Libya/Italy: Gaddafi out! No to imperialist military intervention!

Statement from Sinistra Critica (Critical Left)

The Libyan dictatorship’s brutal repression against the people’s revolution provides the best excuse for imperialist military intervention which has the effect of holding back the unfolding revolutionary process throughout the Arab world. The ‘no-fly’ zone decided by the UN Security Council has come after Gaddafi had been allowed to re-take a large part of the liberated area.

The rebels in Benghazi and Tobruk , after having explicitly rejected the poisoned chalice of external Western help for weeks, were now understandably constrained to ask for any sort of international help that would allow them to escape from the regime’s iron fist. These are the cynical calculations that the Western powers have made to the cost of the Libyan people and of all the other peoples in revolt in this region of the world. The West wants to regain a margin of control on the geopolitical situation and on the oil/gas resources. This control has been put into question by the overthrow of the dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt. Those people who up to now have talked about revolutions manipulated by the United States have ended up by sabotaging one of the biggest democratic uprisings in the history of the Arab world. An uprising triggered by the capitalist crisis which has overthrown regimes allied to the West and Israel. A different sort of mobilisation was possible in Europe and it would have resulted today in the Libyan dictator suffering the same fate as Ben Ali and Mubarak.

We are completely against any military intervention in Libya, because there is no such thing as a humanitarian war and this aid will not help the liberation struggle. The strongest support we can give is that of mass mobilisations in all countries which unequivocally call for the removal of the colonel and are against imperialist attempts to intervene in Libya – there is no alternative. The left and the workers movement have an enormous responsibility on this question. Up to now they have been passive and ambiguous. Any support – however critical – for the NATO countries’ intervention would be disastrous.

No to the military intervention! No to the use of Italian bases for the military intervention!

We demand that the regime’s armed forces end repression and aggression!

Gaddafi must go and the people must freely decide their own future as in Egypt and Tunisia!

Unconditional, total support to the struggles of the Libyan people!

The revolution can suffer setbacks, but the dynamic that exists in many Arab countries can overcome them!

Sinistra Critica (Critical Left)
20^th March 2011

Libya/Portugal: Portuguese Left Bloc condemns attacks on Libya

Francisco Louçã

Francisco Louçã states that "the left which stands against military aggression can never accept the kind of violence which is being visited upon Libya ”.

The coordinator of the political committee of the Left Bloc has spoken out against the bombing of Libya on the grounds that “bombing an Arab country will have an incendiary effect in the Arab world”, and has called for Portugal to adopt a policy of peace.

According to the news agency Lusa, Francisco Louçã recalled the basic idea of Futurism, a movement “created by a group of right-wing artists, who argued that war is beautiful, that the machinery of war is beautiful and the destruction of War is the greatest beauty of all time”. According to Louçã it is remarkable that after all the drama of the wars that marked the past century and despite all that we know about the legacy of destruction left behind by these wars we continue to see “beautiful” cruise missiles being used to attack a country.

The leader of the bloc said that “war can never be a solution” and recalled that those who are now attacking Libya previously supported despots like Gaddafi, Ben-Ali and Mubarak.

In relation to the position of Portugal, Louçã also recalled that the Portuguese Air Force participated in the recent celebrations of 40 years of Gaddafi’s regime in Tripoli and that Foreign Minister Luís Amado went into Gaddafi’s tent to greet the dictator. Louçã argued that Portugal should act with “sensitivity” in relation to Libya:

“We have to have the wisdom of the politics of peace, to abandon the incendiary politics of the EU and the US”, he said.

Libya/France: Support for the Libyan people against the dictatorship.

Statement of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA)

The Libyan population which rose against Gaddafi faces today an outburst of fatal violence. The dictator would like to drown the revolt in a blood bath. Our full and total solidarity goes to the Libyan people who should be given the means to defend themselves, the weapons which it needs to drive out the dictator, to conquer freedom and democracy.

This is not the goal of the decisions of UN and the military coalition led by France and Britain which is on the point of intervening in Libya. The same govertnments did not say anything against the intervention of the Saudi troops against the revolt in Bahrain. The great powers want to seize the opportunity that the dictator’s madness gives them to try to take back control over the area, rich in oil, while giving each other the beautiful role of defender of the people.

How can we give any credit for sincerity to the French government which for three months has not expressed any solidarity with popular risings and the revolutions in progress in the Mashreq and Maghreb countries? How can we forget a half- century of support of the great powers for the bloodiest dictatorships. From Kosovo and Afghanistan via Iraq, the list is long of so-called “humanitarian” imperialist interventions that did nothing but worsen the local situations.

Military intervention is not the solution and the NPA warns against a new military escalation which is taking shape, against the imperialist goal of control of the area and against interference in the revolutionary processes underway. It reaffirms its support for the Libyan insurrectionists against the dictatorship as with the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions

March 18^th, 2011