Libya: Three long years later
Posted by By Akogun Akomolafe at 17 October, at 14 : 48 PM Print
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by 
“The objective of the war is not to make UNITA win a war, but to devastate Angola and make the people lead wretched lives.” (TIME, August 10, 1987. p.33)
On July 28, 2014, the mouthpiece of British imperialism, the BBC, assembled some Talkheads to discuss the tragic situation in Libya.
According to these ‘experts,’ Western intervention has not worked. They agreed that the country is now a FAILED State.
Like, seriously, guys!
Was the naked colonial project designed to work in the first place? Was Vietnam invaded to build stability? Or Afghanistan or Iraq?
Do we need experts to tell us that conquerors throughout history did not set out to improve the societies/countries they invaded? Does it require more than casual intelligence to know that economic/material gain is the only reason countries invade another country?
Do we really need experts to tell us that the war rackets, the West continue to pursue around the world, was designed for any other purpose than to foster the interests of the Western Military-Industrial Complex?
Former US Marine General, Butler Smedley, wrote “War is a Racket,” which is guaranteed to cure anyone that still harbor illusions about the real reasons the West keep launching wars.
Do the hacks at the BBC really needed so-called experts to know that assassinating the head of state in the mish-mash of tribes cobbled together to form Libya will guarantee peace?
It was the Great Africanist and Historian, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, who said that the desire of every European, whatever his pretension, is world domination.
The colonial wars the West has been engaged in over the years were designed to further Western domination, no one should try and pretend otherwise.
Until Western vultures descend and bombed the country back into the Stone Age (their favourite parlance), Libya was a relatively stable country with standards of living many Europeans will die to have.
Gadhafi had his bad spots, but he guaranteed his people the best living standard in Africa. The evidence is in the large number of Africans that trooped to Gadhafi-ruled Libya.
The story why Sarkozy decided to kill Colonel Muammar Gadhafi will one day be told, but let no one pull wool over our eyes, and pretend that it had anything to do with the promotion of Human Rights or Democracy. A claim that becomes hollow when one see the deafening silence of the West, in the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians by Israeli forces, using Western-supplied weapons.
The sad condition of Libya today cannot but distress patriotic Africans. But it only confirms a pattern: invaders will invade and destroy a society/country, they will loot all they could, sack what they cannot cart away, and they will leave. A few years later, their chroniclers will arrive and write about the people’s wretched existence, without mentioning the role invaders played to reduce the people to penury.
An example is Mr. Dapper, a Dutch traveler in the West Coast of Africa in the nineteen century. He visited Benin City and compared the city’s sophistication to the best of Amsterdam. The British came, ransacked the city and looted all the beautiful artifacts. Today, British hagiographers talk about how they brought light to an uncivilized people.
Listening to the BBC and other Western media, one will not see any context at the ongoing tragedy in Libya.
No mention is ever made of the type of society the country was before NATO abused a UN resolution to launch its aggression and destroyed the country.
No mention is made of the fact that a US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, flew to Tripoli on October 19, 2011, and, effectively, gave the order for the killing of Gadhafi. Speaking to students at the University of Tripoli, Clinton said: “The most important thing to do right now is to make sure that Gaddafi and his regime are finally prevented from disrupting the new Libya… But we hope he can be captured or killed soon, so you don’t have to fear him any longer.”
Secretary Clinton was speaking about a sitting head of an African state. No one questioned the source of her legitimacy to so callously, and so flippantly give the order to execute a de jure and de facto ruler of a sovereign African state.
A day after Clinton’s order, Ghadafi was captured and killed at his hideout near his hometown of Sirte.
Mevrouw Clinton gloated like a demented hyena: “We came, we saw, he died.”
British media told us that French intelligence killed him to stop from spilling the nasties on then French President Sarkozy.
All of these facts are being glossed over by the BBC and other Western media as they attempt to rewrite history.
Today, a nabob of Islamic partisans have sundered Libya into partisan fiefdoms, where the center has become a huge joke.
In Today’s Libya, life is short and brutish, with citizens now fleeing as refugees – an unheard for during the rule of the man the West morphed into an Ogre.
There is now a stampede to escape the hell the once prosperous nation has become, with Western capitals evacuating citizens at dizzying speed.
Many Ghanaians, like many Africans, made decent living in Gadhafi-ruled Libya, and they sent money to relations at home; today, many Ghanaian families scramble to get money to send to relations stranded in Libya.
African culture enjoins us not to rejoice at other people’s calamity, but it galls greatly that Libyans refused to be guided by the lessons of history. They allowed duplicitous Westerners to lure them into destroying their own country. They believed war-mongering, blood-thirsty people like Senator McCain who foolishly led them into perdition.
Today, they gnash teeth while the wily Westerners are fleeing from the chaos, sorry, democracy, they have helped to impose.
I have no access to the huge resources available to the BBC, but I more or less predicted the mayhem that will follow the NATO invasion of the country.
I was thoroughly peeved by the NATO invasion that I fired letters to some leaders in the West.
For example, I sent a letter with a list of questions to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague, to ask why a racist country like the Netherlands, deemed it necessary to go and join a war to promote Human Rights in Libya.
The reply, pure asinine, reveals the depth of contempt to which the Dutch truly hold us as Africans.
The spokesman at the Ministry, Mr. Aad Meijer, even found it useful to deign to teach me some rules of basic journalism.
I simply cannot imagine a European journalist receiving the same mindless answers to his inquiries.
This is the exchange:
Dear Mr. Akomolafe,
See below for our answers to your questions. Please be so kind to quote them as ‘says a spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Kind regards,
Aad Meijer
Press Information
1. What is the official Dutch government position on the situation in Libya?
Ans: The Dutch government is very concerned about the situation in Libya. It condemns the use of force by Qaddafi against peaceful demonstrators, his own people. In doing so it considers Qaddafi to have lost his legitimacy. Qaddafi should step down and give space to a negotiated inclusive political solution by all of the Libyan people with respect for human rights, minorities and the rule of law.
2. One of the prerogatives of states is that they hold a monopoly on the instruments of violence within their territory. No country will permit an armed-uprising; is a new precedent not being set by the Western Powers in supporting an armed group in Libya? Why is the Dutch government supporting armed rebellion in other countries?
Ans: The NATO mission Unified Protector is mandated by UN resolution 1973 to protect the Libyan population from attacks by the Libyan authorities. The Netherlands supports this goal and contributes to the protection of the Libyan population.
3. Although UNSC Resolution 1973, specifically, did not authorised action to violate the sovereignty of Libya in the name of human rights, nor action in support of the anti-government rebels nor “regime-change” in Libya, today some Western governments (UK, France and the USA) openly called for “regime change,” and have announced plans to send ‘military advisors’ to aid the Libyan “pro-democracy forces.” What is the position of the Dutch government on regime change in Libya?
Ans: I refer to our answer under 1.
4. There appears to be a stalemate in Libya, what exactly is the outcome envisioned by the Dutch government in Libya?
Ans: I refer to our answer under 1.
5. How feasible is the desire of the West to impose democracy and Human Rights by military violence and where should we draw the line?
Ans: The military actions undertaken by NATO and several countries in the region as mandated by the United Nations seek to uphold Security Council resolution 1973. As such the military actions should be limited to protecting the civilian population of Libya against the use of force by the Libyan authorities.
6. What is the response of the Dutch government to the charges by some African commentators that the attacked smacked of double-standards – given the fact that numerous resolutions of the United Nations remain unenforced by the Western Powers? You can see a long list here: http://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/List_of_United_Nations_resolutions_concerning_Israel
Ans: The implementation of Security Council resolutions is an obligation of all members of the United Nations. The Netherlands believes that first and foremost countries in the region share a responsibility to implement these decisions. Where possible the Netherlands seeks to support such efforts either bilaterally or through the European Union.
7. Given the fact that Libya is, at least, geographically in Africa, why did the Western powers decided to ignore the publicly-stated position of the African Union (AU) condemning any military solution to the crises in Libya?
Ans: The Netherlands believes that the crisis in Libya will not be solved through military means alone and calls for a political process. It welcomes all diplomatic efforts, including those of the African Union to broker a political solution and underlines the importance of international coordination of initiatives. In order for a political process to come to fruition, the Netherlands believes that a real cessation of hostilities and pull back from beleaguered cities is required.
8. Why is the West ever so eager to employ military force in non-western nations, rather than use its considerable powers to compel antagonists to the Conference Table, like providing them with non-lethal (good offices) means to resolve their differences?
Ans: The Netherlands believes that diplomatic efforts are essential to achieve a solution.
9. And what would be the response of the Dutch government to accusations that Africa is being re-colonised. The question arose from the fact that the Western powers continue to hold meetings in European capitals (London, Paris, Berlin) to decide the future of an African country, Libya, which brings back to memory the infamous Berlin Conference of 1884-5?
Ans: The Netherlands believes that the future of Libya should only be decided upon by the Libyan people itself. It stresses that the conferences on Libya do in no way purport to providing the Libyan people with an outside political solution. The conferences but serve as an international focal and coordination point to ensure effective international support to the Libyan people
10. How would the Dutch government react to accusations that the West is trying to counter China’s incursions to Africa? Cited as example is one of the leaks from the Wikileaks’ memos, where we read the following: “1.(C/NF) Summary: Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) renegotiated the terms of its production sharing agreements with France’s Total and its partners in Libya (Germany’s Wintershall and Norway’s StatoilHydro), adjusting the existing stand-alone contracts to bring them into compliance with the Exploration and Production Sharing Agreement (EPSA) rubric. The renegotiation of Total’s contract is of a piece with the NOC’s effort to renegotiate existing contracts to increase Libya’s share of crude oil production… the renegotiated agreements could adversely impact his revenue stream. End Summary.” See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wikileaks-files/libya-wikileaks/8294570/FRENCH-TOTAL-LED-CONSORTIUMS-ACCEPT-LOWER-PRODUCTION-SHARES-IN-LIBYA.html
Ans: The Dutch government does not comment on the content of documents released by Wikileaks.
11. What would be the response of the Dutch government to another concern of Africans, especially those who live in Europe, why countries like France and the Netherlands which continue to treat them with impunity, would want to assume high moral grounds on Human Rights and Democracy in Africa? You can see an example of the treatment of African women and children in France here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZGK33rkk6E
Ans: The Dutch government does not comment on the internal affairs of other states. All residents of the Netherlands enjoy equal rights and obligations under Dutch law.
12. It was a Dutchman Hugo Grotius who, in his seminal work, titled De Jure Belli ac Pacis Libri Tres (Of the Laws of War and Peace) published in 1623, wrote: “Throughout the Christian world, I observed a lack of restraint in relation to war, such as even barbarous races should be ashamed of; I observed that men rush to arms for slight causes, or no cause at all, and that when arms have once been taken up there is no longer any respect for law, divine or human; it is as if, in accordance with a general decree, frenzy had openly been let loose for the committing of all crimes. Confronted with such utter ruthlessness many men, who are the very furthest from being bad men, have come to the point of forbidding all use of arms to the Christian, whose rule of conduct above everything else comprises the duty of loving all men.”
13: Today, we look at Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, and see that not much has changed since 1623. Can we look forward to a time that the west will, in the words of the Christian Bible, turn its sword into a plowshare and attain to resolve conflicts through peaceful means rather than on wholesale military violence?
Ans: The Dutch government seeks to end conflict by peaceful means. The promotion of international rule of law is part of its constitution.
It’s difficult for me to imagine what Mr. Aad Meijer ate or drunk before he sent his moronic reply. I expected a half-decent attempt to produce some bureaucratic smoke but certainly not these imbecilic answers.
That “All residents of the Netherlands enjoy equal rights and obligations under Dutch law,” is a tale I believe Mr. Aad should tell to the Dutch marines when they return from their colonial killing enterprise in Libya.
It’s difficult for me to imagine what Mr. Aad Meijer ate or drunk before he sent his moronic reply.
I expected a half-decent attempt to produce some bureaucratic smoke, but certainly not these imbecilic answers.
That “All residents of the Netherlands enjoy equal rights and obligations under Dutch law,” is a tale I believe Mr. Aad should tell to the Dutch Marines who partook in the colonial killing enterprise in Libya.
I wondered what Mr. Aad Meijer’s response would be were I to ask him today what he thinks of the “Democracy” his country helped installed in Libya.
About the Author
Femi Akomolafe is a passionate Pan-Africanist. A columnist for the Accra-based Daily Dispatch newspaper and ModernGhana, and Correspondent for the New African magazine, Femi lives in both Europe and Africa and writes regularly on Africa-related issues for various newspapers and magazines.
Femi was the producer of the FOCUS ON AFRICANS TV Interview programme for the MultiTV Station.
He is also the Man and Machine Coordinator at Alaye Dot Biz Limited, a Kasoa-based Multimedia organisation that specialises in Audio and Video Production. He loves to shoot and edit video documentaries.
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Femi Akomolafe
by Alayedotbiz, Blog, Interviews, News, Polemics, Random Musings, Satire
