What does the War on Libya Mean for the Rise of Latin America?

By LIZZIE PHELAN

The rise of Latin America has been something that I have been very privileged to be able to witness in my lifetime. To see living, breathing examples of socialism, to see vast nations like Venezuela and Brazil lift thousands of people out of poverty and some of the historically most downtrodden and oppressed peoples of this earth regain dignity, to witness the first indigenous president in Bolivia, Evo Morales take power - these are all events that reverberate amongst oppressed peoples throughout this planet. 

But the most important lesson that 21st century socialism has hammered home is that socialism cannot develop according to a rigid formula. But it will develop according to the unique dynamics and contradictions that exist in any given location at any given time. It has shown that a political system should be judged on its content and outcomes rather than its form.

In saying that, whilst 21st century socialism in Venezuela may look different from how it looks in Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil or elsewhere, there are crucial commonalities, namely the assertion of sovereignty from foreign interference, which for a continent that for centuries was treated as Europe and the United States’ back yard is an anti imperialist assertion.

The commonality of this struggle stretches to all corners of the Global South, and in that commonality, Latin America and its sister countries in the Global South find a basis for cooperation towards their common anti imperialist goal of sovereignty. 

The rise of Latin America is not an isolated story, it is also the story of the rise of China, the growing economic prowess of India, Russia, South Africa and other nations who now provide alternative trade partners to what used to be the only show in town - the US and Europe.

And up until three months ago, this remarkable story of progress away from a unipolar world of US-European control, towards a multipolar world, seemed unstoppable. But on March 31, when Britain, France and the US along with the rest of its friends in NATO and the GCC states, unleashed the first of thousands of bombs on the socialist Republic of Libya, this path of progress suffered a setback of grave proportions, the consequences of which are yet to become clear.

For the war on Libya is AFRICOM’s - the US’ project for military control over Africa - inaugural mission on the continent. It is a war on Africa.

Alongside the illegal sanctions on the nation of Zimbabwe, like Libya -another friend of Latin America’s, it is clear that the imperialists are coming straight for what leading figure in the US Black Liberation Movement, sister Viola Plummer said are the two “stalwart countries, who resist the militarisation of the continent”.

And since 1450, when the first of what is estimated to be 5 million African slaves, landed on the shores of the Americas, Latin America and Africa have shared mirror histories of European conquest.

Brazil itself can be considered an African country - it is often said that it has the largest population of Africans outside of Nigeria. In that sense it is appropriate that former Brazilian president, Lula da Silva, did more than any other leader on the continent to strengthen ties between Latin America and Africa, making 12 visits to the continent in his eight years in office.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez also has been a very vocal champion of friendship between the two continents. During his visit to Tripoli, Libya, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the revolution in that African country, he said: "I strongly believe that Latin America will have no future without Africa, the same way Africa will not have a future without Latin America ... both of us share the same dream of a better world, a world of free and equal people....Africa cannot ever allow again that countries from overseas come to impose certain kinds of political, economic and social systems. Africa has to be for the Africans and only through unity Africa will be free and great.”

As well as talking about solidarity between the two continents, Chavez stresses the importance of a united Africa not just for Africa, but also for the Global South more broadly. When that is understood, the basis for his, Lula’s, Morales’ and Latin America’s close friendship with Moammar Gaddafi is put into context because Gaddafi is, as former Black Panther, Deedan Kamathi stressed during an interview with Sukant Chandan in Tripoli, the vanguard of the pan-African revolution.

Kamathi said, “Libya became the vanguard country for the pan-African revolution and it also became the vanguard country for the international revolution in terms of - no other African country, even liberated zones in Africa - provided the kind of material, political and ideological support to the liberation movements throughout the world, especially to the liberation movements in the United States and the Carribean. So we salute brother Gaddafi and the Jamahiriya for that and that's why I'm here today and that's why we conduct some kind of a media campaign and actual demonstrations and protests in support of "Hand Off Libya" , "Stop the Bombing of Libya" and "No Regime Change", in fact we need to uplift the Jamahiriya to a higher elevated position and amongst the anti-war progressive peoples all around the world.”

In addition to Gaddafi’s Libya being a vital source of trade and political cooperation between Latin America and Africa, exemplified by the fact that between 2003 and 2009 Brazilian exports to Libya increased by 289 per cent, while Brazilian imports from Libya grew by 3,111 per cent. 41 years of the Jamahiriya also serves as a vital source of revolutionary inspiration for leaders like Chavez, which he paid homage to when he said, “What Simon Bolivar is for the Venezuelan people, Moammar Gaddafi is for the Libyan people. He's the Liberator of Libya."

So, returning to my point about the symbolic impact of having living examples of socialism in Latin America and how socialism develops according to the unique dynamics of any given location, for 41 years we have also had the example of Libya, which kicked out the British and the Americans, closed their military bases, and nationalised their oil - and  has achieved for its people the highest standard of living in Africa in a country that was the poorest on this planet. In the west, and in that I do not include Latin America or other nations of the geopolitical sphere that we term the Global South, our orientalist disdain for Gaddafi has meant that in all of those 41 years, we have blinded ourselves to, and missed out on learning from the incredible progress that has taken place within Libya under the Jamahiriya.

And while for Latin America and the Global South, the Jamahiriya provides a great example of what can be achieved, the war on the Jamahiriya also exposes the great vulnerabilities of all nations of the Global South which assert their sovereignty and identity at the expense of US-European domination.

While people across the world, from David Cameron, to so-called anti-imperialists in the west were calling what was in fact a counterrevolution, a revolution against another “Arab despot”, Chavez knew exactly what was going on. Because in another time and in another place, the narrative being parroted out to the world by Al Jazeera and the western media against Gaddafi, could have been the same narrative being spun against him.

And so he said: “I am not going to condemn from afar. That would be cowardly with someone who has been my friend and our friend for a long time, without knowing what is happening in Libya … I am not a coward, I am not fickle.”

Similarly in the very early days of the attempted counterrevolution, Fidel Castro called it out for what it was, an opportunity for NATO to finish off what the US had attempted to start when it bombed Libya in 1986.

But neither Chavez’s attempt at a peace plan, nor denunciations from across the Global South were enough to stop the imperialists in their mission to take the oil rich Benghazi for itself, begin the recolonisation Africa and in the process leave Libya in ruins to the Libyan people and all the other African migrants who have been welcomed by the Jamihiriya

Drawing back for a moment to Latin America, the first victory in the rise of Latin America began at the end of the 18th century with the liberation of Haiti by African slaves and the establishment of the world’s first Black Republic. Today, on behalf of the same oppressor Haiti rose up against, black people are being lynched in Libya by NATO’s “revolutionaries”. Progress is hard won, but easily destroyed.

The lessons from this are twofold. The internationalism once expressed by nations like Cuba who bravely sent soldiers to fight in Angola are no more. Then the Cubans had behind it the threat of a nuclear ally in the Soviet Union. So, until nations in the Global South develop a military prowess that can temper that of the United States, all nations in the Global South are vulnerable to their achievements being snuffed out by Tomahawk cruise missiles in the blink of an eye as we are witnessing in Libya. 

The second lesson comes from the way in which the war in Libya has been termed a “humanitarian war”. This has been possible not just by the criminalisation of Gaddafi himself, but also by the criminalisation of the whole of Africa in the western media.

On the one hand we have the image of Gaddafi the “mad dog”, who dresses “eccentrically” (a racist assertion in itself, when one considers that he wears traditional African dress). That he is a crazy dictator controlling his own people. Nothing then of the universal health care, mass social housing, free university education, equality between black and white people, the high status of women, or the fact that far from being a dictator, Gaddafi has no official power in Libya, he is the symbolic leader of the revolution in much the same way Fidel is in Cuba today. And in regards to Libya being a dictatorship, democracy in Libya works through a system of people’s councils which is far more representative than anything we could dream of having here in England.

On the other hand we have images of Africans, starving, helpless, conflict hungry and unable to do much for themselves. For minds subjected to such images for the length of a lifetime, it is not such a surprise that people cannot contemplate an African Libya that is developed, where people live in peace, with dignity and a high quality of life.

This is cultural imperialism, and the western criminalisation of Asia, Latin America and Africa is perpetrated via imperialisms’ media machine. Al Jazeera was meant to be our beacon of hope in the west, until it became clear what game the Qataris were playing.

Chavez said it himself once, to a Fox news reporter: “The stupid people from Fox News”, he said. So the global South needs to stop allowing the stupid people to speak for it and it needs its own mass media machine to tell the world its own story from its own mouth.

If imperialism is victorious in Libya, not only Africa, but Latin America and the whole of the Global South will have lost a crucial friend. The lessons must be learnt quickly and as the Libyan people know as each day of bombing destroys a bit more of their hard fought for revolution, time is not on our side.

Long live Libya, only together will Africa, Latin America and the Global South rise.


This speech was delivered at Bolivar Hall, Venezuelan Embassy, London at the Latin America Rising event on June 16 2011.

June 24th 2011

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Bahamas Political Blog

NATO, war, lies and business

Reflections of Fidel

(Taken from CubaDebate)

AS some people know, in September of 1969, Muammar al-Gaddafi, a Bedouin Arab soldier of unusual character and inspired by the ideas of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, promoted within the heart of the Armed Forces a movement which overthrew King Idris I of Libya, almost a desert country in its totality, with a sparse population, located to the north of Africa between Tunisia and Egypt.

Libya’s significant and valuable energy resources were progressively being discovered.

Born into the heart of a Bedouin community, nomadic desert shepherds in the region of Tripoli, Gaddafi was profoundly anti-colonialist. It is known that a paternal grandfather died fighting against the Italian invaders when Libya was invaded by the latter in 1911. The colonial regime and fascism changed everyone’s lives. It is likewise said that his father was imprisoned before earning his daily bread as an industrial worker.

Even Gaddafi’s adversaries confirm that he stood out for his intelligence as a student; he was expelled from high school for his anti-monarchical activities. He managed to enroll in another school and later to graduate in law at the University of Benghazi, aged 21. He then entered the Benghazi Military College, where he created the Union of Free Officers Movement, subsequently completing his studies in a British military academy.

These antecedents explain the notable influence that he later exercised in Libya and over other political leaders, whether or not they are now for or against Gaddafi.

He initiated his political life with unquestionably revolutionary acts.

In March 1970, in the wake of mass nationalist protests, he achieved the evacuation of British soldiers from the country and, in June, the United States vacated the large airbase close to Tripoli, which was handed over to military instructors from Egypt, a country allied with Libya.

In 1970, a number of Western oil companies and banking societies with the participation of foreign capital were affected by the Revolution. At the end of 1971, the same fate befell the famous British Petroleum. In the agricultural sector all Italian assets were confiscated, and the colonialists and their descendants were expelled from Libya.

State intervention was directed toward the control of the large companies. Production in that country grew to become one of the highest in the Arab world. Gambling was prohibited, as was alcohol consumption. The legal status of women, traditionally limited, was elevated.

The Libyan leader became immersed in extremist theories as much opposed to communism as to capitalism. It was a stage in which Gaddafi devoted himself to theorizing, which would be meaningless to include in this analysis, except to note that the first article of the Constitutional Proclamation of 1969, established the "Socialist" nature of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

What I wish to emphasize is that the United States and its NATO allies were never interested in human rights.

The pandemonium that occurred in the Security Council, in the meeting of the Human Rights Council based in Geneva, and in the UN General Assembly in New York, was pure theater.

I can perfectly comprehend the reactions of political leaders embroiled in so many contradictions and sterile debates, given the intrigue of interests and problems which they have to address.

All of us are well aware that status as a permanent member, veto power, the possession of nuclear weapons and more than a few institutions, are sources of privilege and self-interest imposed on humanity by force. One can be in agreement with many of them or not, but never accept them as just or ethical measures.

The empire is now attempting to turn events around to what Gaddafi has done or not done, because it needs to militarily intervene in Libya and deliver a blow to the revolutionary wave unleashed in the Arab world. Through now not a word was said, silence was maintained and business was conducted.

Whether a latent Libyan rebellion was promoted by yankee intelligence agencies or by the errors of Gaddafi himself, it is important that the peoples do not let themselves be deceived, given that, very soon, world opinion will have enough elements to know what to believe.

In my opinion, and as I have expressed since the outset, the plans of the bellicose NATO had to be condemned.

Libya, like many Third World countries, is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, the Group of 77 and other international organizations, via which relations are established independently of economic and social system.

Briefly: the Revolution in Cuba, inspired by Marxist-Leninist and Martí principles, had triumphed in 1959 at 90 miles from the United States, which imposed the Platt Amendment on us and was the proprietor of our country’s economy.

Almost immediately, the empire promoted against our people dirty warfare, counterrevolutionary gangs, the criminal economic blockade and the mercenary invasion of the Bay of Pigs, guarded by an aircraft carrier and its marines ready to disembark if the mercenary force secured certain objectives.

Barely a year and a half later, it threatened us with the power of its nuclear arsenal. A war of that nature was about to break out.

All the Latin American countries, with the exception of Mexico, took part in the criminal blockade which is still in place, without our country ever surrendering. It is important to recall that for those lacking historical memory.

In January 1986, putting forward the idea that Libya was behind so-called revolutionary terrorism, Reagan ordered the severing of economic and commercial relations with that country.

In March, an aircraft carrier force in the Gulf of Sirte, within what Libya considered its national waters, unleashed attacks which destroyed a number of naval units equipped with rocket launchers and coastal radar systems which that country had acquired in the USSR.

On April 5, a discotheque in West Berlin frequented by U.S. soldiers was the target of a plastic explosives attack, in which three people died, two of them U.S. soldiers, and many people were injured.

Reagan accused Gaddafi and ordered the Air Force to respond. Three squadrons took off from 6th Fleet aircraft carriers and bases in the United Kingdom, and attacked with missiles and bombs seven military targets in Tripoli and Benghazi. Some 40 people died, 15 of them civilians. Warned in advance of the bombardments, Gaddafi gathered together his family and was leaving his residence located in the Bab Al Aziziya military complex south of the capital. The evacuation had not been completed when a missile directly hit the residence, his daughter Hanna died and another two of his children were wounded. That act was widely rejected; the UN General Assembly passed a resolution of condemnation given what was a violation of the UN Charter and international law. The Non-Aligned Movement, the Arab League and the OAU did likewise in energetic terms.

On December 21, 1988, a Pan Am Boeing 747 flying from London to New York disintegrated in full flight when a bomb exploded aboard, the wreckage fell on the locality of Lockerbie and the tragedy cost the lives of 270 people of 21 nationalities.

Initially, the United States suspected Iran, in reprisal for the death of 290 people when an Airbus belonging to its state line was brought down. According to the yankees, investigations implicated two Libyan intelligence agents. Similar accusations against Libya were made in the case of the French airline on the Brazzaville-N’Djamena-Paris route, implicating Libyan officials whom Gaddafi refused to extradite for acts that he categorically denied.

A sinister legend was fabricated against him, with the participation of Reagan and Bush Senior.

From 1975 to the final stage of the Regan administration, Cuba dedicated itself to its internationalist duties in Angola and other African nations. We were aware of the conflicts developing in Libya or around her via readings and testimonies from people closely linked to that country and the Arab world, as well as impressions we retained from many figures in different countries with whom we had contact during those years.

Many known African leaders with whom Gaddafi maintained close relations made efforts to find a solution to the tense relations between Libya and the United Kingdom.

The Security Council had imposed sanctions on Libya which began to be overcome when Gaddafi agreed to the trial, under specific conditions, of the two men accused of the plane sabotage over Scotland.

Libyan delegations began to be invited to inter-European meetings. In July 1999 London initiated the reestablishment of full diplomatic relations with Libya after some additional concessions.

In September of that year, European Union ministers agreed to revoke the restrictive trade measures imposed in 1992.

On December 2, Massimo D’Alema, the Italian prime minister, made the first visit to Libya by a European head of government.

With the disappearance of the USSR and the European socialist bloc, Gaddafi decided to accept the demands of the United States and NATO.

When I visited Libya in May 2001, he showed me the ruins left by the treacherous attack during which Reagan murdered his daughter and almost exterminated his entire family.

In early 2002, the State Department announced that diplomatic talks between the United States and Libya were underway.

In May, Libya was once again included on the list of states sponsoring terrorism although, in January, President George W. Bush had not mentioned the African country in his famous speech on members of the "axis of evil."

At the beginning of 2003, in accordance with the economic agreement on compensation reached between Libya and the plaintiffs, the United Kingdom and France, the UN Security Council lifted its 1992 sanctions against Libya.

Before the end of 2003, Bush and Tony Blair reported an agreement with Libya, which had submitted documentation to British and U.S. intelligence experts about conventional weapons programs and ballistic missiles with a range of more than 300 kilometers. Officials from both countries had already visited a number of installations. It was the result of many months of conversation between Tripoli and Washington, as Bush himself revealed.

Gaddafi kept his disarmament promises. Within five months Libya handed over the five units of Scud-C missiles with a range of 800 km and hundreds of Scud-B which have a range exceeding the 300 kilometers of defensive short-range missiles.

As of October, 2002, a marathon of visits to Tripoli began: Berlusconi, in October 2002; José María Aznar, in September 2003; Berlusconi again in February, August and October of 2004; Blair, in March of 2004; the German Schröeder, in October of that year; Jacques Chirac, November 2004. Everybody happy. Money talks.

Gaddafi toured Europe triumphantly. He was received in Brussels in April of 2004 by Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission; in August of that year the Libyan leader invited Bush to visit his country; Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Texaco and Conoco Philips established renewed oil extraction operations through joint ventures.

In May of 2006, the United States announced the removal of Libya from its list of nations harboring terrorists and established full diplomatic relations.

In 2006 and 2007, France and the U.S. signed accords for cooperation in nuclear development for peaceful ends; in May, 2007, Blair returned to visit Gaddafi in Sirte. British Petroleum signed a contract it described as "enormously important," for the exploration of gas fields.

In December of 2007, Gaddafi made two trips to France to sign military and civilian equipment contracts for 10 billion euros, and to Spain where he met with President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Contracts worth millions were signed with important NATO countries.

What has now brought on the precipitous withdrawal of U.S. and other NATO members' embassies?

It all seems extremely strange.

George W. Bush, father of the stupid anti-terrorist war, said on September 20, 2011 to west Point cadets, "Our security will require … the military you will lead, a military that must be ready to strike at a moment's notice in any dark corner of the world. … to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives.

"We must root out terrorist cells in 60 countries or more … with our friends and allies, we have to stop their proliferation and confront regimes which harbor or support terrorism, as is required in each case."

What might Obama think of that speech?

What sanctions will the Security Council impose on those who have killed more than a million civilians in Iraq and those who everyday are murdering men, women and children in Afghanistan, where just recently the angry population took to the streets to protest the massacre of innocent children?

An AFP dispatch from Kabul, dated today, March 9, reveals, "Last year was the most lethal for civilians in the nine-year war between the Taliban and international forces in Afghanistan, with almost 2,800 deaths, 15% more than in 2009, a United Nations report indicated on Wednesday, underlining the human cost of the conflict for the population.

"… The Taliban insurrection has intensified and gained ground in these last few years, with guerrilla actions beyond its traditional bastions in the South and East.

"At exactly 2,777, the number of civilian deaths in 2010 increased by 15% as compared to 2009," the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan annual report indicated.

"On March 3, President Barack Obama expressed his profound condolences to the Afghan people for the nine children killed, as did U.S. General David Petraeus, commander in chief of the ISAF and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

"… The UNAMA report emphasizes that the number of civilian deaths is four times greater than the number of international forces soldiers killed in combat during the same year.

"So far, 2010 has been the most deadly for foreign soldiers in the nine years of war, with 711 dead, confirming that the Taliban's guerilla war has intensified despite the deployment of 30,000 U.S. reinforcements last year."

Over the course of 10 days, in Geneva and in the United Nations, more than 150 speeches were delivered about violations of human rights, which were repeated million of times on television, radio, Internet and in the written press.

Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, in his remarks March 1, 2011 before Foreign Relations ministers in Geneva, said:

"Humanity's conscience is repulsed by the deaths of innocent people under any circumstances, anyplace. Cuba fully shares the worldwide concern for the loss of civilian lives in Libya and hopes that its people are able to reach a peaceful and sovereign solution to the civil war occurring there, with no foreign interference, and guarantee the integrity of that nation."

Some of the final paragraphs of his speech were scathing.

"If the essential human right is the right to life, will the Council be ready to suspend the membership of states that unleash war?

"Will it suspend states which finance and supply military aid utilized by recipient states for mass, flagrant and systematic violations of human rights and attacks on the civilian population, like those taking place in Palestine?

"Will it apply measures to powerful countries which are perpetuating extra-judicial executions in the territory of other states with the use of high technology, such as smart bombs and drone aircraft?

"What will happen with states which accept secret illegal prisons in their territories, facilitate the transit of secret flights with kidnapped persons aboard, or participate in acts of torture?

We fully share the valiant position of the Bolivarian leader Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

We are against the internal war in Libya, in favor of immediate peace and respect for the lives and rights of all citizens, without foreign intervention, which would only serve to prolong the conflict and NATO interests.



Fidel Castro Ruz

March 9, 2011

9:35 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

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