Pakistan Left Parties
STATEMENT ON NATO ATTACKS IN LIBYA
While it is accepted that Gaddafi and his model of ruling is autocratic and repressive and cannot be supported by any progressive grouping a few things also need to be stated about NATO and its discourse of humanitarian intervention and let us state them clearly:
After drowning Iraq and Afghanistan in blood, Western imperialism has now sunk its fangs into Libya. Like a wild beast that smells the scent of its prey from a distance, it has seized upon the rebellion in Libya as if it were the opportunity of a lifetime. Attempts by America, Britain and France to portray the bombardment of Libya as a humanitarian act are totally fraudulent. Saudi Arabia sent its troops to crush the protestors of Bahrain, yet here America and NATO silently watched, or rather, covertly assisted their ally. So why the attack on Libya? The answer is oil.
America and NATO are today visiting the same destruction on Libya that they visited upon Iraq. Whereas in Iraq they launched a full invasion, in Libya, they are pursuing other methods - by assisting collaborators within Libya itself. Let us be clear this is about regime change and oil and as with Iraq the oil will be privatized or linked to development projects for western co-operations. It is another instance of capitalism as imperialism. The victim again will be the poor of Libya and the world, the environment that this Capitalism is destroying and all those movements that aim at the democratization of the political, economic and social spheres - that is all those movements that aim at socialist’s solutions.
This is what Western imperialism has always done in the name of humanitarianism and democracy. In the name of democracy, it has propped up the most ruthless dictators in Latin America, the Middle East and all over the world. In the name of humanitarianism, it has savagely rained down death and destruction upon millions from its warplanes and tanks. History shows that every such intervention has been for securing strategic resources, subjugating third-world countries and crushing people’s movements, so that the rich may continue to remain rich and the poor continue to remain poor.
It is our duty as moral and peace-loving people to wish our brothers in Libya a decisive victory against America and NATO and oppressive political and economic structures.
Down with Western imperialism and its collaborators!
No to NATO attack on Libya
Victory to all workers fighting for the democratization of the political, economic and social spheres!
Victory to the people of Libya!
1. Workers Party Pakistan
2. Labour Party Pakistan
3. Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party
4. Revolutionary Socialist Movement
5. Awami Party
6. Awami jamhoori Forum
7. National Students Federation
8. Progressive Youth Front
9. Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee
10. National Trade Union Federation
8 April 2011
Solidarity with the Arab revolutions!
Support the Libyan people!
No imperialist intervention in Libya!
Hands off Libya!
Labour Party Pakistan statement on Libya
8 March 2011
The shock waves of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions continue to spread throughout the Arab world and beyond. For several days, it has been Libya which is at the centre of the revolutionary upheaval. Events are evolving from day to day, from hour to hour, but everything depends today on the extraordinary mobilization of the Libyan people.
Hundreds of thousands of Libyans have risen up to attack the dictatorship of Gaddafi, often with their bare hands. Whole cities and regions have fallen into to the hands of the insurgent people. The answer of the dictatorship has been ruthless: pitiless repression, massacres, bombardment of populations with heavy arms and air strikes.
Today, it is a fight to the death between the people and the dictatorship. One of the characteristics of the Libyan revolution, compared to the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, is the splintering of the police and military apparatuses. There are confrontations within the army itself, a territorial division, with confrontation between regions and cities controlled by the insurgents and the area of Tripoli based on the military force of the dictatorship. The Libyan dictatorship represents too many social and democratic injustices and, too much repression, too many attacks on elementary liberties and rights. It must be driven out.
The Libyan revolution is part of a whole process which covers the whole Arab world, and beyond, in Iran and China. The revolutionary processes in Tunisia and Egypt are radicalizing. In Tunisia, governments fall one after the other. Youth and the workers’ movement are pushing their movement still further. All the forms of continuity with the old regime are called into question. The demand for a constituent assembly, opposed to all the rescue operations of the regime, is becoming increasingly strong.
In both countries, Tunisia and Egypt, the workers’ movement is reorganizing itself in the fire of a wave of strikes for the satisfaction of vital social demands. This revolutionary rise takes forms that are particular and unequal, according to the countries: violent confrontations in Yemen and Bahrain, demonstrations in Jordan, Morocco and Algeria. Iran is also once again affected by an outbreak of struggles and demonstrations against the regime of Ahmadinejad and for democracy.
It is in this context that the situation in Libya takes on strategic importance. This new rise already carries within it historical changes, but its development may depend on the battle of Libya. If Gaddafi takes control of the situation again, with thousands of deaths, the process will be slowed down, contained or even blocked. If Gaddafi is overthrown, the whole movement will as a result be stimulated and amplified. For this reason, all the ruling classes, all the governments, all the reactionary regimes of the Arab world are more or less supporting the Libyan dictatorship.
It is also in this context that US imperialism, the European Union and NATO are multiplying operations to try to control the process that is underway. The revolutions that are in progress weaken, over and above what the imperialists say in their speeches, the positions of the Western imperialist powers. So, as is often the case, imperialism uses the pretext of a “situation of chaos”, as it calls it, or of “humanitarian catastrophe” to prepare an intervention and to take control of the situation again. We are totally against any military or other interventions by the Imperialist forces in Libya.
No one should be fooled about the aims of the NATO powers: they want to confiscate the revolutions in progress from the peoples of the region, and even to take advantage of the situation to occupy new positions, in particular concerning control of the oil regions. It is for this fundamental reason that it is necessary to reject any military intervention by American imperialism. It is up to the Libyan people, who have begun the job, to finish it, with the support of the peoples of the region, and all progressive forces on the international level must contribute to that by their solidarity and their support.
There is a lot of confusion among the activists in Pakistan on the question of Libya. Qazafi was seen as one of the progressive leaders of the Arab World and who was opposed to the American imperialism. He had many followers in Pakistan. One of them was Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, father of Benazir Bhutto, who named one of the main support stadiums of Pakistan as Qazafi Stadium. Qazafi was not seen the same as Husni, Bin Ali and others. Now the threat of NATO intervention is also creating some confusion among the progressive activists.
You do not oppose imperialism by supporting dictators who massacre their people who are making a revolution. That can only reinforce imperialism. The fundamental task of the revolutionary movement on an international level is to defend these revolutions and to oppose imperialism by supporting these revolutions, not the dictators.
We are on the side of the Libyan people and the Arab revolutions that are in progress. We must express our unconditional solidarity, for the civil, democratic and social rights which are emerging in this revolution. One of the priorities consists of supporting all aid to the Libyan people - medical aid coming from Egypt or Tunisia, the food aid which is needed -, demanding the cancellation of all commercial contracts with Libya and the suspension of all delivery of arms. We have to prevent the massacre of the Libyan people.
Solidarity with the Arab revolutions!
Support the Libyan people!
No imperialist intervention in Libya!
Hands off Libya!
LPP
8 March 2011