Libya
Canada: How can we aid Libya’s freedom movement?
Libyan Canadian shouts down with Gaddafi slogans outside Calgary City Hall, February 22, 2011. Photo by Ted Rhodes, Calgary Herald.
By John Riddell
February 28, 2011 -- Socialist Voice -- The brutal massacres of civilians in Libya at the order of the country’s dictator, Muammar Qaddafi, have shocked the world. His air force has carried out air strikes against unarmed civilians. On February 25, Qaddafi followers aimed murderous fire on anti-government protests in his last stronghold, Tripoli. The government declares its intention of reconquering the country in civil war.
What can those in Canada do to end the killings?
On February 26, the United Nations Security Council voted for sanctions against the Libyan regime, including an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of Qaddafi and his family. These measures are hardly more than cosmetic, serving to polish up great-power credentials.
The ‘mubaraking’ of Gaddafi, Maliki, Mugabe and others
By Patrick Bond
February 27, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The late South African anti-apartheid poet-activist Dennis Brutus occasionally used “Seattle”, the name of a city in the northwestern United States, as a verb. We should “seattle Copenhagen”, he said in late 2009, to prevent the global North from doing a climate deal in their interests, against Africa’s.
First Egypt, next Venezuela? The real threat to democracy in Venezuela comes from Washington
"The Arab revolt represents both an 'economic revolt' and a 'democratic, nationalist and anti-colonial revolution', Santiago Alba Rico and Alma Allende said, that 'provides the socialist left and pan-Arabists in the region with an unexpected opportunity'. They said: 'the Arab people, who have returned to the world stage, need the support of their Latin American brothers'."
By Kiraz Janicke and Federico Fuentes
Australian socialists: `Stop the massacre in Libya! Power to the people!'
February 22, 2011 -- Solidarity rally in Sydney with the
Libyan people in their struggle for democracy. Photo by Pip Hinman. See an article
about this action here: http://www.greenleft.org.a
Statement by the Socialist Alliance (Australia) in solidarity with the people's uprisings in Libya and the Arab world
February 26, 2011 -- The Socialist Alliance extends its full solidarity to the people of Libya now being brutally repressed for demanding an end to the corrupt and unjust regime of dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
Libya: How Gaddafi became a Western-backed dictator
Italy' President Silvio Berlusconi and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
By Peter Boyle
Updated February 25, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/Green Left Weekly -- On February 22, Muammar Gaddafi was boasting on state TV that the Libyan people were with him and that he was the Libyan revolution, even while his dwindling army of special guards and hired mercenaries attempted to drown a popular revolution in blood.
Civilians were strafed and bombed from helicopters and planes. Snipers with high-powered rifles fired into unarmed crowds. Two pilots flew their fighter jets to Malta rather than bomb their own people and another two are reported to have crashed their jets rather than attack civilians. Sections of the armed forces, several diplomats and a couple of ministers have abandoned the regime and, at the time of the writing, the east of Libya was in the hands of popular revolutionary committees.
Malaysian socialists: `Stop brutal massacre in Libya NOW! Power to the people of the Arab world!
Solidarity statement by the Socialist Party of Malaysia with the people's uprising in Libya and the rest of Arab world against authoritarian regimes
February 22, 2011 -- The Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) condemns the brutal repression committed by Muammar al-Gaddafi’s regime against its people who revolt against injustices and corruptions.
Lockerbie, 20 years on: Behind the frame up of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi
To mark the 20th anniversary of the Lockerbie air disaster, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal is republishing these important articles.
LIBYA: More 'weapons of mass distraction' uncovered
Norm Dixon
On January 4, while addressing British troops in Basra, British Prime Minister Tony Blair attempted to defend his government's participation in the US-led war against Iraq. In an embarrassing Freudian slip, Blair referred to “weapons of mass distraction” as the justification for the illegal war. On December 19, the US and Britain revealed that similar weapons had been uncovered in Libya.
On that day, the Libyan government issued a statement that announced that — after months of secret talks with agents of the British and US governments, which included visits to at least 10 sites in Libya — it had agreed to get rid of “substances, equipment and programs that could lead to [the] production of internationally banned weapons”.
Review rejects key Lockerbie ‘evidence’
By Norm Dixon
By Norm Dixon