Dirty Apartheid Lies: SA's Murderous Arms Machine And The Bank That Cashed In (And Out)

Startling revelations and powerful evidence of grand corruption implicating politicians from PW Botha to Jacob Zuma, global banks and corporations was presented at The People's Tribunal on Saturday and Sunday.

Overseen by an esteemed panel including former Constitutional Court Justice Zac Yacoob, the Tribunal has been set up by civil society groups to hear evidence on corruption, capture and economic crime over the last 40 years in South Africa.

The Tribunal has, thus far, heard evidence of covert networks of politicians, state companies and corporations involved in the systemic violation of the United Nations' weapons embargo on South Africa during apartheid.

Standing as a witness, author of "Apartheid Guns and Money" Hennie van Vuuren emphasised the importance of bringing this evidence to light is in recognising the actors that contributed to the gross violation of human rights during apartheid. Beyond the pursuit of justice, he said, the goal is also to recognise how these crimes are connected.

Apartheid's murderous military machine

At the heart of the arms machine, he said, was South African state-owned arms company Armscor which bought (and sold) weapons from abroad in contravention of a compulsory U.N. embargo on trading arms with the country.

Almost all military expenditure, which amounted to approximately 28% of the country's budget at the time or half a trillion rand in today's value, passed through the company, he said.

But to oil this military machine -- which was created in response to the "appetite for the apartheid government's involvement in conflict locally and on the continent" -- the company needed to circumvent the compulsory global sanctions. In come the French.

Die Groot Krokodil's deathly French Kiss

Realising weapons couldn't be procured from Pretoria, then-Prime Minister PW Botha ('Die Groot Krokodil') took business abroad. For some a city of love, South Africa's government made Paris, France, its city of bloodlust.

The South African embassy in Paris housed what was called the tegniese raad (technical council) from which Armscor would strike it's deals, which van Vuuren said was not known until they began researching years ago.

"This was there base... from which they'd go around Europe doing deals, in some instances liaising with partners in Africa (like Zaire)... and perhaps even China," he said.

Even leading figures in the anti-apartheid movement who tried to expose these links had no idea what was happening in Paris. Documentary evidence, van Vuuren said, showed how French intelligence would have regular meetings with Armscor officials on a regular basis in the 1970s and 1980s. That heads of intelligence from France and South Africa were meeting suggests politicians in the upper echelons of France's government were well aware of sanctions being broken, he said.

Central to this relationship, he added, was French arms company Thompson CSF -- today Thales -- which documentary evidence showed met with PW Botha's minister of defence to co-develop sophisticated missile technology for use in apartheid South Africa's warmongering locally and abroad.

Demonstrating just how far into the present dodgy relations continued, Van Vuuren highlighted that the same company, Thales, is implicated in paying bribes to now President Jacob Zuma through his financial adviser (and now convicted fraudster) Schabir Shaik.

"These are the 783 counts of corruption, fraud and money laundering [Zuma] currently faces today," he said.

The two faces of the international community

The story of the apartheid government's circumvention of sanctions, however, was more than just a French love affair with the Broederbond.

More than 50 countries were involved in sanctions-busting in one way or another, he said. Most notably, every single country on the United Nation's Security Council -- those very nations tasked with policing the sanctions that were imposed -- were all involved to some extent, he said.

Others included many countries across Europe and, notably, Israel. Armscor, he said, created offices in Tel Aviv which was "active in ensuring the relationship with Israel in the procurement and co-development of weapons could take place with a large contingent of officials based there".

Many of these nations, he said, voiced public opposition to apartheid while secretly adding fuel to the fire.

How to bankroll a bloody regime

Another key player, this time a bank, was Kredietbank in Belgium and its Luxembourg subsidiary.

Professor Bonita Meyersfeld, an academic and former director of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at Wits, reiterated the bank's role in aiding Armscor: firstly, through creating shell companies to help erase the trail of money and, secondly, in creating access to bank accounts.

Through accounts managed by the bank, money to purchase arms could be transferred from Pretoria to the ultimate recipients without raising any alarms. More simply, by setting up fake companies and chanelling money through them, the apartheid regime was able to oil its military machine without let or hindrance.

"Countries such as Belgium, France, Portugal and others were able to utilise private entities to enter into engagements with banks that very elegantly set up these shelf companies," she said.

"There'd be hundreds of these across the world where a corporate actor in the Global North would take funds, channel them through shelf companies and money would land up in SA which then went to Armscor (and vice versa)".

"These are not just AK47s -- an image incalcated in films -- but parts of machine guns, helipcopters, parts used to maintain and facilitate this crime against humanity," she said.

Like a spy novel, though, they occurred in the back rooms of the very embassies that stood against apartheid, she said.
Why does this matter today?

In detailing the secret flow of money for arms, Meyersfeld said the purpose is to shine a light on the fact that there remains an urgent need to create a global body to regulate the conduct of banks.

"The reality is there is no international entity that can hold banks to account for their compliance or their non-compliance with standards around international banking, and more importantly for the participation in criminal activity," she said.

Despite the "accountability vacuum," one option she said was to use the OECD National Contact Point (NCP) which hears complaints from individuals who claim corporations are guilty of human rights violations. OECD countries adhering to guidelines on multinational corporations are required to setup NCPs which provide a mediation and conciliation platform for resolving issues involving those companies, she said.

While no silver bullet, this would be one currently available option for "some semblance of accountability" in relation to Kredietbank, she said. Reputation damage, she said, could ultimately result in operations closing or at the least spark efforts at reparations in the absence of a global entity with real teeth.

Insisting on the necessity of global institutions or mechanisms to ensure justice, Meyersfeld said corporations had gotten off scot-free for too long.

"They may not hold the gun to the mineworker at the mine, but they are the ones providing the funds to do this," she said.

When they do, she added, corporate social responsibility projects in response are not enough:

"Corporates can be the agent of harm and the agent of good. But you can't bomb an economy, then build a school".

Source: Marc Davies - Huffington Post

The Secret of the Seven Sisters

On August 28, 1928, in the Scottish highlands, began the secret story of oil.

Three men had an appointment at Achnacarry Castle - a Dutchman, an American and an Englishman.

The Dutchman was Henry Deterding, a man nicknamed the Napoleon of Oil, having exploited a find in Sumatra. He joined forces with a rich ship owner and painted Shell salesman and together the two men founded Royal Dutch Shell.

The American was Walter C. Teagle and he represents the Standard Oil Company, founded by John D. Rockefeller at the age of 31 - the future Exxon. Oil wells, transport, refining and distribution of oil - everything is controlled by Standard oil.

The Englishman, Sir John Cadman, was the director of the Anglo-Persian oil Company, soon to become BP. On the initiative of a young Winston Churchill, the British government had taken a stake in BP and the Royal Navy switched its fuel from coal to oil. With fuel-hungry ships, planes and tanks, oil became "the blood of every battle".

The new automobile industry was developing fast, and the Ford T was selling by the million. The world was thirsty for oil, and companies were waging a merciless contest but the competition was making the market unstable.

That August night, the three men decided to stop fighting and to start sharing out the world's oil. Their vision was that production zones, transport costs, sales prices - everything would be agreed and shared. And so began a great cartel, whose purpose was to dominate the world, by controlling its oil.

Four others soon joined them, and they came to be known as the Seven Sisters - the biggest oil companies in the world.

EPISODE 1: DESERT STORMS

In the first episode, we travel across the Middle East, through both time and space.

We waged the Iran-Iraq war and I say we waged it, because one country had to be used to destroy the other.
- Xavier Houzel, an oil trader

Since that notorious meeting at Achnacarry Castle on August 28, 1928, they have never ceased to plot, to plan and to scheme.

Throughout the region's modern history, since the discovery of oil, the Seven Sisters have sought to control the balance of power.

They have supported monarchies in Iran and Saudi Arabia, opposed the creation of OPEC, profiting from the Iran-Iraq war, leading to the ultimate destruction of Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

The Seven Sisters were always present, and almost always came out on top.

EPISODE 2: THE BLACK EL DORADO

At the end of the 1960s, the Seven Sisters, the major oil companies, controlled 85 percent of the world's oil reserves. Today, they control just 10 percent.

New hunting grounds are therefore required, and the Sisters have turned their gaze towards Africa. With peak oil, wars in the Middle East, and the rise in crude prices, Africa is the oil companies' new battleground.

Everybody thought there could be oil in Sudan but nobody knew anything. It was revealed through exploration by the American company Chevron, towards the end of the 70s. And that was the beginning of the second civil war, which went on until 2002. It lasted for 19 years and cost a million and a half lives and the oil business was at the heart of it.

- Gerard Prunier, a historian

But the real story, the secret story of oil, begins far from Africa.

In their bid to dominate Africa, the Sisters installed a king in Libya, a dictator in Gabon, fought the nationalisation of oil resources in Algeria, and through corruption, war and assassinations, brought Nigeria to its knees.

Oil may be flowing into the holds of huge tankers, but in Lagos, petrol shortages are chronic.

The country's four refineries are obsolete and the continent's main oil exporter is forced to import refined petrol - a paradox that reaps fortunes for a handful of oil companies.

Encouraged by the companies, corruption has become a system of government - some $50bn are estimated to have 'disappeared' out of the $350bn received since independence.

But new players have now joined the great oil game.

China, with its growing appetite for energy, has found new friends in Sudan, and the Chinese builders have moved in. Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir is proud of his co-operation with China - a dam on the Nile, roads, and stadiums.

In order to export 500,000 barrels of oil a day from the oil fields in the South - China financed and built the Heglig pipeline connected to Port Sudan - now South Sudan's precious oil is shipped through North Sudan to Chinese ports.

In a bid to secure oil supplies out of Libya, the US, the UK and the Seven Sisters made peace with the once shunned Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, until he was killed during the Libyan uprising of 2011, but the flow of Libyan oil remains uninterrupted.

In need of funds for rebuilding, Libya is now back to pumping more than a million barrels of oil per day. And the Sisters are happy to oblige.

EPISODE 3: THE DANCING BEAR

In the Caucasus, the US and Russia are vying for control of the region. The great oil game is in full swing. Whoever controls the Caucasus and its roads, controls the transport of oil from the Caspian Sea.

Tbilisi, Erevan and Baku - the three capitals of the Caucasus. The oil from Baku in Azerbaijan is a strategic priority
for all the major companies.

From the fortunes of the Nobel family to the Russian revolution, to World War II, oil from the Caucasus and the Caspian has played a central role. Lenin fixated on conquering the Azeri capital Baku for its oil, as did Stalin and Hitler.

On his birthday in 1941, Adolf Hitler received a chocolate and cream birthday cake, representing a map. He chose the slice with Baku on it.

On June 22nd 1941, the armies of the Third Reich invaded Russia. The crucial battle of Stalingrad was the key to the road to the Caucasus and Baku’s oil, and would decide the outcome of the war.

Stalin told his troops: "Fighting for one’s oil is fighting for one’s freedom."

After World War II, President Nikita Krushchev would build the Soviet empire and its Red Army with revenues from the USSR’s new-found oil reserves.

Decades later, oil would bring that empire to its knees, when Saudi Arabia and the US would conspire to open up the oil taps, flood the markets, and bring the price of oil down to $13 per barrel. Russian oligarchs would take up the oil mantle, only to be put in their place by their president, Vladimir Putin, who knows that oil is power.

The US and Putin‘s Russia would prop up despots, and exploit regional conflicts to maintain a grip on the oil fields of the Caucusus and the Caspian.

But they would not have counted on the rise of a new, strong and hungry China, with an almost limitless appetite for oil and energy. Today, the US, Russia and China contest the control of the former USSR’s fossil fuel reserves, and the supply routes. A three-handed match, with the world as spectators, between three ferocious beasts – The American eagle, the Russian bear, and the Chinese dragon.

EPISODE 4: A TIME FOR LIES

Peak oil – the point in time at which the highest rate of oil extraction has been reached, and after which world production will start decline. Many geologists and the International Energy Agency say the world's crude oil output reached its peak in 2006.

But while there may be less oil coming out of the ground, the demand for it is definitely on the rise.

The final episode of this series explores what happens when oil becomes more and more inaccessible, while at the same time, new powers like China and India try to fulfill their growing energy needs.

And countries like Iran, while suffering international sanctions, have welcomed these new oil buyers, who put business ahead of lectures on human rights and nuclear ambitions.

At the same time, oil-producing countries have had enough with the Seven Sisters controlling their oil assets. Nationalisation of oil reserves around the world has ushered in a new generation of oil companies all vying for a slice of the oil pie.

These are the new Seven Sisters:

Saudi Arabia's Saudi Aramco, the largest and most sophisticated oil company in the world; Russia's Gazprom, a company that Russia's President Vladimir Putin wrested away from the oligarchs; The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), which, along with its subsidiary, Petrochina, is the world's secnd largest company in terms of market value; The National Iranian Oil Company, which has a monopoly on exploration, extraction, transportation and exportation of crude oil in Iran – OPEC's second largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia; Venezuela's PDVSA, a company the late president Hugo Chavez dismantled and rebuilt into his country's economic engine and part of his diplomatic arsenal; Brazil's Petrobras, a leader in deep water oil production, that pumps out 2 million barrels of crude oil a day; and Malaysia's Petronas - Asia's most profitable company in 2012.

Mainly state-owned, the new Seven Sisters control a third of the world's oil and gas production, and more than a third of the world's reserves. The old Seven Sisters, by comparison, produce a tenth of the world's oil, and control only three percent of the reserves.

The balance has shifted.

Source: Al Jazeera

WORLD: An interview with Noam Chomsky — Nothing can justify torture

Professor Noam Chomsky is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was educated at the University of Philadelphia and at Harvard University as a Harvard Junior Fellow. He earned his PhD in Linguistics from the University of Philadelphia in 1955. He has spent the 57 years since then teaching at MIT. In addition to his academic work in linguistics, Professor Chomsky has been a noted political activist and philosopher, gaining national recognition in 1967 over his opposition to the Vietnam War and since then has regularly spoken out against US foreign and domestic policies and mainstream American mass media. Between his academic career and his work as a political activist and dissident, he has published over 100 books. Here with Eric Bailey and on the eve of the 2012 US presidential election, he discusses America’s human rights record under the administration of President Obama and the military intervention policies that have seen increased use during the Arab Spring. Prof. Chomsky recently communicated with Eric Bailey of Torture Magazine.

EB: The US presidential elections are almost upon us and the last four years have seen significant changes in American Federal policy in regards to human rights. One of the few examples of cooperation between the Democratic and Republican Parties over the last four years has been the passing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012. This bill has given the United States military the power to arrest American citizens, indefinitely, without charge, trial, or any other form of due process of law and the Obama Administration has and continues to fight a legal battle in Federal Court to prevent that law from being declared unconstitutional. Obama authorized the assassination of three American citizens, including Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16 year old son, admittedly all members of Al Qaeda, – all without judicial review. Additionally, the Guantanamo Bay prison remains open, the Patriot Act has been extended, and the TSA has expanded at breakneck speeds. What is your take on America’s human rights record over the past four years and can you contrast Obama’s policies with those of his predecessor, George W. Bush?

NC: Obama’s policies have been approximately the same as Bush’s, though there have been some slight differences, but that’s not a great surprise. The Democrats supported Bush’s policies. There were some objections on mostly partisan grounds, but for the most part, they supported his policies and it’s not surprising that they have continued to do so. In some respects Obama has gone even beyond Bush. The NDAA, which you mentioned, was not initiated by Obama, (when it passed Congress, he said he didn’t approve of it and wouldn’t implement it) but he nevertheless did sign it into law and did not veto it. It was pushed through by hawks, including Joe Lieberman and others. In fact, there hasn’t been that much of a change. The worst part of the NDAA is that it codified – or put into law – what had already been a regular practice. The practices hadn’t been significantly different. The one part that received public attention is what you mentioned, the part that permits the indefinite detention of American citizens, but why permit the indefinite detention of anybody? It’s a gross violation of fundamental human rights and civil law, going all the way back to the Magna Carta in the 13th  Century, so it’s a very severe attack on elementary civil rights, both under Bush and under Obama. It’s bipartisan!

As for the killings, Obama has sharply increased the global assassination campaign. While it was initiated by Bush, it has expanded under Obama and it has included American citizens, again with bipartisan support and very little criticism other than some minor criticism because it was an American. But then again, why should you have the right to assassinate anybody? For example, suppose Iran was assassinating members of Congress who were calling for an attack on Iran. Would we think that’s fine? That would be much more justified, but of course we’d see that as an act of war. The real question is, why assassinate anyone? The government has made it very clear that the assassinations are personally approved by Obama and the criteria for assassination are very weak. If a group of men are seen somewhere by a drone who are, say, loading something into a truck, and there is some suspicion that maybe they are militants, then it’s fine to kill them and they are regarded as guilty unless, subsequently, they are shown to be innocent. That’s the wording that the United States used and it is such a gross violation of fundamental human rights that you can hardly talk about it.

The question of due process actually did arise, since the US does have a constitution and it says that no person shall be deprived of their rights without due process of law – again, this goes back to 13th Century England – so the question arose, “What about due process?” The Obama Justice Department’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, explained that there was due process in these cases because they are discussed first at the Executive Branch. That’s not even a bad joke! The British kings from the 13th Century would have applauded. “Sure, if we talk about it, that’s due process.” And that, again, passed without controversy.

In fact, we might ask the same question about the murder of Osama Bin Laden. Notice I use the term “murder”. When heavily armed elite troops capture a suspect, unarmed and defenseless, accompanied by his wives, and then shoot him, kill him, and dump his body into the ocean without an autopsy, that’s shear assassination. Also notice that I said “suspect”. The reason is because of another principle of law, that also goes back to the 13th Century – that a man is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Before that, he’s a suspect. In the case of Osama Bin Laden, the United States had never formally charged him with 9/11 and part of the reason was that they didn’t know that he was responsible. In fact, eight months after 9/11 and after the most intensive inquiry in history, the FBI explained that it suspected that the 9/11 plot was hatched in Afghanistan, (didn’t mention Bin Laden) and was implemented in the United Arab Emirates, Germany, and of course the United States. That’s eight months after the attack and there’s nothing substantive that they’ve learned since then that does more than increase the suspicion. My own assumption is that the suspicion is almost certainly correct, but there’s a big difference between having a very confident belief and showing someone to be guilty. And even if he’s guilty, he was supposed to be apprehended and brought before a court. That’s British and American law going back eight centuries. He’s not supposed to be murdered and have his body dumped without an autopsy, but support for this is very nearly universal. Actually, I wrote one of the few critical articles on it and my article was bitterly condemned by commentators across the spectrum, including the Left, because the assassination was so obviously just, since we suspected him of committing a crime against us. And that tells you something about the significant, I would say, “moral degeneration” running throughout the whole intellectual class. And yes, Obama has continued this and in some respects extended it, but it hardly comes as a surprise.
The rot is much deeper than that.

EB: It has been just over 10 years since the publication of the Bush Administration’s “Torture Memos”. These memos provided a legal justification for the torture of detainees held by the CIA in connection with the “War on Terror.” The contents of the memos are chilling and have created new debate on torture internationally. Despite all of the promises given by President Obama to close those illegal detention centers, it seems that “black site” activities still occur. What are your views on these detention centers and CIA torture? Also, what do you think about Obama’s promise of CIA reforms in 2008 and how has the reality of his presidency stacked up to those promises?

NC: There have been some presidential orders expressing disapproval of the most extreme forms of torture, but Bagram remains open and uninspected. That’s probably the worst in Afghanistan. Guantanamo is still open, but it’s unlikely that serious torture is going on at Guantanamo. There is just too much inspection. There are military lawyers present and evidence regularly coming out so I suspect that that’s not a torture chamber any more, but it still is an illegal detention chamber, and Bagram and who knows how many others are still functioning. Rendition doesn’t seem to be continuing at the level that it did, but it has been until very recently.

Rendition is just sending people abroad to be tortured. Actually, that’s barred as well by the Magna Carta – the foundation of Anglo-American law. It’s explicitly barred to send somebody across the seas to be punished and tortured. It’s not just done by the United States, either. It’s done all over Western Europe. Britain has participated in it. Sweden has participated. It’s one of the reasons for a lot of the concerns about extraditing Julian Assange to Sweden. Canada has been implicated as was Ireland, but to Ireland’s credit it was one of the few places where there was mass popular protests against allowing the Shannon Airport to be used for CIA rendition. In most countries there has been very little protest or not a word. I don’t know of any recent cases so maybe that policy is no longer being implemented, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was still in effect.

EB: Moving beyond the US, the Middle East has always been rife with human rights abuses, but the turmoil of the Arab Spring has intensified such abuses in many countries. While the dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt were toppled without resorting to civil war, countries like Libya, Syria, and Yemen have seen heavy fighting. For America and NATO’s part, there has been yet another military intervention with the Libyan Civil War and only the stubbornness of Russia and China have prevented a similar  ntervention in Syria. In both cases, rebel forces have asked, even begged, for American and European help in their war efforts, but have proven to be absolutely uninterested in negotiated settlements with their dictatorial adversaries, even when outside help is not forthcoming. What is your take on military interventions, both the intervention that did occur in Libya and the one that is being called for in Syria?  Is it morally justifiable to send Texans and Louisianans into harm’s way to fight in the internal conflicts of Libyans and Syrians? Conversely, can refusing to intervene be justified when entire cities, such as Misrata, Benghazi, Aleppo, and Homs were or are being threatened with utter destruction and tens of thousands of civilians are being killed?

NC: Well, let’s start with Syria. The one thing I disagree with in what you said is that I doubt very much that Russia and China had anything to do with the lack of US or Western military intervention in Syria. In fact my strong suspicion is that the United States, Britain, and France welcomed the Russian veto because that gave them a pretext not to do anything. Now they can say, “How can we do anything? The Russians and the Chinese have vetoed it!” In fact, if they wanted to intervene, they wouldn’t have cared one way or the other about a Russian or Chinese veto. That’s perfectly obvious from history, but they didn’t want to intervene and they don’t want to intervene now. The military and intelligence strategic command centers are just strongly opposed to it. Some oppose it for technical, military, reasons and others because they don’t see anyone they can support in their interests. They don’t particularly like Assad, although he was more or less conformed to US and Israeli interests, but they don’t like the opposition either, especially their Islamist elements, so they just prefer to stay on the side lines. It’s kind of interesting that Israel doesn’t do anything. They wouldn’t have to do much. Israel could easily  obilize forces in the Golan Heights (Syrian territory that Israel illegally annexed). They could mobilize forces there, which are only about 40 miles from Damascus, which would compel Assad to send military forces to the border,  drawing them away from areas where the rebels are operating. So that would be direct  support for the rebels, but without firing a shot and without moving across the border.

But there is no talk of it and I think what that indicates is that Israel, the United States, and their allies just don’t want to take moves that will undermine the regime, just out of self-interest. There is no humanitarian interest involved.

As far as Libya is concerned, we have to be a little cautious, because there were two interventions in Libya. The first one was under the auspices of the United Nations. That’s UN Resolution 1973. That resolution called for a no-fly zone, a ceasefire, and the start of negotiations and diplomacy.

EB: That was the intervention for which the justification was claimed to be the prevention of the destruction of Benghazi?

NC: Well, we don’t know if Benghazi was going to be destroyed, but it was called to prevent a possible attack on Benghazi. You can debate how likely the attack was, but personally, I felt that was legitimate – to try to stop a possible atrocity. However, that intervention lasted about five minutes. Almost immediately, the NATO powers (France and Britain in the lead and the United States following) violated the resolution, radically, and became the air force of the rebels. Nothing in the resolution justified that. It did call for “all necessary steps” to protect civilians, but there’s a big difference between protecting civilians and being the air force for the rebels.

Maybe we should have been in favor of the rebelling forces. That’s a separate question, but this was pretty clearly in violation of the resolution. It certainly wasn’t done for a lack of alternative options. Gaddafi offered a ceasefire. Whether he meant it or not, nobody knows, because it was at once rejected.

Incidentally, this pact was strongly opposed by most of the world. There was virtually no support for it. The African Union (Libya is, after all, an African country) strongly opposed it, right away, called for a ceasefire, and even suggested the introduction of African Union forces to try and reduce the conflict.

The BRICS countries, the most important of the developing countries, (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) happened to be having a conference at the time and they strongly opposed the NATO intervention and called for moves towards diplomacy, negotiations, and a ceasefire. Egypt, next door, didn’t participate. Within NATO, Germany refused to participate. Italy refused too, in the beginning, though later they joined the intervention. Turkey held back. Later on they joined, but initially they opposed intervention. Generally speaking, it was almost unilateral. It was the traditional imperial powers (France, Britain, and the United States) which intervened.

In fact it did lead to a humanitarian catastrophe. Maybe it would have happened anyway, but it certainly led to that, especially in the end with the attacks on BaniWalid and Sirte, the last pro-Gadaffi holdouts. They are the main center of Libya’s largest tribe, the Warfalla tribe. Libya is a highly divided tribal society, they are a major tribe, and this was their home center. Many of them were pretty bitter about that. Could it have been resolved through diplomacy and negotiations the way the African Union and BRICS countries suggested? We don’t know.

It’s also worthy of note that the International Crisis Group, which is the main, non-state element that deals with continuing conflicts and crises throughout the world, and is very  highly respected, opposed intervention too. They strongly supported negotiations and diplomacy. However, the African Union and others’ positions were barely reported on in the West. Who cares what they say? In fact, if they were reported on at all, they were disparaged on the grounds that these countries had had close relations with Gaddafi. In fact, they did, but so did Britain and the United States, right to the end.

In any event, the intervention did take place and now one hopes for the best, but it’s not a very pretty picture. You can read an account of it in the current issue of the London Review of Books by Hugh Roberts, who was, at the time, the North African Director of the International Crisis Group and a specialist on the region. He opposed the intervention and described the outcome as pretty hopeless chaos that is undercutting the hopes for an eventual rise of a sort of sensible, democratic, nationalism.

So that wasn’t very pretty, but what about the other countries? Well, the countries that are most significant to the United States and the West, generally, are the oil dictatorships and they remain very stable. There were efforts to try and join the Arab Spring, but they were crushed, very harshly, with not a word from the Western powers. Sometimes it was quite violent, as in eastern Saudi Arabia and in Bahrain, which were Shiite areas, mostly, but it resulted in at most a tap on the wrist by the Western Powers. They clearly wanted the oil dictatorships to remain. That’s the center of their power.

In Tunisia, which had mostly French influence, the French supported the dictatorship until the very end. In fact, they were still supporting it after demonstrations were sweeping the country. Finally, at the last second, they conceded that their favorite dictator had to go. In Egypt, where the United States and Britain were the main influences, it was the same. Obama supported the dictator Mubarak until virtually the last minute – until the army turned against him. It became impossible to support him anymore so they urged him to leave and make a transition to a similar system.

All of that is quite routine. That’s the standard operating procedure for dealing with a situation where your favorite dictator is getting into trouble. There is case after case like that. What you do in that case is support the dictator to the very end, regardless of how vicious and bloody the he is. Then when it becomes impossible, say because the army or the business classes have turned against him, then ease him out somewhere, (sometimes with half the government’s treasury in his pocket) declare your love for democracy, and try to restore the old system. That’s pretty much what’s happening in Egypt.

Source: The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)

The euro bailouts and the crisis of democracy in Europe

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said Monday that Europe would fall apart “if governments are completely bound by the decisions of their parliaments.” Every government has “a duty to educate the parliament,” he added in an interview with the news magazine Der Spiegel.

Monti’s statement amounts to an admission that the numerous bank bailouts organized to rescue the euro in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, and the austerity programs launched to make the working class pay for them, have strained European bourgeois democracy to the breaking point. The responsibility of the government to parliament, and parliament’s control over the government—which Monti is questioning—is a basic principle of parliamentary democracy.

Monti attacks parliament, but his real target is the working class. For the vast majority of the population, it has already become impossible to influence politics through the ballot box. Major political decisions are made ​​by the financial markets and their henchmen in Brussels, Berlin and the other European capitals.

In the recent elections in Greece and France, parties that appeared to promise an end to, or at least a moderation of, brutal social cuts received broad popular support. In France, the Socialist Party won the presidential election for the first time since 1988. In Greece, the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) emerged as the second largest party. But nothing has changed.

The new French president, François Hollande, is continuing the anti-working class policies of his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, offering no opposition to mass layoffs in the auto industry. In Greece, Syriza has assumed the role of loyal opposition, while the government coalition of the conservative New Democracy, social democratic PASOK and Democratic Left is imposing even more brutal austerity measures.

Monti gave his interview after a week in which anti-worker austerity measures were intensified throughout Europe. The Greek government has decided on further cuts of €11.5 billion, which will deepen the suffering of already devastated workers and pensioners. The Spanish government has increased its previous deficit-reduction target by 60 percent and now aims to cut the massive sum of €102 billion from the budget, throwing the country back to the poverty of the Franco era.

The European Central Bank has decided to support countries—through the purchase of government bonds—only if they have previously made an application to the European emergency aid fund and submitted to EU-dictated austerity measures.

This is provoking widespread opposition. In Spain, hundreds of thousands took to the streets against the government's austerity measures. The trade unions are finding it increasingly difficult to keep this anger under control. Neither in Spain nor Greece, nor in any other European country, are the workers willing to accept the destruction of all their gains without a fight.

Under these circumstances, Monti’s comment underscores the basic class agenda of the European bourgeoisie: to press ahead with the policies of the banks, whatever the outcome of elections or the size of street protests and strikes against austerity measures.

Monti knows well that the social counterrevolution demanded by the international financial markets is incompatible with democratic methods. He leads a government of technocrats that has no democratic legitimacy. Monti—an economics professor, advisor to Goldman Sachs and member of several conservative think tanks (Bruegel, Bilderberg Conference, Trilateral Commission)—is a trusted representative of international finance capital. At its behest, he succeeded the Berlusconi government last November without the holding of an election because Berlusconi had failed to cut the budget quickly and deeply enough.

Since then, the Monti government has systematically attacked the social gains and rights won by Italian workers since the fall of the fascist dictatorship of Mussolini at the end of World War II. It has reduced pensions, increased consumption taxes and eliminated legal protections against dismissal and other social rights.

Political conclusions must be drawn from Monti's statement that the break-up of Europe can be prevented only if governments repudiate democratic procedures. The working class cannot defend its rights and social gains within the reactionary framework of the European Union.

The views of Monti’s immediate opponents on European financial policy—German politicians who have criticized his remarks as an attempt to “weaken democratic legitimation,” in the words of Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle—are equally hypocritical and reactionary. Berlin has consistently sought to impose devastating cuts, notably on the Greek government, in total defiance of popular opinion in Greece and other European countries. It has, moreover, led the campaign to establish a de facto EU dictatorship over the fiscal policies of euro zone governments.

This underscores that the EU, as a whole, is an instrument for the subjugation of Europe to the dictatorship of competing cliques of finance capital. It can be neither reformed nor pushed to change course by protests and negotiations.

Only the independent mobilization of the working class based on the perspective of the United Socialist States of Europe can halt these attacks. The World Socialist Web Site calls for the abolition of the European Union and its institutions, and links this demand with an international socialist programme.

We fight for the unity of the European and international working class. The workers in Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Britain must take up the struggle for the overthrow of Monti, Merkel, Hollande, Rajoy and Cameron and establish workers' governments to expropriate the wealth of the super-rich, the banks and big business and reorganize the economy to serve society as a whole, not the profit interests of the financial aristocracy.

World Socialist Web Site

Exodus 1947

After World War II, a group of private American citizens banded together in a clandestine effort to transport Holocaust survivors to Palestine.

On July 11, 1947, in the port of Sête, France, 4,500 Jewish refugees were crammed into the hull of a decrepit steamship, later named Exodus 1947.

A British blockade intercepted Exodus 1947 in international waters off the coast of Palestine. The tense standoff culminated in a direct attack by military personnel against the unarmed civilians on the Exodus 1947. This highly publicized international incident heavily influenced the United Nations resolution authorizing the partitioning of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. Thus, the Exodus 1947 voyage acted as a catalyst in forming a new nation.

Source: Exodus 1947

Global Media Watchdog Names Enemies of Internet

PARIS (AP) — The Arab Spring is changing the face of Internet freedom, according to Reporters Without Borders, which released its latest “Enemies of the Internet” list Monday. The annual report classifies as “enemies” countries that severely curtail freedom of expression on and access to the Web. It also draws up a list of states “under surveillance. The group added Bahrain to its enemies list, citing a news blackout and harassment of bloggers in an attempt to quell a yearlong Shiite-led rebellion against the Sunni monarchy. The country had previously been under surveillance.

“Bahrain offers a perfect example of successful crackdowns, with an information blackout achieved through an impressive arsenal of repressive measures: exclusion of the foreign media, harassment of human rights defenders, arrests of bloggers and netizens (one of whom died behind bars), prosecutions and defamation campaigns against free expression activists, disruption of communications,” the Paris-based group’s report said.

But the Arab Spring – the name given to a cascade of revolts across the Arab world – has also led to the opening up of some regimes. Libya, where the repressive rule of Moammar Gadhafi was thrown off in a violent revolt, was removed from the list of countries under surveillance.

“In Libya, many challenges remain but the overthrow of the Gadhafi regime has ended an era of censorship,” the report said.

The group said that the Arab Spring had also highlighted the importance of the Internet – and therefore the importance of protecting access to and expression on it.

“The Internet and social networks have been conclusively established as tools for protest, campaigning and circulating information, and as vehicles for freedom,” the group said. “More than ever before, online freedom of expression is now a major foreign and domestic policy issue.”

The enemies list contains countries that are well known for blocking Internet content, like China, Myanmar and North Korea. But the list of those under surveillance contains some surprises like Australia and France.

Reporters Without Borders criticized Australia for persuading Internet service providers to create a national content-filtering system, which blocks access to child pornography sites and others deemed inappropriate. The group is concerned that the government is still also pursuing a system of mandatory content-filtering whose criteria are “very broad.”

France landed on the surveillance list last year for a series of criminal indictments of journalists for stories they wrote. It remains on the list this year because of a law that could punish people who repeatedly illegally download content by cutting off their Internet access.

Source: Time

Norway to speak for SA as Zuma boycotts Libya meeting

South Africa and Norway came closer to mending the gap between the two countries on their different stances on Libya, with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg undertaking to carry the South African and the African Union (AU) message to a meeting of world leaders in Paris on how to restore normality to Libya. President Jacob Zuma, who is on a state visit to Norway, turned down an invite to Paris, where French President Nicholas Sarkozy is hosting the meeting to discuss Libya's future from Thursday.

Norway formally recognised the National Transitional Council (NTC) as the "legitimate governing authority" of Libya two weeks ago. In a strictly managed press conference in the Norwegian capital of Oslo on Thursday morning, Zuma told journalists that South Africa and Norway were "finding each other" on Libya. "We are coming together on what should happen," he said. "In Libya, because of its unique circumstances, we're calling for an inclusive government. We agree on that but we also agree that that process must not be taken away from the UN [United Nations]. It is a UN process and the AU must support it,' said Zuma. He declined an invitation to the Paris meeting mainly because of South Africa's unhappiness with the Nato bombings in the country. Without naming the countries, but generally understood to be referring to France and Britain, who led the military strikes, Zuma blamed leaders of the West for not respecting the AU's road map on Libya. The AU had already taken its resolution for a peaceful solution when the UN followed with its own, disregarding the African leaders' process, he said. Even then, South Africa cooperated. "When the Libyan question emerged we were all together, we were part of the UN resolution, but that resolution was interpreted differently. We had individual countries, too many people, taking over the process". Now that the NTC [the rebel's national transitional council] has taken over a large part of Libya, the UN must take the process. We can't have individual countries taking over the process," said Zuma.

The bombing of Libya did not tally with the requirements of the UN's resolution to protect civilians, Zuma said. "If any measure of military would be used, it was to help to protect expats, as we understood it. Instead of protecting people it became the bombing [and] a cover for the other group [the rebels] to advance". Libya's rebels succeeded in taking over much of Libya largely because of a backing by Nato air strikes. On their own, the situation could have been different for the NTC.

Norway seemed convinced. Stoltenberg told the media that Zuma's views were "interesting" because he was "so close to developments in Libya and Africa". Stoltenberg agreed that the military intervention in Libya created unnecessary tension and blocked the way for what could have been a peaceful settlement, but the Norwegian Prime Minister expressed a wish to bury the hatchet on the matter. "The use of military force is always controversial, but now is not the time to discuss what could have happened if we did things differently. It is time to move on. That is the only way we can help build a democratic country that can respect human rights," said Stoltenberg, who encouraged cooperation between the UN and the AU.

Delegates from 60 countries are taking part in the Libyan talks in Paris, with the world eager to hear the NTC's plans for the north African country and if the rebel group can live up to the expectations of a new democratic Libya that respects human rights. The NTC expressed its wish to hold elections within 18 months.

Zuma is leading a delegation of government ministers and about 50 business representatives on a state visit to Norway that seeks to strengthen trade relations with one of Europe's smaller, but wealthy nations.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Libya and the BRICS: Currency Wars, Imperial Wars and Popular Uprisings

On one side of the world NATO bombs Libya and on the other, the newly expanded BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) meet on the island of Hainan, off the south coast of China. Two seemingly unrelated events. But there are links and forces at play fuelling important new power contestations in the world.

Western bombs are raining down on Libya and a “no-fly zone” is being imposed after a United Nations (UN) Security Council resolution. At the UN, BRICS members, China and Brazil, abstained from voting (although South Africa voted for) but publicly criticised the idea of bombing Gaddafi’s forces.
The US is in decline as the power able to exert its authority over world affairs. At the same time we are seeing the rise of China – predicted to be the world’s largest economy within 10 to 20 years – having imperial ambitions, but racked with many internal contradictions. China is the single biggest holder of the US’ debt, in the form of federal bonds. Its rise is offset by its dependence on the US for its exports and on US companies that are its biggest foreign investors. Moreover, holding dollar-denominated US treasury bonds also means that China can't simply watch the dollar decline or risk a US bond default.
So China and the US are like two adversaries manacled together, taking wild pot shots at each other, but unable to strike the decisive blow. For some while now the US has been attacking the Chinese for what it calls a form of protectionism by keeping its currency, the Renminbi, allegedly, artificially low.
The November 2010 meeting of the G20 countries in Seoul was supposed to be an attempt at resolving the currency wars between the US and China. But in the midst of the G20 diplomacy and fine rhetoric about solving trade imbalances, the US decided to indulge in another round of quantitative easing – to the tune of US$600b – essentially a form of printing money by buying back bonds from private banks and then crediting their balance sheets with money.

If any other country were to print money in this way the consequences would be devastating in terms of inflation and the collapse of the currency in world markets. But the US’ currency is the world’s currency, so it doesn’t incur inflation, nor does anyone dump dollars because global trade is conducted in dollars. So the US can get away with it.

This certainly raised the hackles, not only of China, but also of Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa, who are all consequently attracting hot money from low US interest rates and quantitative easing, which overvalues their currencies and makes their exports more expensive.

At the BRICS meeting, President Zuma joined his counterparts in calling for greater independence from the dollar.

The BRICS meeting echoed comments made by the governor of the Chinese Central Bank in 2009, in the midst of the global financial crisis, that the dollar’s role, as the global reserve currency and medium of international trade was placing the world at risk, given the scale of the US’ debt and the fact that the crisis was centred on the US.

This is no mere arcane technical spat between economists. This is about economic clout and the political power that comes with having one’s currency both the global reserve currency and the medium of global exchange. The fight over the dollar is also a fight over who is to be the main political force in the 21st century, and who is the fulcrum around which all foreign policy matters of nation states will turn -- with all the implications for domestic issues.

So the currency wars have direct meaning for what our lives will be like in the next while.

Meanwhile the world’s attention is focussed on the Libyan crisis and the evil perpetrated by Muammar Gaddafi. Having armed Gaddafi, invested in his oil fields and welcomed him back into the fold of the “international community,” the US, Britain and France, are now arming his adversaries and bombing his air force in the name of a “humanitarian mission.”

All of this while there are people’s uprisings against dictators throughout North Africa and the Arab world in Yemen, Algeria, Syria and Bahrain (and, of course, the successful insurrections in Tunisia and Egypt).

So why are the US, Britain and France now supporting what they call “pro-democracy groups” in Libya, while taking the opposite stance in Bahrain and Yemen by arming the dictator’s forces, which are killing the pro-democracy forces in those countries?

And why did the BRICS countries take a different view on Libya to that of the West?

Maybe there is an additional explanation to the theory that this is about Libya’s oil. There appears to be a currency war at stake here as well.

Recently, US financial journalists, speaking to their investor community, have begun highlighting some little-reported developments in Libya. Several writers have noted the odd fact that the Libyan rebels took time out from their rebellion in March to create their own central bank. This before they even had a government.

Robert Wenzel wrote in the Economic Policy Journal, “I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising. This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences.”
In a statement, the Libyan rebels reported on the results of a meeting held on March 19. Among other things, the supposed “pro-democracy forces” announced the "designation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi."

US senior financial editor, John Carney, has asked, "Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power?  It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era."

Clearly there is something different about Libya.

Earlier in the twentieth century Libya was a colony of Italy. But Italy was a losing power in World War II and ceded power to Britain. Unlike Italian colonialism, Britain was happy to exercise power indirectly through a Libyan king -- King Idris, who ruled from 1949.

However, a wave of nationalism spread after World War II and Gamal Nasser and army officers seized power in Egypt in 1952 proclaiming themselves nationalists and Arab socialists. The region became notable for the clash between Arab nationalism and imperialist interests in the centre of the world’s oil reserves. So when a Libyan army officer – Muammar Gaddafi – seized power from King Idris in 1969 and proclaimed his movement as Arab socialist and pan-Africanist, he was immediately declared the enemy of the West.

Gaddafi, in return, ruled Libya through the army and through a system of alliances with tribal lords. Internationally, he manoeuvred to play competing imperial interests off against one another.
Inside Libya he combined the suppression of the people with claiming that he was merely a “brother leader” using the growing oil revenue to strengthen the Libyan army and establish a high standard of living for the Libyan middle classes. As a result, Libya has the highest human development index (HDI) in Africa and the fourth highest GDP per capita. Libya also has the 10th-largest oil reserves of any country in the world and the 17th-highest petroleum production.

And critically for current events, Gaddafi also set up a Libyan Central Bank that was 100% state-owned. That in itself was not so unusual, but what is unique amongst the major oil producers is the fact that the Libyan Central Bank is not a member of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) (the BIS is the international clearing house for global trade and conducts its transactions in dollars).

As a result, the Libyan government, up to now, could create its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank and insist that trade in oil must take place in its national currency (and not in dollars, as is the case with all the other major oil producers).

This has placed Libya in the same advantageous position as the US, who, as custodian of the global currency of trade, the dollar, can merely print money to expand its trade capacity without, as in the case of Zimbabwe, incurring disastrous inflationary consequences. In order to do business with Libya, banking cartels, oil barons and so on, have had to go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency.

So Gaddafi’s Libya was indeed special -- a small player, but suddenly a significant player given the global power plays over the dollar, as the world’s reserve currency and medium of exchange.
In the new Libya being crafted, the “pro-democracy forces” in Eastern Libya around Benghazi are being pulled into the West’s economic orbit in the currency wars, to the trepidation of China and her allies. This is an additional reason why the BRICS countries have been so critical of the West’s latest military adventure.

In this, South Africa’s precariousness in the imperial wars – with its BRICS allies in raging against the dollar, yet voting with the US to bomb Libya, heading an AU delegation to seek peace with Gaddafi and then being brushed aside by NATO – is so apparent.

But how did the initial stirrings of a people’s movement in Libya become something else?

When the Arab uprisings began in Tunisia and spread throughout North Africa and the Middle East many people in Libya also became inspired to confront Gaddafi’s tyranny. They gathered in the main square in Tripoli – the Green Square – defied Gaddafi, and called for democracy. From Tripoli the mood spread out to the South and East of the country.

But other forces were at play…Tribal leaders reading the shifting currents in the region and seeking to position themselves accordingly, old King Idris loyalists seeking to bring back the monarchy, and some of Gaddafi’s own lieutenants trying to guarantee their future careers by jumping ship to the West. Some of these began waving the old Kingdom of Libya flags.

All these forces have completely swamped the original movement, which began in Tripoli and today the “pro-democracy forces” are clearly these, rather than the original Libyan uprising. Tripoli is no longer a centre of rebellion and the whole thing has degenerated into a civil war where one side is being backed by Western special forces, NATO air strikes and arms supplied by whomsoever wants to swing events their way.

And what has been the priority of these forces?

To get the oil terminals at Benghazi to flow and to get a new Central Bank of Libya up and running.
Before the conflict has even ended, the Benghazi-based Transitional National Council (TNC), led by Mustafa Abdul Jalil, an ex-finance minister of Gaddafi, has already met with Sarkozy in France and attended the London meeting on Libya convened by Britain’s David Cameron. At the meeting, the TNC promised to respect all international treaties, including Libya joining the BIS, and guarantying private sector investment.

It is these anti-democracy opportunists who are calling for NATO air strikes and seeking the blessing of the West before the Libyan people can decide for themselves.

Libya is providing an opportunity for imperialism to both crush an old enemy and co-opt the Arab uprising, turning calls for independence, freedom and democracy into calls for independence for central banks, greater free markets and imperial domination.

But the world has changed. The Arab uprisings are themselves a sign that there are weak links in the imperialist chain.

The current capitalist crisis is of such proportions that the space to finance a major war, commit troops to occupation and administer such an occupation is severely limited. The US is already carrying the can for occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan and is simply incapable of sustaining another one at the time of its biggest debt. This is why Obama wants a UN/NATO coalition to share the political and economic cost of the war on Libya. And even within NATO, member country, Turkey, has its own domestic reasons for not wanting to be part of an attack on a Muslim country.

What is being played out are contestations within imperialism – largely between China and the US - on the one hand, and a new tide of popular rebellion against domination – a tide that began in Latin America over the last 10 years, but which has now exploded across North Africa and the Middle East - on the other. The key is the strength of the people on the ground in Yemen, Syria and even Saudi Arabia, but above all, in Tunisia and Egypt, where they are still directly engaged in determining the outcome of events.

Our world will be shaped by which social forces prove triumphant over the next few years.

Read more articles by Leonard Gentle.  Director of the International Labour and Research Information Group.

US, NATO allies join scramble for Libya’s oil

A US delegation arrived in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi Tuesday for talks with the Transitional National Council, the political arm of the so-called rebels fighting against the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

The visit follows the announcement Monday in Rome that the Italian government has recognized the council in Benghazi as the sole legitimate government of Libya. Italy is only the third nation to take this step, following recognition of the TNC by France and Qatar, the oil-rich Persian Gulf emirate.

In announcing the recognition, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini also stated that Paolo Scaroni, the chief executive of the Italian oil and gas company, ENI, had visited Benghazi two days earlier for talks with the TNC. The foreign ministry subsequently corrected his remarks, saying that he had held a telephone conference with the leadership of the Benghazi council.

The oil executive, Frattini said, “had contacts with the Libyan National Transitional Council to restart cooperation in the energy sector and get going again the collaboration with Italy in the oil sector.”

Last month, on the eve of the US, France and Britain launching their missile and bombing attacks on Libya, Scaroni had derided economic sanctions against the Gaddafi regime as “shooting ourselves in the foot” and stressed ENI’s desire to resume operations in the North African country “whatever political system there is in the future.” The company, which has been active in Libya since 1955, is the top foreign oil operator and the country’s largest foreign investor, having reached a $28 billion deal with the Libyan government in 2007 to extend its contracts for oil production until 2042.

ENI is extremely close to the Italian government. Its turn to the “rebels” may merely be a matter of the company hedging its bets. On the other hand, it could reflect insider knowledge as to US-NATO plans either to escalate the war or to effectively partition Libya, with eastern oil fields and facilities under the nominal control of the TNC.

The Italian recognition and ENI’s forging of ties to the Benghazi council came just a day before a Liberian-registered oil tanker, owned by a Greek shipping conglomerate, docked at the Libyan crude export terminal of Marsa el-Hariga, near Tobruk.

The tanker, the Equator, is capable of carrying 1 million barrels of crude, which would sell for over $100 million on the world market. Its shipment will represent the first export of oil from Libya since the country was plunged into civil war six weeks ago. The Greek shipping company carrying the oil has refused to say who is paying for it or where it is going.

There are reportedly three million barrels of crude stored at the terminal, which belongs to the Arab Gulf Oil Corporation (AGOCO), a subsidiary of Libya’s National Oil Corporation. The Transitional National Council has claimed that AGOCO’s fields in the east are producing up to 120,000 barrels a day, roughly one third of the output before the civil war broke out. Libya as a whole was producing 1.6 million barrels a day and exporting 1.3 million before the fighting.

Energy analysts are highly skeptical of these claims. As the business information company IHS noted, “the exodus of foreign skilled workers as well as most Libyan workers, who abandoned the country’s often remote desert oilfields in order not to either be caught out by fighting or left stranded as water and food supply chains broke down, this meant that production in AGOCO fields, as at all other fields in Libya, has fallen to almost zero.”

Nonetheless, the Benghazi council has announced its intention to sell what oil it has to fund its operations and to buy arms, with Qatar acting as a middleman in getting the oil onto the world market.

Asked about Qatar’s role, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Libya’s energy minister, Shukri Ghanem commented bitterly, “Rather than calling for unity and reconciliation, everyone would like to participate in the loot.”

Ghanem insisted that the priority should be a cease-fire and warned that continuation of the fighting could lead to the “strangling” of Libya’s oil industry.

Last week, the European Union’s foreign affairs representative, Catherine Ashton, stressed that “there is an oil embargo against the whole of Libya” which applied equally to areas held by the Gaddafi regime and those under control of the armed opposition.

Washington took the opposite position, insisting that so long as the money for the oil exports was not funneled into the state-owned National Oil Corporation, the exports from eastern Libya would be allowed.

The United Nations special envoy for Libya, Abdul Ilah al-Khatib, delivered a report to the Security Council April 4 in which he said that the council in Benghazi had “raised concerns about the lack of funds, as well as issues relating to the marketing and sale of oil and gas in Libya.” He also said that the council wanted to begin securing “loans guaranteed against oil and gas sales and [Libya’s] frozen overseas assets.”

By Tuesday, the EU reversed its position on the Libyan sanctions, with a foreign affairs spokesman insisting, “The oil and gas embargo is specifically targeted against the Gaddafi regime” and so long as revenues did not go to the government in Tripoli, “we have no issues with oil and gas commercial practices.”

The abrupt turnaround, combined with the discussions between the Italian oil giant ENI and the “rebels,” suggests that a scramble by the major Western powers and energy conglomerates for control of Libyan oil is well under way.

It is in this context that the visit to Benghazi by the US delegations—and by French and British ambassadors before it—is taking place. The US envoy, Chris Stevens, the former number-two official at the now-closed embassy in Tripoli, is to discuss, among other matters, “the financial needs of the council” and “how the international community can assist,” an administration official told the Associated Press. No doubt, such “assistance” will be tied to lucrative contracts for the American branch of Big Oil.

Washington, Paris and London had expected to secure unfettered control over Libyan oil by means of regime change, forcing the downfall of the Gaddafi regime. However, this task has proven more difficult and protracted than anticipated.

The “rebels” have been incapable of mobilizing forces able to defeat the military units loyal to Gaddafi. On Wednesday, they were once again driven out of Brega, site of an oil refinery and Mediterranean port, despite NATO air strikes early in the day that demolished vehicles used by the Gaddafi forces. The panicked retreat by the opposition forces took them at least 15 miles east toward Ajdabiya.

The new setbacks led to a protest by one of the commanders of the armed opposition that NATO was not supplying sufficient air cover. Abdel Fattah Younes, who was previously Gaddafi’s interior minister, condemned NATO for acting too slowly in delivering bombardments and warned, “Either NATO does its work properly or I will ask the national council to raise the matter with the Security Council.”

NATO rejected the complaint, insisting that it has maintained the same pace of operations since assuming nominal command of the Libyan intervention. “The pace of operations since NATO took over has not abated,” said a spokesman for the US-led alliance. “We have conducted 851 sorties in the past six days ... we are fulfilling our mandate.”

Meanwhile, Brigadier General Mark van Uhm, a senior NATO staff officer, said in Brussels, “The assessment is that we have taken out 30 percent of the military capacity of Gaddafi.”

Washington and NATO have claimed to be operating under the mandate of a UN Security Council resolution authorizing “all necessary measures” to protect civilians. But the obvious implication of van Uhm’s statement is that continuous bombardments have been carried out with the aim of obliterating Libya’s military and defending the so-called rebels.

This air war, however, has proven insufficient, given the US and NATO-backed opposition’s disorganization and lack of forces.

A report from Libya by Al Jazeera reveals that covert measures are being taken in an attempt to change this situation. Citing the testimony of a member of the armed opposition, the network reported that oppositionists are being trained at a secret facility in eastern Libya by both US and Egyptian special forces units.

The “rebel” also said that weapons are being funneled in across the Egyptian border, in violation of a UN arms embargo, including “state-of-the-art” heat-seeking missiles.

The report further exposes the lies told by the Obama administration. The US president has publicly assured the American people that there will be no “boots on the ground” in Libya, and that arming the “rebels” is something that has neither been ruled in or out. It is now evident that both have already taken place as Washington escalates the predatory war.

A poll released Tuesday pointed to rising popular opposition within the United States to the war launched by the Obama administration against Libya. Only 25 percent believed that the intervention is worth the nearly $600 million spent thus far on the US military action, according to the poll, conducted for The Hill. The same poll indicated only 19 percent support for arming the so-called rebels. A separate Quinnipiac University survey found that 47 percent of registered voters are against the war compared to 41 per cent who support it.

Source: World Socialist Web Site

Yemen instability poses a 'global threat'

Instability in Yemen is a global as well as regional threat, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said. She said the Yemeni government had to take measures to restore stability or risk losing Western support. The US embassy, closed after threats from a regional al-Qaeda offshoot, would reopen when "conditions permit". The UK and France have also shut their embassies.

Security at world airports has been tightened after the alleged jet bomb attack in Detroit last month. The suspect - a Nigerian - had allegedly been trained in Yemen. He has been charged in the US with trying to blow up the aircraft just before it was due to land at Detroit airport on 25 December. A number of countries have tightened security or suspended some operations at their embassies. US President Barack Obama has ordered a review into the Christmas Day incident. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) last week said it was behind the alleged plot to bomb the plane.

From Monday all travellers flying to America are being subjected to new security measures, introduced by the US government. Airport staff will now carry out extra screening of people from 14 countries, including those the US considers to be state-sponsors of terrorism - Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria. Yemen and Nigeria - through which the alleged bomber travelled - also face the new restrictions. Passengers flying from other countries will be checked at random. The Yemeni authorities have tightened security measures at Sanaa's airport, as well as around several other embassies.

The suspect had apparently been trained by al-Qaeda in Yemen, and his father had notified US officials of his extremist views. A preliminary investigation found that the state department complied with procedures about potential threats, but officials now had to decide whether those procedures themselves were appropriate, Mrs Clinton said. Threats in Yemen to US interests pre-dated the current holiday season, she said, reiterating advice to US citizens there to be vigilant.Speaking in Washington, Mrs Clinton said: "We see global implications from the war in Yemen and the ongoing efforts by al-Qaeda in Yemen to use it as a base for terrorist attacks far beyond the region."

The Yemeni government has a tribal rebellion and a secessionist movement to deal with, and has regarded al-Qaeda as a lesser priority, a BBC correspondent in Yemen says. "It's time for the international community to make it clear to Yemen that there are expectations and conditions on our continuing support for the government so that they can take actions which will have a better chance to provide that peace and stability to the people of Yemen and the region," Mrs Clinton said.

The US embassy was the target of an attack in September 2008 in which an American was killed. The attack was blamed on AQAP. Correspondents say the security situation in Yemen is complicated by an abundance of firearms, an insurgency in the north and a secessionist movement in the south. But the prospects of re-asserting central government authority over the lawless areas where al-Qaeda is based look, in the opinion of some analysts, remote - even with beefed-up American support.

Source: BBC

African Union imposes sanctions on Guinea junta

The African Union said on Thursday it was imposing immediate sanctions against the leaders of Guinea's ruling military junta, which took power in a coup last December after the death of veteran leader Lansana Conte. "These sanctions are targeted at the civilians and military personnel that are perpetuating these unconstitutional acts in Guinea," Lamamra Ramtane, AU commissioner for peace and security, told a meeting of the African body in Nigeria. "It is not intended to target the people of Guinea," he said, specifying the sanctions would include such measures as the freezing of bank accounts and travel visas rather than trade sanctions against the country. He said the measures would be directed against the leadership of the CNDD, the ruling junta in the West African country led by Captain Moussa Dadis Camara.

International pressure and internal dissent have grown in Guinea, the world's top supplier of bauxite, since live ammunition was used against anti-government protesters in a stadium a month ago. A local rights group said 157 people were killed. The United States, France and the European Union have called on Camara to step down and the International Criminal Court has said it is investigating the killings.

The EU agreed on Tuesday to impose an arms embargo on the West African country, and restrict the travel and freeze assets of those involved in the killing of the protesters. The U.S. government has also restricted travel to the United States by some members of the junta and the government, as well as others who support actions that "undermine the restoration of democracy and the rule of law".

The AU had threatened sanctions if Camara, who promised to rein in the army and transfer power to civilian rule through elections, refuses to opt out of a poll set for January.

Source: reuters
The African Union communique can be found here.

Breakthrough in Chad president's son murder

Paris police have detained four people in connection with the murder in 2007 of Brahim Deby, the 27 year-old son of Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno, sources close to the enquiry said on Friday. A fifth suspect has been arrested in Romania, the source said.

Deby was found dead in the underground car park of his apartment building in the western Paris suburb of Courbevoie in July 2007, apparently having choked to death with powder from a fire extinguisher. Closed circuit television footage at the scene showed that he was attacked by several masked men, investigators said. French police have ruled out a political motive for the murder, saying it was more likely a criminal underworld affair. The president's son was convicted a year before his death of possession of drugs and weapons after he was detained outside a Paris nightclub carrying a handgun.

Following the arrest, the Chadian president signed a decree stripping his son of his post as a technical adviser. He was then widely seen as having fallen out of favour with his father.

Source: IoL

State of Anarchy

Since mid-2005, hundreds of civilians have been killed, more than 10 thousand houses burned, and approximately 212,000 persons have fled their homes in terror to live in desperate conditions deep in the bush in northern Central African Republic (CAR). Bordering eastern Chad and war-ravaged Darfur in Sudan, this area has been destabilized by at least two major rebellions against the government of President Franois Boziz.

The vast majority of summary executions and unlawful killings, and almost all village burnings, have been carried out by government forces, often in reprisal for rebel attacks. While both main rebel groups have been responsible for widespread looting and the forced taxation of the civilian population in areas they control -and rebels in the northeast have committed killings, beatings, and rape -their abuses pale in comparison to those of the Central African Armed Forces (Forces armes Centrafricaines,FACA) and the elite Presidential Guard (Garde prsidentielle, GP). As the International Criminal Court (ICC) begins investigations into atrocities committed during the 2002-2003 rebellion against former President Patass, it should also investigate possible war crimes under its jurisdiction committed in the current round of fighting.

This report documents the human rights abuses and breaches of international humanitarian law being committed in northern CAR and describes the make-up, origins, and aims of the most significant rebel groups. The Popular Army for the Restoration of the Republic and Democracy (Arme populaire pour la restauration de la Rpublique et la dmocratie, APRD) is active in the northwestern provinces of Ouham, Ouham-Pend, and Nana-Grbizi. The Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (Union des forces dmocratiques pour la rassemblement,UFDR) is most active in remote northeastern provinces of Bamingui-Bangoran and Vakaga.

In February and March 2007 Human Rights Watch researchers visited the majority of towns and villages affected, documenting summary executions, unlawful killings, beatings, house burnings, extortion and unlawful taxation, the recruitment and use of children as soldiers, and many other human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed over 100 persons, including many victims and witnesses, local and regional government officials, military commanders, rebel officials, religious leaders, and representatives of local and international humanitarian organizations active in northern CAR.

Until quite recently there was little international awareness of the situation in northern CAR. However, in 2006, human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law began to receive some attention. The killings, village burnings, displacement, and humanitarian suffering are now occasionally reported in the international press and are the subject of increasing diplomatic notice, usually being seen as "spill-over" from the continuing crisis in Darfur.

Little attention, however, has been paid to the actual dynamics of conflict, which are largely home grown. The main rebel protagonists are Central Africans with local grievances. Human Rights Watch's research suggests that the degree of linkage with the situation in Darfur has been exaggerated. The APRD in the northwest is so poorly equipped that it is difficult to imagine it has foreign sponsorship. Human Rights Watch has found no other evidence of such support. Although there have been contacts between the UFDR and Sudan-sponsored Chadian rebels opposed to the Chadian President Dby based in the northeast of CAR in early 2006, foreign support does not appear to be a driving force behind this rebellion.

Neither has attention been paid to the issue of responsibility for human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law, nor to action to ensure accountability. The sorry fact is that the perpetrators of violence and abuse, the majority of them government soldiers, have so far enjoyed total impunity for acts that include war crimes.
The APRD Rebellion

The APRD rebellion in the northwest was launched almost immediately after controversial 2005 elections led to the election of General Boziz as President. These had excluded the candidacy of ex-President Patass, who had been overthrown by General Boziz in March 2003. The leadership of the APRD rebellion consists mostly of former Presidential Guards of Patass, himself from the region. The APRD has about 1,000 poorly equipped members, including 200 rebels armed with automatic weapons, and another 600 with home-made hunting weapons. They claim their aim is to engage in "dialogue" to address the political exclusion of Patass and his supporters and to improve the security situation in the northwest, rather than to overthrow the government.

One of the main grievances of the population of the northwest is lack of security. Armed bandits, known as zaraguinas or coupeurs de route, regularly attack villagers and have taken advantage of insufficient security provided by the state to increase attacks. The zaraguinas commonly kidnap children for ransom and regularly kill civilians during raids. Many cattle-herders from the Peulh ethnic groupin the northwest, particularly targeted because of their valuable livestock, have fled to the safety of larger towns and refugee camps in Chad. Along with the political grievances of former Patass supporters, the failure of the CAR security forces to protect local communities from banditry is an important element in the development of the APRD, and many local armed self-defense groups have merged into the rebel group.
The UFDR Rebellion

From October to December 2006, the UFDR rebel movement gained international attention by seizing military control of the major towns in the remote Vakaga and Bamingui-Bangoran provinces of northeastern CAR, right on the border of Sudan's Darfur region. The UFDR's bold military offensive led to French military intervention on behalf of the CAR government in December 2006, allowing the security forces to regain control of urban centers.

The UFDR rebellion has its roots in the deep marginalization of northeastern CAR, which is virtually cut off from the rest of the country and is almost completely undeveloped. Elements from the Gula ethnic group, many of them trained militarily as anti-poaching units, are at the core of the rebellion, citing grievances such as discrimination against their community and the alleged embezzlement by the CAR authorities of compensation funds received from the Sudanese government following clashes perpetrated by Sudanese nomads in 2002. As the rebellion has grown, a backlash of anti-Gula sentiment among government officials, the military, and the general population has developed. As a result, most of the Gula population has fled government-controlled areas in fear of retaliation.

A second element making up the UFDR is Boziz's own former colleagues, so-called ex-librateurs, who participated in his overthrow of former President Patass in 2003. They accuse Boziz of betraying his promises and failing to compensate them for their support.
Abuses by FACA and GP Forces

Since the beginning of the conflict in mid 2005 with rebel forces in northern CAR, the CAR security forces have committed serious and widespread abuses against the civilian population, including multiple summary executions and unlawful killings, widespread burning of civilian homes, and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians, which have instilled terror in the civilian population. In most instances, these village burnings and killings were in direct response to recent rebel activity in the area and amount to unlawful reprisals against the civilian population. It is the FACA and GP that have been responsible for the vast majority of the most serious human rights abuses in the conflict, and they have carried out these atrocities in full confidence of impunity from accountability for their crimes.

During the course of its research, Human Rights Watch documented 119 summary executions and unlawful killings committed by government security forces in both the northwest and northeast (the vast majority in the northwest), including at least 51 committed since late 2005 by a single military unit, the Bossangoa-based GP unit, commanded at the time by Lieutenant Eugne Ngakoss.

Human Rights Watch believes that the killings it has documented are only a fraction of the total number of those committed by government security forces. Since the beginning of the conflict these are estimated to amount to many hundreds. Killings committed by security forces have often involved dozens of civilian deaths in a single day and have often included unspeakable brutality. For example, on February 11, 2006, a single GP unit killed at least 30 civilians in more than a dozen separate villages located along the Nana-Barya to Bmal road. On March 22, this same GP unit beheaded a teacher in Bmal, cutting off his head with a knife while he was still alive. Other civilians have simply "disappeared" in military custody, arrested and not seen alive again.

Since December 2005, government forces, particularly the GP, have also been almost solely responsible for the burning down of more than 10,000 civilian homes in northwestern CAR. Hundreds of villages across vast swathes of northern CAR have been destroyed. Troops arrive in villages and indiscriminately fire into the civilian population, forcing them to flee before burning down their homes, sometimes looting them first. In December 2005, GP forces burned down 500 to 900 houses in the Markounda area. A Human Rights Watch count in the Batangafo-Kabo-Ouandago-Kaga Bandoro area found a total of 2,923 burned homes, including more than 1,000 homes in the large market town of Ouandago alone. In some places every single home in every single village was burned. Similarly massive destruction can be found all around the town of Paoua, all the way east to Nana Baryahundreds of kilometers of villages destroyed by government security forces.

The reprisal and counterinsurgency tactics of the CAR security forces have affected the lives of over 1 million people and have forced an estimated 212,000 civilians to abandon their road-side homes and live deep inside the bush, too fearful to return to their burned villages in case of repeat attack. Another 78,000 have sought refuge in neighboring Chad and Cameroon. The level of civilian fear in northern CAR is palpable. People are simply not to be seen in many areas, hiding far away. At the sound of approaching cars, everyone flees, dropping their possessions, sometimes even abandoning babies in their haste.

Living conditions for the displaced are life-threatening. They have no access to clean water, are often desperately short of food supplies, and their widely dispersed shelters are beyond the reach of the humanitarian community. Educational facilities have been closed, and aside from mobile clinics run by international organizations in some areas, health care is non-existent.
Rebel Abuses

APRD rebels in the northwest have engaged in widespread extortion, forced taxation, kidnappings for ransom, and beatings of civilians, particularly in the Batangafo-Kabo-Ouandago area of Ouham province. In that area, particularly on the Batangafo-Ouandago road, almost all villages have been systematically looted of all livestock, and village leaders have been regularly kidnapped for ransom. APRD rebels also have large numbers of child soldiers in their ranks, some as young as 12. APRD commanders expressed willingness to Human Rights Watch to demobilize the child soldiers if the post-demobilization security of the children could be guaranteed.

During its investigation in the field, Human Rights Watch documented one summary execution by the APRD (the killing of Mohammed Haroon in June 2006, in Gbazera) and did not identify any cases of home-burning by the group. Human Rights Watch has not received any credible additional reports of summary killings or village burnings by APRD rebels from local or international human rights organizations or journalists. On June 11, 2007, APRD rebels fired upon a vehicle of the international humanitarian organization Doctors without Borders (Mdecins Sans Frontires, MSF), killing Elsa Serfass, an MSF nurse. While the APRD immediately apologized for the incident, saying it had been a "mistake," the persons responsible should be held to account.

Human Rights Watch's research found that UFDR rebels in the northeast have carried out widespread abuses against the civilian population. During attacks on villages and towns they have often indiscriminately fired at fleeing civilians, leading to unlawful killings. Meanwhile, UFDR rebels have been responsible for summary executions of captured civilians. From October to December 2006, the rebels carried out massive looting of the belongings and livestock of the civilian population in areas they controlled. There have been allegations of rape by UFDR rebels, although Human Rights Watch has only been able to corroborate one case-a woman raped by five UFDR rebels during their brief capture of Birao in March 2007. The UFDR also has child soldiers in its ranks, and Human Rights Watch found that some of them had been forcibly recruited.
The Need for Protection

Establishing credible mechanisms to protect the civilian population from abuses is fundamental to addressing the human rights crisis in northern CAR. The responsibility for civilian protection lies first and foremost with the CAR authorities: they must take immediate steps to end military abuses and to re-establish a functioning police force and court system that serve to protect the rights of the civilian population.

However, the international community can also do more. A stronger international protection presence in the north is urgently needed. There already is a substantial UN human rights presence in CAR, in the form of a 19-person human rights unit in the office of the United Nations Peace-building Support Office in the Central African Republic (Bureau d'appui des Nations Unies pour la consolidation de la paix en Rpublique centrafricaine, BONUCA), a long-standing UN peace support mission established in 2000. However, the human rights unit has been largely passive to date and does not effectively monitor or report on human rights abuses in the north. The UN should take the necessary measures, including changes to the mandate of the human rights section, to ensure that the BONUCA human rights unit effectively monitors and reports on human rights abuses in the north, in the same way that the human rights units of UN peacekeeping missions operate in neighboring Sudan and DRC.

If the UN Security Council moves ahead with the deployment of a UN protection mission to CAR and Chad, that mission should focus on the real protection needs of the civilian population of both countries, and not focus solely on neutralizing the "spill-over effect" of the Darfur crisis.
The Need for Accountability

The crimes being committed in northern CAR by government security forces are no secret inside the country. Local newspapers and radio frequently report them, opposition parliamentarians have prepared public reports documenting the atrocities, and diplomatic envoys regularly raise their concerns with President Boziz. Despite this, the government has not investigated, prosecuted, or punished a single military officer, or even publicly reprimanded them for any of the abuses. Even in the capital, Bangui, security forces carry out summary killings of suspected bandits and rebels with impunity. During Human Rights Watch's visit, two handcuffed Chadian rebel suspects were executed on the outskirts of Bangui by security forces. The commander of the most notorious of the units, Lieutenant Eugne Ngakoss of the Bossangoa-based GP unit that has killed dozens of civilians and is directly implicated in most of the village burnings in the north, remains a free man and an active duty military officer to date.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor's office is already involved in the CAR, having announced in May 2007 that they would investigate crimes committed in CAR during the 2002-2003 fighting, and that they would continue to monitor possible crimes committed during the current conflict. The investigations of the ICC in CAR should not, however, detract from the primary obligation of the CAR authorities to end impunity and bring about accountability for crimes committed by its armed forces and others. Ultimately, the crisis in northern CAR will only be resolved when law and order is restored, and the institutions of justice have the capacity to punish those who commit crimes against the civilian population, including members of the army and the elite GP.

The international community-particularly France, without whose direct military support the government of President Boziz would not survive-have an obligation to speak out about the abuses in northern CAR and to demand accountability for the crimes committed in northern CAR.

Source: Human Rights Watch