The Hypocrisy and Double standards of the Western powers in Libya is Laughable if not pathetic
Published by
serowa on March 4, 2011 in
Middle East
Tags:
Africa,
Baharain,
Egypt,
Libya,
Middle East,
Muammar al-Gaddafi,
United Nations Human Rights council,
Western powers
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When the uprising started in North Africa and spread to other parts of the Middle East one saw it as a peoples movement. The uprising and the determination of the people caught the regimes and their Western allies by surprise.
It will be observed that all the regimes that are falling apart are ones that were aligned to Western powers. They were autocratic and suppressed their peoples freedoms while the Western powers watched and enjoyed the benefits of such oppression.
Libya has followed a different path because Gaddafi has refused to surrender and has promised to fight to the end. The Western powers want him out because it gives them an opening for their occupation considering that they are fast losing control of the region due to the uprisings.
One cannot however not forget that Gaddafi is the only North African leader who for a long time aligned with Sub -Sahara African nations. In the early years Gaddafi funded the African National congress in South Africa at a time that the Western powers considered Nelson Mandela a Terrorist.
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Gaddafi has also been vocal about the formation of a united States of Africa and has been the chairman of the African Union. Perhaps this is why Hilary Clinton on the 28th of February 2011 at the United Nations Human Rights council was quick to suggest that Gaddafi was using African mercenaries to kill his people.
There has been no evidence of such accusations, to this writers knowledge, instead what has happened is to put working African immigrant in harms way. Many have been Killed by Libyans on the guise that they were mercenaries based on Clintons allegations and on the color of their skin.
For a long time Gaddafi had negative relationship with Western powers and was a revolutionary at heart. In the 90s and 20s his leadership changed as he got involved in too many causes, some good and some not so good. He eventualy succumbed to Western powers demands and like the other falling regimes, has enjoyed amicable relationship with them.
However since the uprising in Libya started, the Western powers have adopted their normal game of acting as the good guys helping the people dismantle a dictator. As the Libyans gets divided between those fighting against Gaddafi and those supporting him we are again witnessing the hypocrisy or is it opportunism of Western powers.
Seumas Milne writing for the Guardian Newspaper so aptly says The same western leaders who happily armed and did business with the Gaddafi regime until a fortnight ago have now slapped sanctions on the discarded autocrat and blithely referred him to the international criminal court the United States wont recognize.
One is also alarmed at the double standards used by Western powers concerning different regimes that are facing the same problems. For example in Egypt over three hundred demonstrators were killed by the security forces but all we had from Washington was for a call for both sides to exercise restraint. In Bahrain the regime has been shooting and gassing protesters with equipments supplied by the British and yet there is no intervention? One cannot also forget that Bahrain is the base for US fifth fleet.
In Libya we were fed on a lot of propaganda of how Gaddafi was killing people and bombing them until Christiane Anampour landed there to interview Gaddafi. The interview was programmed live from Libya in ABC channel. This writers interest in the interview was whether there was evidence of such mass killing. Alas, even Christiane who perhaps had gone with the hope of exposing such atrocities could not.
While alluding to the suffering that people are going through due to the fighting, she categorical stated that there was no evidence of any such bombing. She said that she had only seen ten shot victims in the Hospital. Another factor that is different in Libya is that it is not just demonstrators opposing an autocratic leader but there is an armed opposition fighting Gaddafi and some of the deaths have been caused by them.
The question then is why are the Western powers acting so differently with Libya than with other countries? In asking this question one takes cognizant that Libya has the largest oil reserves in Africa. Could this be the motivation? According to Seumas Milne, western intelligence has had its fingers in parts of the Libyan opposition for years.
One also wonders where this opposition is getting its ammunition from. The British prime minister, David Cameron had suggested arming the opposition but then recanted later. Could it in fact be that the opposition is being funded by Western powers? If this is true what does this mean for other nations in Africa?
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