Power is rapidly slipping out of the
hands of Muammar Gaddafi, as anti-government protests continue to sweep
the African nation despite a brutal and bloody crackdown. As city after
city falls to the anti-Gaddafi forces his only base is now Tripoli. The
East is in the control of the insurgents and most of the West has fallen
into the hands of the rebels, including cities very close to the
capital.
Power is rapidly slipping out of the
hands of Muammar Gaddafi, as anti-government protests continue to sweep
the African nation despite a brutal and bloody crackdown. As city after
city falls to the anti-Gaddafi forces his only base is now Tripoli. The
East is in the control of the insurgents and most of the West has fallen
into the hands of the rebels, including cities very close to the
capital.
23 February, Benghazi. Photo: EndTyranny01Just
over a week ago the people first rose up in revolt in Benghazi, Libya’s
second largest city. Since then the rebellion has spread to other
cities with lightning speed despite all the brutal attempts by security
forces to quell the unrest.
The number of victims is unknown, but it is certainly in the hundreds
and Franco Frattini, the Italian foreign minister, said there were
"credible" reports that at least 1,000 had died in the clampdown. One
French doctor estimated that there were 2,000 dead in Benghazi alone.
But neither bullets nor bombs have stopped the movement, which is now
sweeping the whole country from east to west.
Gaddafi vowed to crush the uprising irrespective of the cost in human
lives. On Tuesday night he delivered an incoherent speech on
television, declaring he would die a martyr in Libya, and threatening to
purge opponents "house by house" and "inch by inch". He blamed the
uprising in the country on "Islamists", and warned that an "Islamic
emirate" has already been set up in Bayda and Derna, where he threatened
the use of extreme force.
Having lost control of Benghazi, Gaddafi ordered three naval ships to
attack it. Reports indicate the naval crew was torn about what to do.
This behaviour is a ready-made recipe for pushing more and more sections
of the military to abandon the Leader and side with the revolutionary
people. This is already happening.
Mercenaries
In a desperate attempt to crush the rebellion and create a regime of
terror, Gaddafi ordered his air force to attack the people, and
unleashed an army of foreign mercenaries on the population. The Guardian
reports the words of a dissident Libyan army officer:
“An air force officer, Major Rajib Faytouni, said he personally
witnessed up to 4,000 mercenaries arrive on Libyan transport planes over
a period of three days starting from 14 February. He said: ‘That’s why
we turned against the government. That and the fact there was an order
to use planes to attack the people’.“Numerous witnesses in Benghazi have said that while artillery was
used against citizens, air force planes did not fire on them here. They
did, however, according to Faytouni, drop two bombs inside the Rajma
military base to stop weapons falling into the hands of anti-government
forces.“‘The two colonels who defected in MiGs had refused orders to bomb
the people,’ he said, referring to a pair of air force officers who fled
to Malta in their jets on Monday. He added: ‘There were also two
helicopters that flew to Tunis’.”
In a separate incident the pilots of another plane parachuted
themselves out and let their plane crash rather than open fire on
civilians. The Spanish newspaper El Pais claims that 17 air force pilots
were executed today for refusing to fire on the civilian population. A
warship which had been sent to bombard Benghazi has defected to Malta.
The armed people
The attempt to drown the rebellion in blood has failed. An Al Jazeera
correspondent, reporting from the city of Tobruk, 140km from the
Egyptian border, said there was no presence of security forces: “From
what I’ve seen, I’d say the people of eastern Libya are the ones in
control," Hoda Abdel-Hamid said.
She said there were no officials manning the border when the Al Jazeera team crossed into Libya:
“All along the border, we didn’t see one policeman, we didn’t see one
soldier and people here told us they [security forces] have all fled or
are in hiding and that the people are now in charge, meaning all the
way from the border, Tobruk, and then all the way up to Benghazi.”
Western journalists who have now entered Benghazi report that the
apparatus of the state has completely disappeared. The Guardian
describes the scene:
“All around Benghazi there were indications that Gaddafi has lost
control of the city. The military is no longer operating checkpoints,
which are now manned only by a handful of traffic police. Every physical
sign of the dictator has been taken down or burned. While there has
been no violence in the past two days, angry demonstrators are driving
through city firing Kalashnikov rifles into the air and demanding
Gaddafi cede control and leave the country.”
former Libyan flag, dating from the struggle for independence, is
flying above ransacked government buildings on the waterfront. The
buildings of the security forces have been burned, the armoury has been
looted. The people are now heavily armed from the weaponry that they
have removed from these armouries. The Guardian reports:
“As the first foreign news organisation to report from so-called Free
Benghazi, the Guardian witnessed defecting troops pouring into the
courtyard of a ransacked police station carrying tonnes of weaponry and
ammunition looted from a military armoury to stop it being seized by
forces loyal to the Libyan dictator.“Soldiers brought rockets and heavy weapons which had been used in an
assault on citizens in central Benghazi on Saturday as Gaddafi tried to
keep control of the city. Doctors in Benghazi said that at least 230
people were killed, with a further 30 critically injured.“There was also the clearest confirmation yet that Gaddafi’s regime
used outside mercenaries to try to suppress the rebellion. Adjoining the
police station a large crowd gathered in another courtyard. Upstairs,
the Guardian saw a number of mercenaries, allegedly flown in the
previous week, being interrogated by lawyers and army officials.”
Gaddafi had to use foreign mercenaries because he could not trust his
own soldiers to fire on the people. They are guilty of terrible
atrocities against the people. Their fate is unknown. But at least they
will be put on trial for their crimes. The people they shot down in cold
blood on the streets of Benghazi had none. And gangs of mercenaries
still remain at large, committing new murders, as Al Jezeera reports:
“People tell me it’s also quite calm in Bayda and Benghazi. They do
say, however, that ‘militias’ are roaming around, especially at night.
They describe them as African men, they say they speak French so they
think they’re from Chad.”
Major-General Suleiman Mahmoud, the commander of the armed forces in
Tobruk, told Al Jazeera that the troops led by him had switched
loyalties. "We are on the side of the people," he said. "I was with him
[Gaddafi] in the past but the situation has changed – he’s a tyrant."
As in Tunisia and Egypt the revolutionary people are setting up
committees to take control of the running of society. Reuter published a
quote of a woman in Benghazi that completely sums up the situation:
"Somayah, a housewife in Benghazi, said: ‘The city is fine now after a
group of lawyers and doctors, as well as youth volunteers, formed public
committees and are keeping things in order’."
Engels explained that the state is armed bodies of men. In Benghazi
and other cities controlled by the rebels, the old state has ceased to
exist. It has been replaced by the armed people, revolutionary militias,
which Lenin said were the embryo of a new state power. According to one
report, military checkpoints between Benghazi and Egypt to the east are
now manned only by armed militia. The young men carrying Kalashnikovs
subject a lorry driver to a desultory check. “But there is no government
any more!” the driver protests. The argument strikes the young men as
conclusive, and they wave him on with a smile.
The fall of Misurata
Gaddafi probably thought that he could hold on to Tripoli and the
western part of the country and use this to crush the insurgent east.
But events have reduced his calculations to ashes. The revolution has
already spread to the west. By Wednesday the government had lost control
of Misurata , the third biggest city in Libya. Army officers in the
city have pledged "total support for the protesters".
Misurata is the largest city in the western half in the country to
fall into the hands of the insurgents. Clashes broke out over the past
two days in the town of Sabratha, west of the capital. Now Tajura, a
town less than 15 kilometres from Tripoli, has fallen and the rebel flag
is flying over it. The city of Zwara, also in the west, was reported to
be calm after the people took control. The people have united to patrol
the streets. Here also sections of the army have joined the protesters.
The masses in Benghazi are on the streets demonstrating in solidarity
with the people of Tripoli. It is merely a question of time before the
decisive Battle of Tripoli takes place. El Pais reports that in Tobruk
the people have set up popular committees and “a mood of revolution
pervades everything.”
Gaddafi and imperialism
As was the case in Tunisia and Egypt, the Americans and Europeans can
only look on helplessly while the situation drifts out of control. They
had hoped to arrive at a deal with Gaddafi, opening up this oil rich
nation to foreign investors.
Some people on the Left claim that Gaddafi is a “socialist” or an
“anti-imperialist” of some sort. This is false. As a matter of fact,
Gaddafi has abandoned any pretence at fighting imperialism, made deals
with the US, the UK and other imperialist powers and opened up the
country to the oil multinationals.
The rapprochement between Libya and imperialism was stepped up in
2003-4, starting with the recognition of responsibility for the
Lockerbie bombing. The British released the Libyan man accused of the
bombing, to the outrage of the Americans, but the British got lucrative
deals with Tripoli. As the Romans used to say, money does not smell.
Reactionary politicians like Tony Blair and Berlusconi wooed Gaddafi.
For his part the “anti-imperialist” Gaddafi carried out privatizations
and encouraged foreign companies to open up shops in Benghazi and
Tripoli. As recently as last November The Economist published a glowing
report about Libya, which it compared with Dubai. Now all these dreams
are in ruins.
It was precisely these policies which destroyed the elements of a
welfare state which existed previously, created a massive gulf between
the obscene wealth of the Gaddafi clique and the poverty of the masses
and mass unemployment developed. Any progressive features the regime
might have had in the past were eliminated. This is the root cause of
the present uprising.
Now there are reports that Gaddafi has ordered the bombing of oil
terminals. Big foreign oil companies like BP and Repsol have had to
suspend operations in Libya. Half of Libya’s oil production has been
shut down. The consequences for the world economy may be dramatic. Oil
prices are already soaring. Benchmark Brent futures have reached $110 a
barrel. The unrest in the Arab world may yet be the undoing of the weak
economic recovery, adding a further twist to the global crisis of
capitalism.
Regime disintegrating
Gaddafi has tried to mobilise his supporters to take to the streets
and show their support for their leader. Several hundred government
loyalists heeded his call, staging a pro-Gaddafi rally in the city’s
Green Square in Tripoli. But Gaddafi’s speech has done little to stem
the steady stream of defections from his side. On the same day there
were reports of gunfire in the capital.
There are signs that the regime is entering into a process of
disintegration. Late on Tuesday night, General Abdul-Fatah Younis, the
country’s interior minister, became the latest government official to
stand down, saying that he was resigning to support what he termed as
the "February 17 revolution". He urged the Libyan army to join the
people and their "legitimate demands".
On Wednesday, Youssef Sawani, a senior aide to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi,
one of Muammar Gaddafi’s sons, resigned from his post "to express
dismay against violence", Reuters reported.
Earlier, Mustapha Abdeljalil, the country’s justice minister, had
resigned in protest at the "excessive use of violence" against
protesters, and diplomats at Libya’s mission to the United Nations
called on the Libyan army to help remove "the tyrant Muammar Gaddafi".
Libyan diplomats across the world have either resigned in protest at the
use of violence against citizens, or renounced Gaddafi’s leadership,
saying that they stand with the protesters.
Most ominous of all for Gaddafi, a group of army officers has also
issued a statement urging soldiers to "join the people" and remove
Gaddafi from power. As the noose tightens, there are indications that
sections of the army in Libya are preparing to move against Gaddafi in
an attempt to stop the country slipping further into chaos. The
commander of the Tobruk region in the east is rumoured to have called
for a coup against Gaddafi and set up some kind of committee to replace
him and the clique around him.
This is the scenario which the imperialists wished to avoid in
Tunisia and Egypt through the timely departure of the “strongmen”.
Mubarak left it till the situation was already out of control. But by
clinging to power in the teeth of a mass uprising, Gaddafi has pushed
the situation to breaking point.
His conduct contradicts all the dictates of rational behaviour. He
has ordered the military to fire on the insurgent people. He has used
hired mercenaries to do the killing for him. This was intended to
terrify the masses, but it has failed in its objective. On the contrary,
it has enraged the people, and it has also alienated important sections
of the army and the police, who have turned against the Chief.
Finally, it seems that a glimmering of reality has begun to penetrate
the dark recesses of Gaddafi’s brain. It appears that a plane carrying
his daughter was prevented from landing in Malta and forced to turn back
to Libya. The Leader has begun to understand that the end is in sight.
But he will not leave like Ben Ali. After all, where would he go? He
intends to stay and fight to the bitter end, even if it means dragging
the whole nation down with him.
The fall of Gaddafi is now only a matter of time. By refusing to
surrender he will ensure that the ending will be of a cataclysmic
character. This will send further shock waves through the states of
North Africa and the Middle East already reeling from the earlier shocks
from Tunisia and Egypt.
With the fall of each reactionary regime, the basis of every existing
regime is weakened. The masses are watching every new development and
drawing their own conclusions. The fall of Gaddafi teaches them a new
message. If the Libyan regime, with its huge repressive apparatus and
army of foreign mercenaries, could not withstand a mass uprising of the
people, what chance does any other unpopular Arab government have?
The rulers of Saudi Arabia hated Gaddafi. Now they are praying for
him to succeed. Their prayers will not be answered. The message from the
streets of Benghazi and Misurata is resounding loud and clear: Tremble,
tyrants
