Putting forward progressive views in these times can be a veritable mine-field for any individual or organisation who attempts to formulate a clear, well reasoned analysis of the real facts on the ground. Asking the question ‘…are the rebellions across North Africa and the Gulf merely “colour revolutions” or are they the real thing?’ will guarantee that you are labeled as ‘something’ and invariably the label will be unsavoury.

In order to make the point I need to make I will start with a homegrown situation, or more accurately an imported problem - that being Wal-Mart. Quite correctly, from the perspective of all progressive organisations in support of the unions, and in defence of workers rights, we need to oppose the very existence of this rapacious capitalist monolith that rapes the workers of every country - including those that it may not have a physical presence in.

Now, in our opposition to Wal-Mart we have found ourselves some strange bedfellows in the form of Shop-Rite and other capitalist entities, who have for years been plundering and exploiting Africa and today express concern that Wal-Mart will contribute towards massive inequality and food insecurity.

Yes, I see it in your eyes, you do recognise the dilemma we face if we find our slogans being chanted by the very exploiters that have looted and plundered our people for so long. If we do not analyse that particular situation smartly, we could find ourselves fighting for the ‘rights’ of our exploiters.

All of which brings me back to the ‘Arab’ revolts throughout North Africa and the Gulf States, and the shameless lies emanating from the global elite and their mind-washed mouthpieces in the mainstream media around the world.

The current situation in Libya presents a most complex and tricky situation to unravel, but unravel it we must if we are to prevent workers’ struggles for true liberation from being subverted and controlled by the global elite.

The sudden rebellion taking place in Libya is no accident as it follows hotly on the heels of Egypt and the clamorous anti-Mubarak uprisings, the dismissal of the government of Jordan, students clashing with police in Sudan, protests in Yemen, opposition to Lebanon's ‘new’ prime minister, protests in Algeria, the fleeing of Tunisia's Ben Ali and the more recent wide scale protests in Bahrain and Oman.

As things stand, Egypt is not yet in the bag and requires that the situation be kept in check by a ‘friendly’ military Junta to ensure that the Suez Canal remains open at all costs. The inherent value to be protected in all other countries where ‘pro-democracy’ is out on the streets so happens to coincide with the fact that they are oil producing countries, as well as the fact that they lie along the shores of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Libya, Tunisia and Algeria on the other hand, all share a Mediterranean shoreline and contribute some seven per cent towards global oil thirst. The newest country on the block is Southern Sudan, which has appreciable oil reserves. All of this presents a delicate balancing act for America to keep the sea-lanes clear - and have the oil as well, hopefully with not too much ‘blow-back’.

Libya's Gaddafi, for the greater part of 40 years, refused to succumb to the threats or the inducements of imperialism like the puppet Mubarak of Egypt. The nationalisation in 1969 of Libya’s oil for the benefit of the Libyan economy was a situation that rankled the imperial order. It was after all their oil and gas - who the fuck was this ‘dirty Bedouin’ to squander ‘their profits’ on bettering the lives and conditions of an even bigger bunch of Bedouin’s. They determined that he would be immortalised like Gamal Abdul Nasser, such that by 1986, after numerous covert attempts, the US actually launched major air strikes on Tripoli and Benghazi, killing 60 people, including Gadhafi’s infant daughter - an event that is never mentioned by the corporate media.

This was followed by devastating sanctions, imposed by the US and supported by its puppet the UN, in a desperate effort to wreck the Libyan economy and sink Gaddafi in the process. Their failure to get Gaddafi inspired them to pin the Lockerbie slaughter on Libya - a cruel and murderous CIA/Mossad plot that lead to vicious sanctions and embargoes against that country for some 15 years.

In 2003 the world got a taste of ‘Shock and Awe’ and an objective lesson in ‘…nobody walks away from us, unless we say so…’ when America flattened Baghdad with a horrific bombing campaign and an invasion that has resulted in the slaughter of some 1,5 million Iraqi civilians. This was enough to make Gaddafi reconsider his anti-imperialist stance by making big political and economic concessions to the imperialists in order to avoid an ‘Iraq’ being pulled on Libya. In 2004, Gaddafi reluctantly agreed to pay $2,7-billion for the Lockerbie bombing and then proceeded to open the Libyan economy to foreign banks and corporations. He agreed to IMF demands for ‘structural adjustment’, privatising many state-owned enterprises and cutting state subsidies on necessities like food and fuel.

The net result is that the Libyan people are suffering from the same high prices and unemployment that underlie the rebellions elsewhere and that flow from the worldwide capitalist economic crisis. There can be no doubt that the struggles sweeping the Arab world for political freedom and economic justice have also struck a chord in Libya. There can be no doubt that discontent with the Gaddafi regime is motivating a significant section of the population.

However, it is important for progressives to know that many of the people being promoted in the West as leaders of the Libyan opposition are long-time agents of imperialism. The BBC on 22 February 2011 showed footage of crowds in Benghazi pulling down the green flag of the republic and replacing it with the flag of the overthrown monarch King Idris - who was a puppet of US and British imperialism some 40 years ago.

The deliberate distortion of reality to suit imperial agendas has become evident in the western media, who base a great deal of their reporting on agendas, using ‘spokespersons’ drawn from the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, a group trained, armed and financed by the CIA. On the 23 February 2011, the Wall Street Journal editorial literally demanded that, ‘The US and Europe should help Libyans overthrow the Gaddafi regime.’ Cold, indifferent silence from the same media sources as well as their controllers in the ‘corridors of power’ about similar interventions to help the oppressed and exploited people of Kuwait or Saudi Arabia or Bahrain or Oman to overthrow their dictatorial rulers.

Of course we know that it would be unthinkable to make such utterances, even if it was to simply create the impression that, ‘all things are equal’. Worse yet, how about them calling on the US to intervene to help the Palestinian people of Gaza by lifting the Zionist blockade or demanding that reparations be paid for the Dresden style bombing of Gaza? In fact the very opposite occurred. On 18 February 2011, the US vetoed a UN resolution condemning the Zionists - a resolution that was supported by no less than 130 Nations.

We do not have to scratch too deeply to find out what imperialism’s interest is in Libya. As Africa’s third-largest producer of oil, it has the continent’s largest proven reserves - 44.3 billion barrels. It is a country with a relatively small population, but the potential to produce huge profits for the giant oil companies. That’s how the imperialists look at it, and that’s what underlies their professed concern for the people’s democratic rights in Libya.

It was not enough to stick Libya with a massive reparations claim for Lockerbie, or to squeeze concessions out of Gaddafi by allowing the imperialist oil barons entry into Libya. What they want is a straight-up government that they can own heart and soul, lock, stock and oil-barrel. Of course they have never forgiven Gaddafi for overthrowing the monarchy and nationalising the oil.

Former-president of Cuba Fidel Castro, in his column ‘Reflections’, takes note of imperialism’s hunger for oil and warns that the US is laying the basis for military intervention in Libya. Such an intervention means the murder of millions of Libyans, in the same way that intervention in Iraq lead to the murder of 1.5 million and the displacement of over four million killed and displaced by US intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Socialist Party of Azania is in sympathy with the rebellions spreading across North Africa and the Gulf states. Their success is dependent upon us supporting the justifiable struggles in whatever form they take, while rejecting imperialist intervention.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Nicholas H. Tucker is from the Socialist Party of Azania.
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