A Future That Works

A Future That Works
NO2aTory/Liberal coalition - Vote with your feet for an alternative to a neo-liberal economy and neo-conservative state Yes2aLeftFront and a Red/Green Left Alliance

Monday 22 August 2011

Gaddafi may be gone, but will there be peace and prosperity for the people of Libya, or will it be like Iraqi and the multinationals plunder the country whilst the people live in poverty and fear?

Remember the cost of war when the neo-conservatives rejoice and glorify their military might as a three-year-old Mohammed Halifa lies in Misrata's Mujamma Aledat hospital both his arms and hands bandaged, and a dressing on a wound caused by a shell splinter in the abdomen. So hold off on the celebrations and self-congratulations for our glorious leaders it’s the people who pay the price of war and lets ask will Libya's people be any freer under the new regime than under General Gaddafi. Will the new government provide free access to health care and education or will these be the preserve of a new elite whilst the profits from oil go to the global multinationals?

8 comments:

  1. Who manufactured the mortar bombs that hit the Halifa home, who profits from the war, will they pay towards the new Libya, Afghanistan and Iraqi?

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  2. Mustafa Abdel-Jalil leader of the rebel forces was Gaddafi’s Minister of Justice until this year, so will we see a freer better Libya or just one that allows the multinational oil companies like ExxonMobil to take control. Was David Cameron truly concerned about the oppressed people or like most political elites is the real motive profits for global capitalism.

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  3. ‘‘While many Libyans may welcome the outcome and will be glad to see the back of Gadaffi, it has a number of negative aspects. From the international point of view the most significant thing is that the government of another Arab state has been changed by external force applied by the big imperial powers’’

    ‘‘It has been about regime change, so that a leader more acceptable to Western governments and business could replace Gadaffi’’

    (Lindsey German, Stop the War Coalition)

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  4. Oil prices fell today by $3 a barrel as Muammar Gaddafi's rule comes closer to ending as Investors think there will be business opportunities in Libya once control over the energy industry is established. Prices of oil have been slipping for several months as fears grew of a double-dip recession

    Caroline Bain, of the Economist Intelligence Unit says that ‘‘Oil prices can be expected to fall further if Gaddafi is removed from power as the prospect of resumed output from Libya will remove some of the political risk premium in the oil price’’, Eliane Tanner of Bank Sarasin & Cie predicts that oil could fall from $100 a barrel to below $80 in the coming months.

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  6. Was this done in the name of freedom and democracy?

    Thirty rotting male bodies, almost all black and many handcuffed, slaughtered as they lay on stretchers and even in an ambulance in central Tripoli, are an ominous foretaste of what might be Libya's future.

    The Rebels supported by the British and American government claim they fought for the people of Libya saying pro-Gaddafi forces were all mercenaries, mostly from black Africa. In the early days of the conflict, some captured Gaddafi soldiers were shown off at press conferences as mercenaries. This propaganda has African migrants and dark-coloured Libyans in danger.

    Gaddafi forces have killed prisoners in Tripoli but it’s the rebels who rule now, will we now see a repeat of what happened in Iraq? The Rebels were united against Gaddafi but what happens now

    Sky News reporter Alex Crawford witnessed the bloodshed as rebels took Zawiyah ‘‘they were bringing in people with half their heads blown off, people with their legs blown off. One of them was the same age as my son. We were getting ready to die. One of us called their sons to say goodbye. We report it as we see it. We saw Gaddafi fighters who were tied up and executed. It's war. This is what happens. Rebel retaliations here are really upsetting’’.

    Three-times winner of the Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year award, Crawford described how she believed female reporters brought a different view to the role, ‘‘Women correspondents may have a different type of empathy, especially if they're mothers themselves’’.

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  7. Could this be why we went to war in Lybia?

    Alan Duncan Minister of State for International Development is facing questions over his secret role in brokering a $1billion oil deal between oil firm Vitol and Libyan rebels as it emerged that Alan Duncan used to work for the Vitol oil company and has close links with Vitol’s Chief Executive Ian Taylor.

    Ian Taylor has paid Alan Duncan’s private office tens of thousands of pounds and questions have been asked about the Minister of State for International Development’s continued connection to the world of trans-global oil trading.
    For two decades he has worked in circles that have been involved in of deals with dictators and corrupt governments.

    Former Labour Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth and member of the foreign affairs select committee has demanded Number 10 release details surrounding the deal, amid accusations of a ‘‘huge conflict of interest’’.

    Bob Ainsworth says it was ‘‘essential’’ to get to the bottom of the Libya oil cell, an organisation set up by Alan Duncan which ultimately benefited Vitol, ‘‘It’s important that we find adequate and appropriate ways to fully investigate this. It is unacceptable that these things should happen behind closed doors’’.

    Douglas Alexander Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary has said ‘‘Government ministers should be spending their time acting impartially in the UK national interest, assisting the Libyan people, rather than making grandiose claims about their own expertise and roles’’.

    From 1982 to 1988 Oxford-educated Alan Duncan worked for Marc Rich, a highly controversial commodity trader in the USA. Marc Rich was indicted on charges of illegal trading with Iran and tax evasion, forcing the American to live in Switzerland because it had no extradition treaty with the USA.

    Alan Duncan is claimed to have been involved in operations to bust UN oil sanctions against apartheid South Africa, according to a newspaper in 2001 whilst working for Marc Rich. Duncan says the allegations as ‘‘malicious and false’’ claiming that documents on the deal had been copied to him by mistake. Duncan set up Harcourt Consultants after Mr Rich fled the USA earning about £400,000 a year and has boasted he made £1million during the Gulf War by selling oil to Pakistan, between 1988 and 1992.

    Ian Taylor has given more than £200,000 to the Conservative Party, much of which went directly to Alan Duncan’s office. Duncan maintains he didn’t know his office cash come from Taylor. Between April 2008 and April 2009, while a shadow minister Alan Duncan was paid £35,000 for 20 days work a rate of £1,750 a day for Arawak Energy which is part-owned by Vitol, an oil exploration company with interests in Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.


    The USA is set to release $300million of frozen Libyan assets to the Vitol Group to pay for fuel for the rebels. It is reported Vitol bought two tankers of crude oil from the National Transitional Council, the rebels’ umbrella group, while providing about 20 tankers of refined product.

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  8. UK privateer gets hands on Libya oil

    A Jersey-based oil privateer revealed a push into Libya today even as the battle between the Nato-backed rebels and ousted leader Muammar Gadaffi's supporters continue to rage.

    Heritage Oil said that it had paid £12.6 million for a 51 per cent controlling stake in Sahara Oil Services in the rebel-controlled Benghazi, which runs onshore and offshore fields.

    The firm's takeover of the formerly state-run field comes as bloodshed continues to rock the North African state.

    Chief executive Tony Buckingham boasted that his firm was "well placed to play a significant role in the future oil and gas industry in Libya."

    The group, which reported a £6.2m pre-tax loss in the six months to June 30 and a £7.9m loss the previous year, said that it would use the Sahara Oil acquisition as a starting point for access other opportunities in Libya.

    However, a report suggested that there was some confusion over whether the transfer of licences, which is overseen by the National Transitional Council, has been completed.

    Heritage also operates in Iraq, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, Mali, Tanzania, Malta and Russia.

    http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/110300

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