The Re-Colonization of Africa

 

The Libyan uprising is entering its sixth week. The western media is working 24/7 to advertise the courage and persistence of the Libyan people's efforts to overthrow Gaddafi and are highlighting his regime’s (legitimate government’s?) brutality ranging from alleged shoot-to-kill policies to the indiscriminate use of artillery against unarmed civilians. In addition to the current no-fly zone, the UN Security Council unanimously issued a resolution imposing measures against the Libyan Government including an arms embargo, asset freeze, travel ban and a referral of the situation in Libya to the International Criminal Court for investigation. Put simply, coercive external intervention by the Western nations to alter the balance of power on the ground in Libya in favor of the anti-Gaddafi revolt is likely to have devastating effects globally. The attendant costs would be borne not by those who call for intervention from outside of Libya but by the Libyan people with whom the west is showing solidarity. The no-fly zone serves as a predicated move for the subsequent invasion and occupation of Libya insofar as the ongoing use of this coercive measure against the Gaddafi government is being cited as a support to the argument that there is "implied authorization" to forcibly topple the regime. While humanitarian considerations are being invoked in defense of intervention, humanitarianism is far from the only issue. The real issue is re-establishing the leadership of the USA in the region and the stabilization of crude oil markets. If the Libyan people are struggling to change their regime on their own terms then there is no reason to presume an overlap between the logic of intervention and their interests. History in Iraq clearly establishes that an external regime change intervention based on mixed motives - even when accompanied with claims of humanitarianism - usually privileges the strategic and economic interests of USA & Europe and results in disastrous consequences for the people on the ground. Indeed, the current discord among Western powers concerning their intervention in Libya is precisely based in their doubts as to whether their own individual strategic interests are adequately served by these actions. The fact that western powers did not act while their nationals were on Libyan soil demonstrates their acceptance that treating the regime with armed coercion will lead to civilian deaths either directly as a result of an intervention or indirectly through reprisals against civilians identified as opponents. Furthermore, the evacuation channels made available to Western nationals – airlifts across the Mediterranean – were not and are not being offered to Libyan civilians or to African & Asian migrant workers trapped in Libya. If the humanitarian welfare of civilians in Libya were paramount, they, too, would have been offered this secure escape route. Instead, once Western nationals were safely out of harm’s way, coercive measures were adopted without any effort to protect or evacuate the Asian & African civilians that were left behind in Tripoli and beyond. This difficulty is further compounded by the fact that neither the Western nor Arab powers currently calling for intervention have a record of privileging particular domestic partners based on the interests or aspirations of local populations. There is little reason to expect that Libya will be exceptional in this regard, particularly in light of the mixed motives of all the interveners. Further, the identities of involved in the process of intervention reinforce concerns about such proposals. Many members of the Arab League are currently undertaking repression against democratic uprisings against their current governments. The legitimacy of any call they issue on behalf of the Libyan people is being questioned by their own internal anti-democratic practices. Members of the Group of 8 (mostly Western countries) are also compromised by their disregard towards democratic demands met with repression, within countries that are their regional allies and their own long history of brutal interventions and direct support of authoritarian regimes. The Western “Liberators” are giving little priority to addressing shortages of medical supplies and provision of essential foods and clean water. Beyond these basics, an evacuation corridor for civilians – including non-Libyan African workers trapped in the territory – has yet to be secured and responsibility for shouldering the burden of refugee flows is restricted to Tunisia and Egypt. Rather than imposing these costs on Libya's poorest neighbors; Libya’s wealthy northern neighbors in Europe should be absorbing a much larger share of the costs, human and material, of offering refuge to fleeing civilians. The fact that the airlifting of Libyan and other African civilians to safety out of Tripoli is an option that is not currently on the table speaks eloquently to the misalignment of priorities. Dropping the xenophobic European rhetoric on the "dangers" of African immigration would also have the benefit of removing one of the Libyan regime's major levers with the EU. As Gaddafi threatens to terminate the agreements by which he has been warehousing African migrants at Europe's behest, he lays bare the cruel logic of tacit alliances (based on immigration, energy, and security interests) that has long lent support to his rule. If Europe was willing to take concrete steps to facilitate the evacuation to its own countries, of civilians who wish to leave Libyan territory regardless of nationality; they would at least have broken with their past record of shameful complicity in regime brutality.