Veröffentlicht am Oktober 31, 2011 von Daniele Puccio
First of all let me say that i was happy to join all those people at Saturday’s #Occupy Frankfurt march. Police claimed it to be 2500 people, the organizer 5000.
The march started at the so called “Hauptwache” where we first headed towards a shopping spree and more and more people then started to join us. The march stopped several times so that the organizers could read/speak to the crowd. During the march the people were more quiet than i had expected. “Who’s streets? Our streets!” was the only slogan that was repeatedly chanted among most of the demonstrators.
Yet i haven’t seen anyone of the so-called 1% yet and the streets, that have been closed by the police in advance of course, felt empty to me although there were thousands of people. Finally we arrived at the banking district with all its skyscrapers, filled with the world’s corporate ownership. Before entering we stopped and the Guy-Fawkes-masked organizers wanted everyone to shout as loud as they can to tell the 1% that the 99% are here.
Up to that point i was still very curious about what’s going to happen when we arrive in the banking district. Will there be vast police brutality as seen in Oakland or Denver? Will there be a very angry crowd willing to take direct action and maybe enter one of those buildings? And the most important question to me, how would the occupation at the European Central Bank look like?
With all respect to this worldwide movement and the idea behind it, i have very significant criticisms to make when it comes to Frankfurt. I was in daily contact with the Frontline at #Occupy Wallstreet so i am very familiar with the events taking place there. I’ve seen pictures & videos from Oakland and Chicago and i stood and still stand in solidarity with them and this movement because i agree with their declaration.
But allow me to make my points.
So, after entering the banking district the next stop was set to be at the ‘Commerzbank’ building. The steps to the main entrance were crowded by the demonstrators within seconds so we decided to walk all the way up to get an idea of how many people we actually are. Finally, with most of the people standing in front of the Commerzbank building they started to play their (i guess) self-titled “Revolution Song” and the people started singing, dancing, clapping and some seemed to be having the fun of their life there. (watch the video to see it for yourself) There were two unarmed guards protecting the entrance of the bank’s building, with several hundred people directly in front of them, but nobody even thought of entering a building or at least demanding the leadership to come out and justify their actions. I am very well aware that to most people this may sound unrealistic or utopian but when we actually get people to come out and raise their voice, it must conclude with more than singing, dancing and laughing in front of the eyes of those people that are being protested against. Also, you can’t be seen as a real threat to the establishment, when the establishment knows every single step of you in advance. There was absolutely nothing i saw that one could actually call “police presence”. The cop’s i saw during the whole event can be counted with both hands.
Then the march came to an end and we finally arrived at the European Central Bank, where you could see the tents of those estimated 200 people that are occupying the ECB for over two weeks now. There were several stands that offered detailled information about the #Occupy movement and others selling buttons, books, Che Guevara shirts and alike but again, it felt really empty despite a high number of people actually being there so i went over to the convoy where several people held speeches about this movement I heard some students speak about the communal injustices in Frankfurt, about several cuts in the social sector and about how overcrowded our Universities are because of the cuts in this sector.
At that point i really started to think about the purpose of all this and suddenly, what Attorney Malik Zulu Shabazz, head of the New Black Panther Party recently wrote about the #Occupy movement, came to my mind.
“First, I feel vindicated because all year some looked at me twisted when I called for 3 National-International Day of Action’s and Unity. We had to beg-and beg Black people just to stand up for ONE day. Now the white left has spearheaded organizing in the streets for several weeks in over 100 cities. Well, I guess the white left is suffering more than the Black’s.”
I started wondering how many people coming out to protest here were aware of what this corporate/banking system just did to the people of Libya, the Ivory Coast, what they did to Iraq & Afghanistan and in the words of Immortal Technique, that “slavery was the capital for capitalism”?
I listened to more speeches, talked to different people, read all those signs and i came to the conclusion that our white middle class, despite all efforts and the willingness to protest & demand changes, is still trapped in a eurocentric mindset. The speeches didn’t go far beyond Germany. Some showed their solidarity with Greece, but i didn’t hear anyone speak out against the latest imperial devestations of other countries. The white middle class cannot lead a struggle against a system to which they aren’t the main targets & losers. The system needs to face the people their dirtiest policies produced, all the oppressed and colonized people abroad, the black & brown people in the United States, the immigrants in Europe whose countries our people formerly colonized & are trying to re-colonize and those people whose leadership allows their resources & wealth to be literally stolen by the west, all over the world.
The last person i met there was this 75 year old american, who stood up against police brutality in the USA and he told me that he attended several marches in Frankfurt now and the police here are saints compared to the states so we discussed it and i told him the thoughts i have now written down. He agreed on most issues, but was nonetheless happy to see so many people come out to peacefully protest. He told me that he served the so-called 1% until he read Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” and became aware of what was really going on. Suddenly he went over to a guy holding the flag of a socialist organization and told him that socialism isn’t the answer so i needed to start a serious discussion. He was very kind and gave me all the time i needed to raise my points. After saying that he rejects any form of governing and is mainly focussing on domestic politics i gave him a short overview of the Libyan Jamahiriyah and how this system works. He got interested and asked me to tell him more about Libya & Gaddafi since he didn’t know too much about it, despite the mainstream media’s reports. After finishing my points his short but direct reply was “Damn, this guy was a serious threat then”. After recognizing my Hugo Chavez shirt we went on talking about Venezuela & Cuba. Just before exchanging our email adresses, he revealed that he’s also an alternative medium and that he believes that those changes around the world have something to do with a new kind of energy going around.
What i want to say is that we need to get people, whether 16 or 75 to see the bigger picture. To make them see that it is not just about us, having to pay higher student loans or taxes, but about the lives of black & brown people all over the world. We must show more solidarity to the people that are being oppressed by this system, because only they can put an end to it. The system makes 1% extremely rich because it holds 99% poor. But the system also killed and continues to kill millions of people from Afghanistan to Latin America, to Iraq, Libya, South Asia and most of Africa. The system only has the power to oppress our people at home because it got rich from enslavement, colonization and mass murder of non-white people all over the world. It is not only a unjust system, but a racist system and WE, the white middle class can never ever be the centre of this struggle. It’s our part to support those who really suffer under this current system and we have to think globally. The word revolution is all over the place, with little understanding of its real meaning. A revolution comes from below and as long as the needs of those below the white middle or working class aren’t put in the centre of this struggle it will impose no real threat to the system. Bridges need to be built and then the “people united can never be defeated”. But the people can’t be united if the poorest & most oppressed are only a part of the 99%. They must be the centre, and i’m not even talking about those at home.
While we were outside protesting against the system that imposes higher taxes/fees on us, we kept quiet about what the same system did, when it bombed Libya back into the stone age.
To perfectly understand and then be able to fight the system, the little boy/girl in Somalia, Iraq or Palestine must be the centre of our struggle because criticizing and fighting our system without putting those children’s future & their countries past & present situation into context makes us political active but naively egocentric at the same time.
Despite all criticisms of the march in Frankfurt, i believe that the #Occupy movement has the power to be transformed into something bigger if some of the points i made are being considered in the future and i am open to discuss my thoughts on any occasion if you are willing to build bridges, not break them.
Veröffentlicht am Oktober 27, 2011 von Daniele Puccio
The young Muammar Gaddafi with his mentor, the late Gamal Abdel Nasser
The reports from exactly one week ago that the NTC rebels captured libyan revolutionary leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi shook the world. Not only the libyan people’s reaction, wheter they cheered for or mourned his death, but also the mainstream media – the maybe most important tool to demonize him and turn this aggressive & illegal war on Libya into a legitimate revolution – was all over it. But what does the martyrdom of the libyan leader mean for Libya, the Global South & especially Africa?
Re-Colonization of Libya planned a long time ago
On February 15th an armed & brutal rebellion arised in the city of Benghazi. Only six days later, libyan justice minister Mustafa Abdul-Jalil resigned to set up his own government. Later on February 27th he set up the Transitional National Council, and on March 5th the TNC declared itself as the “sole representative of all Libya” with – of course – Mustafa Abdul-Jalil as its head. France & Britain didnt need more than a few days to recognize them as the legitimate government of Libya. The west’s democracy promotion in other regions only counts when everything has been prepared to be able to set up a “democratic leader”, meaning a western puppet president through “democratic elections”. Not only do the United States directly fund opposition movements as the NTC in Libya, the Green Movement in Iran, the venezuelan oligarchy opposed to Chavez etc but the leading figures of those movements have always had a history that ties them closely to the corporate or political body of empire. When they tried to topple Chavez, only a few hours later Pedro Carmona, head of Venezuela’s largest business owners’ association, was named president, also without a people’s election or revolutionary movement that would legitimize his presidency. So their methods aren’t new to the Global South.
In Libya, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil led the release program of the anti-Gaddafi fighters, the LIFG (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group – the libyan branch of Al-Qaeda) along with Muammar’s son Saif al-Islam, who now deeply regrets what he had done then. The same people that have been released were now paving the way for this armed rebellion in Libya. Yet we hear voices calling the imprisonments of those fighters unjust and an act of authoritarian dictatorship, wanting to silence its enemies. Now imagine the United States released all Black Panthers, members of the Black Liberation Army and all other political prisoners. Again something no western government can equal, yet they’re pointing the finger at others.
To understand more about the role of Mustafa Abdul-Jalil & Mahmoud Jibril please go on reading this article.
Libya & the media
“If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing” – Malcolm X
The media was playing the major role from the beginning. Not only by showing the world a false one sided story of the events in Libya but whenever reliable reports of NATO or/and “rebel” atrocities against the civilian polulation showed up, the media blackout exceeded even their parallel blocking of the #Occupy movement. Now it is pretty clear that this war on Libya, which many people ironically still put in context of a so called “arab spring” was carefully planned a long time ago and has absolutely nothing to do with a revolution.
The american and european corporate owned media were closely working together, if not giving direct orders (as Wikileaks revealed) with/to Qatar-based Al-Jazeera and Saudi-owned, US-funded and UAE-based Al-Arabiyah in their campaign to distract people from the events and eventually falsifying and manipulating reports, so that their illegal war on Libya gained the wide acceptancy not only in the west, but also in the arab world, as their media monopolies cooperated with the western ones.
We saw falsified reports, such as news that Gaddafi had fled to Venezuela, as british foreign minister William Hague lied to his citizens. We saw Al-Jazeera montaging footage, falsify reports that Gaddafi troops had bombed a civilian area, when in fact it was the shelling of a farm, most likely by NATO bombs of course. On one occasion a video where they claimed Gaddafi troops were raping women, it later turned out to be the audio source of a libyan porno movie, which means that they were actually montaging footage & audio reports they claim to be original sources. The news channels reached a new stage of bias reporting when they only showed armed rebel groups demonstrating against Gaddafi, but when on July 1st, 700.000 – 1.3 million people in and around Tripoli demonstrated in support for their leader Muammar Gaddafi and their system, the Jamahiriyah there was absolutely no equal, if no reporting about it. Those channels were also the first ones to report about african mercenaries hired by Gaddafi with no factual evidence, that led to the rounding up, beating, torturing and lynching of black africans in Libya. ITN reporters witnessed this at first hand. The population of the black down of Tawerga completely disappeared from libyan soil. Several thousand africans disappeared and to date, there is no investigation on it. Al-Jazeera played a major role selling this never proven story and thereby participated in a genocide. Yet where there is no investigation there is no justification. Those channels reported the death of Khamis Gaddafi several times, always just a few days before Khamis Gaddafi was filmed being alive. I checked his Wikipedia page and before anyone could even prove his death, Wikipedia announced him as dead – and later changed the status again.
To read more about the media role in Libya, especially by the left go on reading this article.
Supporting TNC means supporting neo-colonialism & racism
The people of Benghazi in 1911 and 2011 welcoming the colonialists
The media role is very clear now but there is another very important geopolitical issue to the events in Libya & now the death of Muammar Gaddafi that has been kept dead quiet. Libya is in Africa.
Before Muammar Gaddafi led the al-Fatah revolution in 1969 to overthrow western puppet King Idris, Libya was among the poorest countries on the whole planet. In 2011, before NATO bombed their infrastructure & key cities Libya has had the highest HDI (Human Development Index) in all of Africa. There was free healthcare, free education at home or abroad, government funded housing, just to name a few threats to western understanding of democracy. The life expectancy grew by a remarkable amount of years, the illiteracy rates decreased drastically and his “Great Man Made River” project provided water to build cities & agricultural facilities in the Sahara. Gaddafi successfully proved to the world that his third universal theory works and his african country had a higher living standard than Portugal for example. Tell anyone in Europe that there is an african country that has a higher living standard than a country in western europe and wait for the reaction. The United Nations were working on a report that would have honored and rewarded the religious, social & human rights standards in Libya. The report can still be read, but unfortunately the events in Benghazi started just some days before they were set to being awarded by the international community.
So what has he done for Africa? He was the one calling for a United States of Africa and also a great Arab Nation. He, himself is an arab, born in a tent in Sirte, but he always understood that his country is on african soil. He set up an african satellite so that Europe lost 500 million dollars a year and people could directly call Africa without paying extra money the EU. He gave african countries & institutions money at no interest rates so that they didn’t have to beg the economical terrorists IMF or World Bank for money at high interest rates plus having to accept structural adjustment programs (that include privatization of your countries wealth/natural resources). In 2009 he called for a million strong pan-african army to defend any african country from a fate that he and his country have now faced. He also invited thousands of african guest workers to Libya in order to work there. Whenever, wherever he could, he promoted african unity & funded steps towards it.
With the not only arab but african leader, Muammar Gaddafi being chased down and lynched by racist arabs, that were so happy and comfortable to be the slaves of NATO and doing their dirty work on the ground, the west did not only manage to get rid of key personalities of the Gaddafi family, but they can factually pretend to be innocent of the serial killing of a whole family. They also did not only manage to create friction between black africans and arabs, but they initiated a civil & tribal war in Libya. Tribes were now forced to choose on which side they are on, when under the Jamahiriyah dozens of major tribes could live peacefully and didn’t even have to get involved in other tribes businesses.
The NTC rebels’ (which me and others referred to as “NATO slaves”) only common ground is opposing Gaddafi. Today, the best evidence so far for the correctness of using the term “NATO slaves” appeared when british defence secretary Hammond said “It’s certainly not the way we do things” referring to the lynching of Muammar and Moutassim Gaddafi. This could be the first of many betrayals that the NTC rebels will have to face. They have done the dirty job for the west and their only reward will be immunity before international law. Who else could chase down a whole family, shoot at them, torture them, lynch them and then parade with their and other black africans dying/dead bodies on a pick-up truck while the whole word prints pictures of those atrocities on the front page of the major newspapers and calling it a victory for Libya or a victory for democracy?
British MC Akala pointed out the west’s racism best when he tweeted “If South Africa executed all those still alive who murdered and raped under Apartheid would there be this cheering?”. Think about it. Racism is not just the N-word or acting hostile towards coloured people, racism is also silently and sometimes comfortably accepting the racism that other people are practising. Desmond Tutu once said “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”.
The death of Muammar Gaddafi is clearly a defeat for Africa. He knew he was dying a martyr. “Now, I am under attack by the biggest force in military history, my little African son, Obama wants to kill me, to take away the freedom of our country, to take away our free housing, our free medicine, our free education, our free food, and replace it with American style thievery, called “capitalism”, but all of us in the Third World know what that means, it means corporations run the countries, run the world, and the people suffer.”, that’s what he said when the war on Libya started.
He held strong ties to anti-imperialist resistance groups & governments all over the world. Before Burkina Faso’s president, General Thomas Sankara faced a pro-empire conspiracy that led to his death (by the same people that conspired against Gbagbo in Cote d’Ivoire earlier this year btw. Look it up) Gaddafi called his system the world’s second real Jamahiriyah. He held strong ties to several other african leaders, that have been the west’s enemies for many years. Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe has been the west’s enemy for many years because of his strong stand and his unwillingness to compromise with people that impose sanctions on his country that – at the end of the day – only reach the civilian population. When Sarkozy came to Algeria in 2007 Bouteflika demanded an apology for what the french had done to Algerians in 132 years of colonial rule and especially between 1954-1962 in their war of independence. Sarokzy refused to do so but that’s another story. Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser was Gaddafi’s mentor and his vision, the vision of Kwame Nkrumah, the vision of Marcus Garvey was started to be taken into action by Libya under Gaddafi’s Jamahiriyah. Gaddafi already set up an african development bank to prevent many african states to be enslaved by the IMF or World Bank debt. He also urged african leaders to not give their resources to the west, whose products that were made out of that resources, were then sent back to Africa and sold at exorbitant prices.
In 2002, John Bolton handed over a plan to France and Britain, that considered the parallel overthrowing of Libya’s and Syria’s legitimate governments. The third country that fulfilled his vision of what the “axis of evil” is was North Korea. Now, what’s the difference between North Korea and Libya/Syria? Nuclear Weapons. As much as i am against the right of any country to possess or build nuclear weapons i must recognize that these weapons are the only vaccine to prevent an invasion or military coup against your sovereign nation. So Ali Abunimah was on point when he tweeted that “Kim Jong Il would be a fool to ever give up his nuclear weapons”. The reason they didn’t attack Iran yet, and in my opinion won’t do by military force in the future, is that one the one hand they know very well about their military power and strategic partners in the region and on the other hand, in order to keep the myth of Iran seeking nuclear weapons alive they must portray themselves as the victims that are hated and directly threatened by Iran, so that similar to the preparation of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasion following 9/11, the facts lose priority in the people’s judgment once they fell for the government’s agenda to spread fear among them.
So what future for Libya & Africa?
TNC rebels tearing down pictures of great african anti-colonialist leaders as Gamal Abdel Nasser or Kwame Nkrumah
In his interview with Russia Today’s Libya correspondent Maria Finoshina, Voltaire Network founder Thierry Meyssan, who has been working on & investigating the events in Libya provided a different story of the events in Libya this year, when he said:
“First of all, it’s quite obvious that the USA wanted to enter the war at the same time with Libya and Syria. That wish was made public by John Bolton in 2002. The plan was passed over to France and Britain who decided to bring it to life in November last year. Secondly, it was neccessary to verify wheter an attempt to a coup had been made before that. A coup that could be organized by France or Britain. The attempt failed in October. After this failed attempt, another coup was planned. It envisaged killing all the heads of the libyan National Congress if they got together all in a place for a big celebration. That changed tho, after situation in the region changed, after the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. At that moment, France and Britain decided to carry out a PR operation and present this coup attempt as a people’s rebellion.”
He went on saying that “However, in terms of basic goals (of the coup in Libya) it is worth noting changes that have started in Africa like those that began in large areas of the middle east. There are already two zones being created. First of all it was decided to create a westafrican zone with Ivory Coast as its centre.” … “block. In case all states are divided … a conflict will have to be created. Not between Shiites and Sunnis as was attempted in the Middle East but between Arabs and Berbers. This is where the real source of the events in Benghazi is.”
“The initial goal of this strategy was to overthrow the people’s government that was in power and to establish western authoritarianism in that country. I believe tho, that they had actually given up the plan because the military resistance proved stronger. Therefor it was decided to act in a different direction. We saw its western TV channels don’t speak of repression and rebellion anymore but it was still a war. Thus trying to prepare public opinion for a declaration that there is a need to divide the country into two parts. Cyrenaica on one side and Tripolitania on the other, with UN forces in between to separate the conflicting parties. They will say the were protecting the civilian population and that is enough and now they are deploying forces to separate the conflicting sides. Then they will declare Cyrenaica ‘s independence, set up the biggest regional U.S. military base, saying it is neccessary, you know, because they decided to start conquering Africa. They are planning to set up a military base in Benghazi to land and deploy their troops there and in about ten years to start conquering Africa. The reason even more serious problem NATO has begun a campaign on destroying the psychological resistance of the countries leaders.”
“What is interesting in this affair is to see that the operation in Syria and the operation in Libya had been designed exactly the same way and should normally have ended with the same war on both sides, but they let go off Syria and i think that some states, Russia included, thought better of it and prevented the course of those operations. So that is why, at the moment, there is no war in Syria. Even if some western leaders repeat almost every day that neccessary to go to war, one of the characteristics of the system is to have islamistic extremists on this part. Let us see networks, known as being those of Al-Qaeda, and i use this term on purpose as there are some chiefs of those units we see here for having fought in Afghanistan, in Bosnia-Herzegowina, in Chechnya, in Iraq, now in Syria or Libya. Some of them in the meantime had been detained for years in Guantanamo, freed by the United States and brought on spot to continue the fight.”
Now that’s a very important point because when Gaddafi gave an interview to the BBC right after the events started where he was accusing those “rebels” as being Al-Qaeda and the world started laughing and calling him insane. The english language Al-Qaeda newspaper “Inspire” painted him as a clown and tributed a whole page of demonization to him. They claim to be the west’s enemy but what is it worth when the facts are exposing you as a worthy servant to them. In nearly November now, we know that Gaddafi was right and those laughing were wrong. As wrong as ICC chief prosecutor Esteban Moreno-Ocampo (about whom there is actually a complaint from 2007 that accuses him of rape) when he claimed that Gaddafi’s troops had killed 6000 people, which had a significant influence on the agreement of UN Resolution 1973. “Later he was building up his evidence on 208 victims instead of 6000. Several more inspections will turn out that there were no victims at all. What happened in Benghazi is quite different from what we were told. In fact it was a staged event.” as Professor Thierry Meyssan found out. Now the TNC announced that there will be the “sharia law” in Libya once they hold official power over internal affairs. What’s interesting is, that the main character in the destruction of Libya & the assassination of Muammar Gaddafi, french president Nicolas Sarkozy was fighting domestically against the sharia in his own country. He criminalized not only those still dressing under the rule of sharia but also the Sinti and the Roma and other religious/social/cultural minorities, which led to a hatred towards him that doesn’t allow him to go to the “slums” around Paris anymore because in some areas the people were even calling for his head. Now the same man that is radically fighting the sharia in France is supporting, funding and promoting a libyan government that imposes the sharia on its women?
All African People's Revolutionary Party's solidarity march for the Libyan Jamahiriyah on Dr. Kwame Nkrumah's birthday in Accra, Ghana.
Thierry Meyssan was not the only one pointing out that the war on Libya is actually a war on Africa and a direct message to China. Award-winning journalist and filmmaker John Pilger said – in context of Obama’s announcement that the U.S. will now sent U.S. special forces to Uganda and later to South Sudan, Congo & the Central African Republic – that “with Libya secured, an American invasion of the African continent is under way.”
“However,” he went on pointing out “the main reason the US is invading Africa is no different from that which ignited the Vietnam war. It is China. Where the Americans bring drones and destabilisation, the Chinese bring roads, bridges and dams. What they want is resources, especially fossil fuels. With Africa’s greatest oil reserves, Libya under Muammar Gaddafi was one of China’s most important sources of fuel. When the civil war broke out and NATO backed the “rebels” with a fabricated story about Gaddafi planning “genocide” in Benghazi, China evacuated its 30.000 workers in Libya.”
“For more than a decade the US has tried to establish a command on the continent of Africa, AFRICOM, but has been rebuffed by governments fearful of the regional tensions this would cause. Libya and now Uganda, South Sudan and Congo, provide the main chance.” he wrote.
When they tried to continue their crusade in Syria and wanted to achieve the same there as with UN Resolution 1973 in Libya, the russian and chinese governments used their veto in the United Nations Security Council. After not using their veto for UN Resolution 1973, they have now witnessed with their own eyes, that on what they agreed in the Security Council, “protecting civilians” did not match at all with the reality that happened to Libya and its civilian population after the west’s “humanitarian intervention” started, so blaming Russia or China for not being loyal to the Global South by not vetoing the resolution on Libya has very little reliability because if actually the UN Resolution would have been respected, the “rebels” and NATO would now face trial at The Haugue. Once again the west betrayed not only its own people but it comitted Genocide, Serial Killing, destruction of civilian homes and institutions, they violated the UN Resolution by not protecting but targeting civilians and they paved the rebel’s way to chase down, overthrow and legitimate government officials, including the widely known and accepted targeted murder of several grandchildren of Muammar Gaddafi, innocent little girls. Even Human Rights Watch, which shut its eyes and ears whenever they could during the war on Libya, reported a few days ago, that 53 pro-Jamahiriyah civilians had been executed in a hotel in Tripoli. This happened right after the pro-NATO slaves tortured Moutassim and later lynched him and his father, Muammar. They even filmed their lynching and parading of the dying body in a manner the Ku-Klux-Klan in the 30′s would have been deeply in awe. This brutal, disrespecting as criminal footage was shamelessly printed on the front page of nearly every major newspaper and yet most likely nobody will ever have to justify, let alone standing trial for this lynching.
Meanwhile, in the “civilized world”, Troy Davis had been executed with no evidence, right before police and special forces were attacking peaceful protestors that occupied the main locations of the world’s corporate and banking leadership that oppresses the working class and non-white races at home to have more investment money to fund wars in their ancestors foreign homelands. It’s about time to deeply re-think about what we are being sold as “democracy”. It takes some courage to acknowledge that the western needs and values that have been indictrinated into us for decades, if not centuries always brought enslavement, barbarism, destruction, death and misery to nearly all other places on this planet. It takes courage to accept that our white race carries more racism than we are willing to acknowledge. It takes courage to accept that being silent when we know about our government’s crimes makes us to an important part of the oppression. It takes some courage to point the finger at yourself and start with the man/woman in the mirror. And it takes a lot more courage to engage in the struggle to end this racist, destructive empire which robs and kills the 99% to serve the 1%.
Veröffentlicht am Oktober 26, 2011 von Daniele Puccio
Maria Finoshina:
The Libya Conflict is entering its fifth month with concerns growing that a protracted, destructive civil war has been kickstarted by a western rush to regime change. Thierry Meyssan, a french intelectual and journalist, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Access For Peace Conference has been working here in Libya trying to find out the truth. Thank you very muich Thierry for being with us.
Where have you been in Libya and what have you discovered, what have you found in your time here?
Thierry Meyssan:
First of all, it’s quite obvious that the USA wanted to enter the war at the same time with Libya and Syria. That wish was made public by John Bolton in 2002. The plan was passed over to France and Britain who decided to bring it to life in November last year.
Secondly, it was neccessary to verify wheter an attempt to a coup had been made before that. A coup that could be organized by France or Britain. The attempt failed in October. After this failed attempt, another coup was planned. It envisaged killing all the heads of the libyan National Congress if they got together all in a place for a big celebration. That changed tho, after situation in the region changed, after the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. At that moment, France and Britain decided to carry out a PR operation and present this coup attempt as a people’s rebellion.
MF:
What was the aim of that regime change?
TM:
Every member of that coalition pursues their own particular goal. It is neccessary that everyone should be interested in a war. However, in terms of basic goals it is worth noting changes that have started in Africa like those that began in large areas of the middle east. There are already two zones being created. First of all it was decided to create a westafrican zone with Ivory Coast as its centre, which corresponds to the ancient ??? par, which in fact explains the french intervention in the Ivory Coast. After that it was planned to obtain a considerable part of Northern Africa, except Egypt. The latter being part of northern Africa would represent another block. In case all states are divided, control would be spread first to Marocco, and if Northern Africa is revamped ??? a conflict will have to be created. Not between Shiites and Sunnis as was attempted in the Middle East but between Arabs and Berbers. This is where the real source of the events in Benghazi is.
MF:
Are civilians dying in Libya?
TM:
Indeed, starting from the moment it was decided to launch this operation. The lives of civilians were not taken into account. Everything we used to see in the Middle East is not transpiring in this region, and this is just the beginning. It is rather a question of the rearrangement of this region. And we are up to see a series of wars.
MF
So what’s their strategy?
TM
The initial goal of this strategy was to overthrow the people’s government that was in power and to establish western authoritarianism in that country. I believe tho, that they had actually given up the plan because the military resistance proved stronger. Therefor it was decided to act in a different direction. We saw its western TV channels don’t speak of repression and rebellion anymore but it was still a war. Thus trying to prepare public opinion for a declaration that there is a need to divide the country into two parts. Cyrenaica on one side and Tripolitania on the other, with UN forces in between to separate the conflicting parties. They will say the were protecting the civilian population and that is enough and now they are deploying forces to separate the conflicting sides. Then they will declare Cyrenaica ‘s independence, set up the biggest regional U.S. military base, saying it is neccessary, you know, because they decided to start conquering Africa. They are planning to set up a military base in Benghazi to land and deploy their troops there and in about ten years to start conquering Africa. The reason even more serious problem NATO has begun a campaign on destroying the psychological resistance of the countries leaders. This campaign invisages ??? killing their families but they can’t reach them because they never stay in the same place and they are protected to spies are sent to put beacons on their homes. The children’s bedroom could be a target. It’s a systemic method of pointed liquidation. Children apparently being the main target. The task is to intimidate the parents.
MF
What do you think? Will it work? Will they achieve their goals eventually?
TM
In terms of conquering Cyrenaica this has already been a success. If on the other hand they want to go beyond, that is absolutely possible. A mass demonstration took place in Tripoli and we saw the crowd, it was huge. By taking into account the population figures it was incredible. All were there. Now all those people are armed. It would be absolutely insane to bring troops into Tripoli. It would lead to infinite slaughter.
MF
What you say is terrible, is shocking so do you the truth, this truth could ever be established, ever be recognized?
TM
I think that the lies have begun to disappeat ??? to some extent. For instance, by the time of the security council vote, everyone decided on the bases of reports submitted to the council. And the Security Council was certain that during the riots and demonstrations in Benghazi that the ??? had already killed 6000 citizens. A terrible number, but now, five months later the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (Esteban Moreno-Ocampo), which accused the libyan leadership, has reduced the number after many inspections. It has been proven that the previous number was wrong. Now the prosecutor is building up his evidence on 208 victims instead of 6000. Several more inspections will turn out that there were no victims at all. What happened in Benghazi is quite different from what we were told. In fact it was a staged event.
MF
Moving to Syria now, you say that a western imposed asset freeze could bring down the syrian government and cause the country into civil war. Is Syria so vulnerable?
TM
As for Syria, that is another question because Syria is a state with a strategic position in the Middle East. What is interesting in this affair is to see that the operation in Syria and the operation in Libya had been designed exactly the same way and should normally have ended with the same war on both sides, but they let go off Syria and i think that some states, Russia included, thought better of it and prevented the course of those operations. So that is why, at the moment, there is no war in Syria. Even if some western leaders repeat almost every day that neccessary to go to war, one of the characteristics of the system is to have islamistic extremists on this part. Let us see networks, known as being those of Al-Qaeda, and i use this term on purpose as there are some chiefs of those units we see here for having fought in Afghanistan, in Bosnia-Herzegowina, in Chechnya, in Iraq, now in Syria or Libya. Some of them in the meantime had been detained for years in Guantanamo, freed by the United States and brought on spot to continue the fight. So here the technique is always the same. They see cities which are easy to supply, located either on the coast or on the border, then they spread terror in the towm with snipers, they commit spectacular crimes with violence and barbarism which scary the whole population and they announce the creation of an islamic emerit in the city. The idea is to create bastions which can be used after to penetrate further inside the country. You can check. It’s happening like that because for example in Syria there have been various combat zones. Actually all these zones are located on the borders. There has never been any fight inside, absolutely never. And here in Libya, the events which broke out began also in coastal areas allowing supplies and preventing these emerits from being surrounded.
MF
Has international media upheld its responsability to the people of Libya?
TM
It truly happened several times a day that when something happens, Journalists are brought to the sight to show them, after which they make their reports telling quite different things than they witnessed. For example a farm was shelled several days ago. Nobody knew why, perhaps it was a mistake. Journalists were brought to show them what happened. All confirmed it was a farm. Full Stop. On the day that followed, the footage was shown on many satellite channels with captions that it had been shot in Misrata, and that Gaddafi’s troops caused the destruction, despite what the journalists had seen with their own eyes.
MF
Exactly which channel?
TM
Al Arabiyah was the first channel to that. It is a U.S. financed channel belonging to Saudi Arabia and based in the United Arab Emirates. The same report was repeated by many other sattelite channels, but this is deliberate falsification. Also we saw a scene and report not long ago, from a mobile phone about Gaddafi’s soldiers raping women. It was surely no pleasure to see the footage so some frames were blurred. It turned out tho, that someone recognized the audio was from a libyan porno movie. There are not so many libyan porno movies so that one was widely known. So that fragment was used to claim it had been a rape by Gaddafi’s troops. It was a deliberate montage, not a mistake. The USA demanded that the satellite broadcasts of libyan channels are stopped all over the world. They have already shut down the arab set channels despite Libya being a stake holder and now they are shutting down Nilesat to prevent Libya’s version to being heard in the arab world. They already shut them down on other satellites broadcasting to other countries.
MF
Thierry, thank you very much for being with us. We wish you good luck here.
The Libya Conflict is entering its fifth month with concerns growing that a protracted, destructive civil war has been kickstarted by a western rush to
regime change. Thierry Meyssan, a french intelectual and journalist, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Access For Peace Conference has been
working here in Libya trying to find out the truth. Thank you very muich Thierry for being with us.
Where have you been in Libya and what have you discovered, what have you found in your time here?
Thierry Meyssan:
First of all, it’s quite obvious that the USA wanted to enter the war at the same time with Libya and Syria. That wish was made public by John Bolton in
2002. The plan was passed over to France and Britain who decided to bring it to life in November last year.
Secondly, it was neccessary to verify wheter an attempt to a coup had been made before that. A coup that could be organized by France or Britain. The attempt
failed in October. After this failed attempt, another coup was planned. It envisaged killing all the heads of the libyan National Congress if they got
together all in a place for a big celebration. That changed tho, after situation in the region changed, after the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. At that
moment, France and Britain decided to carry out a PR operation and present this coup attempt as a people’s rebellion.
MF:
What was the aim of that regime change?
TM:
Every member of that coalition pursues their own particular goal. It is neccessary that everyone should be interested in a war. However, in terms of basic
goals it is worth noting changes that have started in Africa like those that began in large areas of the middle east. There are already two zones being
created. First of all it was decided to create a westafrican zone with Ivory Coast as its centre, which corresponds to the ancient ??? par, which in fact
explains the french intervention in the Ivory Coast. After that it was planned to obtain a considerable part of Northern Africa, except Egypt. The latter
being part of northern Africa would represent another block. In case all states are divided, control would be spread first to Marocco, and if Northern Africa
is revamped ??? a conflict will have to be created. Not between Shiites and Sunnis as was attempted in the Middle East but between Arabs and Berbers. This is
where the real source of the events in Benghazi is.
MF:
Are civilians dying in Libya?
TM:
Indeed, starting from the moment it was decided to launch this operation. The lives of civilians were not taken into account. Everything we used to see in
the Middle East is not transpiring in this region, and this is just the beginning. It is rather a question of the rearrangement of this region. And we are up
to see a series of wars.
MF
So what’s their strategy?
TM
The initial goal of this strategy was to overthrow the people’s government that was in power and to establish western authoritarianism in that country. I
believe tho, that they had actually given up the plan because the military resistance proved stronger. Therefor it was decided to act in a different
direction. We saw its western TV channels don’t speak of repression and rebellion anymore but it was still a war. Thus trying to prepare public opinion for a
declaration that there is a need to divide the country into two parts. Serenaica ??? on one side and Tripolitania on the other, with UN forces in between to
separate the conflicting parties. They will say the were protecting the civilian population and that is enough and now they are deploying forces to separate
the conflicting sides. Then they will declare Cyrenaica ‘s independence, set up the biggest regional U.S. military base, saying it is neccessary, you know,
because they decided to start conquering Africa. They are planning to set up a military base in Benghazi to land and deploy their troops there and in about
ten years to start conquering Africa. The reason even more serious problem NATO has begun a campaign on destroying the psychological resistance of the
countries leaders. This campaign invisages ??? killing their families but they can’t reach them because they never stay in the same place and they are
protected to spies are sent to put beacons on their homes. The children’s bedroom could be a target. It’s a systemic method of pointed liquidation. Children
apparently being the main target. The task is to intimidate the parents.
MF
What do you think? Will it work? Will they achieve their goals eventually?
TM
In terms of conquering Cyrenaica this has already been a success. If on the other hand they want to go beyond, that is absolutely possible. A mass
demonstration took place in Tripoli and we saw the crowd, it was huge. By taking into account the population figures it was incredible. All were there. Now
all those people are armed. It would be absolutely insane to bring troops into Tripoli. It would lead to infinite slaughter.
MF
What you say is terrible, is shocking so do you the truth, this truth could ever be established, ever be recognized?
TM
I think that the lies have begun to disappeat ??? to some extent. For instance, by the time of the security council vote, everyone decided on the bases of
reports submitted to the council. And the Security Council was certain that during the riots and demonstrations in Benghazi that the ??? had already killed
6000 citizens. A terrible number, but now, five months later the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (Esteban Moreno-Ocampo), which accused the
libyan leadership, has reduced the number after many inspections. It has been proven that the previous number was wrong. Now the prosecutor is building up
his evidence on 208 victims instead of 6000. Several more inspections will turn out that there were no victims at all. What happened in Benghazi is quite
different from what we were told. In fact it was a staged event.
MF
Moving to Syria now, you say that a western imposed asset freeze could bring down the syrian government and cause the country into civil war. Is Syria so
vulnerable?
TM
As for Syria, that is another question because Syria is a state with a strategic position in the Middle East. What is interesting in this affair is to see
that the operation in Syria and the operation in Libya had been designed exactly the same way and should normally have ended with the same war on both sides,
but they let go off Syria and i think that some states, Russia included, thought better of it and prevented the course of those operations. So that is why,
at the moment, there is no war in Syria. Even if some western leaders repeat almost every day that neccessary to go to war, one of the characteristics of the
system is to have islamistic extremists on this part. Let us see networks, known as being those of Al-Qaeda, and i use this term on purpose as there are some
chiefs of those units we see here for having fought in Afghanistan, in Bosnia-Herzegowina, in Chechnya, in Iraq, now in Syria or Libya. Some of them in the
meantime had been detained for years in Guantanamo, freed by the United States and brought on spot to continue the fight. So here the technique is always the
same. They see cities which are easy to supply, located either on the coast or on the border, then they spread terror in the towm with snipers, they commit
spectacular crimes with violence and barbarism which scary the whole population and they announce the creation of an islamic emerit in the city. The idea is
to create bastions which can be used after to penetrate further inside the country. You can check. It’s happening like that because for example in Syria
there have been various combat zones. Actually all these zones are located on the borders. There has never been any fight inside, absolutely never. And here
in Libya, the events which broke out began also in coastal areas allowing supplies and preventing these emerits from being surrounded.
MF
Has international media upheld its responsability to the people of Libya?
TM
It truly happened several times a day that when something happens, Journalists are brought to the sight to show them, after which they make their reports
telling quite different things than they witnessed. For example a farm was shelled several days ago. Nobody knew why, perhaps it was a mistake. Journalists
were brought to show them what happened. All confirmed it was a farm. Full Stop. On the day that followed, the footage was shown on many satellite channels
with captions that it had been shot in Misrata, and that Gaddafi’s troops caused the destruction, despite what the journalists had seen with their own eyes.
MF
Exactly which channel?
TM
Al Arabiyah was the first channel to that. It is a U.S. financed channel belonging to Saudi Arabia and based in the United Arab Emirates. The same report was
repeated by many other sattelite channels, but this is deliberate falsification. Also we saw a scene and report not long ago, from a mobile phone about
Gaddafi’s soldiers raping women. It was surely no pleasure to see the footage so some frames were blurred. It turned out tho, that someone recognized the
audio was from a libyan porno movie. There are not so many libyan porno movies so that one was widely known. So that fragment was used to claim it had been a
rape by Gaddafi’s troops. It was a deliberate montage, not a mistake. The USA demanded that the satellite broadcasts of libyan channels are stopped all over
the world. They have already shut down the arab set channels despite Libya being a stake holder and now they are shutting down Nilesat to prevent Libya’s
version to being heard in the arab world. They already shut them down on other satellites broadcasting to other countries.
MF
Thierry, thank you very much for being with us. We wish you good luck here.
Yesterday on May 15th the major news agencies reported that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, chief of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) had been arrested by the New York Police. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said he was charged with a criminal sexual act, unlawful imprisonment and attempted rape.
Soon after the news appeared, his lawyer Benjamin Brafman told Reuters “his client will plead not guilty”.
Since we are no lawyers let’s not focus on the rape charges but on the other significant issues that made the news along with them. The first thing that attracted my attention was the recurring synonym for him and his work. I’m talking about the word “socialist”. Then in nearly every newspaper the fact that he is Sarkozy’s main opponent appeared. Let’s take a look at those 2 claims, on who profits from this and the irony that someone who’s the chief of the institution that consistantly rapes Third World Countries might himself be a rapist when proven guilty.
Strauss-Kahn, the socialist?
In the mainstream media Dominique Strauss-Kahn is widely recognized for being a socialist. Why? Mainly, because he belongs to the “parti socialiste“, the socialist party in France. The famous french president that belonged to the socialist party in France was Francois Mitterand from 1981-1995. But lets look at the earlier policy within the socialist party. In 1997 Jacques Chirac had to accept a cohabitition under which Lionel Jospin (also a “socialist” cause he belonged to the socialist party) held office as the french prime minister.
On May 29th of 2005 the socialist party showed how deeply divided the party supporters are. After the referendum on the European Constitution Francois Hollande, the chief of the socialist party at that time accepted it while Henri Emmanueli and Laurent Fabius refused to accept.
That’s how the french cartoonist Georges Million portrayed the socialist party on November of 2004.
In the meanwhile the socialist party is divided into four “courants” with different political agendas.
1. Courant Nouveau Parti Socialiste
2. Courant Nouveau Monde
3. Courant Socialisme et Démocratie (to which Strauss-Kahn belongs to)
4. Courant Réformer
To conclude it:
The past shows that the french socialist party has nothing to do with real socialism as its being practised in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador etc…
When Hugo Chavez became president of Venezuela in 1998 one of his first missions was the nationalization of the oil industry. When Evo Morales became the first native indian president of a latin-american country in 2005 he nationalized the oil-, gas- and ore industry so that the wealth of bolivian national resources had a chance to be spread among their people and not mainly among the U.S. industry. That’s practising the ’21st century socialism’ on one hand (Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez) and hijacking the terminology to push through free market interests under the pretence of socialism on the other hand (French Socialist Party).
Sarkozy’s opponent?
The mainstream media reported that Strauss-Kahn is the main opponent of Nicolas Sarkozy and the “hope for France”. Indeed he might have been his “opponent” in the presidential elections next year. In fact his popularity grew, but what do you expect when Nicolas Sarkozy is the guy on the other side? He was calling for the aggression against Libya, he supported and backed the violence in the Ivory Coast, where the socialist Laurent Gbagbo was the political opponent of Alassane Outtara before he got arrested after not accepting the outcome of the elections of high Non-Transparency. Outtara, by the way was the groomsman to Nicolas Sarkozy and worked from 1968 until 1990 for an institution called the IMF.
Back to Strauss-Kahn. In 2007 after Nicolas Sarkozy’s election it was him that “formally endorsed putting a prominent member of the Socialist Party opposition, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, in charge of the International Monetary Fund” as the German Spiegel reported.
“It is seen as another potential blow for the French Socialist Party, which has already had other leading figures from its ranks cherry-picked by Mr. Sarkozy to help run his new, reformist administration. Among other things, it would possibly remove Mr. Strauss-Khan, a strong centrist candidate, from the running for a party leadership position.”
May it be one way or the other. Do you really endorse your “enemy” for becoming IMF chief when the IMF is one of the most important institutions for western capitalist states’ foreign policy. In addition to this importance, do you really endorse him as the French President, which runs a major former colonialist state? The operative word is ‘former’.
Conspiracy against Strauss-Kahn?
The french socialist party smells conspiracy as those news appear at a time where his popularity grew, and as we all know you don’t have to be proven guilty to ruin your image. But let’s also take a look at this.
“Tristane Banon was in her 20s and writing a book when she approached Strauss-Kahn for an interview in 2002. In a TV programme in 2007, in which Strauss-Kahn’s name had been bleeped out, Banon allegedly described him as a “rutting chimpanzee” and described how she was forced to fight him off. “It finished badly … very violently … I kicked him,” Banon said. “When we were fighting, I mentioned the word ‘rape’ to make him afraid, but it didn’t have any effect. I managed to get out.”
Banon consulted a lawyer, but did not press charges. “I didn’t want to be known to the end of my days as the girl who had a problem with the politician.”
Banon’s mother, Anne Mansouret, told journalists on Sunday night she had dissuaded her daughter from legal action because she believed Strauss-Kahn’s behaviour had been out of character and because of close links with his family. “Today I am sorry to have discouraged my daughter from complaining. I bear a heavy responsibility,” she said.”
Then, 6 years later in 2008 this article appeared on the Sunday Times.
“The case began in January when Mario Blejer, a senior Argentine economist, alleged that Piroska Nagy, his wife, had been seduced by her boss at the Davos international forum. His complaints led to an investigation by a law firm in Washington in August. Ms Nagy, who worked in the Africa department of the IMF, took redundancy and now works in London at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
Mr Strauss-Kahn denied that he had abused his position as managing director, either by giving Ms Nagy preferential conditions for leaving the IMF or helping her to get the job in London. The EBRD said that there was nothing irregular about the recruitment of Ms Nagy.”
You can make up your own mind now, but to call three allegations by different women in 9 years a conspiracy is the real conspiracy to me.
Final Thoughts
As i said before I did not write this article to try to prove that Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a rapist. I was just focussing on the issue of him being a socialist and the relation to Nicolas Sarkozy. In France the Socialist Party has as much to do with Socialism as the British Labour Party has to do with Labour.
In the words of Mumia Abu-Jamal:
“And homeland security is a governmental phrase that is as oxymoronic, as crazy as saying military intelligence, or the U.S Department of Justice. They’re just words that have very little relationship to reality.”
If there is to find a definition for hypocrisy I propose to use : “Calling yourself a socialist but working for the IMF”
If you don’t know exactly how the IMF works i suggest to read this resignation letter by Davison L. Budhoo, former IMF economist which accuses the International Monetary Fund of manipulating data to compel countries to undertake devastating structural adjustment programs.
Thanks to Dan Langley who made me think about this issue and focus on the hypocrisy.
