THE IMPERIALISTS are celebrating
the death of Colonel Gaddafi and well they might as they were the ones who
killed him. The Libyan leader died in Sirte last week when the Nato-backed
rebels stormed the last loyalist bastion on the Libyan coast.
But
there’ll be no victory parades in London,
Paris, Washington
or Rome. The imperialists are happy
to leave that to their local pawns. Behind closed doors they squabble over
who’s going to get the biggest cut of the spoils. But in public they close
ranks as defenders of what they call “democracy” and “human rights”.
They claim to
champion the “Arab Spring”. They believe that they can perpetuate imperialist
domination of the oil-rich Arab world in alliance with the reactionary Muslim
Brotherhood. They think they can continue to use the United Nations and the
“human rights” gang as a smokescreen for their neo-colonial aggressions.
In public they
uphold human rights and brand those who dare to stand up to them as “war
criminals”. Naturally they have hastened to assure us that
they had no hand in the cold-blooded murder of the Libyan leader. And the
rebels were happy to claim credit for killing the Libyan leader and to display
Gaddafi’s body in public for days for the benefit of their gloating supporters.
They’ve not been so open about the manner of his death.
Contradictory stories from the rebel camp only
seem to add credibility to at least one report that Gaddafi was wounded when
his retreating car convoy was hit by
Nato aviation, including a US Predator drone and a French warplane, and then
finished off by French commandos.
The
imperialists now believe that the Gaddafi’s death will end all resistance to
the “National Transitional Government” (NTC) puppet regime that they’ve installed
in Tripoli. That remains to be
seen.
At least one of Gaddafi’s sons, Saif al Islam,
lives on ready to fight, and he has apparently been accepted by his tribal
allies as leader. If reports that the loyalists have spirited away the
country’s entire gold reserves are true they could sustain a continuing
guerrilla war in the south for years to come.
That seems the
most likely outcome as the rebels, who rely entirely on the might of Nato
aviation, have consistently refused to negotiate with the loyalists to end the
conflict. The rebels have promised “free elections” early next year but they
can’t even agree on the formation of a provisional government.
This rag-bag
of supporters of the old royal family, reactionary Muslim Brothers and Gaddafi
turn-coats are united only in their hatred of Colonel Gaddafi and a lust for power
that they believe they can get by serving imperialism. They would not have won
one single battle without the support of Nato air-power and if the imperialist
air-umbrella is withdrawn it is difficult to see how they could survive today.
Imperialist
air power will doubtless be used again and again to impose puppet regimes in
countries that the western powers seek to directly plunder. They will continue
to look for more collaborators to do their dirty work. They still hope to
maintain control over Iraq
and Afghanistan
even after the formal pull-out of their garrisons next year. Their greedy eyes
have long focused on Syria
and Iran and
their forces are already fighting with the Kenyans in southern Somalia.
What does this
say to the world? Well first of all it tells us that UN structures, in
themselves, are useless in preserving peace and that the UN Security Council
desperately needs to be reformed to ensure that it can never again be used to
sanction another Iraq
or Libyan-style invasion. Above all it tells us that Third World
countries must ultimately rely on their own defence to preserve their
independence.
Colonel
Muammar Gaddafi ruled his country for 42 years. He used the oil wealth to create
a prosperous modern society for the Libyan people and for the millions of
African immigrants who went to his land to work.
The Libyan
leader, like Saddam Hussein before him, made many mistakes. But the biggest was
to ever trust the word of imperialist leaders. Nothing in his life became him
like the leaving it and Muammar Gaddafi will be remembered as an Arab leader
who was ready to fight imperialist aggression to the end and go down guns
blazing.
