DECLARATION TO THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD
AND THEIR INTERNATIONALIST VANGUARD
For the unconditional defence of Libya against Imperialism!
For a Military United Front with Gaddafi to defeat NATO and the CIA armed "rebels"!
No confidence in the government of Tripoli; only by arming all the people and by the permanent revolution can we win the struggle!
The global economic crisis has increased the appetites of Imperialism to appropriate the planet's riches by super exploiting the working class and recolonisation. Capitalist governments of the world have moved enormous sums of money from state coffers to large private capitalist financial intuitions in the name of saving capitalism’s crisis cause by speculation. Now the bourgeois governments are seeking to recapitalise their coffers. For this, they force the working class to pay the price of this financial orgy. This payment is made through fiscal adjustments, the attacks on wages, and victories over unionised labor and the attack on social security, etc. It has also increased the cost of living for the masses, and increased inter-Imperial competition in the semi-colonies.
In Europe, from Greece to Ireland, popular resistance was restrained by pro-Imperialist party leaders and trade unions. In Wisconsin in the USA workers leaders linked to the Democratic Party did the same. In Latin America, so far, but not for long, the governments of the "centre left" are delaying and dampening social conflict by the control they exert over mass organizations. Obama ordered the start of the bombing on Libya when he was with the pro-imperialist President Dilma Rousseff, in Brazil.
In Africa the liberal bourgeois opposition to dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt made democratic transition arrangements to install new puppet governments to stabilise the country and keep it sympathetic to the U.S. and Israel. We do not consider these processes as "Arab revolution" or "democratic revolutions." These popular uprising are genuine expressions of the outrage at price increases and increased oppression caused by the imperialist crisis which began in 2008 but Imperialism seek to divert these potential revolutionary situations enhance and extend its dominance in Africa and the Middle East.
If Imperialism cannot take ownership peacefully as in the fraudulent referendum that divided the Sudan, then the UN will come to occupy the country by military force and impose their fraudulent elections as happened in Ivory Coast. All this, with the support of the African Union and the ANC government in South Africa.
In Libya, Syria and Iran, Imperialism seeks to accomplish coups camouflaged as "democratic", by taking advantage of the "popular uprising" in neighbouring countries. In Iran, the U.S. and Israel seek to revive the reactionary "green revolution". In Syria U.S. Imperialism and its Zionist enclave strive to create the same scenario of civil war to justify another military intervention. In Libya, Imperialism made a qualitative leap in its intervention. Not only by what it did after starting the "rebellion", but they had also prepared beforehand. A "revolt" in Libya is not any kind of revolution, but a counterrevolution, directed by Imperialism and supported and sponsored by the CIA. It is the continuation of a series of attempts to restore the monarchy and tribal privileges in favour of U.S. and European Union, which began shortly after Gaddafi took power in 1969 and continued sporadically since then. Not coincidentally, the flag of the "rebels" is the flag of the monarchy imposed by Imperialism, the flag of the puppet King Idris (1951-1969).
Rebel leaders in Libya were CIA agents from the beginning, as were the anti-Chavez coup leaders in Venezuela in 2002. Imperialism, headed by the U.S. and France, seek to balkanised Libya, as it did in Yugoslavia or to dominate it together, as in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have also have seen this in Bolivia, where Evo Morales surrendered a larger share of the revenues from gas exploration to the pro-Imperialist coup makers in the east of the country.
Those who hold the naïve notion that what happens in Libya is a revolution of "masses" and a continuation of the riots in Tunisia and Egypt, they forget that the masses have been duped by the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Velvet Revolution (Czechoslovakia), the Orange Revolution (Ukraine) and all other ‘revolutions’ made in the CIA. They were all, in fact, counterrevolutions, sponsored by Imperialism.
Since the new escalation of Israeli attacks against Palestinians 20 Palestinians have been killed and 50 wounded in the worst Israeli offensive in Gaza for two years. It is the bloodiest attack since the 2008 military operation that killed 1,400 Palestinians. We are for the destruction of the Zionist state of Israel and for a multiethnic workers’ and peasants’ government a based on workers’ and peasants’ councils.
For 21 years Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) in Egypt was a member of the Socialist (Second) International (SI) alongside the New Zealand Labour Party, the Australian Labor Party and the British Labour Party. The SI only expelled the NDP in January 2011, after the mass demonstrations emerged that brought down Mubarak, but not the NDP. But true to its long history of defending British Imperialism British Labour leader Ed Miliband gave unequivocal support to the Benghazi rebels and to the bombing of Libya on the totally hypocritical basis that, “as internationalists we have both the responsibility and the opportunity to help enforce international law and save innocents from slaughter”. Using Gaddafi’s foolish threat of "no mercy, and no pity” he sanctioned the bombing which will result in far more deaths than Gaddafi could have caused, but, as an ‘unintended consequence’ will put the oil resources of Libya in the hands of western Imperialism to invest in the markets of Wall street and the City of London and divert it from schools, hospitals and welfare payments in Libya and investments in other African countries.
Jim Murphy MP, Labour's Shadow Defence Secretary gave the cue that the rest of the soft-left in Britain and internationally have followed, “Inaction would have undermined the cause of freedom not just for the hundreds of thousands of people who have risen up against Gaddafi in Libya, but in other countries where people are also fighting for change.”
And just so as we are left in doubt about the Labour party’s position on Imperialism’s murderers Murphy writes; “our thoughts should be with all British Forces around the world, including the more than 10,000 Britons in Afghanistan. Those undertaking courageous acts in the sky above Libya and in the Mediterranean should be given all the support they need because their bravery is what enables the UN resolution to be enforced and the Libyan people to be protected”. There is, naturally, no concern about the civilians and fighters blown to pieces ‘to save lives’ in Iraq, Afghanistan or now Libya only concern and praise for the killers.
The greatest proof that the "rebels" are nothing but butchers and Libyan agents of Imperialism is that they have invoked NATO bombing on their own people, as did the collaborators at all times of the class struggle since the Paris Commune Thiers (1871) to Lebanon (2006). As each day passes it becomes clearer that the native agents of Imperialism are merely open cat’s paws for multinational intervention in the country. They are racists and xenophobes, the enemies of all black working class Saharans in Libya. In the hunt for "Gaddafi mercenaries” they seek to demoralise the work force in the country, preparing it for the super exploitation in a new era of extreme Imperialist plunder. The Libyan "rebels" are a bunch bourgeois turncoats from Gaddafi regime in favour of big business internationally.
Political groupings claiming to be Marxists who portray the popular uprisings in the Arab world as diverted "revolutions" are demagogues, who flatter and stupefy the masses while new pro-Imperialist bourgeois puppet governments are being stabilised. But the worst is when these groups in the name of supporting the Libyan masses in their struggle for democracy, combined with Imperialist war propaganda by the world media to cover up the CIA coup. Those who now refuse to establish a military front with Gaddafi externally and internally to defeat the interests of Imperialism, betray the struggle and the fight against global Imperialism and the genocidal state of Israel that massacres the Palestinians.
We denounce the main international revisionist currents that formally share the following positions:
1) characterise the existence of an "Arab revolution" or "democratic revolutions" in Africa and the Middle East
2) Support the pro-imperialist "rebels" in Libya
These include the USFI (NPA - France), LIT (PSTU - Brazil), ITU (IzquierdaSocialista - Argentina), IMT (Socialist Appeal - Britain); CWI (Socialist Party - Britain): IST (SWP - Britain). FT (PTS - Argentina); FLTI (LOI-DO - Argentina); L5I (Workers Power - Britain).
It was the anti-working class, neoliberal policies of Gaddafi during the last decade that paved the way this reaction. Gaddafi has established new agreements with Imperialism, destroying the gains of the process of nationalisation of the means of production and post-1969 energy resources. Gaddafi banned trade unions and strikes and made racist anti-immigrant agreements with Berlusconi, he has sponsored the election campaign of Sarkozy and privatized and made auctions with the energy resources of Libya. Thus, the caudillo of Tripoli has lost popularity with the Libyan and African population and fuelled the appetite of sectors of the native bourgeoisie to negotiate directly with Imperialism, freeing up Gaddafi clan.
The masses can have no confidence in the anti-Imperialism of Gaddafi. Therefore we demand the arming of the whole Libyan people against Imperialism and the reactionary opposition. We demand the unconditional defence of Libya against Imperialism and its agents. We demand a military united front with Gaddafi against NATO and the royalist, CIA agent, "rebels" who are politically similar to the pro-Imperialist Loyalists of the north of Ireland, the Inkatha Freedom Party of South Africa or, more closely, the Contras of Nicaragua.
This was the revolutionary tactics of Lenin and Trotsky before the Kornilov uprising, Kerensky's former general who tried to carry out a coup in Russia in August 1917. The Bolsheviks called for a united front and military weapons to Kerensky demanded at the same time that Kerensky be blamed for paving the path for reaction, and thus prepared a social revolution. Similarly, the reaction to the responsibility of Gaddafi for the coup will drive the masses to combine the tasks of the anti-Imperialist struggle with the democratic and socialist to move toward the establishment of a workers and peasants government where the pan-Arabism of Gaddafi has stopped. The victory over the counterrevolutionary Imperialist military offensive would not only be a huge boost for the proletariat Libyan who could settle accounts with the warlord of Tripoli, but would also give a huge impetus to the struggle of workers in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Ivory Coast, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan against Imperialism and the native capitalists.
The first step towards this is to fight in our own countries against the Imperialist bourgeoisie and semi-colonial Britain, Brazil, South Africa. We advocate the defeat of our own governments, as allies against Imperialist recolonisation of the world proletariat. We support the full right of the Libyan masses to seize the multinational British, Brazilian and South African companies and of all capital in Libya to nationalise them without compensation under workers' control.
● Defeat Imperialism, Fight for the sovereignty, unity and independence of Libya with the methods of permanent revolution!
● For a Military United Front with the Libyan army against pro-Imperialist INTC and against all groups sponsored by the CIA!
● Build Revolutionary Committees in all work-places, colleges and regions against Imperialist intervention!
● For Constituent Assembly based on these revolutionary committees.
● For a Workers and Peasants Government!
● In defence of the right to establish trade unions and the right to strike!
● No immigration control, equal rights and conditions for all immigrant workers!
● Workers' Control of work places and oil fields, food subsidies and essential goods, minimum living wage, full employment, expropriation of all enterprises and Imperialist capitals!
● For strikes and occupations to prevent the movement of troops and munitions to attack Libya!
● For a Socialist Federation of North Africa and the Middle East
Statement on Libya by
SOCIALIST FIGHT - Britain
REVOLUTIONARY MARXIST GROUP - South Africa
LIGA COMUNISTA - Brazil
21 April 2011
Socialist Fight
PO Box 59188, London, NW2 9LJ
Revolutionary Marxist Group
