Libya for the Libyans: Stop the intervention!

After the killing of former Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi, some in  the corporate controlled media are extolling the overall operation as  the right way for the United States to project force overseas.

 

We beg to differ.

 

We find the whole episode, starting  with the beginning of NATO intervention in March, to be very troubling.  Rather than a model to be emulated, the operation sets very bad  precedents.

The United Nations was crudely superseded by the North Atlantic  Treaty Organization (NATO), whose leaders took a mandate to prevent a  possible massacre of civilians and transformed it into a gung ho mission  of "regime change".  NATO is now posing as an international  organization. It is nothing of the kind; it is a military alliance in  which there is no representation of African, Latin American or, with the  exception of Turkey, Asian nations. The key role in the NATO  intervention in Libya is being played by the former colonial powers  (France and the UK, and, to a lesser extent, Libya's former colonial  master, Italy as well as the United States) who have a vested interest  in trade policy with the African continent, and control of that  continent's natural resources. Window dressing was provided by some of  the Arab states, which themselves are hardly paragons of democracy and  good government.

Efforts by many nations and groupings, including the African Union,  the BRICS countries and the ALBA grouping, to obtain a cease fire and  get negotiations for a peaceful solution underway were cynically brushed  aside. This led to a far bloodier conflict than might otherwise have  been the case.

 

Although Gadaffi was correctly denounced for his repressive  policies, little or nothing was said or done by the NATO powers about  the well-documented persecution and reprisals against Black Libyans and  immigrants from other African countries residing in Libya. Unless some  action is taken, these and other reprisals are likely to continue.

 

There is a real danger that the NATO powers, and especially the  former colonial powers, will use the elimination of Gadaffi to increase  their control of the economies and trade of the African states, in the  process imposing even harsher neo-liberal policies of "free" trade,  privatization and austerity on some of the poorest countries in the  world.

 

The Communist Party of the USA calls for a halt to this kind of  interventionist policy. We call for the strengthening of real  international organizations in which all nations and regions of the  world have a vote. Rather than NATO military intervention, conflicts  within and between nations in Africa and everywhere else should be  settled peacefully by negotiations.  There is, in fact, no reason for  the existence of NATO, let alone its transformation into a worldwide  imperialist intervention force that has ranged as far afield as the  Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya.

 

The danger now is that the NATO powers, and international monopoly  capital, take advantage of the Libya situation to maximize their profits  from Libyan oil, natural gas and water resources, as well as  strengthening their control over the economies of the impoverished  African countries which depended on Libyan aid to survive.  The  Communist Party of the USA pledges to oppose all policies which plunge  Libya and its African neighbors into deeper poverty and dependency.

 

Libya for the Libyans!  Africa for the Africans!

 

International Department

Communist Party

Source: E-letter from CPUSA. Photo by Amar Abd Rabbo.