The Amateur

Computerist

Spring 2013 Libya, The UN and Netizen Journalism Volume 21 No. 1

Table of Contents

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 2

Int'l Media: 16

Member of the Security Council.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Page 4

Security Council Libya Mtg: Smoke and Mirrors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 9

UN SC on Libya: Killing the International Law.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 22

Abuse of UN Processes by Security Council. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 25

U.S. Uses UN to Bypass Congress to Go to War.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 44

Journalism as a Weapon of War in Libya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 46

Open Letter From Concerned Africans on Libya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 49

What Does Gaddafi’s Fall Mean For Africa?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 54

ALBA Declaration on Libya and Syria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 57

UNGA Debates NATO Attack on Libya.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 60

Lies of the Mainstream Media: TeleSUR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 64

Munich to Tripoli: Aiding Aggression.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 68

Statement by Concerned Africans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 72

Appendix

What Libya Achieved 1969-2011. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 74

Libya and the Big Lie.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 78

What NATO Did to Libya 2011. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 88

What Will Happen in Libya Now?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 92

Webpage: http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/

Page 1

Introduction: Netizen Journalism

and the Story of the Resistance

to the NATO

Aggression Against Libya

This issue of the Amateur Computerist is a collection of articles

documenting what happened in Libya in 2011. It critiques the inaccurate

reports that were used to justify the NATO war against Libya.

The focus in this collection is on the role played by the UN in

making possible the aggression against Libya. The actions taken by the

Security Council and other United Nations bodies like the Human Rights

Council were contrary to the obligations of the UN charter and other

principles of international law. The articles in this issue document the

process by which the UN became an accomplice in a NATO war against

a sovereign nation that is a member of the United Nations.

There was a media blitz supporting the NATO actions, largely based

on unverifiable claims by the opposition against the government of

Libya. The story that emerged is based on broadly circulated falsi-

fications of what was happening on the ground. A rush to use force

against the Libyan government, military, infrastructure and civilians

under Article 7 of the UN Charter was initiated at the United Nations

Security Council, combined with NATO support for an armed insurrec-

tion inside Libya. This armed insurrection was supported by a military

campaign of bombing and other aggressive acts on the part of the U.S.,

France, the U.K. and several other NATO nations. The harm to civilians

and civilian infrastructure was ignored by those supporting the NATO

aggression.

There were a number of journalists, websites and independent news

sources which provided an alternative account and critiqued the false

narrative being presented to justify the NATO war. Such a form of

journalism contributed to online by many netizens has been described

as “netizen journalism.”

Netizen journalism is a form of journalism

which takes as its mission to independently investigate situations, seek

out the alternative story and challenge the fact that much of the

Page 2

mainstream western media is but a media presenting the dominant

viewpoint of those in power. Whereas the western mainstream media

most often acts to reinforce this power, netizen journalism takes as its

mission to challenge the abuse of power.

A group of independent journalists and also journalists working for

alternative media like TeleSUR covered the struggle in Libya against the

NATO aggression and the damage it inflicted on the civilian infrastruc-

ture and the civilian population. This issue includes not only articles

documenting what happened in Libya but also contains references to

some of the many other independent news reports and analyses that

explore the long term goal of the NATO war and the injustice done by

that mainstream media which used unverified reports by opposition

sources to spread a phony rationale for the invasion of a sovereign

nation.

There are a number of journalists who provided this alternative

coverage. Such a list would include, among others, Mahdi Darius

Nazemroaya, Thierry Meyssan, Lizzy Phalen, and Franklin Lamb.

Some of the web sites that have been part of this broader collabora-

tive effort to understand what happened in Libya and to present it to the

world include:

Center for Research on Globalization

http://www.globalresearch.ca/

Voltaire Network http://www.voltairenet.org/en

Global Civilians for Peace in Libya http://globalciviliansforpeace.com/

Libya 360 http://libya360.wordpress.com/

Strategic Culture Foundation http://www.strategic-culture.org/

Mathaba – Independent News Agency http://mathaba.net

Investing’ Action http://www.michelcollon.info

TeleSUR http://www.telesurtv.net

Concerned Africans http://www.concernedafricans.co.za/

April Media http://en.m4.cn

In his article in this issue, “From Munich to Tripoli,” Yoichi

Shimatsu refers to the resistance offered by the fighters of the Spanish

Civil War and the work to spread the story of their resistance by the

writers and commentators who conveyed this story to the world. In this

issue of the Amateur Computerist we want to pay tribute to both the

resistance offered by those in Libya who fought against the foreign

Page 3

intervention and to the journalists, websites, and other forms of netizen

journalism around the world that have helped to spread the story of the

destruction and of the resistance to the NATO war against Libya.

Note:

1. See for example, Ronda Hauben, “The Need for Netizen Journalism and the Ever

Evolving Netizen – News – Net Symbiosis”

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2011/05/01/need_for_netizen_journalism/

[Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on March 11, 2011.]

International Media “the 16

Member

of the Security Council”

by Ronda Hauben

netcolumnist@gmail.com

“You are the sixteenth member of the Security Council.”

Li Baodong, China’s UN Ambassador,

speaking to the international media.

In March, China took over the rotating presidency of the Security

Council for the month. As is the practice at the United Nations Head-

quarters in New York, on March 2, the second day of his presidency, Li

Baodong, China’s Ambassador to the UN, held a press conference for

journalists at the UN.

At the beginning of the press conference, he

welcomed the media, saying that the media is the “sixteenth member of

the Security Council.” (There are 15 member nations on the UN Security

Council.)

Thinking of the international media in such a way recognizes its

influence on the actions of the UN Security Council. This presents an

interesting phenomenon which it is important to understand. The

international media does indeed play a role in how the Security Council

Page 4

deals with issues. What is the nature of this role?

At times, the role is a negative role, supporting big power domi-

nance of Security Council affairs. Occasionally, the media helps to

prevent the worst possible actions the Security Council might otherwise

take. Looking at some examples can be helpful.

Recently, for example, reporters for news media like Aljazeera and

BBC were quick to broadcast condemnations of the Libyan government

for attacking protesters. But if one listened carefully to broadcasts about

Libya by these news organizations, one would notice that there was little

verifiable evidence to back up the claims by the news organizations.

Some of the problem was the sources used by the media. For

example, at the UN, the Deputy Ambassador for Libya told the media

that what was happening in Libya was “genocide.” A few words later,

he said “I hope the information I get is not accurate.”

Another example is a statement by the UN Under Secretary General

for Humanitarian Affairs and International Relief Coordinator, Valerie

Amos to journalists on Monday, February 28, that there were 1000 –

2000 dead in Tripoli.

A few words later she admitted that this was not

based on any actual reports, but an estimate.

Instead of the media questioning these numbers and encouraging an

impartial investigation of what is happening in Libya, many reporters

fixed on whether Security Council member nations would support

setting up a No Fly Zone in Libya.

The obligation under the UN charter is to promote the peaceful

resolution of conflict situations that threaten international peace and

security. Setting up a no-fly zone, however, is essentially a declaration

of war. The UN charter upholds the sovereignty of nations to settle

affairs that “are within the domestic jurisdiction.” Much of the media,

however, was urging Security Council members to intervene in Libya

without determining whether the conflict in Libya was an internal matter

or one justifying international intervention.

But what happens when the media spreads misconceptions and a

false framing of a conflict situation? Consider the period leading up to

the invasion of Iraq.

In that situation, a high level government official of one of the

nations that is a permanent member of the Security Council, made

Page 5

allegations that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

Those allegations were proven to be false, but not until the damage

intended by those instigating this misrepresentation had been achieved.

The false framing of the Iraq story by much of the English language

mainstream media was used to provide the pretext for the U.S., Great

Britain and others to invade the country in a campaign of “shock and

awe.”

It is worth noting, however, that the Security Council did not

authorize the invasion of Iraq. One Ambassador explained that Security

Council members were able to resist the pressure from the U.S. and the

U.K. for a resolution authorizing the invasion, because some of the

international media provided needed coverage of those on the Security

Council challenging such a resolution, and of the protesters in European

countries opposed to such Security Council action.

In the situation which led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, much of the

English language press had played a role that was a harmful role, a role

that failed to expose the rush to military action based on a false narrative

about Iraq. Some international media, however, by covering opposition

by some Security Council members and of protesters opposed to such an

invasion, helped to prevent the Security Council from adding to the

harm.

U.S. political theorist Joseph S. Nye, Jr. in an article in the

November/December 2010 issue of Foreign Affairs, defines power as

the ability to attain what one wants. He argues that “conventional

wisdom holds that the state with the largest army prevails, but in the

information age, the state (or non-state actor) with the best story may

sometimes win.”

If one accepts Nye’s argument of the importance of

the media, how the conflict is framed in the media can be as important

or even more important for military strategy than a military campaign.

In a statement to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, March 1,

the Venezuelan Ambassador to the UN, Jorge Valero, stressed the need

for an objective and credible investigation in Libya to confirm the

veracity of the facts that media like Aljazeera and BBC had been

broadcasting around the world. “No country can be condemned a priori,”

said Ambassador Valero. He was stating his nation’s reservations

regarding the decision of the UN General Assembly to suspend Libya

Page 6

from the right of membership in the Human Rights Council before the

conclusions of such an investigation.

Sometimes the Security Council acts in a way that promotes the

peaceful settlement of disputes. Often such action, however, receives

little or no public attention. For example, in June 2010, the Security

Council took up the dispute over the sinking of the South Korean ship,

the Cheonan. North Korea and South Korea were given a chance to

present their views concerning the sinking of the ship.

The UN Security Council scheduled a procedure to hear from both

of the parties to the dispute. In this situation there had been a vigorous

debate in the online media and many netizens expressed their criticism

of the South Korean government investigation.

Scientists, activists in

non-governmental organizations and others wrote letters to the Security

Council expressing their questions and criticisms of South Korea’s

inquiry into the sinking of the Cheonan.

Also the Russian Federation

sent a team to South Korea to examine the evidence used in the South

Korean government investigation. The Russian team disagreed with the

conclusions of the South Korean government investigation.

Subsequently the Security Council issued a Presidential Statement

which recognized there were different views on the issue and encour-

aged a process for peacefully settling the dispute.

There was little

recognition in much of the media, however, of this effort to defuse the

conflict. A notable exception were articles from the Mexican press

service Notimex.

Still in the U.S. media, however, and even in the

testimony of government officials to the U.S. Congress, there are

descriptions of the Security Council’s statement on the Cheonan which

inaccurately claim that the statement condemned North Korea. This is

a false representation of the Security Council action.

Had the media

covered the balanced approach better, there would be less chance of

such inaccurate characterizations of the Security Council’s Presidential

Statement about the Cheonan.

Since the media can indeed play a role in the affairs of the UN

Security Council, it is all the more essential that Ambassadors of UN

member nations, journalists covering the UN, and netizens discussing

UN related issues online, recognize the purpose of the United Nations

is to foster friendly relations among nations. The obligation of all related

Page 7

to the UN is to seek the peaceful settlement of disputes and to act as a

watchdog encouraging Security Council actions which fulfill its charter

obligations.

Notes:

1. Press Conference: Li Baodong (China) President of the Security Council for the

month of March, 2 March 2011.

Ambassador Li Baodong, Permanent Representative of China and President of the

Security Council for the month of March, will brief on the Security Council’s

Programme of Work for the month of March 2011.

http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2011/03/press-conference-li-baodong-chin

a-president-of-the-security-council-for-the-month-of-march.html

2. Security Council Media Stakeout, 22 February 2011, Ibrahim O.A. Dabbashi (Libya)

on the situation in Libya.

Informal comments to the Media by H.E. Mr. Ibrahim O.A. Dabbashi, Ambassador,

Deputy Permanent Representative of Libya to the United Nations,

http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2011/02/abdurrahman-mohamed-shalgha

m-libya-on-the-situation-in-libya.html

“Now they are attacking the people in all of western Libya. I think the people have no

arms. I think the genocide started now. I think the Ghadaffi statement was only a code

to start the genocide against the Libyan people. I hope the information I get is not

accurate. But if it is right, it will be real genocide.”

3. 28 February 2011. Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the

Secretary-General with guest Valerie Amos, the Under-Secretary-General for

Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.

http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2011/02/daily-press-briefing-with-guest-3.

html

4. Joseph S. Nye, Jr. “The Future of American Power,” Foreign Affairs, Novem-

ber/December 2010, vol 89, p. 2-12.

5. “Venezuela slams U.S. at suspension of Libya from Human Rights Council,”

Xinhua, updated,

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/xinhua/2011-03-02/content_1903661.html

“A decision like this could only take place after an objective and credible investigation

that confirms the veracity of the facts, ” he said. “No country can be condemned a

priori. We consider this decision precipitated, without first awaiting the results of the

Independent International Inquiry Commission designated by the Human Rights

Council.”

6. Ronda Hauben, “Netizens Question Cause of Cheonan Tragedy”, OhmyNews

International, June 8, 2010.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=386108&rel_no=1

7. Ronda Hauben, “S. Korean Gov’t Urged to End Criminal Investigation of NGO for

Page 8

Questions on Cheonan Sent to UN,” June 26, 2010, taz.de,

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2010/06/26/s_korean_govt_urged_to_end_criminal_i

nvestigation_of_ngo/ See also Hankyoreh video, “Beneath the Surface: the investiga-

tion into the sinking of the Cheonan.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDITkTEDVNA

8. “Russia’s Cheonan investigation suspects that the sinking Cheonan ship was caused

by a mine in water,”

http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/432232.html

9. Ronda Hauben, “In Cheonan Dispute UN Security Council Acts in Accord with UN

Charter,” Sept. 5, 2010, taz.de.

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2010/09/05/in_cheonan_dispute_un_security_council

_discovers_un_charter/

10. See for example, Maurizio Guerrero,”Heller mediacion de Mexico en conflicto de

Peninsula de Corea”, Notimex, July 5, 2010 (published in en la Economia).

http://enlaeconomia.com/news/2010/07/05/69561

11. Such a misrepresentation appeared in the testimony of Stephen Bosworth, the U.S.

government envoy for North Korea, to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee

which he presented on March 1, 2011. See for example, “North Korea’s provocative

actions have continued this past year, with its sinking of the Republic of Korea’s

(ROK) corvette Cheonan in March, and its artillery attack of South Korean Yeonpyong

Island in November. The United Nations Security Council issued a strong statement

condemning (sic) the attack which lead to the sinking of the Cheonan.”

http://foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Bosworth_Testimony.pdf

A version of this article can also be accessed at:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2011/03/15/media_and_security_council/

[Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on March 30, 2011.]

UN Security Council March 17 Meeting

to Authorize Bombing of Libya

All Smoke and Mirrors

by Ronda Hauben

netcolumnist@gmail.com

Part I

Watching the meeting of the Security Council on the evening of

March 17, one could only wonder in disbelief.

Here the 15 member

Page 9

states of the Security Council, by a vote of 10 in favor and none

opposed, with five abstentions, passed Security Council Resolution

1973.

This resolution authorized a foreign military assault on a

sovereign nation. The Security Council gave the OK to Western former

colonial powers and the U.S. to carry out a military campaign including

bombing and missile strikes against another UN member nation. How

did the members of the Council justify this authorization of an attack on

Libya? The “pretext,” the term used by the Prime Minister of the

Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, four days later, was that the

aggression was for “the protection of the civilians.”

The source of the disbelief I felt sitting and watching Thursday’s

meeting was that not only did Security Council members vote for, or

support by their abstentions, the bombing of a UN member nation, but

also that those members who spoke, 14 of them, presented a false

portrayal of what was happening in Libya as the basis for their support

for the resolution.

The false narrative they conjured up was that their military action

was for the protection of unarmed civilians who were peacefully

protesting for their rights. What is happening in Libya, however, is an

armed insurrection against the government. The insurrection is being led

by former Libyan government officials who defected and joined with

other opposition forces. The Security Council resolution was crafted to

provide foreign military intervention to aid this armed insurrection by

attacking the military forces of the Libyan government along with other

sites and installations.

Why had the Security Council so falsified the ongoing military

assault against Libya?

The statement by the Deputy Ambassador to the UN for India,

Manjeev Singh Puri, offered a clue to help unravel this puzzle.

Welcoming the appointment by the UN Secretary General of an

envoy to Libya, Deputy Ambassador Puri said, “However, we have not

had the benefit of his report or even a report from the Secretariat or his

assessment as yet. That would have given us an objective analysis of the

situation on the ground…. The Council has today adopted a resolution

that authorizes far-reaching measures under Chapter VII of the United

Nations Charter, with relatively little credible information on the

Page 10

situation on the ground in Libya….”

A similar criticism of the lack of credible evidence had been raised

when the UN General Assembly voted to remove Libya from its seat on

the Human Rights Council.

There was no impartial report verifying the

claims made against the Libyan government by the defectors and the

armed opposition sources and biased news media. Instead these same

claims were given prominence in Security Council decisions and in the

continued reports of much of the English language media like the BBC,

English language Aljazeera and other mainstream media news programs.

The voices of netizens discussing the Libyan conflict, however,

have demonstrated that it is not difficult to have a more accurate grasp

of what is happening in Libya.

Some examples of comments in online discussions give a sample of

some sentiments of netizens:

“Armed civilians or ununiformed fighters have no place being

supported or protected by our air power. They carry a gun and get

targeted that is their look out, not our job to hit the other side.”

James St George, 22 March 2011

“The thing is the rebels are ‘civilians’ when ever it suits us.”

llundiel, 23 March 2011

“Of course once you start bombing, there will clearly be plenty of

collateral damage. This then makes a complete mockery of the

stated purpose of the intervention, to save innocent civilians.”

contractor000, 23 March 2011

“Yes tanks are not planes! Or in the air flying. The civilian

protection has no place extending to armed rebels, they are not

civilians.”

CockfingersMcGee, 23 March 2011

“So we are supposed to accept this scenario that the Military

aggression against Libya is to do with protecting the protesters, the

revolution, innocent civilians, the rebels etc. This sounds very

reminiscent of attacking Iraq because of WMD.”

communismlives, 22 March 2011

There are earlier online discussions and articles challenging the

false portrayal of the conflict in Libya as unarmed civilians protesting

for their rights.

Page 11

One of the narratives considered by many netizens is that there has

been an insurrectionary movement against the Libyan government. It is

this military insurrection that the UN Security Council is supporting

using the false pretext that foreign military intervention into Libya is to

provide protection for unarmed peaceful civilian protest. Actually,

instead the reality is that the Security Council has chosen to join the

military attack on the Libyan government, thereby jeopardizing the lives

of unarmed civilians in Libya.

Several online sites feature articles or the reprint of articles

documenting how Libyan government officials defected and conspired

with other opposition forces and foreign intelligence officials to carry

out an insurrection against the Libyan government.

While some netizens support the armed insurrection, others oppose

foreign intervention in the internal affairs of Libya. The pretense that the

conflict in Libya is about the Libyan government’s mistreatment of

peaceful civilian protest has been shattered on the Internet and in the

battlefields of Libya. But at the UN Security Council the false narrative

is alive and well and being used to bring untold foreign military might

to intervene in the internal affairs of Libya.

Reviewing the events of the Security Council meeting at 6 p.m. on

March 17 can be instructive.

Leading off the statements at the meeting was French Foreign

Minister Alain Juppe who spoke before the vote. He described the

situation in Libya, explaining, “Throughout the country, violence against

the civilian population has only increased…. We must not give free rein

to warmongers; we must not abandon civilian populations, the victims

of brutal repression, to their fate….”

In Juppe’s statement, there is no mention of an armed insurrection

seeking to overthrow the Libyan government or that Security Council

Resolution 1973 had been crafted to bring the military might of the

Western powers into open support for the armed insurrection. Instead the

picture Juppe portrays is one of helpless civilians who are under threat

of massacre by a barbaric government.

Juppe made the only statement before the vote. After the vote, 13

nations offered statements of explanation of their active (by voting for)

or passive (by abstaining) support for the resolution.

Page 12

In the first statement after the vote, the Lebanese Ambassador,

Nawaf Salam, denounced what he called, “the violent acts and atrocious

crimes being carried out by Libyan authorities against their people.”

“The resolution,” he said, “is aimed at protecting Libyan civilians.” He

offered no proof to support such accusations.

The British Ambassador, Sir Mark Lyall Grant, accused the Libyan

regime of preparing a violent assault on a city of one million people.

Again no proof was offered to support his accusation. Instead merely the

claim the resolution is “to protect civilian and civilian populated areas

under threat of attack.” There was no mention in his statement of the

armed insurrectionary forces in areas of Libya waging a battle against

the Libyan government or that there could be civilians in Libya who do

not support the insurrection and who do not want to see foreign forces

determine the fate of their government or what government they will

have.

Only when Germany spoke to explain why it abstained, did one hear

that there is an “Interim Transitional National Council” that Germany

regards as an important interlocutor.

The German Ambassador, Peter Wittig, said that Germany had

“decided not to support a military option.” But Germany did not vote

against the resolution nor mention that the underlying issue is the

Security Council taking the side of an armed insurrection against the

government of Libya, and that the claim of support for civilians was but,

as Putin saw it, almost a week later, “a pretext.”

The U.S. Ambassador, Susan Rice, in her turn repeated that the

resolution’s purpose is “to protect innocent civilians.”

Only when the Council heard from India’s Deputy Ambassador,

was there the acknowledgment of the lack of credible information to

provide an objective assessment as the basis for the Council’s vote. Also

India’s Deputy Ambassador referred to a plan by the African Union to

send “a high-level panel to Libya to make serious efforts for a peaceful

end to the crisis there.” It was, however, impossible for the African

Union high level panel to go as planned because of the foreign bombing

and military assault that the Resolution had thrust on Libya.

Though stressing the need for “political efforts…to address the

situation,” India abstained rather than voting against the resolution.

Page 13

Another abstention was cast by Ambassador Maria Luiza Riberio

Viotti of Brazil. She explained that the government of Brazil had

publicly condemned the use of violence against “unarmed demonstra-

tors….” What that had to do with the armed insurrection against the

Libyan government she failed to explain. Instead the image her

statement portrayed could have been that of the nonviolent struggle in

Egypt of unarmed civilians demonstrating for political rights. Her

statement was not a statement that matched the reality in Libya.

She did question paragraph 4 of the resolution as to whether it “will

lead to the realization of our common objective – the immediate end to

violence and the protection of civilians.” But if the resolution had been

crafted to protect an armed rebellion against the Libyan government then

her statement only contributed to the smoke and mirrors being spread

around the Security Council chambers. The provisions of the UN charter

require an effort to use peaceful means to settle conflicts that endanger

international peace and security. Also the charter supports the obligation

to respect the sovereignty of member states. No Security Council

member explained how the military actions they were authorizing did

not violate any of the obligations of the Charter.

The meeting continued with others speaking. When Ambassador

Vitaly Churkin of the Russian Federation, made his statement, he

complained about departures from Security Council practices by those

drafting the resolution, and their failure to answer questions posed by

other members of the Council. “Furthermore,” said Churkin, “the draft

was morphing before our very eyes…. Provisions were introduced into

the text that could potentially open the door to large-scale military

intervention.”

Ambassador Churkin said he unsuccessfully tried to submit an

alternative draft resolution on March 16 calling for a cease-fire and

backing the efforts of the Special Envoy for the Secretary General to

Libya, the investigation of what is happening in Libya by the Human

Rights Council, and the African Union endeavors to achieve a peaceful

settlement of the conflict in Libya.

But nowhere did he condemn that the resolution was to support

armed fighters against the Libyan government, using as a pretext the

claim that it was created to defend nonviolent protesting civilians. Nor

Page 14

did he explain why his government was supporting the resolution despite

the problems he had pointed out, by not voting against it and thus failing

to use its veto.

Of the three African members of the Security Council, one did not

explain its vote in favor of the resolution (Gabon), one spoke of “the

need to protect civilians under attack” (Nigeria) and the other African

member referred to “concern with the deteriorating political and

humanitarian situation in Libya which is fast becoming a full-blown

civil war.” (South Africa).

Baso Sangqu, the South African Ambassador to the UN, said that

South Africa commended, “the decision of the African Union Peace and

Security Council to dispatch an ad hoc high-level committee to Libya”

to work toward a political solution to the conflict. His statement also

portrayed the false image that the Security Council had passed the

resolution to protect “the lives of defenseless civilians….” South Africa,

too, helped to hide that the essence of SC resolution 1973 was to give

foreign military support to the armed rebellion against Libya.

South Africa was one of the five nations who had agreed to send a

high level delegation on behalf of the African Union to Libya to

negotiate a political solution. South Africa voted in favor of SC

Resolution 1973, acting in sharp contrast to the decision of the African

Union to reject any foreign military action and to support a political

resolution to the crisis. A Security Council resolution requires nine votes

in favor to pass. Because five other Security Council members had

abstained, there were only 10 members who could vote in favor of the

resolution. If only 2 of the African nations had abstained, the resolution

would have gotten only 8 votes, one short of the 9 votes needed to be

approved. So the votes of the African Union members on the Security

Council were decisive in passing a resolution that was in sharp contra-

diction with the decision of the African Union on the course of action it

should take about the situation in Libya.

Finally at the end of the meeting, the Chinese Ambassador to the

UN, Li Baodong explained China’s vote. China abstained, he said,

because it “attaches great importance to the position by the 22-member

Arab League on the establishment of a no-fly zone over Libya.” He also

said that China attached, “great importance to the position of African

Page 15

countries and the African Union. These two organization had disagreed

in their approach to the conflict in Libya. Instead of China taking the

responsibility to determine whether there was a good reason to veto the

resolution given two such conflicting decisions from the relevant

regional organizations, China supported the resolution by abstaining.

The resolution China supported with its abstention had “sidelined”

the African Union’s effort to work for a political solution, according to

Jean Ping the Secretary General of the African Union.

This process was

to start on March 21 with a delegation to Libya.

The question I was left with after the Security Council meeting on

March 17 which passed Resolution 1973, was: How could 15 Ambassa-

dors from diverse nations all portray the reality in Libya by this same

false narrative?

During the Bush and Blair campaign against Iraq in 2003, the UN

Security Council did not vote to authorize the U.S. and British invasion.

At the time, sufficient Security Council members opposed this action by

the Security Council to prevent such a vote from taking place.

On March 17, however, all 15 members voted for, or at least

supported by an abstention, an undefined and unfettered military action

by undefined forces, including a bombing campaign against Libya.

Along with supporting the resolution by a vote for or abstaining, these

15 member nations acted to misrepresent the act of aggression they were

authorizing.

Searching for an understanding of what was happening in Libya, I

came upon the discrepancy between the action taken by the UN Security

Council and the descriptions of what was happening in Libya that were

being discussed by netizens. There were many debates online. Many

netizens were concerned with the actions of the armed insurrection

against the Libya government. In their discussions, and in many posts,

netizens plainly stated whether they agreed or disagreed with those who

were part of the armed insurrection against the Libyan government.

Most netizens, however, did not create a false narrative misrepresenting

armed fighters as unarmed civilians

Their discussions online differed substantially from the false

narrative being spread by Security Council members and by news media

like BBC (U.K.), Aljazeera (Qatar) and much of the mainstream U.S.

Page 16

media.

The online discussion, reports and analyses demonstrated that the

mainstream news media and the Security Council no longer had the

ability to monopolize how the narrative would be framed which

described the crisis in Libya.

Part II

One of the many ways that the foreign intervention into the internal

struggle in Libya is being justified is to call it an example of the need for

putting into practice the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) doctrine.

This doctrine, supposedly applies to situations where violence is

being directed against unarmed civilians and the government fails to

protect those civilians. In Libya, there is an armed insurrection against

a sovereign government and there are civilians who do not support that

insurrection. It could be argued that the Libyan government is fulfilling

its obligation to protect its sovereignty by fighting against the armed

insurrection. Carrying out an armed insurrection against a government

is not the same as nonviolent civilians peacefully protesting for their

rights.

By breaching the sovereignty of Libya and the Libyan people with

Resolution 1973, the UN Security Council has taken away the right of

the Libyan people to determine their own government. The Security

Council has chosen the side of the insurrection against the Libyan

government, and by so doing it has violated Article 2(1) of the UN

Charter that, “The Organization is based on the principle of the

sovereign equality of all its Members.”

In a talk presented at the United Nations in 2009, Jean Bricmont, a

university professor in Belgium, who has written on these issues,

explained how the R2P doctrine is but a new version of the discredited

doctrine of humanitarian intervention. “The very starting point of the

United Nations,” Bricmont explained in his talk, “was to save human-

kind from ‘the scourge of war,’ with reference to the two World Wars.

This was to be done precisely by strict respect for national sovereignty,

in order to prevent Great Powers from intervening militarily against

weaker ones, regardless of the pretext.”

Bricmont explains that it is only the respect for sovereignty that

Page 17

protects the people of the small nations from the self serving interests of

the great powers. “The necessary respect for national sovereignty means

that the ultimate sovereign of each nation state is the people of that state

whose right to replace unjust governments cannot be taken over by

supposedly benevolent outsiders.”

Why did no member of the Security Council speak up about the fact

that Resolution 1973 by its attack on sovereignty is a violation of the UN

Charter? The UN charter in article 2(1)and article 2(7) upholds the

sovereign equality of all member states and the principle that the charter

cannot be used to authorize intervention into the internal affairs of

member states. Only in cases where international peace and security is

in jeopardy can the Security Council make a case for the use of Chapter

7 of the charter. Chapter 7 refers to situations involving aggression

against other states or other acts which are threats to peaceful relations

among nations. The Security Council made no case that any of the

conditions for the use of Chapter 7 apply in the Libyan situation.

This is but one of the questions that is unanswered even weeks after

Resolution 1973 was passed. Other questions raised by the March 17

Security Council meeting include: Why did veto holding members like

Russia and China go along with the resolution by abstaining? Why did

no member vote against the resolution or speak up during the meeting

to challenge the inconsistency between the alleged purpose to “protect

unarmed civilians” and the actual purpose of the resolution, i.e. to

protect the armed insurrection against the Libyan state and provide

support for the insurrection by foreign military intervention. To have

admitted this discrepancy, however, would have exposed that the

resolution is contrary to the obligations under the UN Charter. Whether

they intended it or not, all members of the Security Council who spoke

at the meeting on March 17 or who voted or abstained from the vote in

support of the resolution, took part in concealing the violation of the

charter represented by Resolution 1973.

The UN is now faced with the challenge of how to respond to the

action of the Security Council members in passing Resolution 1973. The

deceitful nature of the resolution has been uncovered in articles and

discussions by netizens, but also occasionally in some few articles in the

mainstream media. Also some members of the African Union have

Page 18

begun to speak up about the failure represented by the three African

members of the Security Council voting in favor of the resolution,

making it possible for the resolution to pass. An increasing number of

nations are beginning to recognize they, too, can be subjected to similar

acts of aggression as that imposed by the UN Security Council on Libya.

This is, as one African president said, an impetus for nations to increase

their purchase of military weapons.

Nations, including Indonesia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Uruguay,

Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Ecuador, and Nicaragua are publicly

condemning the Resolution and offering to help settle the conflict in

Libya by supporting dialogue between the government and those

involved in the insurrection.

In a letter to the Security Council dated March 19, Libya requested

that the Security Council hold an emergency meeting on the subject of

the aggression unleashed on Libya’s territory and people with the

Security Council action on Resolution 1973.

In the request, Libya

stated that the resolution was not “to protect civilians as is purported but

rather to strike civilian sites, economic facilities and sites belonging to

the armed peoples’ on Duty.” The Security Council refused Libya’s

request for such a meeting. No member of the Security Council acted to

support the request so as to make it mandatory under the provisional

rules of procedure of the Security Council.

In another letter to the Security Council dated March 24, Libya

stated that it had accepted the ceasefire required by Resolution 1973, but

that only set it up as the target for “military aggression led by the United

States of America, France, and Britain that has resulted in casualties

among defenseless civilians. This is contrary to the letter and substance

of the provisions of resolution 1973 (2011) concerning the protection of

civilians and the ceasefire.”

Netizens observing the role played by the UN in authorizing the use

of force against Libya have spoken out in condemnation that the UN is

a party to such action.

“The military intervention on the part of the rebels violated the

prohibition against the use of force of the UN charter and is therefore

always within the reach of international law,” wrote one netizen in a

discussion in the German online magazine Telepolis.

Page 19

Another wrote, “The UN is no longer what it once was. Today it is

an instrument for wars of aggression. This is especially true for the

Security Council which has become an instrument of Insecurity.”

The action of the UN Security Council to authorize foreign

intervention in support of an armed insurrection against the government

of a sovereign member state of the UN under the specious claim of

“protection” of “unarmed civilians” makes suspect all other actions of

the UN Security Council. The process by which the UN deals with this

violation of its charter and of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of

Libya will have a long term effect on the respect for the UN by people

around the world and on the future of the UN itself.

In a late breaking development as this article is being completed,

Reuters reports that in response to the refusal of the U.S. government to

grant a visa to Ali Abdussalam Treki, the Libyan designated representa-

tive to the UN after its former representatives defected, Father D’Escoto

Brockmann, of Nicaragua, and former President of the General

Assembly, is coming to NY. “The Nicaraguan government said in a

statement that (Father D’Escoto Brockmann) has flown to the U.N.

headquarters in New York to “support our Libyan brothers in their

diplomatic battle to enforce respect for its sovereignty.”

In a more recent development, as of April 1, Father Miguel

D’Escoto Brockmann has been appointed as the alternative Nicaraguan

representative to the United Nations by the Nicaraguan government.

Notes:

1. Transcript of Security Council meeting on March 17, 2011, S/PV.6498,

http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/PRO/N11/267/18/PDF/N1126718.pdf?O

penElement

2. UN Security Council Resolution 1973 S/2011/1973,

http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N11/268/39/PDF/N1126839.pdf?O

penElement

3. “Venezuela slams U.S. at suspension of Libya from Human Rights Council”,

Xinhua, updated,

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/xinhua/2011-03-02/content_1903661.html

“A decision like this could only take place after an objective and credible investigation

that confirms the veracity of the facts,” he said. “No country can be condemned a

priori. We consider this decision precipitated, without first awaiting the results of the

Page 20

Independent International Inquiry Commission designated by the Human Rights

Council.”

4. Comments from discussion of article on Comment Is Free at the Guardian,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/23/libya-ceasefire-consensus-r

ussia-china-india

5. See for example the website http://www.globalresearch.ca

6. See for example: Franco Bechi, “French Plans to Topple Gaddafi on Track Since

Last November”, Libero, March 23, 2011,

http://www.voltairenet.org/article169069.html

7. See para 4 of Security Council Resolution 1973: “The resolution authorizes member

states… to take all necessary measures” without defining what these are or what the

requirements or limits of these are.

8. Jean Ping in an interview with a journalist. See:

http://divineinterventionws.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=news&action=print&thr

ead=4939.

9. Jean Bricmont, “A More Just World and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P): How

are the weak ever to be protected from the strong?” (Presentation to the Untied Nations

General Assembly on July 23, 2009. Available online in the Amateur Computerist Vol

19 No 1, p. 24.)

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn19-1.pdf p. 24.

10. Henry Masaka, “Museveni blasts West over Libya attack,” “New Vision,” March

21, 2011.

http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/749765

11. See for example, on Indonesia’s action: “Indonesia urges ceasefire in Libya,” The

Jakarta Post, March 28, 2011.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/03/28/ri-urges-ceasefire-libya.html

12. See Letter from Libya to the Security Council S/2011/161.

13. See Letter from Libya to the Security Council S/2011/178.

14. Telepolis. These comments are from the discussion of the article “Re:

Bombardieren für den Frieden Re: Bombing for Peace,” March 18, 2011,

http://www.heise.de/tp

“Die militärische Intervention zugunsten der Aufständischen verletzt das Gewaltverbot

der UN-Charta und ist deshalb immer völkerrechtswidrig.” “Leider ist die UN nicht

mehr, was sie mal war. Heute dient sie als Rechtfertigungsinstrument für

Angriffskriege. Das gilt vor allem für den UN-’Sicherheitsrat’, der zum

Unsicherheitsrat geworden ist.”

15. “Nicaragua says to help Libya after a visa ban,” Reuters, March 30, 2011. (See for

subsequent developments, “Abuse of UN Processes” in this issue.)

http://af.reuters.com/article/libyaNews/idAFN299541220110330

16. But the U.S. would not give Fr. Brockmann a visa so no one was able to represent

Libya at UN until the government was overthrown by NATO’s actions. See the

subsequent developments documented in this issue on p. 16.

Page 21

A version of this article can also be accessed at:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2011/03/30/un_march_17_meeting_res1973/

[Editor’s Note: This article appeared on the Strategic Culture Foundation

online journal website: www.strategic-culture.org on March 19, 2011.]

UN Security Council on Libya:

Killing the International Law

by Alexander Mezyaev

The UN Security Council passed Resolution 1973 on Libya slapping

new sanctions on the country and reinforcing the ones it endures due to

Resolution 1970 dated February 26. The truth is that the new Resolution

erodes the international law to the point of virtually killing it. First, it

demands a cease-fire and an end to all violence without specifying

which forces are supposed to stop fighting. Normally such demands are

addressed to all parties involved in a conflict, but Resolution 1973

carries no statement to the effect, meaning that Libya’s administration

is the only side confronted with the demand. What sense does it make to

urge a government facing a mutiny to stop fighting and does the UN

have the right to de facto side with the rebels trying to overthrow the

administration in a UN member country?

The Resolution’s part authorizing measures needed to protect the

civilian population sounds strange. It is unclear who is authorized to do

so. One could expect the UN peacekeepers or the UN High Commission

for Refugee Affairs to be charged with the mission but this is not the

case. Instead, all UN member countries willing to partake in the

initiative are offered to do the job. The Resolution does ban the military

occupation of Libya but does not rule out the use of military force such

as air strikes. In other words, UN Security Council Resolution 1973

formally enables any UN member country deeming it necessary to resort

to such measures.

Page 22

Article 6 of Resolution 1973 establishes a no fly zone over Libya

and Article 8 allows all countries to take steps to enforce the regime.

The UN Security Council Resolution thus allows whatever countries to

attack Libyan aircrafts in the country’s own airspace. Also quite oddly,

Article 17 instructs UN member countries not to allow Libyan planes to

land on their territories, even though the demand disagrees with a series

of international treaties. At the moment countries are supposed to deny

landing permissions to Libyan planes regardless of whether they have

enough fuel to return home, which is the same as dooming the planes to

catastrophes.

Both UN Security Council Resolutions openly ignore the rights of

the part of the Libyan population which is loyal to the country’s

government. The very wording of the document seems to indicate that

the UN Security Council automatically excludes Gadhafi’s supporters

from the numbers of the people of Libya. For example, Article 2 of

Resolution 1973 says the government must accommodate the people’s

legitimate demands but it somehow evades the UN Security Council that

the population is entitled to the rights to security and protection against

mutiny. Thus, the main UN body responsible for maintaining peace and

security across the world counts no members ready to uphold the rights

of a large if not the largest part of Libya’s population.

It should be taken into account that Resolution 1973 invokes the

escalation of violence, torture, and summary executions but fails to cite

any serious evidence. In the meantime the credibility of the media

coverage of the developments in Libya is getting increasingly dubious.

The passing of the second Resolution on Libya was not as effortless

as that of the first one. Five countries – Brazil, China, Germany, India,

and Russia – abstained during the vote, Germany in fact being more

honest than the permanent UN Security Council members who could

simply block the outrageous Resolution. Russia’s envoy V. Churkin did

say the Resolution was prepared in breach of the established practice but

did not elaborate on the subject.

Strictly speaking, Resolution 1970 also constituted a violation of a

whole array of international laws. A widespread misconception is that

compliance with UN Security Council Resolutions is a must, but

actually this is true only of the Resolutions it passes in accord with the

Page 23

powers handed to it by the UN Charter. Fr example, the UN Charter

does not enable the UN Security Council to submit cases to the

International Criminal Court as it did handling Libya’s problem. A

potential objection is that the right is granted by the Court’s statute, but

the argument is irrelevant from the standpoint of the countries which are

not signatories of the corresponding treaty. We are witnessing a totally

absurd situation: the countries such as the U.S., Russia, and China which

are not signatories to the treaty concerning the statute of the Interna-

tional Criminal Court passed the case of Libya, another country which

never signed the treaty, to this very court. The discrepancy provokes

downright contempt for the international law.

It also erodes the international law that the Resolutions on Libya

demand that the country abide by the international humanitarian law.

The statement shows that – without explaining the motivation behind the

approach – the UN Security Council a priori sees the situation in Libya

as an armed conflict. Rather, an unbiased analysis leads to the conclu-

sion that the events in Libya constitute a mutiny which is a criminal

offense the country’s administration must suppress. The UN Security

Council needed to portray the developments as an armed conflict to

legitimize the international intervention. It was unwise of Russia to vote

for Resolution 1970 as the move invites a similar treatment of the

country’s own problems in North Caucasus. Backing the UN Security

Council Resolution, Russia’s envoys practically subscribed to the view

that a sovereign country has no right to launch an anti-terrorist campaign

based on its national legislation but instead has to comply with the

humanitarian laws applicable to armed conflicts. Moscow thus made a

serious mistake, and quite possibly abstaining when Resolution 1973

was in question was a fairly unconvincing attempt to reverse the wrong

move.

No doubt, the UN Security Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973 are

in breach of the international law, and all countries honestly seeking to

protect Libya’s civilian population have legal grounds to ignore them.

A version of this article can also be accessed at:

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2011/03/19/un-security-council-on-libya-killi

Page 24

ng-the-international-law.html

[Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on July 19, 2011.]

Abuse of UN Processes in Security

Council Actions Against Libya

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

Part I – Journalists Question Security Council Support

for Rebel Group

At the April 4 press conference marking the beginning of the

Colombian Presidency of the Security Council for April, Nestor Osorio,

the Colombian Ambassador to the United Nations was asked what on the

surface would seem an unusual question by one of the journalists. The

journalist said:

“In the wake of Security Council Resolution 1973

[authorizing military action against Libya –ed] are we to expect a more

aggressive and proactive posture on the part of the Security Council in

supporting rebel groups?”

The journalist gave several examples of such rebel groups as the

IRA in the U.K., ETA in Spain and perhaps the Corsican rebels in

France. Another journalist added the example of the FARC in Colombia.

The question referred to the fact that with SC Resolution 1973, the

UN Security Council had taken on to support an armed insurgency

fighting against the government of a member nation of the UN.

The Colombian Ambassador responded that SC Resolution 1973

had not been adopted to support the rebels in Libya, but a rebel group

which started out as civilians who had now become the core of the

armed rebellion. The reason the Security Council had taken up the issue

of Libya, he said, was because a member of the Security Council,

Lebanon, had brought the issue to the Security Council. Ambassador

Osorio added that the Arab League had asked for concrete action from

the Security Council on Libya.

Page 25

Is it, as Ambassador Osorio proposed, that the issue of Libya was

taken up by the Security Council because Lebanon, a member of the

Security Council, brought the issue to the attention of the other

members? Is it that the Security Council was just deferring to the

expertise of the Arab League, which the Colombian Ambassador

presented as the relevant regional organization with respect to Libya?

The Colombian Ambassador’s remarks raise the question of how the

Security Council made the decision to approve SC Resolution 1970

against Libya, the first of two resolutions on the issue. Was it as the

Colombian Ambassador claimed because of a recommendation from the

appropriate regional group, or was there a more complex process at

work? Also, significantly in this situation, there were actually two

conflicting recommendations to the Security Council from two groups,

one from the Arab League, which is not a geographical regional group

but is organized on some other basis, and the other from the geographic

regional group that Libya is part of, from the African Union.

What were the factors that influenced the Security Council

decisions first, to pass Security Council Resolution 1970 authorizing

stringent sanctions, including a referral of Libyan officials to the

International Criminal Court (ICC) and then, subsequently, to pass SC

Resolution 1973, which authorized a no-fly zone and other military

action? Ultimately these decisions set the basis for the NATO military

alliance to join with the armed insurgency fighting against the govern-

ment of Libya.

While it is difficult to determine the specific underlying reasons for

Security Council action, this article will demonstrate that the explanation

provided to journalists at the Colombian press conference differs

significantly from the actual sequence of events that occurred at the

Security Council with respect to Libya. By failing to account for the

actual sequence of events that occurred, the Colombian Ambassador’s

response left unanswered the critical question. How had the Security

Council come to authorize military action against a member nation of

the United Nations, in support of an armed insurgency against the

government of that nation? Such a course of action is clearly contrary to

the UN Charter provision not to intervene in the internal affairs of a

member nation of the UN (Article 2 Section 7).

Page 26

Part II – How the Issue of Libya was Brought to the

Security Council

Looking back at the sequence of events by which the issue of Libya

was brought to the Security Council, leads to an important observation.

It was not a Security Council member nation which started this process.

Nor was it the Arab League. Rather it was a party that one could argue

had no legitimate basis to speak at the United Nations, especially not to

the Security Council.

This party, was, by that time, the former Chargé d’Affaires to the

United Nations for the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Ibrahim Dabbashi.

Dabbashi had taken the unusual actions of first announcing to the press

that he had defected from representing the government of Libya at the

UN, and then requesting an emergency meeting of the Security Council

about the situation in Libya. His request to the Security Council began

a process which, in less than a week, resulted in passing the stringent

sanctions against Libya and the referral of its officials to the ICC that are

included in SC Resolution 1970. SC Resolution 1970 then set the stage

for SC Resolution 1973 passed three weeks later which authorized

military action against Libya.

February 21 is an important date in this set of events. It is on

February 21 that Dabbashi announced his defection from the service of

the government of Libya at the United Nations. While an appropriate

course for a defecting government official from a country would be to

resign his official position as a Deputy Ambassador for Libya at the

United Nations, this is not what happened.

It is also on February 21 that another important event occurred,

though not at the UN. Another Libyan official, Nouri al Mesmari,

officially announced his defection from his Libyan government position.

Living in France under the protection of the French government, he gave

an interview to the French newspaper Liberation about his defection.

What is significant about Mesmari’s action is that his defection puts

Dabbashi’s defection in a broader context. A widely circulated article in

the Italian newspaper Libero, an article which has not been refuted or

denied, provides this context.

Mesmari left Libya in October 2010 for

Paris, four months before the alleged suppression of demonstrations

Page 27

cited as one of the pretexts for the NATO aggression against Libya.

Mesmari had been an important Libyan official with vast knowledge of

and contact with the foreign service officials of Libya and vast knowl-

edge of Libya’s contacts with government officials in other countries.

Libero reported that after Mesmari went to Paris in October 2010,

he was in contact not only with French foreign intelligence officials, but

also with elements of the Libyan opposition. His actions help to shed

light on the events in Libya in February 2011. Learning about some of

the activities Mesmari was part of between October 2010, and February

2011, several commentators propose that Mesmari, along with other

opposition activists, and officials in the French intelligence, helped to

foment the uprising in Benghazi that took place in February 2011.

Unlike the Egyptian non violent protests, the uprising in Benghazi

very quickly became an armed uprising against the government of

Libya. Western media accounts of this rebellion, and Arab news media

like Aljazeera, reported a series of unverified allegations by those

involved in the rebellion itself, with little or no evidence presented to

verify the accuracy of the reports. To this date, there is no evidence for

the widely reported “use of mercenaries” or “bombing his own people.”

Mesmari was granted protection by the French government. In his

February 21 interview with the French publication Liberation about his

defection, he accused the Libyan government of genocide. He gave no

evidence to support his claim.

Similarly, when Dabbashi held a press conference at the Libyan

Mission to the UN on February 21, he claimed that the Libyan govern-

ment was guilty of genocide. He, too, offered no evidence for his

allegations. He called for the overthrow of the Libyan state headed by

Muammar Gaddafi. Similarly, the lawyer for the Libyan mission spoke

to journalists at the February 21 press conference. He indicated to

journalists that he was from Benghazi. He, too, called for the overthrow

of Gaddafi, the long time head of the Libyan state (a position called

‘Guide’).

Following is the content of the letter that Dabbashi, as a defector

from the official government of Libya, sent to the Security Council. The

letter is dated February 21, 2011:

“In accordance with Rule 3 of the

provisional rules of procedure of the Security Council, I have the honour

Page 28

to request an urgent meeting of the Council, to discuss the grave

situation in Libya and to take the appropriate actions.”

The letter is listed as an official document of the Security Council,

and given the document identification symbol S/2011/102, dated

February 22, 2011.

It is worth noting that Rule 3 of the Security Council’s Provisional

Rules of Procedure provides for a member nation of the United Nations

to request a meeting.

Under Rule 3, Dabbashi, as a defecting Deputy

Ambassador of Libya, was not entitled to take part in any Security

Council procedures, especially not to request a meeting of the Security

Council to take punitive action against the government he has defected

from and is seeking to overthrow.

Monday, February 21 was an official UN holiday (Presidents’ Day

in the U.S.) and the United Nations was not open. On the next working

day at the UN, on Tuesday, February 22, the Security Council held a

closed meeting on the situation in Libya, under the title “Peace and

Security in Africa – Libya.”

At the meeting the Security Council heard

a report on developments in Libya from Lynn Pascoe, the Under

Secretary General for Political Affairs at the UN. In addition to the 15

members of the Security Council, 74 other nations of the UN were

present at the closed meeting without any right to vote. So was

Dabbashi.

The Libyan Ambassador to the UN, Abdel Rahman Shalgham also

attended the February 22 Security Council meeting, along with

Dabbashi. In informal comments after the meeting, Shalgham indicated

that he had been in contact with a relative in Tripoli and was told that the

alleged atrocities that the media was claiming had happened in Tripoli

were not true. Similarly, speaking to the press, he indicated that he had

been in contact with government officials in Tripoli who said that they,

too, disputed the claims of atrocities taking place in Tripoli and planned

to invite journalists from Al Arabiya and CNN to see for themselves that

the allegations were inaccurate.

After he made his presentation to the Security Council, Under

Secretary General for Political Affairs, Lynn Pascoe spoke to the press

at a stakeout. He was asked if he had any evidence of atrocities in

Tripoli. He responded that the UN people on the ground there had no

Page 29

such direct evidence.

Describing the February 22 closed meeting of the Security Council,

the Reuters News Agency said that most of the Libyan delegation had

defected. Reuters reported that the Security Council met at the request

of Dabbashi, who “was no longer working for the Libyan government.”

It would appear to be a serious breach of UN protocol for a defecting

official who had formerly been the representative of a nation that is a

member of the UN, to be able to request a Security Council meeting and

to have the Security Council grant the meeting and allow the defecting

official to participate in the meeting. Similarly, to allow the defecting

diplomat to make unverified allegations at the meeting against the

government of a UN member nation would only compound the serious

violation of the UN Charter represented by this abuse of UN processes.

Here is the Reuters report:

“UNITED NATIONS | Tue Feb 22,

2011 4:42 p.m. GMT (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council held

closed-door discussions on Tuesday on the crisis in Libya, with Western

envoys and Libya’s own breakaway delegation calling for action by the

15-nation body…. The council met at the request of Libyan Deputy

Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi, who along with most other staff at

Libya’s UN mission announced on Monday they were no longer

working for leader Muammar Gaddafi and represented the country’s

people. They called for Gaddafi’s overthrow.”

Taking into account Mesmari’s activities with French intelligence

officials and Libyan opposition figures, there is the basis to assume that

there were powerful forces acting behind the scenes at the UN support-

ing Dabbashi’s activities and encouraging the Security Council to allow

this abuse of its processes.

Part III – False Media Reports about Libya

Among the media reports at the time were unverified allegations

that Libyan government planes were shooting at civilians in Tripoli and

that there were many dead in various parts of Libya. Also there were

reports that Gaddafi had fled to Venezuela. Gaddafi and the Libyan

government disputed these reports, with a video demonstrating Gaddafi

was in Libya. This video was shown around the world demonstrating the

inaccuracy of the false allegations being made about Libya. Also, the

Page 30

Libyan media disputed that there had been any such shooting of civilians

from planes in Tripoli. Later Russian media provided reports of Russia’s

surveillance of aircraft activity of Libya during this period. That

surveillance did not show any firing from aircraft.

Despite having defected, Dabbashi continued to have access not

only to the Security Council processes, but also to official UN press

stakeouts to speak to reporters as if officially the representative of a

member nation of the UN. At these press stakeouts Dabbashi attacked

the Libyan government, accusing it of genocide, without offering any

proof for his claims. He also continued to call for the overthrow of the

government of Libya.

Then on Friday, February 25, the Libyan Ambassador to the UN,

Abdel Rahman Shalgham announced his defection and denounced the

Libyan government during a Security Council meeting.

The President of the Security Council invited the defecting

Ambassador to take part in the meeting under Rule 37 of the Security

Council’s Provisional Rules of Procedure. Rule 37 specifies that it is a

member nation that can be invited to participate. A defecting Ambassa-

dor or diplomat has no basis to take part in a UN Security Council

meeting. The Rule reads:

“Rule 37 Any Member of the United Nations

which is not a member of the Security Council may be invited, as the

result of a decision of the Security Council, to participate, without vote,

in the discussion of any question brought before the Security Council

when the Security Council considers that the interests of that Member

are specially affected, or when a Member brings a matter to the attention

of the Security Council in accordance with Article 35 (1) of the Char-

ter.”

An Ambassador who defects, by that act, is ceasing to represent the

UN member nation. According to the rules of protocol (2005) online at

the UN website, once an Ambassador ceases to represent his member

nation, one would expect him to submit his resignation to the Secretary

General. Thus it is not appropriate for him to be invited to take part in

a Security Council meeting under Rule 37 of the Provisional Rules of

Procedure of the Security Council. This Rule applies to an official

representative of a member nation of the UN, not to someone who

claims that he no longer represents that nation. Following is the relevant

Page 31

section of the rules of protocol.

“Section X Termination of Service at Permanent/Observer

Missions: Permanent Representative Before relinquishing his/her post,

a Permanent Representative/Observer should inform the Secretary-

General in writing and, at the same time, communicate the name of the

member of the mission who will act as Chargé d’Affaires a.i. pending

the arrival of the new Permanent Representative/Observer. It is of

special importance to note that a Chargé d’Affaires a.i. cannot appoint

himself and can hold this function only after being appointed by the

Permanent Representative/Observer or by the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs of the State concerned.”

It would appear to be outside the procedure provided for by Security

Council rules for a defecting Ambassador to be part of a Security

Council meeting as the representative of the government he claims he no

longer represents, and denouncing the member nation he has defected

from.

At the Security Council meeting on February 25, UN Secretary

General Ban Ki-moon spoke to the Security Council about the situation

in Cote D’ivoire and Libya. In his remarks on Libya, the Secretary

General claimed he was basing his reports on accounts from “the press,

human rights groups and civilians on the ground.” He acknowledged that

there was no conclusive proof for his allegations, but dismissed this lack

of verifiable information by saying that action should be taken along

with efforts to get more reliable information. This action is contrary to

other situations where the Secretary General recognized the need for an

impartial fact finding group and appointed such a group to obtain the

needed information to determine what course of action to take to

promote a peaceful settlement of the situation.

After the Secretary General presented his unverified allegations, the

defecting Libyan Ambassador was called on to speak. By February 25,

Shalgham, too, had defected. (One could imagine that pressure for his

defection may well have been a fear of the referrals to the ICC of Libyan

officials being planned by some Security Council members.)

Contrary to an earlier promise to journalists that if he no longer

supported the Libyan government, he would resign, Shalgham did not

formally resign. Instead, he continued to use Security Council processes

Page 32

to encourage the Security Council to impose sanctions and ICC referrals

on the government of Libya.

In his presentation to the Security Council meeting on Friday,

February 25, Shalgham made a virulent denunciation of the Libyan

government, complete with analogies to Hitler. Shalgham ignored the

conflicting accounts of what was happening in Benghazi and instead

painted a picture of peacefully demonstrating civilians unjustly

subjected to a massacre.

Shalgham presented no proof for his allega-

tions nor was he asked to present any. Instead, he was consoled by the

Secretary General and members of the Security Council, with several

Security Council members, embracing and comforting him.

The following day, Saturday, February 26, a day long emergency

meeting was held at the Security Council. While the Security Council

was discussing a resolution about Libya, Shalgham is reported to have

sent a letter to the Security Council to influence the votes of its

members.

One journalist offered the following as the content of the letter

Shalgham sent to the Security Council:

“With reference to the Draft

Resolution on Libya before the Security Council, I have the honour to

confirm that the Libyan Delegation to the United Nations supports the

measures proposed in the draft resolution to hold to account those

responsible for the armed attacks against the Libyan Civilians, including

trough [sic] the International Criminal Court.”

According to journalists waiting outside the Security Council

meeting on Saturday February 26, some Security Council members

indicated that their aim was to induce more defections of Libyan

officials by including referrals to the International Criminal Court (ICC)

in the Security Council resolution they were proposing. This is using the

ICC as a political tool rather than as a means of punishing actual crimes.

Libya is not a member of the treaty creating the ICC. Though the

UN Charter provides for the Security Council to create tribunals it has

no provision to force a nation not a member of a treaty organization

creating a tribunal to be subject to its jurisdiction. When Security

Council members are asked under what authority they refer a national

of a state not a member of the ICC to its jurisdiction, they cite a

provision in the ICC treaty. But a provision of the ICC treaty cannot be

Page 33

substituted for some provision of the UN Charter. No provision of the

UN Charter has been cited as providing the authority for the Security

Council referrals of non treaty members to the jurisdiction of the ICC.

Late in the day, on Saturday February 26, the Security Council

passed Resolution 1970, imposing strong sanctions against Libya and

referring Gaddafi and several others to the ICC. No proof of any

wrongdoing was presented and no reference was made to any investiga-

tion into the allegations.

When the French Ambassador Gérard Araud explained why he

voted in favor of SC Resolution 1970, he referred back to Shalgham’s

“moving statement” at the meeting on Friday Araud said:

“Yesterday,

the Permanent Representative of Libya (sic) made to this Council a

moving appeal for assistance. France welcomes the fact that the Council

has today unanimously and forcefully responded to that appeal.”

In explaining his vote in favor of Security Council Resolution 1970,

the Indian Ambassador explained that he was not inclined to support the

referral to the ICC, but he was responding to the letter sent to the

Security Council by Shalgham urging the Council to do so. The Indian

Ambassador said: “(W)e would have preferred a calibrated and gradual

approach. However, we note that several members of the Council,

including our colleagues from Africa and the Middle East, believe that

referral to the Court would have the effect of an immediate cessation of

violence and the restoration of calm and stability. The letter from the

Permanent Representative of Libya (sic) of 26 February addressed to

you, Madame President, has called for such a referral and strengthened

this view. We have therefore gone along with the consensus in the

Council.”

Similarly the Nigerian Ambassador explains: “We have taken into

consideration the letter dated today from the Permanent Representative

of Libya (sic) supporting the measures as we have proposed.”

The Brazilian Ambassador also refers to the appeal by the defecting

Ambassador in explaining her vote for Sec. Council Resolution 1970:

“In our deliberations today, Brazil paid due regard to the views

expressed by the League of Arab States and the African Union, as well

as to the requests made by the Permanent Mission of Libya to the United

Nations.”

Page 34

At the meeting, Dabbashi was given the floor to speak on behalf of

Libya. Dabbashi denounced Gaddafi and thanked the Security Council

members for granting his request for harsh measures against Libya and

members of its government.

The Secretary-General as the last speaker on the Security Council

agenda, spoke about how he welcomed the sanctions and saw them as

a means for a new governance regime in Libya. He said: “The sanctions

that the Council has imposed are a necessary step to speed the transition

to a new system of governance that will have the consent and participa-

tion of the people.”

This sequence of events can only be seen as a violation of the

Security Council’s obligations under the UN charter. The provision of

the Security Council rules used to invite the defecting former Libyan

government officials into Security Council meetings were provisions

providing for officials representing the government of Libya to speak.

The defecting officials were now former government officials and as

such had no authority to speak for the official government of Libya, and

no authority to appear at Security Council meetings as officials of

Libya.

The actions of such officials were not the actions of a member

government. Unspoken was the process of how they had defected and

through what arrangements with U.S. and other western government

agencies they had gained the ability to remain in the U.S. and to

participate in Security Council procedures. The Security Council was

providing support and aid to members of a group attempting to carry out

a coup against the government of Libya. Such an action is contrary to

the obligations of the UN Charter requiring the non-intervention in the

affairs of member nations.

The Security Council supported these defectors acting to overthrow

the government of Libya. Also it failed to make any effort to initiate an

independent investigation of what was happening in Libya. Apart from

the biased western or Qatar supported media reports (reports from

Aljazeera only represented the Libyan opposition viewpoint when it

reported on the Libyan conflict), the Security Council did not seek out

any other source of information. UN personnel in Libya were not

requested to investigate the allegations.

Page 35

No legitimate Libyan government official was invited to take part

in Security Council proceedings. When the Libyan government tried to

appoint legitimate government officials to replace the defector delega-

tion, the U.S. government would not approve the visa requests for the

replacement delegates, in violation of the Host Country obligations of

the U.S. In this way, the U.S. prevented the Libyan government from

being able to present its case before the Security Council.

By March 3, 2011, the Spokesman for the Secretary General

acknowledged that the Secretary General had received notice from the

Libyan government withdrawing the credentials of Dabbashi and

Shalgham.

Yet for a period of time, they had continued to speak to

reporters at the official Security Council stakeout and their statements

to the press were covered by the UN media services and were treated as

official Libyan government statements available at the UN Security

Council website.

Eventually the access of the two diplomats was converted from

diplomatic passes into courtesy passes granted at the discretion of the

Secretariat so they could continue to have access to the UN, but on a

more restricted basis than the official diplomatic access.

When some journalists questioned the grounds on which these

defector diplomats continued to have access to official UN and Security

Council procedures such as requesting a meeting of the Security

Council, the spokesman for the Secretary General said that someone

who has presented credentials to the Secretary General is the representa-

tive of a nation:

Disagreeing with the Spokesman’s response, one

journalist pointed out that the “Request for a meeting of the Security

Council normally is by request from Member States, not from Ambassa-

dors sitting in missions. Ambassadors ask for a meeting of the Council

on the basis of a letter from the Foreign Ministry and, in this case,

presumably there is no such letter emanating from the Foreign Ministry

of Libya. So, on what basis, legal basis, is the Security Council meet-

ing?” asked the journalist.

Instead of acknowledging the accuracy of the explanation that it is

member nations that are represented at the Security Council, not an

Ambassador, particularly not an Ambassador who has defected, the

Spokesperson for the Secretary General answered: “I think you know

Page 36

what I am going to say…ask the Security Council. Next question.”

Part IV – Libya Prevented from Presenting its Case at

the UN

While the defecting Libyan diplomats have been supported and

protected to have continual access to United Nations facilities, the

opposite has been the case for the Libyan government.

One good example of this departure from protocol obligations is

demonstrated by two documents. The first is Security Council Resolu-

tion 1970 (S/RES/1970(2011).

The document states in its opening statement:

“Taking note of the

letter to the President of the Security Council from the Permanent

Representative of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya dated 26 February 2011.”

(S/Res/1970 (2011), p. 1)

The problem of acknowledging this letter this way in the body of

Resolution 1970 is that on February 25, the former Libyan Ambassador

to the UN, Abdel Rahman Shalgham had informed the Security Council

that he had defected.

By February 26 he no longer represented the Libyan government.

Consequently there was no basis for the Security Council to refer to a

letter from him, as a letter from the Permanent Representative of the

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

The Security Council had an obligation to find a way to hear from

a member of the government of Libya, rather than substituting a defector

Ambassador and his delegation for the official delegation of Libya.

Despite several efforts of the government of Libya to appoint a new

Ambassador to replace the defector Ambassador and his staff members

who had defected, neither the UN nor the U.S., the host country of the

UN, acted in accord with their obligations to make this possible.

A letter from the Libyan government dated March 17 was sent to

the Security Council President. It appears that this letter was not made

an official document of the Security Council. Yet this letter provided the

Libyan government explanation of what was happening. According to

Article 32 of the UN Charter, the Security Council has an obligation to

hear from member nations. The relevant portion of Article 32 states:

Page 37

“Any member of the United Nations which is not a member of the

Security Council…if it is a party to a dispute under consideration by the

Security Council, shall be invited to participate, without vote, in the

discussion relating to that dispute.”

This would be true as well, for a state which is not a Member of the

United Nations.

The picture the Libyan government presents in the communication

to the Security Council is one where there is an armed confrontation

between armed insurgents and the State Authorities.

This is a different description of the situation than any of the

members of the Security Council publicly considered on February 26

when the Security Council passed Resolution 1970 or on March 17 when

it passed Resolution 1973.

In the letter of March 17, Libya explains that what is happening is

a confrontation between terrorist groups and the State Authorities. It

cites Libyan Law No. 38 of 1974, article 1, as the basis for the armed

forces of Libya to “maintain security, if the general safety of the

‘Republic’ or any part of it so requires.” The letter explains that “Libyan

army camps that have been attacked have taken no violent action against

the armed attackers until the latter have brandished their weapons.” This

is in conformity with Libyan law, the letter notes.

The letter explains that “Article 2 of the same law provides that

orders to fire may be given in the following circumstances: “(a) If any

member of forces is attacked. (b) If rebels refuse to restore order, after

having been warned and given the opportunity to do so. (c) If rebels

carry out an armed attack against persons or property.”

The letter from the Libyan government describes how the govern-

ment is fulfilling its responsibility to protect Libyan residents and

citizens by confronting the armed insurgents.

The letter also says that Resolution 1970 and the draft of Resolution

1973, the resolution being considered for adoption on March 17, and

subsequently adopted, “exceed the mandate” of the Security Council.

The letter says that “what is at issue is not a conflict between two

States, as provided for in article 24 of the Charter of the United Na-

tions.” The Council therefore has no authority to adopt resolutions in

such cases. The Charter, the letter explained, “provides that States shall

Page 38

refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of

any State.”

Also in the letter, Libya referred to the mission to Libya by the

African Union that was planned for March 20 to negotiate a political

solution. The letter called the adoption of resolutions under Chapter VII

premature, until an evaluation of the situation had been made by the

African Union.

The Security Council made no mention of the letter or the points it

raised when it went ahead and passed Resolution 1973 on the evening

of March 17.

Only an AP article mentioned that there was such a letter and

referred to some of its contents, including the challenge Libya presented

to the section of Resolution 1970 referring Gaddafi and his family

members to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

After the March 17 Security Council meeting, the U.S. and then

NATO began bombing Libya.

A letter dated March 19 from the government of Libya has been

made one of the documents of the Security Council. In the letter the

Foreign Minister refers to previous letters that he sent to the Security

Council which are not found in Security Council records. In the March

19 letter, he writes:

“In my previous letters to you, I emphasized that

an external conspiracy was targeting Jamahiriya and its unity and

territorial integrity. I pointed out that the Security Council had been

drawn into implementing this conspiracy by its adoption of Resolution

1970 (2011) and 1973 (2011) under which a ban was imposed on all

aviation in the airspace of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. By taking this

decision,” the March 19 letter explained, “the Security Council has

paved the way for military aggression against Libyan territory. France

and the United States have bombarded several civilian sites, thereby

violating all international norms and instruments, most notably the

Charter of the United Nations, which provides for non-intervention in

the affairs of member states.”

Libya asked the Security Council to hold an emergency meeting “in

order to halt this aggression, the purpose of which is not to protect

civilians, as is purported, but rather to strike civilian sites, economic

facilities, and sites belonging to the Armed Peoples on Duty.” The UN

Page 39

Security Council discussed this request at a meeting on Monday, March

21 and decided not to grant the Libyan government’s request.

As of February 21, the Libyan government has been deprived of the

ability to have a representative to the UN. In March, when the Libyan

government tried to appoint another Ambassador, the U.S. government

did not grant a visa.

Instead the defecting diplomats continue to have access to the UN

and to use their presence at the UN to attack the legitimate government

of Libya.

An article published by Al Ahram, is unusual in that it presents an

account of some of the abuse of Security Council procedures that

occurred in passing Resolutions 1970 and 1973 against Libya. The

article was written by Curtis Doebbler, an American Human Rights

lawyer. Doebbler writes:

“The West focused its propaganda machinery

on the UN with a vengeance. And it was no mere ordinary propaganda

campaign but a full-blown orchestration of history for the books. First,

Libyan diplomats were induced and threatened to step down from their

positions and promised that if they supported the opposition they would

be ‘taken care of.’ This resulted in the Libyan diplomats at the UN not

only resigning, but doing so and still maintaining a type of diplomatic

status that allowed them to advocate on behalf of the armed rebels who

were challenging the government of Libya for control of their country.”

Doebbler continues: “This was accomplished by the spurious

actions of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who issued special

passes to the former Libyan diplomats after their government had

withdrawn their credentials. Bypassing the UN General Assembly’s

Credentials Committee and well-established protocol, the UN secretary-

general for the first time in the world body’s history personally favoured

one side in what was by now a civil war.”

Among Security Council members there have been a number of

complaints that the resolution they allowed to pass (1973) did not

authorize the kind of NATO bombing of Libya in support of the rebels

that has been carried out. Because of the veto power of the U.S., France

and the U.K., the Security Council appears to have no means of

oversight over NATO to stop what they believe to be an abuse of

Security Council processes.

Page 40

In the context of the sequence of events that took place at the

Security Council in February and March, the question asked at the press

conference in April, “…are we to expect a more aggressive and

proactive posture on the part of the Security Council in supporting rebel

groups?” is about a serious change. The precedent set by the Security

Council’s supporting an armed insurgency against the government of a

UN member nation is a significant and dangerous precedent. It is an

important issue to be seriously examined.

Notes

1. I. K. Cush of Global Breaking News, Press Conference for the Colombian

Presidency, April 4, 2011,

http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2011/04/press-conference-nestor-osorio-

colombia-president-of-the-security-council.html

2. “French plans to topple Gaddafi on track since last November” by Franco Bechis,

http://www.voltairenet.org/article169069.html

3 See the account in Libero of Nouri al Mesmari’s defection and connections with

foreign intelligence forces.

http://iamaghanaian.com/index.php?do=/news/reports-suggest-french-intelligence-

e n c o u r a g e d - a n t i - g a d d a f i - p r o t e s t s / a n d

http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=204415.0;wap2

4. “‘Airstrikes in Libya did not take place’ – Russian military,” News, Russia Today

(RT) Moscow, March 1, 2011. RT report was made by journalist Irina Galushko.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iytgO0tscSI

Radio Netherlands, “HRW: No Mercenaries in eastern Libya,” March 2, 2011,

h t t p : / / m a r g o t b w o r l d n e w s . c o m / W o r d P r e s s / w p -

content/Mar/Mar5/NoMercenariesnE.Libya.html

5. Ibrahim Dabbashi, Letter to Security Council dated February 21, 2011, S/2011/102,

February 22, 2011,

h t t p : / / d a c c e s s - o d s . u n . o r g / a c c e s s . n s f / G e t ? O p e n & D S = J O U R -

NAL%20NO.2011/42&Lang=E

6. Provisional Rules of Procedure of the Security Council refers to Article 35 of the

Charter referring to ‘nations that are Members of the UN’ or ‘nations that are not

Members of the UN.’ Nowhere does it provide for defecting officials to request a

meeting of the Security Council.

7. Closed meeting Security Council, no notes but the occurrence of the meeting is noted

as 6486

meeting (closed) Peace and security in Africa Feb. 22, 2011,

http://www.un.org/Docs/journal/En/20110223e.pdf

8. Video by Nizar Abboud of UN Ambassador of Libya, Shalgam, Feb. 22, 2011,

http://www.youtube.com/user/NizarAbboud#p/search/0/fKhMUSHwtrA

Page 41

English responses begin at approx. 1:53.

9. B. Lynn Pascoe, “Informal comments to the media by B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-

Secretary-General for Political Affairs, on the situation in Libya,” Feb. 22, 2011,

http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2011/02/b-lynn-pascoe-on-the-situation-in-

libya.htm

10. “UN Security Council Discusses Libya Crisis.” Reuters, Feb. 22, 2011.

h t t p : / / u k . r e u t e r s . c o m / a r t i c l e / 2 0 1 1 / 0 2 / 2 2 / u s - l i b y a - u n - c o u n c i l -

idUKTRE71L4T920110222

11. See note 4 above.

12. Provisional Rules of Procedure Security Council Rule 37,

http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/scrules.htm

13. Manual of Protocol, United Nations Protocol and Liaison Service,

http://www.un.int/protocol/10_12.html

14. Abdel Rahman Shalgham at the Security Council 6490

meeting, Feb 25, 2011,

United Nations S/PV.6490,

http://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?Open &DS=S/PV.6490&Lang=E

15. Letter Shalgham sent to Security Council as quoted on Inner City Press blog,

http://www.innercitypress.com/banros1libya022611.html

16. Gérard Araud at the Security Council, 6490

meeting, Feb 26, 2011, United Nations

S/PV.6491

http://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?Open &DS=S/PV.6491&Lang=E.

See this transcript for other statements at that meeting quoted in the text.

17. The reference to the African Union was mistaken. The African Union called for

dialogue and was opposed to the sanctions and referral to the ICC before the Security

Council took its votes on Resolutions 1970 and 1973. See for example, Ruhakana

Rugunda, “African Union Statement on the NATO Invasion of Libya: It’s Time to End

the Bombing and Find a Political Solution in Libya,”

http://www.counterpunch.org/rugunda06222011.html

18. See for example International Labour Conference, 5C, Provisional Record, 100th

Session, Geneva, June 2011, Reports on credentials, Second report of the Credentials

Committee, Representation of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya,

http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_norm/@relconf/documents/meeting

document/wcms_156839.pdf

19. March 3, 2011, Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the

Secretary-General,

http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2011/db110303.doc.htm

20. Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General,

February 22, 2011,

http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2011/db110222.doc.htm

21. Security Council Resolution 1970,

http://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?Open &DS=S/RES/1970%20(2011)&Lang=E

22. United Nations Charter Article 32 can be found in Chapter 5 at:

http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter5.shtml

Page 42

23. Letter sent to Security Council dated 17 March 2011 from Secretary of the General

People’s Committee of Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation of the Libyan

Arab Jamahiriya to President of the Security Council. (English translation of document

previously circulated in Arabic).

24. Ronda Hauben, “UN Security Council March 17 Meeting to Authorize Bombing

of Libya all Smoke and Mirrors,” March 30, 2011,

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2011/03/

25. Edith Lederer, “UN Rejects Emergency Meeting Sought by Libya,” AP, March 22,

2011,

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1264/un-rejects-emergency-meeting-sought-by-libya

26. Letter dated 19 March 2011 from the Secretary of the General People’s Committee

for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/2011/161,

http://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/ GEN/N11/270/02/pdf/N1127002.pdf

27. Turtle Bay blog “TurtleLeaks: No visa, no entry! How the U.S. bars diplos from the

U.N.”

http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/05/04/turtleleaks_no_visa_no_entry_h

ow_the_us_bars_diplos_from_the_un

28. Curtis Doebbler, “Libya: Who wins?,” Al Ahram, 7 – 13 April 2011, Issue No.

1042,

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1042/op7.htm

29. According to General Assembly Resolution 396(V), December 1950, Recognition

by the United Nations of the Representative of a Member State, when a controversy

arises with more than one authority claiming to be the government of a Member State,

it becomes a question for the General Assembly to consider in light of the purposes and

principles of the Charter of the UN and the circumstances of each specific case. See:

h t t p : / / d a c c e s s - d d s - n y . u n . o r g / d o c / R E S O L U T I O N

/GEN/NR0/059/94/IMG/NR005994.pdf

http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/5/ares5.htm

A version of this article can also be accessed at:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2011/07/19/security_council_libya/

Page 43

[Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in Global Times English on

May 9, 2011]

U.S. Uses UN to Bypass

Congress to Go to War

by Ronda Hauben

netcolumnist@gmail.com

The Korean War ended in 1953, but its legacy still lingers in

American war-making policy today.

At a recent conference on “The Unending Korean War” at New

York University, the keynote speaker, Bruce Cumings, a history

professor at the University of Chicago, explained that the UN provided

the means for the then U.S. President Harry S. Truman to bypass the

U.S. Congress in intervening in the Korean War.

Under Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the power to

declare war is vested in the Congress. But in June 1950, Truman did not

go to Congress for a declaration of war.

Instead, Cumings explained, “The UN was the legislature that the

U.S. knew they would get a majority vote in.” At the time, the Soviet

Union was refusing to participate in the UN Security Council, and the

Chinese seat was held by representatives from Taiwan.

There would likely have been a challenge to a declaration of war in

the U.S. Congress. Hence it was the UN that provided the appearance of

legitimacy for the U.S. role in the Korean War, explained Cumings.

The Korean War, according to Cumings, was the first time the U.S.

went to war without a congressional declaration. “The U.S. executive

branch hasn’t gotten one (a congressional declaration of war) since,”

Cumings noted.

The current case of Libya is the most recent instance of a president

going to war without the needed constitutional authorization.

Instead of U.S. President Barack Obama going to the U.S. Congress

to ask for a declaration of war against Libya, he went to the Arab League

and the UN Security Council, explains Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic

congressman from Ohio.

Page 44

Kucinich is one of several U.S. congressmen objecting to Obama’s

bypassing Congress with the military campaign against Libya.

Kucinich pointed out that a no-fly zone begins with an attack on the

air defenses of Libya which is an “act of war.”

“War from the air is still war,” he argued in a press statement on

March 18, one day after the UN Security Council passed Resolution

1973, the resolution authorizing a no-fly zone in Libya.

Other congressmen from both parties have protested Obama’s

bypassing his constitutional obligation to go to Congress for a declara-

tion of war, before taking military action against another country,

especially when that other country has not attacked the U.S.

In December 2007, before he became president, Obama acknowl-

edged that going to war without a congressional authorization was a

violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Obama is quoted as saying, “The president does not have power

under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a

situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to

the nation.”

Kucinich illustrates how Obama’s failure to defer to congressional

authority to declare war represents a serious failure of U.S. democracy.

For Congress to determine whether or not to issue a declaration of

war against Libya would require not only debate and discussion, but also

a process of raising needed questions about the nature and merits of

military intervention.

Questions like “what is behind the plan for intervening in the

Libyan crisis?” and “what is the goal of the intervention?” are but a few

of the questions that Kucinich says need to be considered before such an

intervention is authorized by the Congress.

In a speech he made to Congress on March 31, Kucinich recalled

the experiences of the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam, where a supposed

attack on U.S. ships was used as an excuse for war, as well as the alleged

“weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq.

These examples demonstrate the need for Congress to examine the

facts being presented whenever a U.S. president makes the claim that

war is necessary.

“We have learned from bitter experience,” Kucinich warned, “that

Page 45

the determination to go to war must be based on verifiable facts

carefully considered.”

A version of this article can also be accessed at:

http://opinion.globaltimes.cn/foreign-view/2011-05/653147.html

[Editor’s note: The following article is taken from the Center for

Research on Globalization website where it appeared on June 29, 2011.

It can be accessed at:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25441]

Journalism as a Weapon

of War in Libya

by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

The truth has been turned on its head in Libya. NATO and the

Libyan government are saying contradictory things. NATO says that the

Libyan regime will fall in a matter of days, while the Libyan government

says that the fighting in Misrata will end in about two weeks.

During the night the sound of NATO jets flying over Tripoli can be

heard in the Mediterranean coastal city. Tripoli has not been bombed for

a few days, but the sound of the flyovers have been numerous. The

Atlantic Alliance deliberately picks the night as a means to disturb the

sleep of residence in an attempt to spread fear. Small children in Libya

have lost a lot of sleep during this war. This is part of the psychological

war being waged. It is meant to break the spirit of Libya. This is all

additional to the severing wound imposed on Libya through trickery and

sedition.

In the same context, the media war against Libya has continued too.

The Rixos Hotel in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, where the majority of

the international press is located, is a nest of lies and warped narratives

where foreign reporters are twisting realities, spinning events, and

Page 46

misreporting to justify the NATO war against Libya. Every report and

news wire being sent out of Libya by international reporters has to

carefully be cross-checked and analyzed. Foreign journalists have put

words in the mouth of Libyans and are willfully blind. They have

ignored the civilian deaths in Libya, the clear war crimes being

perpetrated against the Libyan people, and the damage to civilian

infrastructure, from hotels to docks and hospitals.

One group of Libyan youth explained in a private conversation that

when speaking to reporters they would be interviewed by them in twos.

One reporter would ask a question followed immediately by another one

from the other journalist. In the process the answer to the first question

would be used as the answer for the second question. In the Libyan

hospitals the foreign reporters try not to take pictures of the wounded

and dying. They just go into the hospitals to paint the image of impar-

tiality, but virtually report about nothing and ignore almost everything

newsworthy. They refuse to tell the other side of the story. Shamelessly

in front of seriously injured civilians, the type of questions many foreign

reporters ask doctors, nurses, and hospital staff is if they have been

treating military and security personnel in the hospitals.

CNN has even released a report from Misrata by Sara Sidner

showing the sodomization of a woman with a broomstick which it

claims was conducted by Libyan soldiers. It refers to Libyan soldiers as

Qaddafi troops, which is really a means of demonization. In reality the

video was a domestic affair and created prior to the conflict in Libya. It

originally took place in Tripoli and the man even has an accent from

Tripoli. This is the type of fabrications that the mainstream media is

pushing forward to push for war and military intervention.

There are now investigations underway to show that depleted

uranium has been used against Libyans. The use of depleted uranium is

an absolute war crime. It is not only an attack on the present, but it also

leaves a radioactive trace that attacks the unborn children of tomorrow.

Future generations will be hurt by these weapons too. These generations

of the future are innocent. The use of depleted uranium is the equivalent

of the U.S. planting nuclear weapons in Germany or Japan during the

Second World War and leaving timers for them to detonate in 2011. This

is an important and newsworthy issue in Libya and all the foreign

Page 47

journalists have heard about it, but how many have actually covered it?

Nothing is being said about the refugees coming to Tripoli from

Benghazi either. The Ionis, a ship from Benghazi that docked in Tripoli

on June 26, 2011, was carrying over 100 people who wanted to leave

Benghazi to be unified with their families in Tripoli. Foreign reporters

were there en masse from all over the world. CNN, RT, and Reuters

were amongst them. Amongst the foreign reporters there were many

who had no clue about the situation in Libya and were working on the

basis of misinformation carried forward from their respective stations

and countries. In informal discussion when these reporters were

challenged about the basis of their assessments they failed to answer and

sounded ridiculous. One reporter from Western Europe said that the

defections at the governmental level in Tripoli were snowballing, but

when challenged by a colleague she could only cite the so-called

defection of a Libyan athlete.

The arrival of the passenger ship was significant, because it is a

symptom that the political partition of Libya is underway. When families

and individuals are being shuttled to different sides of Libya, it is an

indicator that some sort of dividing line will be drawn either temporarily

or permanently.

The Roman Catholic Church in Libya has also been disrupted and

hurt. The position of Father Giovanni Martinelli, the Bishop of Tripoli,

is in contradiction to that of the U.S. and NATO. Contact has been lost

with the Roman Catholic churches and communities in Benghazi and its

environs. Bishop Martinelli has also lost dear friends in the war who

have nothing to do whatsoever with any combat or hostility. What have

foreign journalists and news agencies said about this?

Journalists have a responsibility to tell the truth and report all

newsworthy issues. Some do, but their stories either get edited or never

get published or aired. Others say nothing and instead concoct stories.

It is now the responsibility of the public to look at the reports coming

out of Libya from all sides with a grain of salt. Diversity of news is just

one starter.

Page 48

[Editor’s Note: The following open letter is dated July 2011. It concerns the UN

Security Council’s Resolution 1973 precipitating a war against Libya. The statement

calls for the UN to return to the principles provided by the Charter and for NATO to

stop its campaign against Libya. It can be seen at the website:

http://www.concernedafricans.co.za/. Among those signing the letter were former

president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, former cabinet ministers Essop Pahad, Ronnie

Kasrils, former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Njongonkulu Ndungane, author

and poet Wally Serote, foreign policy analysts Chris Landsberg, Siphamandla Zondi,

and Mahmood Mamdani, of Makerere University in Uganda and Columbia University,

New York. In addition there are 5 organizational listings. For updates on the names of

those in support of the letter, see:

http://www.concernedafricans.co.za/index.php/support]

An Open Letter to The

Peoples of Africa and The World

From Concerned Africans. Libya,

Africa and The New World Order*

We, the undersigned, are ordinary citizens of Africa who are

immensely pained and angered that fellow Africans are and have been

subjected to the fury of war by foreign powers which have clearly

repudiated the noble and very relevant vision enshrined in the Charter

of the United Nations.

Our action to issue this letter is inspired by our desire, not to take

sides, but to protect the sovereignty of Libya and the right of the Libyan

people to choose their leaders and determine their own destiny.

Libya is an African country.

On March 10, the African Union Peace and Security Council

adopted an important Resolution which spelt out the roadmap to address

the Libyan conflict, consistent with the obligations of the AU under

Chapter VIII of the UN Charter.

When the UN Security Council adopted its Resolution 1973, it was

aware of the AU decision which had been announced seven days earlier.

By deciding to ignore this fact, the Security Council further and

consciously contributed to the subversion of international law as well as

undermining the legitimacy of the UN in the eyes of the African people.

Page 49

In other ways since then, it has helped to promote and entrench the

immensely pernicious process of the international marginalization of

Africa even with regard to the resolution of the problems of the

Continent.

Contrary to the provisions of the UN Charter, the UN Security

Council declared its own war on Libya on March 17, 2011.

The Security Council allowed itself to be informed by what the

International Crisis Group (ICG) in its June 6, 2011 Report on Libya

characterizes as the “more sensational reports that the regime was using

its air force to slaughter demonstrators.”

On this basis it adopted Resolution 1973 which mandated the

imposition of a “no-fly zone” over Libya, and resolved “to take all

necessary measures…to protect civilians and civilian populated areas

under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya….”

Thus, first of all, the Security Council used the still unresolved issue

in international law of “the right to protect,” the so-called R2P, to justify

the Chapter VII military intervention in Libya.

In this context the UN Security Council has committed a litany of

offences which have underlined, the further transformation of the

Council into a willing instrument of the most powerful among its

Member States.

Thus the Security Council produced no evidence to prove that its

authorization of the use of force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter

was a proportionate and appropriate response to what had, in reality, in

Libya, developed into a civil war.

It then proceeded to ‘outsource’ or ‘sub-contract’ the implementa-

tion of its resolutions to NATO, mandating this military alliance to act

as a ‘coalition of the willing.’

It did not put in place any mechanism and process to supervise the

‘sub-contractor,’ to ensure that it faithfully honors the provisions of its

Resolutions.

It has made no effort otherwise to monitor and analyze the actions

of NATO in this regard.

It has allowed the establishment of a legally unauthorized ‘Contact

Group,’ yet another ‘coalition of the willing,’ which has displaced it as

the authority which has the effective responsibility to help determine the

Page 50

future of Libya.

To confirm this unacceptable reality, the July 15, 2011 meeting of

the ‘Contact Group’ in Istanbul “reaffirmed that the Contact Group

remains the appropriate platform for the international community to be

a focal point of contact with the Libyan people, to coordinate interna-

tional policy and to be a forum for discussion of humanitarian and post-

conflict support.”

Duly permitted by the Security Council, the two ‘coalitions of the

willing,’ NATO and the ‘Contact Group,’ have effectively and practi-

cally rewritten Resolution 1973.

Thus they have empowered themselves openly to pursue the

objective of ‘regime change’ and therefore the use of force and all other

means to overthrow the government of Libya, which objectives are

completely at variance with the decisions of the UN Security Council.

Because of this, with no regard to UNSC Resolutions 1970 and

1973, they have made bold to declare the government of Libya illegiti-

mate and to proclaim the Benghazi-based ‘Transitional National

Council’ as “the legitimate governing authority in Libya.”

The Security Council has failed to answer the question how the

decisions taken by NATO and the ‘Contact Group’ address the vital

issue of “facilitating dialogue to lead to the political reforms necessary

to find a peaceful and sustainable solution….”

The actions of its ‘sub-contractors,’ NATO and the ‘Contact

Group,’ have positioned the UN as a partisan belligerent in the Libyan

conflict, rather than a committed but neutral peacemaker standing

equidistant from the Libyan armed factions.

The Security Council has further wilfully decided to repudiate the

rule of international law by consciously ignoring the provisions of

Chapter VIII of the UN Charter relating to the role of legitimate regional

institutions.

The George W. Bush war against Iraq began on March 20, 2003.

The following day, March 21, the U.K. newspaper, The Guardian,

published an abbreviated article by the prominent U.S. neo-conservative,

Richard Perle, entitled “Thank God for the death of the UN.”

But the post-Second World War global architecture for the

maintenance of international peace and security centered on respect for

Page 51

the UN Charter.

The UN Security Council must therefore know that at least with

regard to Libya, it has acted in a manner which will result in and has led

to the loss of its moral authority effectively to preside over the critical

processes of achieving global peace and the realization of the objective

of peaceful coexistence among the diverse peoples of the world.

Contrary to the provisions of the UN Charter, the UN Security

Council authorised and has permitted the destruction and anarchy which

has descended on the Libyan people.

At the end of it all: – many Libyans will have died and have been

maimed;

– much infrastructure will have been destroyed, further impoverishing

the Libyan people;

– the bitterness and mutual animosity among the Libyan people will

have been further entrenched;

– the possibility to arrive at a negotiated, inclusive and stable settlement

will have become that much more difficult;

– instability will have been reinforced among the countries neighboring

Libya, especially the countries of the African Sahel, such as Sudan,

Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauretania;

– Africa will inherit a much more difficult challenge successfully to

address issue of peace and stability, and therefore the task of sustained

development; and,

– those who have intervened to perpetuate violence and war in Libya

will have the possibility to set the parameters within which the Libyans

will have the possibility to determine their destiny, and thus further

constrain the space for the Africans to exercise their right to self-

determination.

As Africans we have predicated our future as relevant players in an

equitable system of international relations on the expectation that the

United Nations would indeed serve “as the foundation of a new world

order.”

The ICG Report to which we have referred says: “The prospect for

Libya, but also North Africa as a whole, is increasingly ominous,

unless some way can be found to induce the two sides in the armed

conflict to negotiate a compromise allowing for an orderly transi-

Page 52

tion to a post-Qaddafi, post-Jamahiriya state that has legitimacy in

the eyes of the Libyan people. A political breakthrough is by far the

best way out of the costly situation created by the military

impasse….”

When Richard Perle wrote in 2003 about the “abject failure of the

United Nations,” he was bemoaning the refusal of the UN to submit to

dictation by the world’s sole superpower, the U.S.

The UN took this position because it was conscious of, and was

inspired by its obligation to act as a true representative of all peoples of

the world, consistent with the opening words of the UN Charter – “We

the peoples of the United Nations….”

However, and tragically, eight years later, in 2011, the UN Security

Council abandoned its commitment to this perspective.

Chastened by the humiliating experience of 2003, when the U.S.

demonstrated that might is right, it decided that it was more expedient

to submit to the demands of the powerful rather than honor its obligation

to respect the imperative to uphold the will of the peoples, including the

African nations.

Thus it has communicated the message that it has become no more

than an instrument in the hands and service of the most powerful within

the system of international relations and therefore the vital process of the

peaceful ordering of human affairs.

As Africans we have no choice but to stand up and reassert our right

and duty to determine our destiny in Libya and everywhere else on our

Continent.

We demand that all governments, everywhere in the world,

including Africa, which expect genuine respect by the governed, such as

us, should act immediately to assert “that law by which all nations may

live in dignity.”

We demand that:

– the NATO war of aggression in Libya should end immediately;

– the AU should be supported to implement its Plan to help the Libyan

people to achieve peace, democracy, shared prosperity and national

reconciliation in a united Libya; and,

– the UN Security Council must act immediately to discharge its

responsibilities as defined in the UN Charter.

Page 53

Those who have brought a deadly rain of bombs to Libya today

should not delude themselves to believe that the apparent silence of the

millions of Africans means that Africa approves of the campaign of

death, destruction and domination which that rain represents.

We are confident that tomorrow we will emerge victorious,

regardless of the death-seeking power of the most powerful armies in the

world.

The answer we must provide practically, and as Africans, is – when,

and in what ways, will we act resolutely and meaningfully to defend the

right of the Africans of Libya to decide their future, and therefore the

right and duty of all Africans to determine their destiny!

The AU Road Map remains the only way to peace for the people of

Libya.

* When the 66

Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) opened on

September 13, the above Open Letter on Libya with over 300 signatures was delivered

to the President of the UN General Assembly, to the President of the Security Council,

and to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. See, e.g., “Letter on Libya Sent to UN on

Opening of General Assembly” at:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2011/09/14/letter_on_libya_sent_to_un/

[Editor’s Note: This article was published online in Aug, 2011.]

What Does Gaddafi’s Fall

Mean For Africa?

As global powers become more interested in Africa,

interventions in the continent will likely become more

common.

By Mahmood Mamdani

“Kampala ‘mute’ as Gaddafi falls,” is how the opposition paper

summed up the mood of this capital the morning after. Whether they

Page 54

mourn or celebrate, an unmistakable sense of trauma marks the African

response to the fall of Gaddafi.

Both in the longevity of his rule and in his style of governance,

Gaddafi may have been extreme. But he was not exceptional. The longer

they stay in power, the more African presidents seek to personalize

power. Their success erodes the institutional basis of the state. The

Carribean thinker C. L. R. James once remarked on the contrast between

Nyerere and Nkrumah, analyzing why the former survived until he

resigned but the latter did not: “Dr. Julius Nyerere in theory and practice

laid the basis of an African state, which Nkrumah failed to do.”

The African strongmen are going the way of Nkrumah, and in

extreme cases Gaddafi, not Nyerere. The societies they lead are marked

by growing internal divisions. In this, too, they are reminiscent of Libya

under Gaddafi more than Egypt under Mubarak or Tunisia under Ben

Ali.

Whereas the fall of Mubarak and Ben Ali directed our attention to

internal social forces, the fall of Gaddafi has brought a new equation to

the forefront: the connection between internal opposition and external

governments. Even if those who cheer focus on the former and those

who mourn are preoccupied with the latter, none can deny that the

change in Tripoli would have been unlikely without a confluence of

external intervention and internal revolt.

More interventions to come

The conditions making for external intervention in Africa are

growing, not diminishing. The continent is today the site of a growing

contention between dominant global powers and new challengers. The

Chinese role on the continent has grown dramatically. Whether in Sudan

and Zimbawe, or in Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria, that role is primarily

economic, focused on two main activities: building infrastructure and

extracting raw materials. For its part, the Indian state is content to

support Indian mega-corporations; it has yet to develop a coherent state

strategy. But the Indian focus too is mainly economic.

The contrast with Western powers, particularly the U.S. and France,

could not be sharper. The cutting edge of Western intervention is

military. France’s search for opportunities for military intervention, at

Page 55

first in Tunisia, then Cote d’Ivoire, and then Libya, has been above

board and the subject of much discussion. Of greater significance is the

growth of Africom, the institutional arm of U.S. military intervention on

the African continent.

This is the backdrop against which African strongmen and their

respective oppositions today make their choices. Unlike in the Cold

War, Africa’s strongmen are weary of choosing sides in the new

contention for Africa. Exemplified by President Museveni of Uganda,

they seek to gain from multiple partnerships, welcoming the Chinese and

the Indians on the economic plane, while at the same time seeking a

strategic military presence with the U.S. as it wages its War on Terror

on the African continent.

In contrast, African oppositions tend to look mainly to the West for

support, both financial and military. It is no secret that in just about

every African country, the opposition is drooling at the prospect of

Western intervention in the aftermath of the fall of Gaddafi.

Those with a historical bent may want to think of a time over a

century ago, in the decade that followed the Berlin conference [Nov.

1884 - Jan. 1885], when outside powers sliced up the continent. Our

predicament today may give us a more realistic appreciation of the real

choices faced and made by the generations that went before us. Could

it have been that those who then welcomed external intervention did so

because they saw it as the only way of getting rid of domestic oppres-

sion?

In the past decade, Western powers have created a political and

legal infrastructure for intervention in otherwise independent countries.

Key to that infrastructure are two institutions, the United Nations

Security Council and the International Criminal Court. Both work

politically, that is, selectively. To that extent, neither works in the

interest of creating a rule of law.

The Security Council identifies states guilty of committing “crimes

against humanity” and sanctions intervention as part of a “responsibility

to protect” civilians. Third parties, other states armed to the teeth, are

then free to carry out the intervention without accountability to anyone,

including the Security Council. The ICC, in toe with the Security

Council, targets the leaders of the state in question for criminal

Page 56

investigation and prosecution.

Africans have been complicit in this, even if unintentionally.

Sometimes, it is as if we have been a few steps behind in a game of

chess. An African Secretary General tabled the proposal that has come

to be called R2P, Responsibility to Protect. Without the vote of Nigeria

and South Africa, the resolution authorizing intervention in Libya would

not have passed in the Security Council.

Dark days are ahead. More and more African societies are deeply

divided internally. Africans need to reflect on the fall of Gaddafi and,

before him, that of Gbagbo in Cote d’Ivoire. Will these events usher in

an era of external interventions, each welcomed internally as a mecha-

nism to ensure a change of political leadership in one country after

another?

One thing should be clear: those interested in keeping external

intervention at bay need to concentrate their attention and energies on

internal reform.

A version of this article can also be accessed at:

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/08/201182812377546414.html

[Editor’s Note: The Foreign Ministers of ALBA* met on September 9,

2011 and agreed on the following declaration.]

Special Declaration by ALBA-TCP

Countries on Libya and Syria

Caracas, Venezuela

12 September 2011

The Foreign Affairs Ministers of the member states of ALBA (the

Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America) gathered in Caracas

on September 9 and condemned the NATO intervention in Libya and the

illegal military aggression carried out under a UN Security Council

Page 57

resolution, saying that it opportunistically takes advantage of the internal

political conflict in that country. This follows two prior ALBA state-

ments on the issue this year: the Special Declaration of the Political

Council of March 4, and the Special Declaration of the Social Ministe-

rial Council of March 19.

They claim NATO has conducted a military operation of regime

change in Libya under the doctrine of preventive war, manipulating the

UN according to its own geopolitical and economic interests and thus

violating Security Council resolution 1973.

They demand the immediate and unconditional cessation of

bombing and military intervention by NATO in Libyan territory.

They deplore the fact that NATO has ignored consistent efforts by

the African Union to seek a solution for dialogue and peace to the

internal conflict in Libya.

They also deplore the role of several major international media

outlets, which have acted as accomplices by aligning themselves with

those that support aggression and distorting information about what is

happening in Libya.

They express urgent alarm over the danger that similar actions could

be taken against Syria, taking advantage of political difficulties in that

Arab nation.

They reiterate their firm commitment to the right of the peoples of

Libya and Syria to self-determination.

They strongly reject any attempt to turn Libya into a protectorate of

the NATO or the UN Security Council.

In order to contribute to backing the peace efforts demanded by

most of the world’s peoples, the Ministers agreed to take the following

actions:

• Promote discussion at the UN General Assembly on the dangerous

precedent created regarding Libya and on the protection of the sovereign

rights of the Arab nation in Africa and Libya, with a view toward

ensuring that Libya does not become a protectorate of NATO and the

UN Security Council.

• Promote the establishment of a General Assembly Working Group to

investigate and monitor the use of the frozen funds of Libya’s financial

reserves and report on its findings and conclusions to the General

Page 58

Assembly.

• Call on the international community to promote an investigation of

crimes perpetrated by NATO in Libya to the detriment of the Libyan

people, including loss of life and the destruction of infrastructure.

• Chronicle media manipulation and lies promoted by the empire to

justify aggression against the Libyan people.

• Request that the UN Secretary General maintain full transparency and

strict accountability to member states with regard to actions on the issue

of Libya and Syria, and reaffirm that their role should respond to

mandates agreed by the General Assembly, before taking further action

to intervene in Libya. Likewise, request a meeting with the Secretary

General to discuss the situation in Libya.

• Support a central role for the African Union in peace efforts in Libya.

• Express their objection to the seat corresponding to Libya in the UN

being occupied by one faction or transitional authority illegitimately

imposed by foreign intervention, and thus promote a substantive

discussion in the General Assembly’s Credentials Committee to ensure

that the seat remain unoccupied until a government that is a free and

sovereign expression of the will of the Libyan people is constituted

legitimately and without foreign intervention.

• Propose to the Syrian government in Damascus to send a mission of

top representatives or foreign ministers of the ALBA-TCP and, if

accepted, report on this situation to the Latin American and Caribbean

countries through UNASUR, CARICOM, SICA and the Rio

Group-CALC Unified Forum and invite those who wish to join this

initiative.

• Promote a debate on the Non-Aligned Movement Coordinating Bureau

on the dangers looming over Syria.

• Support, together with the Non-Aligned members of the Security

Council, the draft resolution sponsored by Russia and China with regard

to Syria.

• Send the UN Secretary General this declaration and request that it be

distributed among member states as an official document of the General

Assembly.

Page 59

* The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) is a regional

organization, founded in 2004, that aims for social, political, and economic integration

in Latin America and the Caribbean. Currently the member nations are Antigua and

Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent and the

Grenadines, and Venezuela.

This English translation of the Declaration can be accessed at:

http://www.voltairenet.org/Special-Declaration-by-ALBA-TCP

The original is in Spanish and can be accessed at:

http://minci.gob.ve/noticias_-_prensa/28/207783/alba_emite_declaracion.html

[Editor’s Note: This article appeared on Sept. 18, 2011.]

UN Debates NATO Attack on Libya

at Opening of 66

Session of the

General Assembly

by Ronda Hauben

netcolumnist@gmail.com

The United Nations came back alive on Friday, September 16 with

denunciations of the bombing and regime change agenda being carried

out against Libya by NATO.

The occasion was the report of the credentials committee recom-

mending that the seat held by the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya be taken by

the National Transitional Council (NTC). The Credentials Committee is

a committee appointed by the President of the General Assembly. The

Credentials Committee for the 66

Session of the UN General Assembly

which began on September 13, 2011 and will last until September 12,

2012 consists of nine member states. They are China, Costa Rica, Egypt,

Italy, Maldives, Panama, Russian Federation, Senegal and the United

States. The representative from Panama presented the results of the

report of the Credentials Committee to the General Assembly as a

consensus report.

Page 60

Ambassador Jorge Valero of Venezuela was the first speaker to

offer a response to the Credential Committee’s report.

He spoke on

behalf of ALBA (the Bolivian Alliance for the People’s of Our America

which is made up of Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica,

Ecuador, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Venezuela.)

Ambassador Valero objected to the General Assembly seating the

NTC, which he explained was “a group under the guidance of the

Government of the United States and NATO, which have no legal or

moral authority for deciding who should govern a country.” Noting the

ongoing continuing NATO bombing of Libya, Ambassador Valero

reminded members of the General Assembly, “While we discuss in this

forum, the possible recognition of the self named National Transitional

Council (NTC), NATO’s bombings continue on Libya. More than

20,000 criminal air raids have been carried out in order to impose a

puppet government in that sister nation of northern Africa.” Ambassador

Valero condemned the NATO bombings, explaining that “on behalf of

the alleged defense of civilians, thousands of civilians and innocent

people have been killed and the infrastructure of a country has been

destroyed.”

“We support the good officers of the African Union in their pursuit

of peace,” he said. This is in line with the role for a regional body

provided for in Article VIII of the UN Charter. He explained, however,

that the “well-known powers that make up the Security Council

sabotaged these calls for peace…blatantly violating the (Security

Council) resolution that they had previously promoted.”

Several other members of ALBA spoke, including Cuba, Bolivia,

Nicaragua and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

In her remarks to the General Assembly, Ambassador Maria

Rubiales de Chamorro of Nicaragua demanded an immediate and

unconditional end to NATO’s bombing of Libya. She said, “We

denounce and condemn the manipulations and distortions of those states

that are openly and blatantly violating the UN Charter and Resolution

1973 of the Security Council [with the] intent to impose a regime change

in a sovereign state, using the blatant and deceptive guise of protecting

civilians and once again attacking the sovereign equality of states.”

The Cuban Ambassador explained that the foreign intervention and

Page 61

military aggression by NATO had only worsened the conflict using the

“clumsy pretext of protection of civilians.”

Speaking on behalf of SADC (the Southern African Development

Community), the Permanent Representative of Angola, Ambassador

Ismael Gaspar Martins said that the African Union had planned a

meeting at the UN on Monday, September 19, to try to determine

answers to some questions important for determining whether or not to

give the Libyan seat to the NTC. He explained that the NTC intended to

form a government, but that had not yet occurred.

Under Rule 27 of General Assembly, the request for credentials

must be issued by heads of State or government or the minister of

foreign affairs of a state. There was a need to determine who had signed

the NTC credentials that were accepted by the Credentials Committee

and whether such a person constituted a head of state or government or

a minister of foreign affairs of that government. In order to preserve the

integrity of the General Assembly, Ambassador Martins asked that the

matter be deferred to be able to answer this question.

Another speaker pointed out that it was wrong for the General

Assembly to decide to accept the credentials of the NTC before the

African Union had had a chance to consider the issue and to make its

recommendation.

The representatives of Zambia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,

Kenya, and Equatorial Guinea raised related issues recommending that

it was not yet appropriate to issue credentials to the NTC.

Among the nations speaking in defense of the NTC being granted

the credentials were Egypt, Gabon, Senegal, Iran and Chad. The vote in

favor of granting the credentials passed with 114 voting in favor, 17

against, 15 abstentions, and 47 absent for a total of 193 members.

Though those with objections to the NTC being issued the creden-

tials for Libya without further consideration of the issues involved, did

not prevail in the vote, this was first time at an official session of a UN

body that there was substantial public condemnation of NATO’s

bombing of Libya as contrary to its claims of protecting civilians.

Several nations spoke up, breaking the silence that had hitherto protected

the aggression against Libya as being carried out in the name of the UN.

The Summary of the General Assembly Meeting prepared at the UN

Page 62

Secretariat noted that the decision on credentials for the NTC only

occurred “after much wrangling.” Also, in several of the mainstream

media news reports there were indications there had been opposition to

seating the NTC as the unelected, and self appointed, NATO installed

representative of Libya.

The actions of those nations who raised their opposition and

concern about the recommendation of the Credentials Committee began

a process of public debate over the UN actions against Libya basically

absent from the UN for the past 6 months. This in itself represented a

victory for those who publicly raised their objections and who urged the

importance of respecting the rules of procedure of the General Assembly

and the principles of the UN charter. The layers of diplomacy no longer

served to silence the debate over what is happening at the UN. The

representatives of several nations spoke up in defense of the principles

of sovereignty and non-intervention into the internal affairs of member

nations that are enshrined in the UN charter.

Notes

1. A video of the session of the General Assembly can be seen at:

http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2011/09/general-assembly-2nd-plenary-

meeting-english.html

The statement by Venezuela starts at 00:48:40.

http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2011/09/general-ass embly-2nd-plenary-

meeting-english.html

The statement by Angola starts at 01:12:08.

A version of this article can also be accessed at:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2011/09/18/un_debates_nato_attack_on_libya_at_op

ening_of_66th_session_of_the_general_assembly/

Page 63

[Editor’s Note: TeleSUR, The New Television Station of the South, is

a pan-Latin American terrestrial and satellite television network

headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela. It sent a reporter and cameraman

to Libya in May 2011 to report on the war. The following is a report

about what that team saw and reported during its 4 months in Libya.]

The Lies of the Mainstream Media.

According to TeleSUR, 50,000 Killed in

NATO War on Libya

TeleSUR Journalists Speak Truth on Libya

Global Research

September 17, 2011

This week TeleSUR welcomed home a news team just back from

covering NATO’s war on Libya from that nation’s capital, Tripoli. On

arrival at Venezuela’s Maiquetia International Airport, the journalists

denounced the ongoing ‘fabrication of lies’ by mainstream media outlets

and accused the international press of “producing the arguments needed

for a continuation of the war.” The Libyan people “have been invaded

by destruction, war, suffering and death, when the solution to the

conflict could have been secured by peaceful means,” affirmed TeleSUR

journalist Rolando Segura, who spent the last four months in Libya

alongside cameraman Henry Pillajo.

Segura and Pillajo are among the handful of independent journalists

who covered largely under reported stories that include: NATO’s

bombing of civilian targets; the indiscriminate killing of black migrant

workers by rebel forces; the million strong ‘Green March’ held across

Libya demanding reconciliation between the government and opposition

forces; the rebel takeover and silencing of Libya’s public broadcasting

channels; and the fabricated takeover of Tripoli’s Green Plaza late last

month – filmed in Qatar and disseminated by international mainstream

media outlets, the video successfully secured recognition of the NATO-

backed National Transition Council (CNT) as the ‘new government in

Libya’ and convinced many Libyan embassy staff abroad to defect.

Page 64

After an August 8-9 NATO missile strike killed 85 civilians, 33 of

which were children, TeleSUR’s Segura interviewed Abu Mimiar,

brother of one of those killed. Mimiar asked the TeleSUR reporter if the

killing of his brother, a rural farmer, “is the protection of civilians they

(NATO) talk about? Or is it that those of us who care for and support

Gaddafi don’t deserve protection?”

50,000 Killed in Libyan War

According to Segura, who spoke Tuesday at a forum in Caracas

organized by Correo del Orinoco, “there is talk of an estimated 1,800

killed by NATO bombs and, as a result of the entire conflict, something

like 50,000 dead in total – persons who were massacred as a result of

this invasion, this aggression, against Libya.”

The bombings, as well as advances made by NATO-backed rebel

forces, “were made possible by the lies of the mass media that repro-

duced an editorial line without any questioning at all,” affirmed Segura.

Segura’s blog [

http://rolandotelesur.blogspot.com/], in Spanish, has been one

of the only independent sources of news, analysis, and images in the

aftermath of NATO bombings across Libya.

The TeleSUR crew left Libya late last week, traveling 36 hours by

boat from the Libyan coast to Malta, an island just south of Sicily, Italy.

The two crowded in a boat fit for 12 alongside 50 other passengers, all

of whom sought refuge from war-torn Tripoli.

Since 19 March this year, the United States and its NATO allies

have launched over 20,000 sorties over Libya, carrying out an estimated

9,000 air strikes. This past Sunday alone, NATO carried out 52 aerial

attacks. Damage to the country’s highly developed infrastructure –

including its oil industry, water supply networks, food storage facilities,

communications installations, and public health system – has resulted in

growing shortages of food, water, and medicine.

TeleSUR vs. New Format for War

Speaking to a crowd gathered on Monday, Venezuelan Minister of

Communication and Information Andres Izarra praised TeleSUR’s role

in Libya and said “U.S. imperialism had sown together a new format for

Page 65

imperial aggression” by using “the hegemonic international media” to

demonize governments opposed to U.S. foreign policy. This new

‘format,’ he said, involves ‘instigating revolutions of color, revolutions

of spring’ in countries in which imperialism claims “civil liberties are

restricted.” Demonization is followed by international media campaigns

to topple anti-U.S. governments and, if necessary, direct military

intervention follows.

According to Izarra, this new method for attacking sovereign

nations has “already had a partial victory in Libya” and “at this moment

is a serious threat to Syria.” Izarra praised TeleSUR reporters in Tripoli,

who showed “a city that was going about living its normal, daily life” as

international press attempted to portray “a dictator, Gaddafi, massacring

his own people” in order to justify NATO’s war.

Jordan Rodriguez, TeleSUR’s reporter in Tripoli at the start of

NATO bombings, told the press that NATO is currently the only force

responsible for “bombings that are taking place in Libya” and blamed

the international force for “killing innocent civilians, women and

children.” Rodriguez pointed out that while NATO bombs continue to

hit populated urban centers, “we watch as the large networks like CNN

and the BBC report on the precision of NATO bombs” instead of the

impact these bombs have on the Libyan people’s daily life.

According to Rodriguez, TeleSUR has “shown another other side

of the conflict.” “When we (TeleSUR) spoke to Libyans from rural and

other areas, many showed a great deal of appreciation for Muammar

Gaddafi. We are talking about the poorest country in all of the Maghreb,

before the arrival of the Revolution. The proof is in the statistics, in the

hospitals that look like high tech clinics, eight-lane highways, the

highest quality education,” he said.

Rodriguez accused the U.S. and NATO allies of instigating, arming

and training the rebel forces. He said that when speaking to anti-Gaddafi

rebels on the ground, “all they said is that they wanted ‘Gaddafi to go,’

giving no argumentation.”

Gaddafi was forced into hiding after NATO-backed opposition

forces seized on weeks of air strikes in Tripoli, capturing government

offices and the presidential palace. Footage of the so-called ‘Fall of

Tripoli’ was widely disseminated by the mainstream media and

Page 66

opposition forces received almost immediate recognition as the ‘new

government’ in Libya.

Voice Of Truth

According to TeleSUR President Patricia Villegas the Caracas-

based Latin American news outlet plans to keep staff in Libya indefi-

nitely as NATO steps up efforts to destroy support for Gaddafi and

maintain the pro-Western ‘transitional government.’

According to Villegas, the station’s overall objective “has always

been” to provide a “voice to the victims of conflict,” as was the case

during the 2009 military coup in Honduras, the attempted ouster of

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa in 2010, the popular uprising

against former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and most recently,

the NATO bombing of Libya.

“We didn’t arrive (in Libya) alongside the invaders,” affirmed

Villegas. “We didn’t arrive with the bullets…. Other media outlets did.

Other media outlets are riding in the rebels’ cars; others are protected by

private security companies. This is not the journalistic practice of

TeleSUR. We have told this story since it first began,” she said.

“Regardless of whether or not the leader (Gaddafi) is ‘correct,’ we

have been witness to exceptional acts of aggression by NATO; of NATO

bombs not only attacking military but also civilian targets,” she

affirmed.

Chavez Praises TeleSUR

Over the weekend Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez praised

TeleSUR’s coverage of the war on Libya, stressing the importance of

breaking apart the media blockade imposed by ‘U.S. Empire’ and its

allies in international and local media networks. “I want us to award the

TeleSUR correspondents with an honor, the highest honor given by the

Republic. Those people are the ones telling the truth.” said Chavez. “Our

recognition and admiration goes out to TeleSUR and its correspondents

in Libya…. What courage!” he said.

Page 67

A version of this article can also be accessed at:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26618

[Editor’s Note: The group ‘Friends of Libya’ was setup on Sept 1, 2011 when the

former group of countries and organizations known as the Libya Contact Group

dissolved. Bloomberg News characterized the Friends of Libya as “leaders of the

international coalition that helped topple Muammar Qaddafi.” The following

commentary looks back in history to see if the Libyan people will be helped by such

friends.]

From Munich to Tripoli: Appeasement

Aids Aggression

by Yoichi Shimatsu

September 20, 2011

Coco Chanel famously said: “My friends, there are no friends.” The

French fashion designer, a Nazi collaborator during the wartime

occupation, would have found a comfortable fit in with the “Friends of

Libya” in New York. The meeting, a sequel to an earlier summit in

Sarkozy’s Paris, is aimed at expanding international support for the

NATO-installed National Transitional authority in Tripoli. The well-

attired diplomats and cologne-drenched corporate executives at the New

York conference, now as in Coco Chanel’s lifetime, are doing what they

do best: appeasement of aggression.

The present generation of appeasers is following the textbook of

surrender written by Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier, the

“statesmen” who sanctioned Adolf Hitler’s takeover of Czechoslovakia

in late September 1938. The prime ministers of Britain and France were

latecomers in recognizing the Nazi re-division of the world and therefore

had no claim to the war booty. Instead of sharing the fascist loot, they

had to satisfy their constituents with scraps from the Fuhrer’s table –

mainly face-saving photo opportunities to show that their diplomatic

mission was a “success.” History surely repeats itself with the Libyan

debacle.

Page 68

Peace on the Cheap

“Peace in our time” was, of course, a fraud, which certainly did not

fool Hitler, who came away from Munich convinced that the Western

democracies were ready to yield all of the capitals of Eastern Europe

along with Vienna and Prague. The appeasement epidemic soon infected

Stalin’s Moscow with the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement

in 1939, a compromise that lulled the Soviet Union into a surprise

attack.

Since the Munich dictat, the roles have changed. Today, it is Russia

and China going hat in hand to the British-French-American victory

celebration. Contemporary appeasement arises from the same source as

the sell-out at Munich: amorality, the failure to adhere to higher

principles. Individuals or countries lacking a coherent social ethos and

personal code of conduct, tempered in real-world struggle, easily fall

prey to the notion that “might makes right.” Instead of standing up to

threats, they kneel to the powerful as if before a demigod.

World Body in Shame

Governments are prone to appeasement because their diplomats and

bureaucrats are amoral, being mere functionaries who operate under

rules and not principles. The United Nations, as a hierarchy of govern-

ments and a diplomat’s club, has a longer record of betraying the

principle of self-determination than even its discredited predecessor, the

League of Nations. Instead of defending sovereignty, the UN more often

than not has been a violator, as it was in the Korean conflict, Vietnam

War, partition of Yugoslavia and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The two Security Council resolutions to “protect civilians” in Libya

provided pseudo-legitimate cover for a foreign invasion by the special

forces units from the French, British, Qatari and Jordanian armies

bolstered by jihadist recruits from across the Middle East, Turkey and

Afghanistan. The logic behind “protection of civilians” is similar to

Hitler’s pretext for seizing Czechoslovakia, which was to “save” its

German-speaking minority. The one big difference between then and

now is that Chamberlain and Daladier did not have the power of veto.

The Libyan rebels, it should be recalled, rejected the UN offer to

Page 69

send a peacekeeping mission to Benghazi. Their objective from the start

was to establish an Islamist Emirate in the Magreb under sharia law,

arguably more repressive than Taliban rule. The jihadists have already

slaughtered many more civilians, especially blacks, than the UN could

have ever rescued.

The current suggestion to impose a U.N. operation inside Libya is,

on a practical level, nonsense. The Libyan state holds more than $160

billion in foreign assets has no foreign debt and can raise adequate funds

for reconstruction from forward contracts on oil delivery. In contrast, the

UN is a pauper agency with a $5 billion annual budget and a chronic

debt. It is Libya that can afford to finance the United Nations, not vice

versa. In addition, the risk potential for a UN presence in Tripoli is

massive, considering the ominous parallels with its mission in Iraq and,

more recently, Nigeria, where its personnel were mass-murdered by

truck bombs. How many more human lives do the appeasers intend to

throw away?

Guernica, Again

It is no wonder, then, that the ruling council treats reluctant

recognition from Moscow and Beijing with unconcealed contempt.

Pretoria and Caracas, in contrast, are shown the uneasy degree of respect

accorded to adamant enemies. Global power relations are based on fear

not friendship. Coco Chanel and Machiavelli were right about that.

Real men and women fight not for compromises but for their

political beliefs and personal convictions. The spineless diplomacy

demonstrated at Munich, and more recently in Paris and New York,

achieves nothing. The only realistic choice is to fight aggression, even

if it means certain defeat. The shining example for moral courage

handed down to us from the 1930s came with the Spanish Civil War,

when a brave population without the support of a prostrate League of

Nations stood up to the combined military might of Nazi Germany,

fascist Italy, Franco’s legions and his Moroccan auxiliaries. The fascist

horde invaded Spain in defiance of a League arms embargo, which was

enforced only against the republican side, as was the case in the one-

sided U.N. sanctions against Libya.

Today, the NATO jets that pound Sirte are the equivalent of the

Page 70

Hilter’s Condor bombers, which leveled the beleaguered Spanish Basque

town of Guernica. Then the League failed to challenge the fascist assault

on Spain, while now the UN takes a step further into the moral quagmire

by backing the NATO proxy regime. The fall of Madrid to the fascists

had horrifying consequences for the republicans and the International

Brigades. Yet the blood of innocents and fighters spilled on Spanish soil

provided the moral rationale and inspiration for the crucial victories at

Stalingrad and Midway.

Struggle On

The moral grounds for resisting the fascist offensive were not given

by the Comintern commissars or church prelates; leadership of the spirit

came from the writers and commentators who conveyed the words of the

Spanish people to the world. Millions were moved to action by the

slogan “They shall not pass”, voiced over the radio by the female com-

munist leader Dolores Ibarruri, better known as La Pasionaria. Her

comrade-in-arms Louis Aragon, a French poet and intellectual, emerged

from Surrealism, a cultural movement that advocated total resistance to

bourgeois hypocrisy. Ernest Hemingway, the journalist and novelist

whose democratic instincts were based on the ideals tested by America’s

own Civil War, helped to raise the Lincoln Brigade of valiant American

volunteers.

Whenever the amoral embrace the immoral, it is then up to the

intellectuals and artists to summon ordinary people to find in themselves

the courage to fight on. What the diplomats and corporate chieftains in

their bestial stupor can never understand is this paradox of history: With

triumph, the aggressors seal their defeat; but for the people, from the

ashes of defeat arises victory. The battle of Libya, by no means over yet,

is just the beginning of the third world war. As far as morality goes, it

is the acid test for each of us.

A version of this article can also be accessed at:

http://en.m4.cn/2011/09/20/from-munich-to-tripoli-appeasement-aids-aggression/

Page 71

[Editor’s Note: The following statement is taken from the website of

Concerned Africans: http://www.concernedafricans.co.za/ ]

Statement by Concerned Africans on

the Libyan Crisis and Execution of

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi

24 October 2011

On Thursday 20 October 2011, Libya’s former leader, Colonel

Muammar Gaddafi, was publicly executed in an act of vigilante

violence. A day before his capture and execution, U.S. Secretary of

State, Hillary Clinton, called for Col. Gaddafi to be captured or killed

while on a visit to Libya.

These two acts have provoked feelings of revulsion from millions

across the globe. The extra judicial execution of Gaddafi is not only

morally repugnant but a violation of international law. He was a prisoner

of war and should have been handled in accordance with the Geneva

Convention.

Article 13 of the Geneva Convention to which NATO member

states are signatories states that: “Prisoners of war must at all times be

protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and

against insults and public curiosity.”

NATO member-states, without whose help the so-called Libyan

rebels would not have been able to effect regime change in Libya, have

blood on their hands. It has now been confirmed that Col. Gaddafi’s

convoy was bombed by a NATO drone and that Col. Gaddafi was

captured injured and alive by NATO special forces who in turn handed

him over to the rebels.

None of these actions including the relentless NATO bombing of

infrastructure and loss of civilian life over last eight months are in

accordance with United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution

1973 which authorised a no fly zone over Libya. Similarly, none of these

acts were carried out to protect civilians.

The governments of the United States, Britain and France had no

Page 72

interest in a peaceful and inclusive resolution of the Libyan conflict.

Rather, their objective was to replace Col. Gaddafi’s regime with a

Western client state, regardless of the cost and consequences for the

people of Libya.

Tragically, Libya risks a long period of conflict and instability of

Somalian proportions. The military intervention has ensured a long

period of political instability not only for Libya but the Sahel region as

a whole.

On 25 May 2011, the Forum for Former Africa Heads of State and

Governments issued a statement alluding to the same issue. It said: “It

is very obvious that the perpetuation of the current violent conflict, with

no end in sight, including the further exacerbation of the animosities

among the Libyans and the destruction of infrastructure, will make it

ever more difficult to reconstruct Libya as a united, democratic and

peaceful country.”

In our Open Letter [see, this issue p. 22], we raised concerns about

the UN’s lack of independence and the complete marginalisation of the

African Union (AU).

We are extremely perturbed that the UN allowed NATO to effect

regime change in Libya with impunity. We are shocked that Secretary

of State Clinton, has the audacity to stand up and call for the murder of

a Head of State and then celebrate the death with glee. This illustrates

moral bankruptcy of the worst kind from those who pretend civilization.

It is clear that the U.S. and its European allies are reverting to crude

military means to re-colonize Africa. The independence that Africans

fought so hard for must be defended. We cannot allow the second

scramble for Africa to occur on our watch.

We condemn the U.S., U.K. and France for the flagrant abuse of the

UN Security Council and demand that the International Criminal Court

investigate NATO to establish if war crimes were committed in Libya.

We condemn the extra judicial killing of Col. Gaddafi and call for

an independent transparent international enquiry to establish the true

facts surrounding it.

Most importantly, we call on the AU to launch its own investigation

into the murder of Colonel Gaddafi.

Page 73

Contacts:

Chris Landsberg – 082 791 7907

Vusi Gumede – 082 336 7462

Wally Serote – 082 568 3501

David Maimela – 083 420 0133

Christine Qunta – 082 658 7747

Issued by Concerned Africans:

[email protected]

This statement can be accessed at:

http://www.concernedafricans.co.za/index.php/news/9-news/11-statement-by-concer

ned-africans-on-the-libyan-crisis-and-execution-of-colonel-muammar-gaddafi-24-oc

tober-2011

Appendix

What Libya Achieved 1969-2011

Libya and the Big Lie

What NATO Did to Libya 2011

What Will Happen in Libya Now?

[Editor’s Note: The statistics in the following article are from United Nations sources.

They were compiled in “Destroying a Country’s Standard of Living: What Libya Had

Achieved, What has been Destroyed” by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky which appeared

at the Centre for Research on Globalization website on September 20, 2011. The

original article can be seen at:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26686. Prof. Chossudovsky’s

article has been reorganized and shortened for this version of the article.]

What Libya Had Achieved 1969-2011

Introduction

Whatever one’s views regarding Muammar Gaddafi, the post-

colonial Libyan government played a key role in eliminating poverty

Page 74

and developing the country’s health and educational infrastructure.

According to Italian Journalist Yvonne de Vito, “Differently from other

countries that went through a revolution – Libya is considered to be the

Switzerland of the African continent and is very rich and schools are

free for the people. Hospitals are free for the people. And the conditions

for women are much better than in other Arab countries.”

The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya provided to its citizens what is denied

to many Americans: Free public health care, free education, food

security and a growing economy as confirmed by WHO and UNESCO

and World Bank data.

Public Health Care

According to the World Health Organization, public health care in

Libya prior to NATO’s ‘Humanitarian Intervention’ was the best in

Africa. “The Government provides free health care to all citizens. The

country has achieved high coverage in most basic health areas…. Health

care is [was] available to all citizens free of charge by the public sector.

The country boasts the highest literacy and educational enrollment rates

in North Africa. The Government is [was] substantially increasing the

development budget for health services. Clear-cut and comprehensive

strategies have [had] been prepared for HIV/AID and TB.”

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported (2011) for

the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya “in general the country has had a high

standard of living and a robust per capita daily caloric intake of 3,144.

Seventy-eight percent of the country’s 6.5 million population live in

coastal cities. The country has made strides in public health and, since

1980, child mortality rates have dropped from 70 per thousand live

births to 19 in 2009. Life expectancy has risen from 61 to 74 years of

age during the same span of years [and is among the highest in the

developing world]…. Proportion of undernourished in total population:

< 5%.”

Public Education

The literacy and educational enrollment rates in the Libyan Arab

Jamahiriya are the highest in North Africa. The adult literacy rate was

Page 75

of the order of 89%, (2009), (94% for males and 83% for females).

99.9% of youth are literate Gross primary school enrollment ratio was

97% for boys and 97% for girls (2009). The pupil teacher ratio in

Libya’s primary schools was of the order of 17 (1983 UNESCO data)

and 74% of school children graduating from primary school were

enrolled in secondary school (1983 UNESCO data).

Based on more recent date, which confirms a marked increase in

school enrollment, the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in secondary

schools was of the order of 108% in 2002. The GER is the number of

pupils enrolled in a given level of education regardless of age expressed

as a percentage of the population in the theoretical age group for that

level of education.

For tertiary enrollment (post-secondary, college and university), the

Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) was of the order of 54% in 2002 (52 for

males, 57 for females).

Women’s Rights

With regard to Women’s Rights, World Bank data point to

significant achievements. “In a relative short period of time, Libya

achieved universal access for primary education, with 98% gross

enrollment for secondary, and 46% for tertiary education. In the past

decade, girls’ enrollment increased by 12% in all levels of education. In

secondary and tertiary education, girls outnumbered boys by 10%.”

Price Controls over Essential Food Staples

In most developing countries, essential food prices have skyrock-

eted, as a result of market deregulation, the lifting of price controls and

the elimination of subsidies, under “free market” advice from the World

Bank and the IMF. In recent years, essential food and fuel prices have

spiraled as a result of speculative trade on the major commodity

exchanges.

The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya was one of the few countries in the

developing World which maintained a system of price controls over

essential food staples. World Bank President Robert Zoellick acknowl-

edged in an April 2011 statement that the average world price of

Page 76

essential food staples had increased by 36 percent in the course of the

last year. While rising food prices in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt

spearheaded social unrest and political dissent, the system of food

subsidies in Libya was maintained. The price controls were maintained

until the onset of the NATO led war.

Economy

According to the World Bank, The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya in

recent years “…maintained a high level of economic growth. In 2010,

the International Monetary Fund Article IV consultations acknowledged

that a large public investment program continued to sustain Libya’s

non-oil growth at around 7%; the country’s overall growth was at 10%.

Oil represented 98% of Libya’s GDP, while construction – financed by

a $225 billion Public Investment Program – and services dominated the

non-oil economy. As a member of OPEC, Libya was ranked as the

fourth largest oil producer in Africa. The country exported 1.8 million

barrels of oil per day for an estimated value of 43 trillion dollars. Central

Bank of Libya and the Libyan Investment Authority managed an

estimated $150 billion (equal to 160% of GDP) of oil reserves.”

These are the facts confirmed by several UN and other specialized

agencies.

[There are other sources which give a similar picture of the

relatively high standard of living and participation in the economy of the

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. See for example: A Times of India blog:

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Outraged/entry/libya-a-revolution-for-dem

ocracy-or-an-oil-war

A video “What You Don’t Know About Gaddafi” posted on June 19,

2001: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXLQAUUpJwU]

Notes:

http://libya360.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/yvonne-de-vito-libya-was-africas-switz

erland/

2.http://www.who.int/countryfocus/cooperation_strategy/ccsbrief_lby_en.pdf

3. http://www.fao.org/countries/55528/en/lby/

4.http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF

_Language=eng&BR_Country=4340&BR_Region=40525

Page 77

5.http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/MENAEXT/LIB

YAEXTN/0,,contentMDK:22015609~menuPK:410791~pagePK:1497618~piPK:21

7854~theSitePK:410780,00.html

6. Ibid. note 5.

7. Other Statistics

Total population 6,420,000

Annual population growth rate 2.0%

Population 0-14 years 28%

Rural population 22%

Total fertility rate 2.6 births per woman

Life expectancy at birth 75 years

GDP per capita (PPP) US$ 16,502

GDP growth rate 2.1%

Total debt service as a % of GNI 0%

Children of primary school-age who are out of school 2%

Newborns with low birth weight 4.0%

Children underweight 4.8%

Perinatal mortality rate per 1000 total births 19

Neonatal mortality rate 11.0

Infant mortality rate (per 1000 live births) 14.0

Under five mortality rate (per 1000 live births) 20.1

Maternal mortality ratio (per 10000 live births) 23 Source:

http://www.emro.who.int/emrinfo/index.aspx?Ctry=liy

[Editor’s Note: The following article appeared on the Centre for

Research on Globalization website, http://www.globalresearch.ca, on

September 29, 2011.]

Libya and the Big Lie:

Using Human Rights Organizations

to Launch Wars

by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

The war against Libya is built on fraud. The United Nations

Security Council passed two resolutions against Libya on the basis of

unproven claims, specifically that Colonel Muammar Qaddafi was

killing his own people in Benghazi and Libya. The claim in its exact

Page 78

form was that Qaddafi had ordered Libyan forces to kill 6,000 people in

Benghazi as well as in other parts of the country. These claims were

widely disseminated, but always vaguely explained. It was on the basis

of this claim that Libya was referred to the U.N. Security Council at

U.N. Headquarters in New York City and kicked out of the U.N. Human

Rights Council in Geneva.

False claims about African mercenary armies in Libya and about jet

attacks on civilians were also used in a broad media campaign against

Libya. These two claims have been sidelined and have become more and

more murky. The massacre claims, however, were used in a legal,

diplomatic, and military framework to justify NATO’s war on Libya.

Using Human Rights as a Pretext for War: The LLHR

and its Unproven Claims

One of the main sources for the claim that Qaddafi was killing his

own people is the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR). The LLHR

was actually pivotal to getting the U.N. involved through its specific

claims in Geneva. On February 21, 2011 the LLHR got the 70 other

non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to send letters to the President

Obama, E.U. High Representative Catherine Ashton., and the U.N.

Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon demanding international action against

Libya invoking the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine. Only 25

members of this coalition actually assert that they are human rights

groups.

The letter is as follows:

We, the undersigned non-governmental, human rights, and

humanitarian organizations, urge you to mobilize the United

Nations and the international community and take immediate

action to halt the mass atrocities now being perpetrated by the

Libyan government against its own people. The inexcusable

silence cannot continue.

As you know, in the past several days, Colonel Muammar

Gadhafi’s forces are estimated to have deliberately killed

hundreds of peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders across

the country. In the city of Benghazi alone, one doctor reported

Page 79

seeing at least 200 dead bodies. Witnesses report that a

mixture of special commandos, foreign mercenaries and

regime loyalists have attacked demonstrators with knives,

assault rifles and heavy-caliber weapons.

Snipers are shooting peaceful protesters. Artillery and

helicopter gunships have been used against crowds of demon-

strators. Thugs armed with hammers and swords attacked

families in their homes. Hospital officials report numerous

victims shot in the head and chest, and one struck on the head

by an anti-aircraft missile. Tanks are reported to be on the

streets and crushing innocent bystanders. Witnesses report that

mercenaries are shooting indiscriminately from helicopters

and from the top of roofs. Women and children were seen

jumping off Giuliana Bridge in Benghazi to escape. Many of

them were killed by the impact of hitting the water, while

others were drowned. The Libyan regime is seeking to hide all

of these crimes by shutting off contact with the outside world.

Foreign journalists have been refused entry. Internet and

phone lines have been cut or disrupted.

There is no question here about intent. The government

media has published open threats, promising that demonstra-

tors would meet a “violent and thunderous response.”

Accordingly, the government of Libya is committing gross

and systematic violations of the right to life as guaranteed by

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Interna-

tional Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Citizens seeking

to exercise their rights to freedom of expression and freedom

of assembly are being massacred by the government.

Moreover, the government of Libya is committing crimes

against humanity, as defined by the Explanatory Memorandum

to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The

Libyan government’s mass killing of innocent civilians amount

to particularly odious offences which constitute a serious

attack on human dignity. As confirmed by numerous oral and

video testimonies gathered by human rights organizations and

news agencies, the Libyan government’s assault on its civilian

Page 80

population are not isolated or sporadic events. Rather, these

actions constitute a widespread and systematic policy and

practice of atrocities, intentionally committed, including

murder, political persecution and other inhumane acts which

reach the threshold of crimes against humanity.

Responsibility to Protect

Under the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, you

have a clear and unambiguous responsibility to protect the

people of Libya. The international community, through the

United Nations, has the responsibility to use appropriate

diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in

accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help

to protect the Libyan population. Because the Libyan national

authorities are manifestly failing to protect their population

from crimes against humanity, should peaceful means be

inadequate, member states are obliged to take collective

action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security

Council, in accordance with the UN Charter, including

Chapter VII.

In addition, we urge you to convene an emergency Special

Session of the UN Human Rights Council, whose members have

a duty, under UNGA Resolution 60/251, to address situations

of gross and systematic violations of violations of human

rights. The session should:

-Call for the General Assembly to suspend Libya’s Council

membership, pursuant to Article 8 of Resolution 60/251, which

applies to member states that commit gross and systematic

violations of human rights.

-Strongly condemn, and demand an immediate end to,

Libya’s massacre of its own citizens.

-Dispatch immediately an international mission of

independent experts to collect relevant facts and document

violations of international human rights law and crimes

against humanity, in order to end the impunity of the Libyan

government. The mission should include an independent

Page 81

medical investigation into the deaths, and an investigation of

the unlawful interference by the Libyan government with the

access to and treatment of wounded.

-Call on the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights and

the Council’s relevant Special Procedures to closely monitor

the situation and take action as needed.

-Call on the Council to remain seized of the matter and

address the Libyan situation at its upcoming 16th regular

session in March.

Member states and high officials of the United Nations

have a responsibility to protect the people of Libya from what

are preventable crimes. We urge you to use all available

measures and levers to end atrocities throughout the country.

We urge you to send a clear message that, collectively, the

international community, the Security Council and the Human

Rights Council will not be bystanders to these mass atrocities.

The credibility of the United Nations — and many innocent

lives — are at stake.

According to Physicians for Human Rights: “[This letter] prepared

under the guidance of Mohamed Eljahmi, the noted Libyan human rights

defender and brother of dissident Fathi Eljahmi, asserts that the

widespread atrocities committed by Libya against its own people amount

to war crimes, requiring member states to take action through the

Security Council under the responsibility to protect doctrine.”

The letter’s signatories included Francis Fukuyama, United Nations

Watch* (which looks out for Israel’s interests and according to Israeli

sources organized the entire session against the Libyan Arab

Jamahiriya), B’nai B’rith Human Rights Commission, the Cuban

Democratic Directorate, and a set of organizations at odds with the

governments of Nicaragua, Cuba, Sudan, Russia, Venezuela, and Libya.

Some of these organizations are viewed with hostility as organizations

created to wage demonization campaigns against countries at odds with

the U.S., Israel, and the European Union. Refer to the annex for the full

list of signatories for consultation.**

LLHR is tied to the International Federation for Human Rights

Page 82

(FIDH), which is based in France and has ties to the National Endow-

ment for Democracy (NED). FIDH is active in many places in Africa

and in activities involving the National Endowment for Democracy in

the African continent. Both the FIDH and LLHR also released a joint

communiqué on February 21, 2011. In the communiqué both organiza-

tions asked for the international community to “mobilize” and mention

the International Criminal Court while also making a contradictory

claiming that over 400 to 600 people had died since February 15, 2011.

This of course was about 5,500 short of the claim that 6,000 people were

massacred in Benghazi. The joint letter also promoted the false view that

80% of Qaddafi’s support came from foreign mercenaries, which is

something that over half a year of fighting proves as untrue.

According to the General-Secretary of the LLHR, Dr. Sliman

Bouchuiguir, the claims about the massacres in Benghazi could not be

validated by the LLHR when he was challenged for proof. When asked

how a group of 70 non-governmental organizations in Geneva could

support the LLHR’s claims on Geneva, Dr. Buchuiguir has answered

that a network of close relationships was the basis. This is a mockery.

Speculation is neither evidence nor grounds for starting a war with

a bombing campaign that has lasted about half a year and taken many

innocent civilian lives, including children and the elderly. What is

important to note here is that the U.N. Security Council decided to

sanction the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya on the basis of this letter and the

claims of the LLHR. Not once did the U.N. Security Council and the

member states pushing for war bother to even investigate the allegations.

In one session in New York City, the Indian Ambassador to the U.N.

actually pointed this out when his country abstained from voting. Thus,

a so-called “humanitarian war” was launched without any evidence.

The Secret Relationship between the LLHR and the

Transitional Council

The claims of the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR) were

coordinated with the formation of the Transitional Council. This

becomes clear when the close and cagey relationship of the LLHR and

the Transitional Council becomes apparent. Logically, the Obama

Page 83

Administration and NATO had to also be a part of this.

Whatever the Transitional Council is and whatever the intent of

some of its supporters, it is clear that it is being used as a tool by the

U.S. and others. Moreover, five members of the LLHR were or would

become members of the Transitional Council almost immediately after

the claims against the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya were disseminated.

According to Bouchuguir individuals with ties to the LLHR or who hold

membership include Mahmoud Jibril and Ali Tarhouni.

Dr. Mahmoud Jibril is a Libyan regime figure brought into Libyan

government circles by Saif Al-Islam Qaddafi. He would undemocrati-

cally be given the position of Transitional Council prime minister. His

involvement with the LLHR raises some real questions about the

organization.

The economist Ali Tarhouni on the other hand would become the

minister for oil and finance for the Transitional Council. Tarhouni is

Washington’s man in Libya. He was groomed in the United States and

was present at all the major meetings about plans for regime change in

Libya. As Minister of Oil and Finance the first acts he did were privatize

and virtually handover Libya’s energy resources and economy to the

foreign corporations and governments of the NATO-led coalition against

Libya.

The General-Secretary of the LLHR, Sliman Bouchuiguir, has even

privately admitted that many influential members of the Transitional

Council are his friends. A real question of interests arises. Yet, the secret

relationship between the LLHR and the Transitional Council is far more

than a question of conflict of interest. It is a question of justice and

manipulation.

Who is Sliman Bouchuguir?

Sliman Bouchuguir is an unheard of figure for most, but he has

authored a doctoral thesis that has been widely quoted and used in

strategic circles in the United States. This thesis was published in 1979

as a book, The Use of Oil as a Political Weapon: A Case Study of the

1973 Arab Oil Embargo. The thesis is about the use of oil as an

economic weapon by Arabs, but can easily be applied to the Russians,

the Iranians, the Venezuelans, and others. It examines economic

Page 84

development and economic warfare and can also be applied to vast

regions, including all of Africa.

Bouchuguir’s analytical thesis reflects an important line of thinking

in Washington, as well as London and Tel Aviv. It is both the embodi-

ment of a pre-existing mentality, which includes U.S. National Security

Advisor George F. Kennan’s arguments for maintaining a position of

disparity through a constant multi-faced war between the U.S. and its

allies on one hand and the rest of the world on the other hand. The thesis

can be drawn on for preventing the Arabs, or others, from becoming

economic powers or threats. In strategic terms, rival economies are

pinned as threats and as “weapons.” This has serious connotations.

Moreover, Bouchuiguir did his thesis at George Washington

University under Bernard Reich. Reich is a political scientist and

professor of international relations. He has worked and held positions at

places like the U.S. Defense Intelligence College, the United States Air

Force Special Operations School, the Marine Corps War College, and

the Shiloah Center at Tel Aviv University. He has consulted on the

Middle East for the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. State Depart-

ment and received grants such as the Defense Academic Research

Support Program Research Grant and the German Marshal Fund Grant.

Reich also was or is presently on the editorial boards of journals such as

Israel Affairs (1994-present), Terrorism: An International Journal

(1987-1994), and The New Middle East (1971-1973).

It is also clear that Reich is tied to Israeli interests. He has even

written a book about the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel.

He has also been an advocate for a “New Middle East” which would be

favourable to Israel. This includes careful consideration over North

Africa. His work has also focused on the important strategic interface

between the Soviet Union and the Middle East and also on Israeli policy

in the continent of Africa.

It is clear why Bouchuguir had his thesis supervised under Reich.

On October 23, 1973, Reich gave a testimony at the U.S. Congress. The

testimony has been named “The Impact of the October Middle East

War” and is clearly tied to the 1973 oil embargo and Washington’s aim

of pre-empting or managing any similar events in the future. It has to be

asked, how much did Reich influence Bouchuguir and if Bouchuguir

Page 85

espouses the same strategic views as Reich?

The “New North Africa” and a “New Africa” – More than

just a “New Middle East”

A “New Africa” is in the works, which will have its borders further

drawn out in blood like in the past. The Obama Administration and its

allies have opened the gateway for a new invasion of Africa. United

States Africa Command (AFRICOM) opened the salvos of the war

through Operation Odyssey Damn, before the war on Libya was

transferred to NATO’s Operation Unified Protector.

The U.S. has used NATO to continue the occupation of post-Second

World War Europe. It will now use AFRICOM to occupy Africa and

create an African NATO. It is clear the U.S. wants an expanded military

presence in Libya and Africa under the disguise of humanitarian aid

missions and fighting terrorism – the same terrorism that it is fanning in

Libya and Africa.

The way is being paved for intervention in Africa under the guise

of fighting terrorism. General Carter Ham has stated: “If we were to

launch a humanitarian operation, how do we do so effectively with air

traffic control, airfield management, [and] those kind of activities?”

General Ham’s question is actually a sales pitch for fashioning African

military partnerships and integration, as well as new bases that could

include the use of more military drones against Libya and other African

countries. The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) have

both made it clear that the Pentagon is actively trying to establish more

drone bases in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula to expand its wars.

this context, the AFRICOM Commander says that there are ties between

the Al-Shabaab in Somalia, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in North

Africa, and the Boko Harem in Nigeria.

The War in Libya is a Fraud

General Ham has said: “I remain confident that had the U.N. not

made the decision, had the U.S. not taken the lead with great support,

I’m absolutely convinced there are many, many people in Benghazi alive

today who would not be [alive].”

This is not true and a far stretch from

Page 86

reality. The war has cost more lives than it could have ever saved. It has

ruined a country and opened the door into Africa for a neo-colonial

project.

The claims of the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR) were

never supported or verified. The credibility of the United Nations must

be questioned as well as the credibility of many humanitarian and human

rights organizations that have virtually pushed for a war. At best the

U.N. Security Council is an irresponsible body, but it has clearly acted

outside of due legal process. This pattern now appears to be repeating

itself against the Syrian Arab Republic as unverified claims are being

made by individuals and organizations supported by foreign powers that

care nothing for authentic democratic reforms or liberty.

Notes

1. United Nations Watch et al., “Urgent Appeal to Stop Atrocities in Libya: Sent by 70

NGOs to the U.S., EU, and UN,” February 21, 2011:

http://www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1330

815&ct=9135143

2. Physicians for Human Rights, “PHR and Human Rights Groups Call for Immediate

Action in Libya,” February 22, 2011:

http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/press/press-releases/news-2011-02-22-libya.html

3. The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Libyan League for

Human Rights (LLHR), “Massacres in Libya: The international community must

urgently respond,” February 21, 2011:

http://www.fidh.org/IMG/article_PDF/article_a9183.pdf

4. Jim Garamone, “Africa Command Learns from Libya Operations,” American Forces

Press Service, September 15, 2011:

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=65344&reason=1

5. Gregory Miller and Craig Whitlock, “U.S. assembling secret drone bases in Africa,

Arabian Peninsula, officials say,” The Washington Post, September 20, 2011; Julian

E. Barnes, “U.S. Expands Drone Flights to Take Aim at East Africa,” The Wall Street

Journal (WSJ), September 21, 2011.

6. Garamone, “Africa Command Learns,” Op. cit.

7. Ibid.

*Global Research Editor’s Note: U.N. Watch which actively promoted the LLHR

statement has informal ties to the U.S. State Department. It was established during the

Clinton Administration in 1993 under the Chairmanship of Morris B. Abram, a former

Page 87

U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva. U.N. Watch is

formally affiliated with the American Jewish Committee (AJC), a powerful pro-Israeli

political lobby organization based in New York City.

** The signatories can be seen at:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=26848

The url address of this article is:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=26848

[Editor’s note: The following article is taken from the Voltaire Network

website where it appeared on October 21, 2011. It can be accessed at:

http://www.voltairenet.org/The-lynching-of-Muammar-Gaddafi]

What NATO Did to Libya 2011

The Lynching of Muammar Gaddafi

by Thierry Meyssan

The death of Muammar al-Gaddafi was hailed with an explosion of

joy in all the government palaces of Western countries, but not by the

Libyan people. For Thierry Meyssan, this militarily useless murder was

perpetrated by the Empire not only as an example, but also to decons-

truct Libya’s tribal society.

For 42 years, Muammar al-Gaddafi protected his people against

Western colonialism. At present, he has joined Omar al-Mukhtar in the

pantheon of Libya’s great national heroes.

On Thursday, 20 October 2011, at 13h30 GMT, the Libyan National

Transitional Council announced the death of Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Though confused, initial reports appeared to indicate that a convoy of

cars seeking to leave besieged Sirte was blocked and partly destroyed by

NATO fire. Survivors took shelter in drainage pipes. Wounded, Gaddafi

was reportedly captured by the Tiger brigade of Misrata tribe and

lynched.

The body of the “Guide” of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan

Arab Jamahiriya was not preserved in his hometown of Sirte, or taken

to Tripoli, but transported by the Misrata as a trophy to their namesake

city.

Page 88

The Misrata Tribe, which had long been reluctant to choose sides

and is virtually absent from the CNT, ultimately penetrated Tripoli after

its destruction by NATO, and lynched Muammar al-Gaddafi after the

bombing of his convoy by NATO. It even moved his body to its town to

celebrate its triumph. In July, the “Guide” had cursed the Misrata, urging

them to leave for Istanbul and Tel Aviv, alluding to the Turkish Jewish

origins of the tribe which later converted to Islam.

A barrage of pre-scripted comments was instantly unleashed by the

Atlanticist media to demonize Muammar el-Gaddafi, thereby obscuring

the barbaric circumstances of his death.

The main Coalition leaders welcomed the death of their enemy as

marking the end of “Operation Unified Protector.” In doing so, they

have implicitly admitted that its objective was not to implement Security

Council Resolution 1973, but to overthrow a political system and to kill

the leader, even if the assassination of a serving head of State is strictly

prohibited by U.S. law and universally condemned.

In addition, the lynching of Muammar al-Gaddafi shows NATO’s

reluctance to turn him over to the ICC which would not have been in a

better position to sentence him for crimes against humanity than the

Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia which could not prove

Slobodan Milosevic guilty, despite two years of prosecution.

In the deluge of mud spilled by the Western media to tarnish his

memory, the same false accusations are repeated over and over, showing

in fact that the media hold very little incriminating evidence that could

have been used against him.

A case in point is the La Belle discotheque bombing in Berlin (5

April 1986, three killed), which was used as a pretext by the Reagan

administration to bomb Gaddafi’s palace and kill his daughter (April 14,

1986, at least 50 dead). At the time, German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis

(the same one who two decades later would rig the investigation into the

assassination of Rafik al-Hariri) relied on the testimony of Eter Mushad

to indict a Libyan diplomat and his accomplice Mohammed Amair.

However, German television channel ZDF subsequently discovered that

Mushad Eter was not only a false witness but also a real CIA agent,

while bomb planter Mahammed Aamir was a Mossad agent.

Another example is the Lockerbie bombing (21 December 1988,

Page 89

270 killed): the investigators identified the owner of the suitcase

containing the bomb and the timer thanks to the testimony of a Maltese

shopkeeper who had sold the pair of trousers also located in the

booby-trapped suitcase. At that point, the Scottish justice system brought

charges against two Libyan agents, Abdel Basset Ali Mohmed Al

Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, while the Security Council took

sanctions against Libya. In the end, to get the sanctions lifted, Gaddafi

agreed to extradite the two agents (the first was sentenced to life

imprisonment and the second was acquitted) and pay $2.7 billion in

compensation, while continuing to proclaim his complete innocence.

Subsequently, in August 2005, the chief Scottish investigator declared

that the main piece of evidence, the bomb timer, had been planted at the

crime scene by a CIA agent. Then, the expert who had analyzed the

timer for the court admitted he had manufactured it himself before the

CIA “dropped it off.” Finally, the Maltese shopkeeper admitted having

received $2 million for bearing false witness. The Scottish authorities

decided to review the case, but the health of Abdel Basset Ali Mohmed

Al Megrahi did not allow it.

The current disinformation campaign also includes an installment

on the lifestyle of the deceased, classified as sumptuous, and the amount

of his stashed-away Pharaonic fortune. But all those who approached

Muammar al-Gaddafi, or who simply visited his family home and

residence after they were bombarded can attest that he lived in an

environment equal to that of the middle class in his country, far from the

flashy style of Planning Minister Mahmoud Jibril. Similarly, none of the

states that for months have been tracking Gaddafi’s hidden fortune has

been able to find it. Any money that was seized belonged to the Libyan

government and not to the “Guide.”

On the other hand, the media have failed to mention the only

international arrest warrant against Muammar al-Gaddafi, issued by

Interpol before the NATO offensive. He was accused by the Lebanese

justice of having disposed of Imam Moussa Sadr and his companions

(1978). This media oversight can be explained by the fact that the

kidnaping was sponsored by the United States who wanted to get rid of

the Shi’a clergyman before allowing Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, also

a Shi’a Muslim, to return to Iran, to prevent Sadr from spreading the

Page 90

Ayatollah’s revolutionary influence to Lebanon.

The Atlanticist media have also overlooked the criticism that

anti-imperialist Resistance organizations, and indeed ourselves,

addressed at Muammar al-Gaddafi concerning his frequent compromises

with Israel.

For my part, I can attest that, until the Battle of Tripoli, the “Guide”

had continued to negotiate with Israeli envoys in the hope of buying Tel

Aviv’s protection. But I must also attest that, despite my strong

reservations about his international policy, and the complete file about

me in this regard that was given to him in July by the French DCRI in

an attempt to have me arrested, Muammar al-Gaddafi gave me his trust

and asked me to help his country assert its rights at the United Nations

– a behavior which one would hardly expect from a tyrant.

Nor have the Atlanticist media ever mentioned my condemnation

of Libya’s interference in French political life, including the illegal

financing of the presidential election campaigns of Nicolas Sarkozy and

Ségolène Royal. The “Guide” had in fact authorized his brother-in-law

Abdallah Senoussi to corrupt the two leading candidates in exchange for

an amnesty pledge or for putting pressure on the French justice system

to close his criminal record.

But above all, the Atlanticist media have failed to mention the major

achievements of the “Guide”: the overthrow of the puppet monarchy

imposed by the Anglo-Saxons, the removal of foreign troops, the

nationalization of hydrocarbons, the construction of the Man Made

River (the largest irrigation project in the world), the redistribution of oil

revenues (he turned one of the poorest in the world into the richest in

Africa), generous asylum to Palestinian refugees and development aid

on an unprecedented scale to the Third World (Libya’s development aid

was more important than all the G20 states put together).

The death of Muammar el-Qaddafi will change nothing at the

international level. The important event was the fall of Tripoli, bom-

barded and captured by NATO – undoubtedly the worst war crime of

this century – followed by the penetration of the Misrata tribe to control

the capital. In the weeks that preceded the Battle of Tripoli, the

overwhelming majority of Libyans took part, Friday after Friday, in

anti-NATO, anti-CNT and pro-Gaddafi rallies. Now, their country has

Page 91

been destroyed and they are governed by NATO and its CNT puppets.

However, the death of the “Guide” will have an enduring traumatic

effect on Libya’s tribal society. By killing the leader, NATO destroyed

the incarnation of the principle of authority. It will take years and much

more violence before a new leader will be recognized by all the tribes or

the tribal system is replaced by another form of social organization. In

this sense, the death of Muammar al-Gaddafi opened a period of

Iraqization or Somaliazation in Libya.

Notes

1. Investigation conducted by Frontal magazine, broadcast by ZDF on 28 August 1998.

2. I accepted the mission as an activist, without any remuneration whatsoever.

3. Abdallah Senoussi had been sentenced in France in absentia for the explosion aboard

flight UTA Flight 772 which occurred on 19 September 1989 in the midst of the

Chadian war, killing 171 people.

This article appeared at:

http://www.voltairenet.org/The-lynching-of-Muammar-Gaddafi

[Editor’s note: The following article is taken from the

countercurrents.org website where it appeared on October 27, 2011. It

can be accessed at: http://www.countercurrents.org/lamb271011.htm]

What Will Happen in Libya Now?

Revulsion, Resistance And Angry Words

From Tripoli University

by Franklin Lamb 29 October 2011

Tripoli University: The people I had hoped most to be able to find

upon returning to Libya were eight students from Fatah University (now

renamed Tripoli University) who became my friends during three

months in Libya this summer. They had all been strongly opposed to

what NATO was doing to their country (NATO bombs destroyed some

Page 92

classrooms at the University during final exams in late May) and I was

very keen to sit with them again if possible since the August 23

fall of

Tripoli when most of them scattered given the uncertainties of what

would happen and we lost contact.

Thanks to Ahmad who was waiting for me we re-united quickly.

Some excerpts and impressions from yesterday’s all night gathering

with Ahmad, Amal, Hind, Suha, Mohammad and Rana: “I know Sanad

al-Ureibi,” Ahmad said disgustedly about the 22 year old who is

claiming he fired two bullets at close range into Muammar Gadhafi on

October 22

Amal, Ahmad’s fiancée interrupted him: “We are very angry but not

really surprised by what Sanad did. He’s a stupid guy and I am sure

someone whispered in his ear that he would become famous and rich if

he did NATO’s dirty job by killing Colonel Gaddafi. NATO did more

than 1000 bombing attacks “to protect Libyan civilians” but killed

thousands of us instead. For sure NATO and their puppets want as many

of our leader’s dead as possible in order to avoid years of a court trial

that would expose NATO’s many crimes and those of certain western

leaders.”

Ahmad: “Sanad told my cousin the day after he assassinated

Colonel Gadhafi that he is promised protection and that the TNC will

not arrest him despite their, for western ears only, announcement of a

planned “investigation” of how Muammar and Mutassim died. Everyone

in Libya knows that the investigation of the assassination of the rebel

military commander Abdel Fattah Younes last July has gone nowhere

because the Islamist faction who committed the Younes murder is close

to Jalil.”

Ahmad continued, “Like some of his friends, Sanad did fight for a

while with the rebels and he sometimes changed units because it was fun

and now he plans to form a gang to protect rich Libyans and foreigners

as they continue to arrive here to help, as they claim, to rebuild our

destroyed country and make democracy. Now we are all so exhausted

from all the needless killing I am not sure what kind of democracy we

will have or even want. American democracy? It’s very great? Some-

times it seems you have more problems than we do. At least we have

free education, free medical care, and homes and are not living on the

Page 93

streets without jobs.

Mohammad joined in: “One Israeli-American Company has offered

Sanad and other young men who refuse to give up their guns a job

recruiting former fighters for proper training as Libyan police. There are

some Blackwater (XE) people here are also trying to do business with

NATO agents for private police forces around Libya. Anyone who

thinks NATO is going to leave us in peace is mistaken. More of them

arrive every day.”

Hind, who has not wavered since last summer in her opposition to

what she calls “NATO’s team” also voiced strong offense and condem-

nation of certain pro-rebel Sheiks who have declared that Gadhafi was

not a Muslim. “Everyone knows he was a devout Muslim. His last Will

stated, “I do swear that there is no other God but Allah and that

Mohammad is God's Prophet, peace be upon him. I pledge that I will die

as Muslim.”

Hind added, “Please tell me who are these TNC Sheiks to say who

is and who is not a Muslim. In Islam it’s between each of us and Allah

and nobody else’s business. If these Sheiks were better Muslims they

would have opposed what has been done to his body and that of his son

and friend in Sirte and Misrata. It is haram. I am very angry and

disgusted.”

Suha complained about “the views of NTC leader Mustafa

Abdul-Jalil toward women and that with the already announced repeal

of the marriage law, Libyan women have lost the right to keep the

family home if they divorce. It is a disaster for Libyan women. Under

the Gadhafi leadership women in Libya had more rights than in any

other country in the Middle East.”

Ahmad explained: “ I am ashamed of what some Muslims are

doing. Our religion does not allow for this mutilation and the freak show

the TNC put on in that refrigerator. I was in Misrata with friends to pay

our respects and was surprised how many others were doing the same as

our group and for the same reasons. When the bodies were first

exhibited curious people came and some said bad insults. But by the

next day the atmosphere has completely changed. People came to honor

Colonel Gadhafi for his courage in dying for what he believed was best

for Libya and that was to keep Libya free from colonialism. I don’t

Page 94

believe the media is accurately reporting this. Our leader died a hero like

Omar Muktar in my opinion and history will prove this someday.”

Again, his fiancée Amal interrupted Ahmad, “As Colonel Gaddafi

revealed in his Will, NATO made him several offers if he would

abandon his country to them. Foolish and criminal NATO established

our leader forever as a great resister to colonialism and a patriot for

Libya, for all of Africa and for the Middle East. I believe that Colonel

Gaddafi died a far more honorable death than the leaders of NATO will.

He has more dignity in death than Hilary Clinton and her absence of

dignity shown by her stupid comments about his death.”

Amal then said, “I became ill when I left him. His skin was almost

black and his body was rotting quickly with fluids leaking on the floor.

They must give him immediately to his family and ask Allah to forgive

themselves for their haram. One of the guards told me Colonel Gaddafi

was sodomized with a rifle by NTC fighters. He showed the video on his

mobile but I would not look.”

Suha spoke: “We also visited the Mahari Hotel in Sirte where we

saw more than 50 bodies of Gaddaffi supporters. Some had their hands

behind them bound by plastic handcuffs and were executed at close

range. Others had been taken from hospital beds and murdered. This

crime is just one more example of the lies of the NTC and NATO.

NATO forces commanded and controlled their rebels and knew what

they have been doing. NATO is responsible for destroying much of our

country and for what will surely happen in the coming days.”

I first met Ahmad what now seems like a couple of years ago, but

in actuality it was only last June. We sat at an outdoor cafe on Green

Square (now renamed Martyrs’ Square) and talked about NATO’s

obvious plans for Libya. Since August 23

and the precipitous collapse

of the loyalist resistance in Tripoli, which Ahmad had been organizing

some of the neighborhoods to participate in, he has been on the lam as

friends got word to him that NTC death squads were on his trail even

staking out the Radisson Hotel lobby where he used to meet with

journalists and western friends. Ahmad blames the lack of a real defense

of Tripoli, that took us all by surprise, as “our incompetence and some

high ranking traitors” for the non-implementation of plans to defend

Tripoli from NATO’s rebels.

Page 95

His first words after we hugged were: “Now the real resistance will begin! The

Libyan people are now even surer than they were during this summer that the NTC sold

our country to the NATO colonial countries. As NATO continues to hunt down Saif al

Islam, many around our country are making Saif the new leader of the resistance to

colonialism in Libya and in Africa. I personally pledge my support for him and pray

that Allah will protect him. Watch what the Gaddafi tribe and my Warfala tribe do

together in the coming weeks – but also starting today. Maybe NATO can be said in

some ways to have won round one. But let’s see what happens in the many rounds to

come.”

EDITORIAL STAFF

Ronda Hauben

William Rohler

Norman O. Thompson

Michael Hauben (1973-2001)

Jay Hauben

The Amateur Computerist invites submissions.

Articles can be submitted via e-mail:

[email protected]

Permission is given to reprint articles from this issue in a

non profit publication provided credit is given, with name

of author and source of article cited.

The opinions expressed in articles are those of their

authors and not necessarily the opinions of the

Amateur Computerist newsletter. We welcome sub-

missions from a spectrum of viewpoints

ELECTRONIC EDITION

ACN Webpage:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/

All issues of the Amateur Computerist are on-line.

Back issues of the Amateur Computerist are available at:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/Back_Issues/

All issues can be accessed from the Index at:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/NewIndex.pdf

Page 96