Massacre in Libya as Lunatic Clown Gaddaffi uses mercenaries

[gman]

Just received this update from a Libyan bredren of mine:
Gaddafi is now sending police in plain clothing to hospitals in Tripoli Libyas capital and is killing off survivors injured previously.

All Libyan defence forces and armed forces have layd down their positions and sided with the people!.

Now its Gaddafi and his mercinaries Vs the People of Libya

The african mercinaries are on the borders of tripoli stopping any Libyans from other cities from getting in and joinging the big battle in Green Square in tripoli.

All fone lines and internet and communications in the country have been cut off.

Cant get through to any of the family in Libya!

Inshallah Khair and God watch over those slaughtered, fighting for the freedom of their ppeople on their land.

Ameeeen!!!!

 La Illaha Ila Allah   Allahu Akbar

[News]

Tunisia Seeks Ben Ali Extradition
Tunisia has asked Saudi Arabia to extradite ousted President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who fled the country last month, to face charges of ordering a deadly crackdown on anti-regime protests.

Live Blog - Libya

Libyan Air Force pilots defect; rift between Gaddafi and military growing
Two Libyan Air Force pilots have defected to the Mediterranean island of Malta, reported Reuters, citing Maltese government officials. These soldiers said they were ordered by the government to bomb protestors; however, they decided not to and defect to Malta instead.

Libyan UN deputy ambassador speaks to Al Jazeera
Libyan UN deputy ambassador speaks to AJE
Libya's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Dabbashi, spoke to Al Jazeera. Dabbashi distanced himself from the regime of embattled president Muammar Gaddafi, saying he is "with the people".

Libya protests spread and intensify
More than 60 people reported dead in the capital, as anti-government demonstrations escalate across the country.

Report: Libyan protesters fired on
Reports say live ammuntion is being used against protesters marching on the compound of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader.

On the run: Gaddafi flees Tripoli as protesters set the Libyan parliament building alight and crowds celebrate victory in Benghazi
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is believed to have fled the capital Tripoli after anti-government demonstrators breached the state television building and set government property alight. Protesters appear to have gained a foothold in Tripoli as banks and government buildings were looted while demonstrators have claimed they have taken control of the second city Benghazi.

Europe plans for Libya evacuation
EU foreign ministers discuss plans to transport citizens out of Libya, as violent unrest spreads.

Libyan Muslim leaders order followers to rebel
A coalition of Libyan Muslim leaders has issued a declaration telling all Muslims it is their duty to rebel against the Libyan leadership.

BP suspends operations in Libya
Oil giant BP said today that it was suspending operations in Libya and evacuating expatriate staff and their families amid the escalating violence.

Gaddafi regime: We will fight to the end
In a sign that the first cracks are starting to show in the Libyan regime, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son warned in a lengthy and rambling address broadcast live last night that the overthrow of the regime would lead to civil war and the break-up of the country.

Dozens reported killed in Tripoli unrest
Dozens of people were reported killed in Tripoli overnight as anti-government protests reached the Libyan capital for the first time and the building where the country's parliament meets was ablaze today.

Libya: UK revokes arms export licences as violence grows
Decision taken amid escalating violence against protesters emerges as David Cameron condemns 'vicious' response to protests in Libya

Libya protesters set fire to government buildings in Tripoli
Anti-Gaddafi demonstrations spread to capital from Benghazi as some soldiers reportedly switch sides to aid activists

Bahrain grand prix cancelled due to protests, organisers announce
Organisers of the Formula One season-opening grand prix in Bahrain have announced that the race has been called off due to the civil unrest sweeping the country.

Robert Fisk in Manama: Bahrain - an uprising on the verge of revolution
The protesters who are calling for an end to royal rule are in no mood to compromise

Inspired by Egypt, thousands protest on Moroccan streets
Thousands of people flooded on to the streets of cities across Morocco yesterday, hoping to wrest some powers from the ruling monarchy in the first large protests inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt.

Morocco riots leave five dead
Initial protests pass off peacefully but bank blaze kills five with scores injured and detained as trouble flares in deprived suburbs

Yemen's president refuses to quit
Yemen's embattled leader today rejected demands to step down, saying widespread demonstrations against his regime were unacceptable.

Yemen: President's offer of talks is rejected by political opposition
Yemen's embattled President yesterday sought a way out of the political crisis gripping his impoverished nation, offering to oversee a dialogue between the ruling party and the opposition to defuse the stand-off with protesters demanding that he go.


Security forces stop rallies on the streets of Tehran
Thousands of Iranian security personnel were deployed on the streets of Tehran and other cities yesterday to prevent protesters rallying in spite of a ban.

Mary Ann Sieghart: The dawning of Arab democracy
Most Jordanians don't want a revolution of the French kind; they just want a king who reigns rather than rules

[gman]

I don't have time to link articles right now but it should be noted that the military and police equipment being used to try to crush the people of Libya (as in Bahrain, Egypt and elsewhere) has been largely provided by the U.K., and that David Cameron is presently touring the middle east along with a contingent of arms dealers attemtping to sell even more deadly weaponry to other repressive regimes in the region, after a lucrative arms fair this past weekend in Abu Dhabi where various dictators and their henchmen perused British, U.S. etc. weaponry "to a pounding hip hop soundtrack" according to the Guardian. I wonder which hip hop artists had their songs used at this arms fair? Could they sue the organisers for using their music without permission? (Probably only if they're Immortal Technique or one of the few other artists who actually own the rights to their music..)

[News]

Cameron says UK prejudiced for believing Muslims cannot manage democracy

By Nicholas Watt in Kuwait
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 22 February 2011

Britain has been guilty of a prejudice bordering on racism for believing that Muslims cannot manage democracy, David Cameron will say as he recasts foreign policy in light of protests across the Arab world.

In a speech at the national assembly in Kuwait, the prime minister will abandon decades of so-called "camel corps" diplomacy by saying Britain was wrong to prop up "highly controlling regimes" as a way of ensuring stability.

Cameron – who is facing anger in the UK for placing defence exports at the heart of his long-planned visit to the Gulf – will use the speech to show that Britain is promoting political reform in the region.

The prime minister, who attended a ceremony in Kuwait with Sir John Major to mark the 20th anniversary of the first Gulf war, said: "Now, once again, this region is the epicentre of momentous changes, but pursued in a very different way. History is sweeping through your neighbourhood."

Cameron, who on Monday visited the scene of the demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Cairo that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, said the protests had highlighted a hunger for freedom across the Middle East.

He depicted the protests as "movements of the people" that were not ideological or extremist.

But he indicated that the demonstrations presented a challenge for Britain as he dismissed as a "false choice" the old calculation that authoritarian regimes needed to be supported as the price of ensuring stability.

"For decades, some have argued that stability required controlling regimes and that reform and openness would put that stability at risk," Cameron said.

"So, the argument went, countries like Britain faced a choice between our interests and our values. And to be honest, we should acknowledge that sometimes we have made such calculations in the past."

He added: "But I say that is a false choice. As recent events have confirmed, denying people their basic rights does not preserve stability – rather, the reverse."

The prime minister said Britain and other western countries cannot impose any democratic model on the Arab world, but stressed: "That's not an excuse, as some would argue, to claim that Arabs or Muslims can't do democracy – the so-called Arab exception.

"For me, that's a prejudice that borders on racism. It's offensive and wrong and it's simply not true."

Cameron's speech has been designed to lay to rest decades of British foreign policy which held that authoritarian regimes in the Gulf must be supported to guarantee stability. The strongest example is Britain's close relationship with Saudi Arabia.

The prime minister will not be visiting Saudi Arabia during his three-day tour of the Gulf. This is because King Abdullah is in poor health and not because Cameron wants to distance the UK from the kingdom.

He is also distancing himself from US neocons who believe democracy can be imposed.

Cameron outlined his thinking on this issue on Monday in Cairo, when he said: "Democracy is an important part of our foreign policy.

"But I am not a naive neocon who thinks you can drop democracy out of an aeroplane at 40,000ft or that, simply by holding an election, you have satisfied the needs of democracy. You have had plenty of elections in Egypt, but that does not mean you have had a functioning democracy."

He developed this theme in his speech at the Kuwaiti national assembly in which he said the "building blocks" of democracy – an independent judiciary, free media and a "proper place" for the army – had to be laid with care.

"Democracy is the work of patient craftmanship – it has to be built from the grassroots up," he said. "It can't be done overnight."

The prime minister outlined his approach to foreign policy in Kuwait because Britain believes its national assembly is a strong example of democracy in the Gulf.

Its 50 members are elected by universal suffrage, though the majority of the population, many of whom come from the Indian sub-continent, do not have the vote. There are four woman members.

The Kuwaiti prime minister, Sheikh Nasser Mohammed al-Ahmed al-Sabah, who was summoned for a grilling last year, only survived a confidence vote by 25 votes to 23.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/22/david-cameron-uk-muslims-democracy

[gman]

What sickening hypocrisy from Cameron. Apart from the fact that he (and his predecessor) have been enthusiastically supporting and propping up every vicious regime in the middle east (well, apart from Iran of course , and are continuing to sell arms to regimes just as repressive as those that are now facing the wave of protests, and invited the murdering king of Bahrain to see his fellow royal parasite prince William get married in the coming months, this speech also comes on the heels of his speech castigating "multi-culturals" (ahem) in general, and Muslims (the new Jews when it comes to the main scapegoat for all problems in the UK tabloid readers' minds) in particular, which was delivered on the same day as the "English Defence League" (a thinly disguised fascist group that claims to be against "militant Islam" but which in fact engages in violent attacks on all Muslims or anyone who might look like one and who aspire to "ban the Koran" - hey! It rhymes!) staged their so-called "homecoming march" in Luton, U.K.
Hopefully the big march on London on March 26th, where there are calls to occupy Hyde Park for at least 24 hours Tahrir Square style, will be the beginning of the end for the evil "democratic" dictator David Cameron and co...

[News]

Muammar Gaddafi remains defiant

February 22, 2011

In a lengthy televised address, Muammar Gaddafi variously blamed the media, the US, the UK, Italy and hallucinogenic drugs forced on young protesters for causing the trouble in his country.

The Libyan leader tried his hardest to appeal to anti-colonialist sentiment in the country but behind all the anger there seemed to be one key message - he has created Libya, and will never leave.

But pressure on Gaddafi is mounting. Several major cities across Libya are under the control of the opposition and the deadly crackdown on protesters seems to have been hardening the popular resolve.

Al Jazeera's Laurence Lee reports.

Muammar Gaddafi remains defiant

Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has vowed to fight on and die a "martyr", calling on his supporters to take back the streets from protesters demanding his ouster, shouting and pounding his fist in a furious speech on state TV.

Gaddafi, clad in brown robes and turban, spoke on Tuesday from a podium set up in the entrance of a bombed-out building that appeared to be his Tripoli residence hit by US air raids in the 1980s and left unrepaired as a monument of defiance.

"I am a fighter, a revolutionary from tents ... I will die as a martyr at the end," he said.

"Muammar Gaddafi is the leader of the revolution, I am not a president to step down ... This is my country. Muammar is not a president to leave his post."

"I have not yet ordered the use of force, not yet ordered one bullet to be fired ... when I do, everything will burn."

He called on supporters to take to the streets to attack protesters. "You men and women who love Gaddafi ...get out of your homes and fill the streets," he said. "Leave your homes and attack them in their lairs ... Starting tomorrow the cordons will be lifted, go out and fight them."

Gaddafi said "peaceful protests is one thing, but armed rebellion is another".

"From tonight to tomorrow, all the young men should form local committees for popular security," he said, telling them to wear a green armband to identify themselves. "The Libyan people and the popular revolution will control Libya."

The speech, which appeared to have been taped earlier, was aired on a screen to hundreds of supporters massed in Tripoli's central Green Square.

At times the camera panned out to show a towering gold-coloured monument in front of the building, showing a fist crushing a fighter jet with an American flag on it - a view that also gave the strange image of Gaddafi speaking alone from behind a podium in the building's dilapidated lobby, with no audience in front of him.

Speech highlights

Shouting in the rambling speech, Gaddafi declared himself "a warrior" and proclaimed: "Libya wants glory, Libya wants to be at the pinnacle, at the pinnacle of the world".

Among the other points made by Gaddafi in his speech:

He called on the people to catch what he called drugged young people and bring them to justice.

He called on the people to "cleanse Libya house by house" unless protesters on the streets surrendered.

He warned that instability in Libya "will give al-Qaeda a base".

He cited the examples of attack on Russian parliament and China's crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, saying that the international community did not interfere.

He said he could do the same in Derna and Bayda.

He offered a new constitution starting from Wednesday, but this would come with dialogue, not by collaboration with the enemy.

He blamed the uprising on Islamists who wanted to create another Afghanistan, and warned that those in Bayda and Derna had already set up an Islamic Emirate that would reach Benghazi.

He said that the country's youth was drugged and did not know anything; they were following the Islamists' leader and their leaders would be punished with death in accordance with the Libyan law.

Just minutes after his speech, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Cairo reported that Amr Moussa, Arab League chief, had decided to discontinue the participation of the Libya delegation in the meetings of the council and all its institutions.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/201122216458913596.html

[News]

A crude mercantilist doctrine stands exposed

The Prime Minister is deluded if he think he can preach democracy while bolstering autocrats

Wednesday, 23 February 2011

David Cameron made a speech in the Kuwaiti parliament yesterday calling for governments across the Arab world to meet their people's legitimate aspirations for freedom. The Prime Minister also conceded that Britain had been wrong, in the past, to support repressive regimes for the sake of stability.

But actions speak louder the words. Mr Cameron's address cannot conceal the fact that he is seeking to arm those very Arab leaders who would deny the people of the region their liberty. Senior executives of the British defence industry have accompanied the Prime Minister on this regional tour. And while Mr Cameron was hailing freedom in Kuwait, his Minister for International Security Strategy, Gerald Howarth, was attending an arms fair in Abu Dhabi, where 100 UK companies are exhibiting their wares.

Full Article : independent.co.uk

[gman]

My Libyan brother in H.I.P.H.O.P. has managed to touch base with his fam and they are OK so far. According to him well over 1000 people have been killed so far. A former Libyan army person who he's been in contact with has said that Gadaffi is using the same F-16 fighters that the U.S. supplied to Israel to bomb protesters. Many in the army and the police have come over to the side of the protesters but according to my friend many from Gaddafi's particular tribe are still loyal to him. Mercenaries from various countries in Africa have apparently been promised large sums (from their point of view) plus bonuses for how many people they kill. The people are armed and have the former soldiers and police on their side in Benghazi and other areas, but not in Tripoli. Some mercenaries have apparently been lynched (which I would do too if I was in the Libyan peoples' shoes), but there are also reports that innocent Black African people residing in Libya have been presumed to be mercenaries and attacked. There are also reports that some of the mercenaries are Eastern European and/or white "south african".
Gaddafi is obviously going down but shows no signs of giving up.
Cameron is worse than Gaddafi in my opinion. Gaddaffi is evil but clearly insane. Cameron is equally evil but knows exactly what he's doing.

[gman]

Check my bredren spitting against Gaddafi:
Anti Gaddafi Rap

[News]

Gaddafi addresses Tripoli crowd

February 25, 2011
Al Jazeera and agencies

Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has appeared in Tripoli's Green Square, to address a crowd of his supporters in the capital.

"We can defeat any aggression if necessary and arm the people," Gaddafi said, in footage that was aired on Libyan state television on Friday.

"I am in the middle of the people.. we will fight … we will defeat them if they want … we will defeat any foreign aggression.

"Dance … sing and get ready … this is the spirit … this is much better than the lies of the Arab propaganda," he said.

The speech, which also referred to Libya's war of independence with Italy, appeared to be aimed at rallying what remains of his support base, with specific reference to the country's youth.

His last speech, on Thursday evening had been made by phone, leading to speculation about his physical condition.

The footage aired on Friday, however, showed the leader standing above the square, waving his fist as he spoke.

Tarik Yousef, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington, told Al Jazeera that most of the individuals on Green Square are genuine Gaddafi supporters.

"Most of these people have known nothing else but Gaddafi. They don’t know any other leader. And many of them stand to lose when Gaddafi falls," Yousef said.

"I am not completely surprised that they still think that he is the right man for Libya. What is striking is that [Gaddafi] did not talk about all the liberated cities in his country.

"This was a speech intended show his defiance and to rally against what he calls foreign interference. But even his children have admitted that the east of the country is no longer under the regime's control."

Anti-Gaddafi protesters shot

Gaddafi's speech came on a day when tens of thousands of Libyans in the capital and elsewhere in the country took to the streets calling for an end to his rule.

As demonstrations began in Tripoli following the midday prayer, security forces loyal to Gaddafi reportedly began firing on them. There was heavy gun fire in various Tripoli districts including Fashloum, Ashour, Jumhouria and Souq Al, sources told Al Jazeera.

"The security forces fired indiscriminately on the demonstrators," said a resident of one of the capital's eastern suburbs.

"There were deaths in the streets of Sug al-Jomaa," the resident said.

The death toll since the violence began remains unclear, though on Thursday Francois Zimeray, France's top human rights official, said it could be as high as 2,000 people killed.

Dissent reaches mosques

Violence flared up even before the Friday sermons were over, according to a source in Tripoli.

"People are rushing out of mosques even before Friday prayers are finished because the state-written sermons were not acceptable, and made them even more angry," the source said.

Libyan state television aired one such sermon on Friday, in an apparent warning to protesters.

"As the Prophet said, if you dislike your ruler or his behaviour, you should not raise your sword against him, but be patient, for those who disobey the rulers will die as infidels," the speaker told his congregation in Tripoli.

During Friday prayers a cleric in the town of Mselata, 80km to the east of Tripoli, called for the people to fight back.

Immediately after the prayers, more than more than 2,000 people, some of them armed with rifles taken from the security forces, headed towards Tripol to demand the fall of Gaddafi, Al Jazeera's Nazanine Moshiri reported.

The group made it as far as the city of Tajoura, where it was stopped by a group loyal to Gaddafi.

They were checked by foreign, French-speaking mercenaries and gunfire was exchanged. There were an unknown number of casualties, Moshiri reported, based on information from witnesses who had reached on the Libyan-Tunisian border.

Special forces

People in eastern parts of the country, a region believed to be largely free from Gaddafi's control, held protests in support for the demonstrations in the capital.

"Friday prayer in Benghazi have seen thousands and thousands on the streets. All the banners are for the benefit of the capital, [they are saying] 'We're with you, Tripoli.'" Al Jazeera’s Laurence Lee reported.

In the town of Derna, protesters held banners with the messages such as "We are one Tribe called Libya, our only capital is Tripoli, we want freedom of speech".

Al Jazeera's correspondent in Libya reported on Friday that army commanders in the east who had renounced Gaddafi's leadership had told her that military commanders in the country's west were beginning to turn against him.

They warned, however, that the Khamis Brigade, an army special forces brigade that is loyal to the Gaddafi family and is equipped with sophisticated weaponry, is currently still fighting anti-government forces.

The correspondent, who cannot be named for security reasons, said that despite the gains, people are anxious about what Gaddafi might do next, and the fact that his loyalists were still at large.

"People do say that they have broken the fear factor, that they have made huge territorial gains,” she said. "[Yet] there's no real celebration or euphoria that the job has been done."

Pro-democracy protesters attacked

On Friday morning, our correspondents reported that the town of Zuwarah was, according to witnesses, abandoned by security forces and completely in the hands of anti-Gaddafi protesters.

Checkpoints in the country's west on roads leading to the Tunisian border, however, were still being controlled by Gaddafi loyalists.

In the east, similar checkpoints were manned by anti-Gaddafi forces, who had set up a "humanitarian aid corridor" as well as a communications corridor to the Egyptian border, our correspondent reported.

Thousands massed in Az Zawiyah's Martyr's Square after the attack, calling on Gaddafi to leave office, and on Friday morning, explosions were heard in the city.

Witnesses say pro-Gaddafi forces were blowing up arms caches, in order to prevent anti-government forces from acquiring those weapons.

Clashes were also reported in the city of Misurata, located 200km east of Tripoli, where witnesses said a pro-Gaddafi army brigade attacked the city's airport with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

They told Al Jazeera that pro-democracy protesters had managed to fight off that attack. "Revolutionaries have driven out the security forces," they said, adding that "heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft guns" had been used against them.

Mohamed Senussi, a resident of Misurata, said calm had returned to the city after the "fierce battle" near the airport.

"The people's spirits here are high, they are celebrating and chanting 'God is Greatest'," he told the Reuters news agency by telephone.

Another witness warned, however, that protesters in Misurata felt "isolated" as they were surrounded by nearby towns still in Gaddafi's control.

Government loses oil terminals

Protesters and air force personnel who have renounced Gaddafi's leadership also overwhelmed a nearby military base where Gaddafi loyalists were taking refuge, according to a medical official at the base.

They disabled air force fighter jets at the base so that they could not be used against protesters.

Soldiers helped anti-Gaddafi protesters take the oil terminal in the town of Berga, according to Reuters.

The oil refinery in Ras Lanuf has also halted its operations and most staff has left, according to a source in the company.

Support for Gaddafi within the country's elite continues to decline. On Friday, Abdel Rahman Al Abar, Libya's Chief Prosecutor, became one of the latest top officials to resign in protest over the bloodshed.

"What happened and is happening are massacres and bloodshed never witnessed by the Libyan people. The logic of power and violence is being imposed instead of seeking democratic, free, and mutual dialogue," he said.

His comments came as UN's highest human-rights body held a special session on Friday to discuss what it's chief had earlier described as possible "crimes against humanity" by the Gaddafi government.

Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, urged world leaders to "step in vigorously" to end the violent crackdown.

The United Nations Security Council was to hold a meeting on the situation in Libya later in the day, with sanctions the possible imposition of a no-fly zone over the country under Chapter VII of the UN charter on the table.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

[gman]

100 3096

[gman]

Protesters defend a disarmed mercenary from their fellow protesters:
Tripoli (2/25) - Protesters defend a disarmed mercenary from other protesters

[gman]

A video my friend made of his song for Libya:
Libya United - MC Banks - Produced by Jah Jah Bless.

[News]

African migrants targeted in Libya

Rights groups fear dozens killed in violent backlash against supposed Gaddafi-hired mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa.

February 28, 2011
Al Jazeera and agencies

As nations evacuate their citizens from the violence gripping Libya, many African migrant workers are targeted because they are suspected of being mercenaries hired by Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader.

Dozens of workers from sub-Saharan Africa are feared killed, and hundreds are in hiding, as angry mobs of anti-government protesters hunt down "black African mercenaries," according to witnesses.

About 90 Kenyans and another 64 citizens from South Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Zambia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and Burundi landed in Nairobi on Monday, according to officials.

"We were being attacked by local people who said that we were mercenaries killing people. Let me say that they did not want to see black people," Julius Kiluu, a 60-year-old building supervisor, told Reuters.

"Our camp was burnt down, and we were assisted by the Kenyan embassy and our company to get to the airport," he said.

Rights organisations say that thousands of workers are stranded in camps and private homes, protected by their colleagues as their governments fail to evacuate them from the chaos.

"But why is nobody concerned about the plight of sub-Saharan African migrants in Libya? As victims of racism and ruthless exploitation, they are Libya's most vulnerable immigrant population, and their home country governments do not give them any support," Hein de Haas, a senior fellow with the International Migration Institute, writes in his blog.

Al Jazeera’s Nazenine Moshiri met Seidou Boubaker Jallou, a Malian citizen, who said he fled Libya after many black migrants came under attack.

"The most dangerous situation is for foreigners like us - and also us black people - because Gaddafi brought soldiers from Chad and Niger who reportedly killed Arabs," he said.

Experts say that Gaddafi has had a long relationship with African fighters who now came to his assistance.

Low-paid labourers

Hundreds of black immigrants from poor African countries, who mainly work in Libya’s oil industry as cheap labourers, have also been injured in the violence. Some were unable to seek medical treatment for fear of being killed.

Saad Jabbar, deputy director of the North Africa Centre at Cambridge University, confirms Africans have become targets.

"I tell you, these people, because of their scheme, they will be slaughtered in Libya. There is so much anger there against those mercenaries, which suddenly sprung up," Jabbar said.

About 1.5m Sub-Saharan African migrants work in Libya as low-paid labourers in the oil industry, construction, agriculture and service sectors.

Rights organisations say some anti-Gaddafi protesters wrongly associate African workers with state-sponsored violence.

"African immigrants are now linked to state-orchestrated violence and mass killings, and we may therefore fear the worst about the violent backlash that may follow particularly after Gaddafi is ousted," said Haas.

Ignored by their governments, African workers are one of the most vulnerable groups in Libya right now. Analysts say unless a preventative measure is taken, a massive bloodletting is feared.

"I think it is urgent to do something about it now, otherwise, a genocide against anyone who has black skin and who doesn't speak perfect Arabic is possible," said Jabbar.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/201122865814378541.html

[News]

As Libyan rebels close in on Gaddafi, US and Europe ramp up intervention

By Barry Grey
28 February 2011
http://wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/liby-f28.shtml

With dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s control over the country ebbing, the United States and its European allies are stepping up their intervention into the Libyan crisis. Their aim is to ensure that any new regime will be equally subservient to their economic and geostrategic interests.

Behind the rhetoric about democracy and humanitarian concerns, Washington and the European powers are seeking to exploit the brutality of Gaddafi to condition public opinion to accept a colonial-style intervention and the reassertion of imperialist control over the country’s oil fields.

Over the weekend, Gaddafi’s hold on power was further eroded by the defection of additional political and military figures and the capture of more key cities by the opposition. Most significant was the fall to the rebels of Zawiyah, an oil port and refinery city thirty miles to the west of the capital, Tripoli. The capture of Zawiyah signified the spread of the rebellion, heretofore centered in the east of the country, to the west.

Although Gaddafi’s army has reportedly surrounded Zawiyah, as of early Monday it had not attempted to retake the town of 200,000 people. The areas remaining under the dictator’s control have reportedly been reduced to Tripoli and Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte.

Gaddafi’s dwindling domain has only accelerated the imperialist drive to intervene, including by military means. Over the weekend, the British military carried out two raids into the Libyan desert to transport British nationals out of the country. The first, carried out Saturday by SAS special forces using Hercules planes, rescued 150 people, mostly British oil workers, and flew them to Malta. The second, on Sunday, involved three Royal Air Force planes and picked up another 150 civilians.

On Sunday, the German military carried out its own raid. Two military planes landed on a private runway belonging to the Wintershall AG company, evacuating 22 Germans and 112 others and flying them to Crete.

These raids mark the first open use of military assets in the Libyan crisis, but they are likely to be followed by more aggressive actions. There are growing calls in the US and Europe for the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya, to be policed to US warplanes, and other military measures to aid the anti-Gaddafi forces.

The main concern in Washington is the prospect of either a protracted civil war, which would further inflame world oil prices and destabilize other oil-producing dictatorships in North Africa and the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, or a political vacuum over which the US would exert little influence.

The New York Times published a front-page article Sunday under the headline “The Vacuum After Qaddafi.” The article noted that the US exerts far less control over the Libyan army and other institutions than it does in Egypt and Tunisia, and ended by suggesting the possibility of a military occupation under the cover of humanitarian needs.

“Some experts,” the Times wrote, “wonder if Libya might become the first experiment in the use of the ‘responsibility to protect’—the idea that a United Nations force would be deployed to prevent civilian deaths in the event of widespread violence…

“With the country now split badly between east and west, an outside protection force would lend time for Tripoli to reassert itself as the capital and establish control.”

A raft of measures have been taken over the past several days by the US and Europe to isolate Gaddafi and pave the way for a major military intervention. After announcing Friday the closure of the US embassy in Tripoli and the imposition of unilateral US sanctions, President Obama on Saturday for the first time called for Gaddafi to resign. The White House published an account of a telephone call to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in which Obama called for Gaddafi to “leave now.”

Obama is to meet Monday in Washington with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to discuss further actions against the Libyan regime. Secretary Hillary Clinton is to speak in Geneva before the UN Human Rights Council, which over the weekend voted unanimously to suspend Libya’s membership.

The United Nations Security Council on Saturday unanimously passed a resolution imposing economic sanctions on Libya and referring Gaddafi and his key aides for prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO secretary general, held an emergency meeting of NATO ambassadors on Friday to discuss possible military assistance for evacuation efforts.

The British Guardian newspaper on Saturday cited unconfirmed reports that former Prime Minister Tony Blair had telephoned Gaddafi warning that NATO troops might be sent in. The claims were made by one of Gaddafi’s sons, Saadi, in a telephone interview from Tripoli.

The New York Times on Saturday quoted Tom Malinowski, the director of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch, as saying, “Even if people aren’t explicitly talking about no-fly zones, the fact that NATO met today suggests there is more on people’s minds than diplomacy… I sense military contingencies are on the table.” Malinowski has participated in White House meetings on the Libyan crisis.

The Financial Times on Saturday wrote that European officials have raised the possibility of armed rescues of the thousands of EU nationals still stranded in Libya. The newspaper quoted a “senior EU official” as saying: “It’s one of the possibilities we’re working on. We are in contact with EU member states to see whether their facilities, civilian and military, can be deployed for this.”

In taped interviews from Cairo broadcast on Sunday’s television talk shows, Republican Senator John McCain and Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman—who was the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2000—attacked Obama for not going far enough in Libya. They called for a no-fly zone and military aid to the opposition.

The two noted that while the US had sent only a ferry to collect American civilians, Britain had sent a warship and Hercules aircraft.

Later on Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested the administration was open to such moves, declaring that it was “reaching out” to opposition groups and was prepared to offer “any kind of assistance” to Libyans seeking to overthrow the regime.

The crocodile tears being shed by the US and its European allies over Gaddafi’s atrocities against protesters are utterly cynical. For days Obama and his European counterparts were silent over the massacres carried out by Gaddafi in Benghazi, Tripoli and other cities. Having established the closest relations with the regime over the past decade, which had allowed them free rein to once again exploit Libya’s oil resources, they hoped that Gaddafi would be able to quickly crush the uprising and restore order.

Only when it became clear that was not about to happen and the crisis began to seriously disrupt oil production and spark a panic rise in global market prices did they shift gears and denounce their former ally. Obama, Clinton, Sarkozy and company had all feted the dictator in recent months, following Tony Blair’s 2004 “deal in the sand” with Gaddafi and the Bush administration’s restoration of full diplomatic relations in 2008.

They had conveniently dropped the issue of Gaddafi’s role in the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 innocent civilians, mainly Americans. Exposing the fraud of the “war on terror” and its function as a cover for the aggressive pursuit of US imperialist interests around the world, Washington converted the former “mad dog” and “rogue” into an ally in the anti-terror cause and force for stability in the region.

Only last November, the International Monetary Fund issued a glowing report on Libya, praising the regime for its aggressive pursuit of neoliberal, pro-market policies. The IMF praised Gaddafi’s “continued efforts to modernize and diversify the economy,” commending in particular “efforts to enhance the role of the private sector in the economy.” These very policies led to mounting economic hardship for the working class and rural poor, fueling the social anger that erupted earlier this month.

Gaddafi is a criminal who deserves to be brought to justice, but none of the imperialist leaders currently denouncing him have any standing to point the finger elsewhere. They are all complicit in wars of aggression and colonial-style occupations that have killed hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan and are implicated in all of the attendant crimes, including torture, rendition and indefinite detention.

The staggering hypocrisy of the US government is summed up by the fact that it supports bringing Gaddafi before the International Criminal Court, but refuses to sign on to the court and rejects its authority over Americans. It asserts the right of US officials to commit war crimes with impunity.

In the UN Security Council resolution against Libya passed Saturday, the US insisted on a clause declaring that people from countries not signed up to the International Criminal Court could not be punished by it for crimes in the Libyan attacks. American officials insisted on the paragraph to prevent setting a precedent for prosecution by the ICC of American soldiers and officials.

http://wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/liby-f28.shtml