#gadhafi

By Abayomi Azikiwe

Although Libya had given up most of its offensive and defensive weapons in an effort to avoid war with the imperialists during the same time period as the destruction of Iraq in 2003, the Gaddafi forces were able to defeat the counter-revolutionaries chasing them back into their launching base of Benghazi by the second week of March 2011. Not willing to see the triumph of the Libyan military over its agents, the U.S. and other NATO governments went before the United Nations Security Council to pass two resolutions mandating an arms and economic embargo against the Jamahiriya as well as a massive bombing campaign which lasted for seven months.

The counter-revolutionaries fighting the Libyan government were labelled as “freedom fighters” attempting to institute “democracy” inside the country. Tens of thousands of Libyans and other Africans lost their lives in the process while the basic infrastructure of the AU’s most prosperous state was destroyed. These atrocities were committed under the leadership of the first “Black” president of the U.S. Barack Obama, who also escalated the presence of the Africa Command (AFRICOM) on the continent, with Libya being its first full mission.

Similar to the events in Ivory Coast, there were African governments and non-state entities which supported the recolonization of Libya. Today these same states are suffering from destabilization, the continuing impoverishment of their people emanating from the economic dependency on the imperialist nations.

Despite the purported “Arab Spring” seizure of power in Libya, some six years later, the country is one of the most unstable and destitute in Africa. Numerous attempts to configure a compliant neo-colonial dispensation in Libya have failed miserably. In 2017, at least three identifiable sources of putative “authority’ are in existence while militias and criminal gangs roam free throughout the country reigning down havoc upon millions.