Worldwide protests against US b Britain BRITISH COMPLICITY in the United States' bombing of Tripoli and Bengazi provoked massive public opposition and a wave of demonstrations throughout Britain. Opinion polls showed opposition to Thatcher's support of the American operation running to seven in ten. In a week of demonstrations tens of thousands protested outside US installations and in Britain's major cities. The public response is a new blow to the Thatcher government, increasingly unpopular for its economic and social policies.
Thatcher had been informed of Reagan's intention to prosecute the raid on April 8. When told that the US government was intending to carry out the raid regardless of the position of its NATO allies, Thatcher quickly acquiesced in the proposal. The British government was the only one of the USA's eleven European NATO allies to do so.
Justifying her actions in the House of Commons on the basis of US assistance to Britain in the Malvinas War, and the supposed aid given by Qadhafi to the IRA, Thatcher declared that it was "inconceivable we should refuse United States aircraft and pilots the right to defend their own people." However many of her senior colleagues ombing did not agree. Some privately concluded that the incident had decisively destroyed their chances of winning the next general election scheduled for 1987. Ex-Prime Minister Edward Heath spoke sharply against her actions, claiming that he had refused similar logistical support for the USA during the Yom Kippur war in 1973.
Other opposition parties also disagreed with the government's actions. The Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock opposed the military action while also condemning other EEC governments for not pursuing economic and diplomatic sanctions against the Libyan government and people.
Kinnock has taken the opportunity to repeat his party's pledge to remove all US nuclear bases after "about a month" if Labour took office following a general election. This policy is now becoming popular one with the electorate. There are over 160 US installations in Britain, of which 100 are military • ones used by the US Air Force. Over a fifth of the US air strength is based in Britain with 57,000 personnel. Labour's policy however only applies to nuclear bases, which would actually leave most in place. From the left of the party has come the demand for a future Labour government to withdraw from NATO. But the limitations of the Labour Party's "non-nuclear" policy has become evident
International Viewpoint 5 May 1986
in the rabid hostility to this proposal in the rabid hostility to this nronosal from Kinnock and the rest of the right.
Nonetheless the Labour Party is riding a tide of public opinion as a result of its opposition to Thateher's support for Reagan. Only 29 per cent of British people questioned in a
MORI poll during the week after the bombing thought that Reagan was right to carry out the operation. An even lower figure of 25 per cent agreed with Thatcher's complicity in the operation. These figures did not change significantly after the execution of two British journalists in
Beirut. The father of Leigh Douglas, one of the journalists killed, made front-page news by denouncing the
Thatcher government for being responsible for his son's death.
The response to the Tory government's support to the bombing was organized largely by the peace move. ment and particularly the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Within six hours of the bombing being announced CND organized a demonstration of 2,000 people outside Downing Street, the prime minister's residence. The same night saw demonstrations in Manchester, Birmingham, Oxford, Nottingham and Southampton.
On Saturday April 19, over 10,000 people joined a demonstration called by CND and supported by the Labour Party in Grosvenor Square outside the American Embassy. Called on the basis of "US bases out of Britain" and "Stop supporting international terrorism" , the demonstration was considered a success by CND leaders, who have largely played down CND's mass campaigning role in the last period. Later on 5,000 people staged a sit-down protest in Oxford Street, London's busiest shopping centre, which was broken up by police with 67 arrests.
Elsewhere in Britain, US bases were a special target for protesters with the four bases involved in the raid against Libya being singled out for special attention. At both Lakenheath in East Anglia and Fairford in Gloucestershire, demonstrations of about 2,000 protestors cut down perimeter fences and painted slogans on installations. Thirteen Greenham Common women entered the missile base which has been on full alert since the beginning of the Libyan crisis. In Scotland about 1,500 people rallied in the centre of Glasgow.
Now the task for the peace movement and the left is to press home the popular opposition to the Libyan raid, end British complicity in the attacks on Libya and Central America and build the movement for US bases out of Britain and Britain out of NATO.
International Viewpoint 5 May 1986
USA
IN THE US itself, emergency protests against Reagan's action were held in a number of cities. In Los Angeles,
800 demonstrators gathered on April
15 for a previously called action against US aid to the contras. In
Washington, picket lines were mounted and demonstrators chanted, "Stop the bombing, stop the war from Libya to El Salvador."
Four hundred protested in Minneapolis and the same number in New
York City as well as 300 in Seattle.
April 19 was the day set for the Mobilization for Peace, Jobs and Justice in San Francisco. Twenty-five thousand people attended and the US attack on Libya became a major theme of the demonstration.
Though these are small beginnings it is clear that opposition inside the United States will develop apace. At a convention of the Rainbow Coalition [close to the Democratic Party], on April 19-20, for instance, the clear feeling, expressed most emphatically by Jesse Jackson, was against the intervention. Italy THE ATTACK BY US imperialism against Libya provoked widespread reaction in Italy. Despite the attempts of the media to stir up nationalist feeling several demonstrations took place against the US action in most of the large towns and in some smaller ones. Hundreds of thousands of people marched through the streets, for the most part raising clearly anti-imperialist slogans including against NATO and for Italy's withdrawal. In Rome, 10,000 people marched, in Milan, 30,000 and in Florence, 60,00070,000.
The LCR (Lega Comunista Rivoluzionaria, Italian section of the Fourth International) and its affiliated youth organization, played an active role in the actions which had a very strong student component. The National Secretariat of the LCR sent an open letter to the Libyan embassy in Italy saying "we extend our total solidarity to the Arab people of Libya under attack by American imperialism. Our country has a historic debt to Libya, a country which was the victim for several decades of Italian colonialism. We do not want to see, today, our government endorsing further military aggression against a people who have always fought for their independence. That is why our organization and our journal put forward the slogan, 'Hands off Libya!'
"We believe that the mobilization of Italian workers will make an important contribution to the struggle of all those peoples, who, throughout the world, have fought for freedom and against imperialism...
The LCR Central Committee adopted a resolution of which the main theme is "Against imperialist aggression, help Libya resist." At the same time it was decided to launch a campaign of material aid, mainly in the form of medical supplies to the victims of the attack in Tripoli and Benghasi.
West Germany IN WEST GERMANY an estimated total of 100,000 people were out on the streets during the week when the bombing raid took place. Demonstrations were held in all the major cities and in smaller ones. The largest was in Bonn when 30,000 people assembled on Saturday, April 19 at the appeal of the peace movement coordinating organization. Similar demonstrations were held in Hamburg, Frankfurt and Berlin.
The increasing US aggression has prompted peace groups and groups in solidarity with the peoples in different countries to work more closely together against US intervention. The Libyan bombing produced a renewed reaction of fear amongst the population at the threat of war and this will probably be reflected in increasing support for the peace movement, particularly in the demonstrations next October. Spanish state ABOUT 15,000 people marched in Madrid in a spontaneous response to the bombing raid. The demonstration was called by the Anti-NATO commission and other organizations of the left and the trade unions, the CCOO and the CNT. On Sunday, April 20, thousands more marched on the US consulate in Barcelona. And elsewhere... MORE THAN 50,000 people marched on the US embassy in Athens, Greece on April 15 chanting "Hands off Libya now" and "Americans out of the Mediterranean" . The protest was called by the Greek Student Federation, both of Greece's two communist parties and several trade unions.
In Vienna, Austria about 4,000 marched to the US embassy and burned an effigy of Reagan.
In France, 1,000 people took part in a march called by the LCR (Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, French section of the Fourth International and Lutte Ouvriere.
And other demonstrations were reported in Tunisia and Pakistan. Some 10,000 people also demonstrated in Khartoum, Sudan.