-militia-gaddafi-loyalists-857/
(16)http://www.tunisia-live.net/2012/08/22/car-bomb-targeting-egyptian-diplomat-in-benghazi-raises-security-questions/
(17)http://libyanfreepress.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/execution-of-big-traitor-general-shkal-claimed-by-green-resistance/
(18)http://www.voltairenet.org/Libyan-settling-of-scores
(19)http://www.tunisia-live.net/2012/05/15/candidate-for-libyan-constituent-assembly-assassinated-after-filing-to-run/
(20)http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/11/us-libya-attack-britain-idUSBRE85A0TV20120611
(21)http://menasassociates.blogspot.com/2012/08/libya-security-system-failures.html
(22)http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/08/gaddafi-loyalists-up-in-arms/
(23)http://www.tunisia-live.net/2012/08/22/car-bomb-targeting-egyptian-diplomat-in-benghazi-raises-security-questions/
(24)http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/20/gaddafi-loyalists-held-blasts-libya
(25)http://jn1.tv/breaking-news/militants-bomb-egyptian-diplomat-s-car-in-benghazi.html
(26)http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/08/gaddafi-loyalists-up-in-arms/
27)http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-09-14/news/sns-rt-us-protests-libya-airportbre88d0pj-20120914_1_benghazi-drones-libyan-rebels
(28)http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/141946/libya-shuts-benghazi-air-space-turkish-plane-returns-home-.html
(29)http://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/libya-official-says-gaddafi-loyalists-killed-us-diplomats-104805571.html
Labels: LIBYA, MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI, NATO
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Good Libyan days went with Gaddafi
Thursday, 05 July 2012 12:08
When bomb after bomb had mangled Libya both in infrastructure and the souls of the its people, some of whom had been so gullible to imperialism to the extent of inviting the war, strongman Maummar Gaddafi was eventually captured and brutally killed.
That marked the beginning of a new era. But, unbeknown to many Libyans, the good things the ordinary Libyan had enjoyed had gone into the grave with Gaddafi.
Ask any ordinary Libyan today and you will be told that if the clock could be rewound, no one would want that war repeated and Gaddafi, should have been a life president.
Yes, he might not have been a good or the best leader, he had many political problems. He had problems in maintaining friendships and principles. But still, he had done some good work for his country. So, I have decided to share some of his good things.
If you are thinking I am a Gaddafi supporter then you are wrong. I am not a Gaddafi supporter, neither I am like other people who are dancing because he is dead. I am just sharing some of the good things of Gaddafi and excluding the bad one. I know most of you are fed up of listening to all the bad things about him from the Western perspective.
Most of the people will argue about the facts of why Gaddafi did in a fatherly manner and those he did as a monster on another occasion but these facts about helping his people are arguably true.
Below is a brief of what Gaddafi’s contribution to the people of Libya, was.
All the newly weds people of Libya used to get about 50,000 dollars from Government to lead a very happy life.
Home was the basic right of every citizen of Libya. There was no electricity bill in Libya. Electricity was free in Libya. No interest loan for the people of Libya according to law. Gaddafi was against interest since interest is forbidden in Islam. Gaddafi had increased the literacy rate from 25 percent to 83 percent. Education expenses in Government universities are free in Libya.
Medical expenses in Government hospitals were free in Libya. The price of the petrol was 0.14 cents in Libya. Yes we all know Libya has good petroleum resources. But the price seems to be too low. Isn’t it?
When Libyan citizen wanted to buy a car, Government subsidised 50 percent of the price of the car. The 50 percent sounds great!
A huge loaf of bread used to cost only 15 cents in Libya. How much does in cost throughout the world, including in Europe?
The GDP per capita of Libya was very high. Over 15 000 US dollars. Purchasing power was very high compared to the GDP.
The economy of Libya was improving rapidly. In 2010 it had 10 percent growth.
It has not external debts. It also has the reserves amount of 150+ billion dollars.
Unemployment fees of US$700 per month were given from the government until the person finds a job.
A Libyan mother used to get 5 000 US dollars for giving birth to a child. What more would you need from a Government?
I sound very controversial here but the facts on the ground are bare for every sane person to see.
According to Libyan politician, Mahmoud Jibril, after the West left the country in the lurch after it got access to the countries oil reserves.
The so-called Western “friends” of Tripoli are not concerned about the fact that the military campaign provoked by their actions, led to numerous deaths among civilians.
According Jibril the West also ignore other facts that the fall of the Gaddafi regime became the downfall of Libya itself.
As a result, Libya currently falls apart into isolated areas, striving for autonomy, every chief wanting to run a state. Thus, there is a strong possibility of new criminal pseudo-states emerging that just might follow the path of Somalia and other problem African states.
Paul Kreig Roberts, a leading analyst of international affairs with the US Republican Party, says Washington “took out” Gaddafi and means to repeat the same scenario in Syria because Americans believe that it’s a way to force China out of the Mediterranean region.
It is also an attempt to cut China off from African energy resources (the same way Washington and London denied China access to their resources in the late 30s of the 20th century).
In addition Roberts declares that the liquidation of Gaddafi was a punishment for his refusal to join the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), the superior military outfit meant to spearhead US exploitation of resources in Africa, but disguised as peace mongers.
Western military intervention of Libya caused political, social and moral decadence not only in this country but throughout the region. After the events that followed the “Arab Spring” weapons from Libya flooded the black market, making a military coup in Mali possible. For almost certain, those weapons fell into the hands of radical groups operating in Africa, including the Bako Herem.
Many people would want to talk about how much he served his inner circle and his own ego but the current situation in Libya is far off worse than it was during Gaddafi’s era.
Today they are crying for everything from peace to service delivery. The goodies from the dear leader are gone, women are bearing the brunt. Men are running scared. Guns are all over the place. Bomb, bombs, bombs are exploding in every street. Gaddafi went with everything good for the ordinary Libyan.
* Professor Mattiah Mustafa is a Tunisian political scientist. He writes for DayAfrica.com
Labels: LIBYA, MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI
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Malema opens Pandora’s box
Saturday, 23 June 2012 21:02
Munyaradzi Huni
Former ANC Youth League president Cde Julius Malema has rubbished claims that he is being bankrolled by some Zimbabweans, adding that he will never be shy to do business with fellow Africans. He also
said South African President Zuma should cease to be the facilitator in Zimbabwe because of his strong views against President Mugabe and Zanu-PF. Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Sunday Mail at his apartment in Sandton last week, Cde Malema said
his visit to Zimbabwe in 2010 had inspired him a lot as he discovered that
Zimbabweans had taken back their land despite the difficulties they encountered.
“I don't have any business in Zimbabwe and I don't get any funding from Zimbabwe. I wish Zimbabweans can make an offer which we can declare in public because I am now unemployed.
“I will never be shy to do business with my fellow Africans . . . if I had anything to do with Zimbabwe, I would declare it. I am under investigations by South African authorities. We all know that they are chasing me so they have access to my bank accounts, access to my cellphone . . . Tyson (Minister Saviour Kasukuwere) is my only friend in Zimbabwe and if I was involved in any deals with him, they should have picked it up,” charged Cde Malema.
On the allegations that he became radical after visiting Zimbabwe, he said: “No, I have always been radical. People saying that are the people who don’t know me. The reason why I was welcomed properly in Zimbabwe is because of my radical stance, but I must say I even got more inspired in Zimbabwe . . .
“I learnt that people can take charge of what rightly belongs to them. Not cowards. Zimbabweans are not cowards. They are not scared to take a risk. That’s why even those who leave Zimbabwe illegally to cross into South Africa, they cross through rivers that have crocodiles.
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* ‘Something fishy between Zanu-PF & ANC’
“That is their character and nature. Fearless. That is what got me inspired. They got land and now they are continuing with agricultural activities. They are working, they are employing each other.”
Commenting on the relationship between Zanu-PF and the ANC, Cde Malema said the South African ruling party was not genuine in its relationship with Zimbabwe.
“I don’t think the ANC is genuine in its relationship with Zanu-PF. There are a lot of contentious things that are happening. I went to Zimbabwe and I said many other things and I got punished for that. But people also realise that those things can also gain them cheap popularity.
“Gwede (ANC secretary general) went there and almost said the same things that I said, but he had no problems. I know the views of President Zuma about Zimbabwe and Zanu-PF, and that’s why I don’t think that they are genuine.
“I don’t think that President Zuma is a neutral facilitator in the Zimbabwean problems. He has very strong views about President Mugabe and Zanu-PF. All you see is very pretentious and it’s not helpful at all.
“I don’t think Zanu-PF should buy into that. Well, they have diplomatic relations so they will relate at that level. I am not a diplomat, but I am saying to you President Zuma does not say the things that he says when he is in Zimbabwe when he is in the meetings of the ANC.
“I don’t think he must be a facilitator at this point in time. He has very problematic views and I have argued against those views in the meetings of the ANC against what he seeks to project Zanu-PF and its leadership.”
He added: “I think what contributes more to his (president Zuma’s) hatred of those comrades is because of their close relationship with President Mbeki. And I think he suspects that they might have supported President Mbeki and not him and this is an opportunity to get to them.”
Although he was expelled from the ANC, Cde Malema insists that he still has a future in the party.
“I said to you I am sitting right outside the gate of the ANC. These gates will open one day. They can’t be closed forever. Even if it’s after five years, I will continue to be a member of the ANC. Even if it’s after Zuma’s term, I will continue to be a member of the ANC.
“So I am not going to form any political party. I am not going to go to the courts. I will continue to be a political activist,” he vowed.
He even boasted that one day he would be president of the ANC. “It will happen in future. I am 31 years old and I have differences with people in their 70s so even if it happens after 20 years, I will go and tell them in their graves that what you wished not to happen is happening now.”
He said he has never been critical of President Mugabe and went on to describe him as a principled leader.
“I have never been critical of President Mugabe. I said that President Mugabe has been President for a long time, but despite it all he has never succumbed to the pressure of the imperialists. He is exemplary . . . the leadership we need in Africa.
“We need more people like President Mugabe who will say no to imperialists. Not leaders who are voted by the people but when the imperialists ask them to jump, they don’t ask why but how high.”
When he was asked why many South Africans show their support of President Mugabe whenever he visits South Africa, Cde Malema said: “It’s because he represents change. He is not scared of white minority rule. He is not scared. He is not scared of colonialism. He stands firm for what he believes in. South Africans like that character.
“President Mandela was liked because of that — being prepared to die for the ideals of the struggle that he represented at that time. And that is what President Mugabe is doing.
“He doesn’t care who says what. If Zimbabweans continue to elect him, that is their own call. We like his leadership style. Decisiveness and not shy to take unpopular decisions in the eyes of the imperialist media.”
Cde Malema called for the transformation of the judiciary in South Africa, adding that judges in that country should know that their courts do not have jurisdiction over Zimbabwe.
“The political leadership (in SA) should be blamed. The political leadership must take deliberate moves to transform the judiciary . . .
“South African courts should never create an impression that they have jurisdiction in Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans have their own courts. Zimbabwe is a sovereign country and South African judges and the judiciary should respect that,” he said.
Cde Malema castigated the AU stance that led to the killing of Gadaffi by NATO. “The AU should have been more radical and not allow all this. We sold out. Our leaders sold out.”
Labels: ANC, AU, JACOB ZUMA, JULIUS MALEMA, MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI, ZANU-PF
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ICC lawyer meeting Gaddafi son detained in Libya
By Reuters
Sat 09 June 2012, 09:59 CAT
A female lawyer for the International Criminal Court has been detained in Libya after she was found to be carrying suspicious letters for Muammar Gaddafi's detained son Saif al-Islam, a Libyan lawyer said on Saturday.
The Australian lawyer, named as Melinda Taylor, was part of a four-member ICC delegation that had travelled to the western mountain town of Zintan where Saif al-Islam has been kept since his capture in November.
"During a visit (to Saif al-Islam), the lawyer tried to deliver documents to him, letters that represent a danger to the security of Libya," said Ahmed al-Jehani, the Libyan lawyer in charge of the Saif al-Islam case and who liaises between the government and the Hague-based ICC.
"She is not in jail. She is being detained in a guesthouse, her colleagues are with her."
Asked whether she would be released soon, Jehani said: "I hope today."
An ICC spokesman was not immediately reachable for comment.
Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi's one-time heir apparent is wanted both by Libya and the ICC. He was captured by fighter from Zintan in Libya's southern desert in November, dressed as a Bedouin tribesman, and taken to their home town.
Labels: ICC, LIBYA, MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI
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Seif al-Islam Gaddafi and the Fight behind the Scene over His Fate
Posted: 2012/05/29
Alexander MEZYAEV | 12.05.2012 | Strategic Culture Foundation
The legal proceedings against Seif al-Islam, the son of Muammar Gaddafi, have developed into an unusual situation, that has had no precedents in the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) history. The matter is that the Court itself is exerting efforts to destroy the case so that the accused would never have to face it.
It has started from a strange leak of information that took place a few days ago from the International Criminal Court. And it happened through a formal source: the ICC’s website. First the two documents1 were posted for public view, but disappeared in a few hours without any explanation.
They were related to the report of the ICC’s delegation that had visited Seif al-Islam Gaddafi in Zintan. The questions change places while reading the text: it is becoming clear why they have been taken away from public view. But the question pops up, why have they been made public at all? There is ground to believe that some kind of clash between two opposing forces took place inside the Court. One of the forces had never made itself known before…
So, what did the ICC delegation find out while meeting Seif Gaddafi? The following is what the report prepared by the Registry says. The importance of the information and the way it has got to the Court justifies extensive citation.
The ICC delegation visited Seif Gaddafi in early March. At first the Libya’s government indicated it couldn’t take the delegation to Zintan because the city was under the control of two factions, only one them being loyal to the National Transitional Council. But at the last moment when the delegation was about to return to the Hague, the authorities said the visit would take place. The report goes further:
“All shutters were closed. The door was heavy and in metal. The members of the Registry and the OPCD waited for approximately 40 minutes. Seif al-Islam appeared smiling and wiling to talk to the Court…It was difficult to assess whether he had lost a lot of weight as he was wearing large clothes. He appeared slimmer than on the picture annexed to his arrest warrant. He was missing part of his thumb and index at the right hand. He had no visible bruise on his face”.
“The Registry representative asked to continue the meeting alone as another person from the Libyan authorities was present in the room. This person said that the law prevented the Registry to meet the suspect alone and that he had to stay”.
“The Registry representative explained that the delegation was there pursuant to the Court order to give him information and to transmit information regarding his status to the Chamber. She also explained that the Chamber had appointed a lawyer to represent him before the Court. Mr. Gaddafi was very interested in knowing whether the lawyer would help him in Libya. The Registry indicated that the lawyer could help him in Libya but only in relation with the ICC proceedings.”
“When asked whether he was familiar with the Court and whether he knew an arrest warrant was issued against him for crimes against humanity, Mr. Gaddafi replied that he was familiar and that he had heard about the arrest warrant. He however indicated he was not served the arrest warrant. Mr. Gaddafi explained that he was being interviewed in Libya regarding his camels and fish farms.”
“He declared: “I hope I can be tried in my country whether they will execute me or not”. He inquired about the detention centre in the Hague. The Registry representative gave him a brief description of the detention centre and replied to the questions put to her regarding the possibility to have fresh air, to see other people and regarding the food. Mr. Gaddafi indicated that he would like to see the sun. When the Registry representative indicated that inmates could have access to an open air yard, he said that they were lucky to be able to see birds and trees”.
“At this point, the representative of the Libyan Prosecution left the room for five minutes. The Registry representative quickly asked the suspect how he was and whether he was mistreated. His attitude changed from relaxed to intense and without saying a word he waived the hand where two fingers missing and pointed to a missing tooth in the upper front of his dentition. He then said that he was kept in total isolation, and that he had not seen the sunlight in 20 days and he had nobody to speak to.”
“As the Libyan prosecutor came back to the room, the Registry representative indicated she was going to read him his rights before the ICC. Mr. Gaddafi was very skeptical while he was read his rights. He asked whether these rights should apply to him immediately. He was told that these were basic rights respecting ICC standards. 2 When asked whether these rights were respected in Libya, he said: “ What do you think?” 3
The second report by the Office of Public Council for Defence contains by and large the same information, but one can’t miss the significant differences existing between the two. Only the report of Office of Public Council for Defence mentions that Seif al-Islam wished to be transferred as soon as possible to the Hague or Tripoli to discontinue his detention under the present conditions (paragraph 33). Only this report says the Libyan authorities lied saying S. Gaddafi didn’t want to see the ICC representatives (paragraph 34). Only this report says the Libyan authorities denied his request for a lawyer, saying “it’s impossible” (paragraph 35). 4 The both reports had classified parts omitted in the public versions.
The differences between the two reports, the information they contained, their initial publication and sudden secrecy imposed – it all goes to show there are two opposing forces clashing inside the ICC. The first one is represented by the Registry and the Prosecutor’s Office. The second – by the Gaddafi’s Defence. But it’s a very unusual defence. The matter is Gaddafi didn’t have a lawyer since the arrest warrant was issued. But on April 17 the Court assigned him a temporary lawyer - Xavier Jean-Keïta, Principal Counsel, Office of Public Counsel for Defence. 5 It’s him the second ICC force is associated with. On May 3 he delivered a major blow to the other side. He addressed the Appeals Chamber demanding the disqualification of the ICC’s prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo.6 Indeed, the prosecutor displayed extreme lack of professionalism. No doubt he was trying to accomplish political missions but was doing it rudely, like a drill Sergeant giving an order.
Let’s remember that it was Ocampo who “gathered evidence of fault” against Muammar and Seif Gaddafi in a few weeks without going to the place where the alleged crimes were committed. In other cases investigations lasted for years (7 years in the case of Cote d’Ivoire). Now the Ocampo’s statements for the media fully coincide with the position of the Libyan authorities. Ocampo says the Libyan “insurrection” was a result of the crimes committed by the Gaddafi family. Thus he takes the side of criminals himself: no way he may not be aware that the report of the UN Inquiry Commission says the crimes have been committed by the both sides that is by those who is called “the Libyan government” today. Ocampo renders active support to it making statements expressing confidence in the ability of the authorities to try Seif Gaddafi. And that’s after the warrant to hold the trial exactly in the Hague has been issued upon the request made by the ICC! It means the Ocampo’s activities prevent the execution of the arrest warrant issued by the court! The situation is unique. An ICC’s prosecutor has deliberately taken the side of the criminals. It’s not the disqualification of Ocampo from the Seif Gaddafi’s case, but rather the disqualification from the ICC prosecutor’s position that we should be in consideration.
At the same time it’s not just another prosecutor who has lost his mind. There are facts that say there are some forces inside the ICC acting with the help of Ocampo trying to wind up the Seif Gaddaf’s case and prevent it from going to the Hague.
First, there is no real evidence of his guilt the same way there was no evidence produced in the case against his father (here one can recall the ICC’s approach to the Muammar Gaddafi’s suit, when instead of demanding to investigate the murder of the person who had been brought charges against in the already open case, it was decided to “close it” 7 ). It’s a rather scandalous decision taken by the court that pretends to be “the most just in the world” that “sets the universal justice standards”.
Secondly, the ICC’s interest is to prevent Seif Gaddafi from getting an international tribune to give evidence against NATO and make public secret mechanisms of Libya’s destruction. Eight out of eighteen judges are citizens of NATO countries, that committed an act of aggression against Libya (besides two more judges from NATO member states “temporary hold their positions till concrete cases are closed”). Thus, NATO controls half of the ICC judges. In the chamber that is responsible for preliminary investigation of the Seif Gaddafi’s case, two out of three judges are citizens of NATO countries (Germany and Belgium). And third at last, the only defence left for Seif al-Islam in case his trial goes to the Court is the information revealing real identity of the new Libyan authorities and their crimes, that would inevitably lead to new arrest warrants by a court that is really independent. So, the fact of transferring the Seif Gaddafi’s trial to the ICC would be a blow against all countries without exclusion whose citizens hold top positions there. Is it really so, that nobody wants the trial to go to the ICC? No, not exactly.
Though the chief ICC prosecutor Xavier-Jean Keïta is French, he comes from Mali. The motivation of his strong actions lies on the surface, Mali is especially grateful to Muammar Gaddafi for the aid rendered by the Libyan leader in all spheres including deterring the Tuaregs, what at the very least made possible for the government to exercise control of the northern part of the country. It was Mali that suffered most as a result of M. Gaddafi’s overthrow: practically half of its territory was cut off by the Tuaregs who became absolutely insolent receiving the most modern arms, including heavy weapons systems, from Libyan depots. The coup d’etat in Mali in March this year and an attempt to make a coup by the end of April – portend the destruction of southern part of the country and rivers of blood. The main contradictions between the putschists and “counterputschists” lie in strategy and tactics of getting back the lost land in the North. Everyone understands Mali is not able to return it now, so what makes difference is how many lives these or that new authorities are ready to sacrifice – dozens of thousand or hundreds of thousand. The domestic situation is more than dramatic. Under the circumstances the call of blood of the leading ICC lawyer played a significant role in unusual development of the Seif Gaddafi’s case proceedings. Still Keïta is French and he remains to be French. He didn’t start to act at once but only when the balance of political power inside France became finally clear.
It’s hard to say whose interests Keïta pursues trying to transfer the case to the Hague. It’s not excluded he is offered the role of a driving force of those who not only want to get rid of Sarkozy as the president of France (and weakening the globalist lobby staying behind him) but also his total destruction with the help of further revelations. Let’s not forget it is Seif al-Islam Gaddafi who possesses the most full information about financing the Sarkozy’s presidential campaign. Supposedly those who want at any price to get S. Gaddafi out of Libya and take him to the Hague to make public revelations stay behind Keïta.
The fact of making public the report of the ICC delegation in Libya should become a basis for investigation. It’s clear its publication (at least concerning the part of the talk of the ICC delegation with Gaddafi alone) prompts retaliation against S. Gaddafi. Just recently on May 1 the Libyan government sent an application to the ICC demanding to recognize the S. Gaddafi’s case as inadmissible pursuant to the article 19 of the ICC Statute. One of the main arguments is “a lie presented by the Court’s Registry about Seif Gaddafi being mistreated” 8. The report’s publication can be considered as an attempt to liquidate Seif Gaddafi. The Libyan authorities have prepared an alibi in advance. They constantly importunately repeat that they don’t control the tribes that Seif Gaddafi happened to be in the hands of. Still, the rumors about lack of control over the Zintan local powers are exaggerated, at least concerning Seif al-Islam. It was no other but a prosecutor from Tripoli who was present al the time during the meeting between S. Gaddafi and the ICC delegation.
So, talking about the S. al-Islam’s case in the ICC a new, unparalleled until now situation has shaped. Two forces have clashed. One is trying at any price to close the case of Gaddafi, the other opposes these activities. It’s by and large clear what exactly one of them doesn’t want to hear about. What the other wants to hear from the defendant will become clear only if Seif al-Islam faces the Hague trial. In any case the dream of Seif Gaddafi will hardly become true. The matter is he dreams about seeing the Libyan sun…
1. The ICC delegation sent to visit Seif al-Gaddafi included the teams of two bodies formally independent from each other - the Registry and the Office of Public Council for Defence. Correspondingly they have submitted two independent reports.
2. Isn’t it an exhaustive reply? Still, it gives an idea of what goals are set by different forces inside the ICC.
3. At present one can see only secondary sources. The whole text of the quoted report by the ICC Registry is available: http://opiniojuris.org/wp-content/uploads/RegistryReport.pdf
4. The full text of the Office of Public Council for Defence: http://opiniojuris.org/wp-content/uploads/OPCD-Report.pdf
5. Prosecutor v. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, [Pre-Trial Chamber] Decision Appointing Counsel from the OPCD as Counsel for Saif Al-Islam, 17 April 2012, // http://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/doc/doc1396574.pdf
6. Prosecutor v. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, [Defence] Request [to the Appeals Chamber] to Disqualify the Prosecutor from Participating in the Case Against Mr. Saif Al Islam Gaddafi, 3 May 2012, // http://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/doc/doc1407180.pdf
7. Prosecutor v. Muammar Gaddafi, [Pre-Trial] Decision to Terminate the Case Against Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar Gaddafi, 22 November 2011, // http://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/doc/doc1274559.pdf
8. Prosecutor v. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, Application on behalf of the Government of Libya pursuant to Article 19 of the ICC Statute, 1 May 2012, // http://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/doc/doc1405819.pdf
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Labels: ICC, LIBYA, MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI
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Tony Blair 'visited Libya to lobby for JP Morgan'
By Richard Spencer, Tripoli, Heidi Blake and Jon Swaine in New York
10:33PM BST 18 Sep 2011
A senior executive with the Libyan Investment Authority, the $70 billion fund used to invest the country's oil money abroad, said Mr Blair was one of three prominent western businessmen who regularly dealt with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the former leader.
Saif al-Islam and his close aides oversaw the activities of the fund, and often directed its officials on where they should make its investments, he said.
The executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, said officials were told the "ideas" they were ordered to pursue came from Mr Blair as well as one other British businessman and a former American diplomat.
"Tony Blair's visits were purely lobby visits for banking deals with JP Morgan," he said.
He said that unlike some other deals - notably some investments run by the US bank Goldman Sachs - JP Morgan's had never turned "bad".
But he added: "Saif and his father played these people like musical chairs. At the end the reputation of the LIA was really damaged because of these interventions."
Documents found by The Sunday Telegraph published this weekend showed Mr Blair had made at least three visits to Tripoli, twice in the lead-up to the release of the alleged Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Megrahi in 2008 and 2009 and once last year. On the first two occasions he was flown to the country on planes arranged by Col Gaddafi.
A senior diplomat told The Daily Telegraph last night that the British embassy in Tripoli had arranged transport for Mr Blair and his entourage in Tripoli and ensured that representatives were there to “greet him and see him off” at the airport.
Mr Blair stayed overnight at the ambassador’s official residence in Tripoli and was accompanied by “several” British police officers for protection.
The documents show that among the people he was due to meet in 2009 was Mohammed Layas, head of the LIA.
A spokesman for Mr Blair said that the visits had largely been to discuss Africa, and categorically denied that he had lobbied Said al-Islam on behalf of JP Morgan.
The spokesman said last night: "As we have made clear many times before, Tony Blair has never had any role, either formal or informal, paid or unpaid, with the Libyan Investment Authority or the Government of Libya and he does not and has never had any commercial relationship with any Libyan company or entity."
Mr Blair began work in January 2008 as a £2million-a-yearn adviser to JP Morgan. Last month, American officials told the New York Post newspaper that the bank managed more than half a billion US dollars on behalf of the LIA.
The executive said that he did not see Mr Blair at the LIA headquarters in the modern Tower of the Revolution overlooking the seafront. He said officials like himself were given their instructions by two senior Saif aides, including Mohammed Ismail, a Libyan with British nationality.
One of the letters arranging the 2008 visit, in which an aide to Mr Blair told the Libyan ambassador to Britain that the former prime minister was "delighted" that "The Leader" was likely to be able to see him, was on notepaper headed "Office of the Quartet Representative", his formal title as Middle East envoy.
The Quartet he represents is made up of the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and the United States. A spokesman for Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, said: "It's up to him to explain why he did this."
The growing closeness of the Blair government to the Gaddafi regime has already come under fire. Abdulhakim Belhadj, former leader the Libyan Islamist Fighting Group and now head of the revolutionary Tripoli Military Council, is demanding an apology after papers showed MI6 arranged for his secret extradition from Malaysia back to Libya in 2004.
Many ordinary Libyans have also expressed surprise at the policy. After the latest revelations, Hoda Abuzeid, a British Libyan whose dissident father was murdered in London in 1995, accused Mr Blair of "selling out".
"People like Blair and those who had their eyes on the business opportunities that Gaddafi could provide sold out people like my family," said Miss Abuzeid, who has returned to the country for the first time since 1980.
"When he had tea in the desert with the 'Brother Leader' did he ever ask him who killed my father?"
Labels: LIBYA, MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI, TONY BLAIR
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