LIBYA Why Reagan is targeting Libya THE RECENT acts of aggression by the US fleet against Libya followed a long series of US provocations in the Gulf of Sidra. They represent a qualitatively new stage in the campaign that Washington has been mounting for more than ten years against the Moamer Qadhafi regime.
For the Reagan administration, in particular after its setback in Lebanon and its "success" in Grenada, this was a new opportunity to "take off the gloves" against a small state (only about 3 million people).
Reagan had two complementary objectives. One was to overcome the "Vietnam syndrome." The other was to issue a warning to Nicaraexporters in its train. These measures came in the context of a foreign policy reminiscent of the first years of Nasserism or of Iran today. It was anti-imperialist, but also anticommunist, in the name of Islam and of Arab nationalism. (2)
Finally, and above all, Qadhafi has sought to achieve what his spiritual father failed to do: to bring about Arab unity. For this purpose, he has proposed fusion to several states, in particular those on Libya's borders, Egypt and, of course, Tunisia.
All of these attempts at union have failed. While the bourgeoisies of the countries concerned were attracted by the smell of Libyan oil, they feared the destabilizing effect Qadhafi could have on their states.
In fact, in his country, the Libyan leader was waging a vast campaign against the administrative bureaucracy inherited from the former regime. in 1973, he launched a "cultural revolution" on the Maoist model. Nothing was left out, not even the "little red book," which was redyed green [the color of Islam] for the occasion.
In reality, despite some genuine mass mobilizations, the power remained concentrated in the hands of the team led by Qadhati and Jalloud. Several factors induced the Libyan leader, starting in 1974-77, to radicalize his policy. They included the failures of his attempts to advance Arab unity, which he tried to surmount by appealing directly to the masses over the heads of their rulers; and his clashes with the local trading bourgeoisie and the rightist opposition, as well as with sections of the state apparatus that wanted to invest locally the resources that Qadhati was devoting to his foreign policy.
Similar factors led to a radicalization of the Nasser regime in 1961-63. But in this area, as in others, Qadhafi, a real caricature of Nasser, carried the features of Nasserism to an extreme.
Private capitalism was abolished in Libya for the sake of a state capitalism, on a scale unparalleled in the framework of a bourgeois state. Not only were the main productive sectors, taken over by the state, but the services were as well to a large extent,
See "Mutiny puts pressure on Egyptian Regime," by Salah Jaber, International Viewpoint', No. 94, March 10, 1986.
This is the time when Qadhafi went to the aid of another military regime that claimed to be Nasserist, the Nemery regime in Sudan, which was threatened by a left-wing coup. The subsequent reactionary evolution of the Sudanese dictator, who was overthrown last year, was largely determined by the fact that he faced the strongest workers' movement in the Arab countries. International Viewpoint 21 April 1986 gua, Cuba, Iran and the USSR, imperialist mythology. SALAH JABER
It goes without saying that the elementary duty of revolutionary Marxists is to defend a Third World country that is the prey of imperialist aggression. Nonetheless, it remains necessary to make clear in each instance what has to be defended. Is it national sovereignty only, as was the case in the Malvinas war, in which revolutionary Marxists called at the same time for overthrowing the reactionary military dictatorship? Or is it also necessary to defend national and social gains achieved by a "progressive" regime threatened by reaction in alliance with imperialism, as was the case for Egypt in 1956 and 1967?
In other words, does Qadhafi fit into the category of Leopoldo Galtieri or that of Gamal Abdel Nasser?
An initial indirect response has been provided by the attitude of imperialism itself. It never sought to overthrow Galtieri. It did, however, seek indefatigably to overthrow Nasser yesterday, and the same is true for Qadhafi today.
Reports in the Egyptian and US press coincide on the fact that Reagan even proposed to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak a joint military operation to overthow the Libyan leader. If Mubarak rejected this proposition, it is because the domestic situation in his country, as attested by the recent mutiny of the security forces (1), does not allow him to engage in such an adventure. 20 the other "demons" of modern
Why, then, this imperialist obsession with Libya? There are two reasons that are intimately linked. They have to do with the nature of the regime and of its foreign policy. I will try to explain them briefly in this article.
The coup d'etat-revolution of September 1, 1969, overthrew the Libyan monarchy, one of the most retrograde regimes in the world, in a thinly populated country, whose considerable petroleum resources were exploited in every sense of the term by the Anglo-Saxon oil companies. It was a country, moreover, that had two British bases and one US military base on its territory.
The coup was organized by nationalist officers (captains) grouped in a "Free Officers" committee modelled on the Nasserist one. Qadhafi, like his second in command, Jalloud, is of Bedouin origin, and he has continued to be marked by this in several aspects of his social and political behavior, as well as in the ideology that he has been formulating.
In the intitial phase, it was the nationalism of Nasser, whose disciple and successor he sought to be -that Qadhafi imitated. That meant evacuation of all foreign bases, nationalizing the foreign banks and then gradual nationalization of the oil industry.
In the latter aspect in particular, after 1970 Libya was to play a vanguard role, dragging the other oil
to the point that small shopkeepers were - supplanted by public-sector supermarkets.
Moreover, this statization was not carried out against a background of poverty, as was the case in Nasser's Egypt, which was confronted with a serious problem of overpopulation. Libya, in fact, faced the opposite problem. It suffered from a shortage of labor power in relation to the potential for investment, which required resorting on a large scale to imported labor power. "Socialism" with money
Qadhafi's "socialism," unlike that of Nasser, is rich. The standard of living of the Libyan population increased considerably - free healthcare and education, modern housing for everybody. The regime plunged into a series of development projects, some of which, in the image of Qadhafi, were overambitious.
For example, in agriculture, billions of dollars have been spent on bringing in certain techniques, which are otherwise found only in the United States, for growing in the desert. These could, in the best of cases, be imported at infinitely less cost.
This, moreover, is far from the only irrational aspect of a regime that would have been quite impossible if Libya did not enjoy a tidy oil income that puts it among the countries with the highest per capita income.
Qadhafi is also extremist in his foreign policy, as well as in his nationalism, which often has antiSemitic touches. As Nasser did before him in 1974-77, when he was radicalizing his domestic policy, Qadhafi turned to a close alliance with the USSR, which went hand in hand with almost total military dependence, in the name of a common struggle against imperialism.
Qadhafi did not confine himself to the Arab region. He has supported in various ways - politically, financially, militarily and sometimes purely verbally - anti-imperialist regimes or movements around the globe, from Kanaky (New Caledonia) in the East, to El Salvador and Nicaragua in the West, including the Philippines, Ethiopia, Burkina, Ghana and Ireland.
In the Arab world, Qadhafi supports the Palestinian nationalist left and the Lebanese left. He maintains special relations with Syria, Sudan, South Yemen, as well as with Iran, which although not an Arab country is involved in the politics of the region. _Moreover, he is accused of supporting
International Viewpoint 21 April 1986
"subversion" in Egypt, Tunisia and Jordan.
This policy of wide-ranging support for anti-imperialist movements and regimes is a great irritation to world imperialism. Libya is the only state in the world that has put its petrodollars at the service of anti-imperialist struggles. It is an invaluable ally for the USSR - its only rich ally -although the Kremlin is often embarrassed by Qadhafi's braggadoccio.
It is such considerations that explain the violent anti-Libyan campaign of the imperialist states. The "worldwide terrorism" that the imperialists accuse Libya of supporting also supposedly includes all of the Palestinian organizations, as well as the Kanak FLNKS [Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front], the IRA, and the Central American revoluion, all thrown together.
On the other hand, the genuinely terrorist group of Abu Nidal, the presumptive author of the attacks at the Vienna and Rome airports, is supported mainly by Syria. As for the grouplet of Abul Abas, the author of the seizure of the Achille Lauro, it has no connection with Libya but is entirely dependent on Iraq, Libya's sworn enemy.
These few facts should be sufficient to show the hypocrisy of the imperialist hysteria campaign, attributing to Libya a "state terrorism," of which the imperialist governments and their South African and Zionist allies are the champions anyway.
Against them, it is necessary to
Second issue of out now
THE SECOND issue of the revolutionary communist review for the
Arab region is now out. Al Mitraqa is jointly produced by the sections of the Fourth International in
Lebanon, Tunisia and the Israeli state.
In this second issue (January-
March 1986) there are articles on:
the conflict in South Yemen; the situation in Morocco; the political and economic situation in the
Israeli state on the eve of changes in the government; the lumpen bourgeoisie in Lebanon on the verge of collapse; and a balance sheet of the
Tunisian left.
Orders should be sent to 2, Rue
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defend Libya, to defend Libya's trontiers against imperialist aggression, and also to defend the national and social gains achieved in Libya against imperialism and Libyan and Arab reaction.
Such defence has to be carried out, however, without any of the all-toocommon illusions about the social and political character of the Libyan regime. It is true that the Libyan regime has achieved some impressive results. But for the reason explained, it is an exceptional case. It cannot be seen as some special sort of workers' state. The Libyan state is essentially bourgeois. The Libyan economy is essentially capitalist. The class nature of the regime
Let us start with the state. It has never been broken up in Libya. Despite Qadhafi's myth of the "state of the masses" (Jamahiriya), the regime born out of the 1969 coup remains essentially a military dictatorship of the bourgeois army led by a team with petty-bourgeois aspirations. And various vicissitudes of the Libyan "cultural revolution" change nothing in this respect.
It is true that the "people's base communities," which have been established since 1977, represent to a degree a form through which the masses have been able to express themselves at the level of local adminiArab journal
.. •• 1911 an all daid penal 8 ENI
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IRELAND stration, with a minimum of spontaneity. But the fact remains, nonetheless, that power is tightly centralized by the Libyan junta. It uses these committees as transmission belts, while maintaining an absolute monopoly of political expression, suppressing all forms of opposition by police means, including the assassination of oppositionists abroad. The Qadhafi regime has a certain Jacobin aspect, combining terror and popular mobilization.
As for the economy, the best testimony to its (state) capitalist essence was provided last year. Facing the sharp drop in its oil income, and following the example of all the other oil exporters, the Libyan regime acted in the same way or even worse than its partners in Saudi Arabia or in the Gulf Emirates. It expelled without compensation tens of thousands of immigrant workers, mostly Tunisians and Egyptians. It even expropriated them by blocking their bank deposits.
The logic of the capitalist market abruptly shattered Qadhafi's anticapitalist pretensions. Just before that, he had been exhorting the workers of the entire world to take over their factories (!). At the same time, this gave the lie to his Arab nationalist pretensions. Being both Arabs and workers did not save the immigrant workers from being thrown out!
Such then are the limits of the "Libyan revolution." They indicate that the Libyan regime cannot in any case be a trustworthy ally in the struggle against imperialism. Qadhafi has demonstrated abundantly that he is capable of turning somersaults, often quite unpredictably. Iwo movements have in fact recently experienced such an about face. The Polisario Front in the Western Sahara was dropped in 1984 for the sake of a sudden "Arab-African Union" between the Moroccan King Hassan II and Qadhafi, (3) who just before had been accused of plotting against the Moroccan throne. The People's Liberation Army of the Sudan has been today abandoned so that Qadhafi could embrace the new Sudanese regime, which is trying to continue the Nemery state.
Solidarity with Libya against imperialism must be accompanied by combatting any illusions about the Libyan regime in the world anti-imperialist movement. This, moreover, is the basic Leninist condition for any policy of alliances with nonproletarian social forces.
3. This was a reaction by Qadhafi to the rapprochement between Algeria, long his ally, and his Tunisian adversaries. Subsequently, his reconciliation with the Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid points to a coming split in this "union," which remains completely symbolic. 22