Massacre and Revolution in Libya

Call for solidarity

An anarchist call for solidarity

The news flooding from Libya is very shocking. Qaddafi's regime is perpetrating a horrible massacre against the masses in revolt, the mercenaries recruited by Qaddafi's regime, besides the regular army and security forces, are opening fire at unarmed Libyan people...

We anarchists and libertarians don't want to underestimate the possibility that some repressive power - Islamist or any other - could take over the revolution, but we don't prefer non-religious repressive powers over religious ones. We opt for the real freedom of the masses, for a free self-managed society organized freely and voluntarily from the bottom upwards. In the face of any such possibilities we see that the only proper response is popular direct action, conducted by free masses..

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Call for solidarity

Massacre and Revolution in Libya

The news that is flooding from Libya is very shocking. Qaddafi's regime is perpetrating a horrible massacre against the masses in revolt, the mercenaries (the equivalent to the Mubarak regime's baltajia) recruited by Qaddafi's regime, besides the regular army and security forces, are opening fire at unarmed Libyan people or, in some cases, armed with only very light firearms. The regime's repressive forces are not only using firearms, but also artillery, tanks, jet fighters and gunship helicopters. In a military sense, this cannot be a war. In fact, it is just a horrible massacre conducted by the Qaddafi regime under the supervision of the imperialist powers in Europe and US but, as ever, those powers are concerned only about oil and money, only about profit, not human rights or even human lives.

European governments together with the US are practising a very shameful silence now, which is more vocal than any possible statement. At heart, they are supporting the killers, the dictatorship, against the revolting masses as they did in Tunisia and Egypt, just to change sides when the triumph of revolution became inevitable. And there is no secret in this. It is all about oil and money that should be kept in hands of dictators not the peoples. And as happened in Bahrain, Tunisia and Egypt before, most of the anti-riot weapons and their ammunition used by the regimes' forces to kill and repress the people came from European or American companies. Two nights ago, the son of the Libyan dictator threatened the masses and yesterday his killers and mercenaries put his threats into action. Libya under the rule of the Qaddafi regime is a perfect example of a totalitarian regime, like that suppressed society in George Orwell's novel "1984". Now "big brother" is waging a real war against his own people, or to be more precise, conducting a bloody massacre against Libyans in revolt. And again, they are trying to use fundamentalists as a bugbear. It is not a fight between fundamentalists and the regime - the fight is going on between the masses and the dictatorship.

This is just a scandalous manipulation of the reality, a shameless trial to justify not only the repression of the regime, but also its brutal crimes, while in fact, nothing, nothing at all can justify the crimes of Qaddafi regime, the use of tanks and jet fighters against unarmed masses including children and their mothers.

We anarchists and libertarians don't want to underestimate the possibilities that some repressive power - Islamist or any other - could manage to take over the revolution, but in this regard we don't prefer non-religious repressive powers over religious ones. We opt for the real freedom of the masses, for a free self-managed society organized freely and voluntarily from the bottom upwards. In the face of any such possibilities we see that the only proper response is popular direct action, conducted by free masses, not by any type of such brutal repression applied by such a barbarian dictatorship.

Here is some news and comments from the blog of an anarchist Libyan comrade (in Arabic only). The blog address is: http://saoudsalem.maktoobblog.com

• Hundreds of people killed in Libya - Qaddafi, the butcher, hides in his fortress.


• Eyewitnesses have reported that a real massacre is taking place in Benghazi city in the east of Libya, where dozens of people were killed and hundreds injured. And that the city hospitals are flooded with injured people. A lawyer and activist told Al Jazeera that the number of people killed by security forces in Benghazi might rise to 200 and around 800 to 900 injured (written on 20 February).


• Qaddafi bombarded the Libyans... and the Libyans are advancing toward Tripoli.


• Benghazi, the second-largest Libyan city next to the capital Tripoli, where the first spark of the February revolt took place, is suffering a genocide (written on 20 February).


• The ruling family (that is, Qaddafi's family) in Libya has lost its temper and called demonstrators thugs.


• It seems that the overuse of power by the regime and its massacres against the demonstrators has backfired on the regime itself, so much so that even many members of its army and police have refused to fire on demonstrators and have joined them instead - forcing Qaddafi's regime to resort to mercenaries from poor African countries (written on 21 February).

Mazen Kamalmaz

Syrian Anarchist