Islamists Demand Fall of Libyan Government, End to Oil Blockades
Source: Reuters
(Reuters) - Around 300 Islamists took to the streets of the Libyan port of Benghazi on Friday demanding the fall of the government and an end to strikes and sit-ins stopping crude exports - the first sign of public opposition to the blockades in the oil-rich east.
A regional autonomy movement has seized the country's two biggest ports in Es-Sider and Ras Lanuf, both of them in eastern Libya, the source of 60 percent of the OPEC producer's oil wealth. Other groups demanding a greater share of oil wealth and other rights have halted exports at Hariga port in Tobruk in the far east.
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Groups occupying oil sites are mainly made up of former fighters and other militias who helped overthrow Gaddafi. Many in the east sympathise with their goals but the public mood has soured in the past few days with power cuts in Benghazi and other cities blamed by the government on a sharp fall in oil and gas production.
The Islamists called for the overthrow of Libya's interim government, led by Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, accusing it of being incompetent and too liberal. They also held up banners demanding the establishment of an Islamic state with strict application of Islamic law, or sharia, and the dissolution of all political parties.
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Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/12/06/uk-libya-protest-oil-idUKBRE9B50WD20131206
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DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)Still smiling that "we came, we saw, he died" about Gaddafi?
DRoseDARs
(6,810 posts)
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)I'm sure they've heard of it. If they win, well, whatever, I guess Libyans like that bullshit.
solarhydrocan
(551 posts)USA/CIA/NSA:
Spreading Democracy one coup d'etat at a time
http://www.hulu.com/american-coup
Known as ‘Operation Ajax’, this covert operation would be the first overthrow of a foreign government by the agency, and serve as a template for all future CIA coups - including the following year in Guatemala. Initially viewed as a geopolitical success, the coup in Iran led to disaster 25 years later, when radical mullahs drove the corrupt Shah from power and established an anti-Western Islamic government. Combining newsreel footage, historians, Middle East experts and former US intelligence officers, American Coup explores the repercussions from this seminal event and examines the coup’s lingering effects on the present US-Iranian relationship.
How's that for Bullshit?
burnsei sensei
(1,820 posts)that the Shah was put into power.
Both actions were serious mistakes and bore bitter fruit later.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)My point is that if these people want to be a part of, or even to dominate the government of Libya, they should go for legitimate methods that involve the people of Libya.
The "bullshit" is their platform. I disagree strongly with it - but I figure if libyans like it enough to vote it in, whatever, I wasn't planning on moving there any time soon anyway, right?
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)They already set up a provisional government supposedly (and the usual suspects came out to trash Libyans for that one). Why the need for a protest if they had a second government formed?
They're nothing.
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)How is this better than the previous secular government they just got rid of with our help? I don't see this ending well.
burnsei sensei
(1,820 posts)the Sharia is a holy path, a God-given law, and as such, far superior to anything humanity has ever done for itself.
In such a community, man is not the measure of his own good, he is not the measure of anything.
The human being has no power in such a place, and by rights, so many believe, should have none.
It's very important that we not impose humanistic standards on a society that believes itself to be holy and perfect.
A society in which change is an admission that things might not be perfect.
If Libyans want humanism, they will adopt it themselves.
If they don't, there is nothing we can do.
Kurska
(5,739 posts)I don't care what imaginary friend people claim they were told to do it by. Universal human rights are universal human rights, some cultures just haven't gotten there yet.
Any nation that violates human rights deserve to be called out for it, even if the reasoning isn't secular. Being religious doesn't give you a free pass to brutalize your own people.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Yes, brutality and human rights violations need to be called out--wherever they occur.
Kurska
(5,739 posts)We throw way too many people in jail and I don't give anyone a pass for that, it needs to change.
Doesn't mean I gotta give murders and misogynists a pass either if they say god told them to do it.
burnsei sensei
(1,820 posts)on this issue, and change was brought into policy and practice, then we would be admitting that we were mistaken and that our actions divided the society and caused unnecessary suffering.
Much of the evil in the world exists because people want to preserve face or pride, even when that face is not worth preserving for a second.
burnsei sensei
(1,820 posts)I would defy you to advocate your humanistic opinion in the streets of Saudi Arabia or any Muslim society.
A culture in which 1. scripture is inerrant authority and 2. the divine is superior to whatever is human will never accommodate homosexuals, women, nor will it see the needs of children as being important in themselves.
Do not apply a humanistic standard to a theo-centric culture; it's a futile exercise.
Kurska
(5,739 posts)My "opinion" on human rights (universal human rights are not a bloody opinion) wouldn't matter to them.
We need to end theo-centric cultures, period. They hold back technological and social progress. They are used as a tool by the wealth and the majority to keep the poor and the minority in line. If they won't accept that they can continue blowing each up over who god likes better for the next several centuries, I weep for the innocent people caught up in their religious dick waving contests.
burnsei sensei
(1,820 posts)And I agree with what you say.
cosmicone
(11,014 posts)Keep Libya secular and non-fundamentalist.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Libya's prime minister said on Wednesday that his government is spending billions of dollars to offset the loss of revenue caused by militias who have shut down oil terminals in the country's restive east, one of many challenges to state authority in the North African country after its 2011 uprising and civil war.
Ali Zidan spoke as Republican Sen. John McCain made a brief visit to Tripoli to meet with the prime minister and other officials. McCain reaffirmed a U.S. pledge to train Libyan troops, and said that stability there can only be achieved by outside help.
Zidan said at a news conference in Tripoli that Libya has allocated $7 billion of its foreign reserves to compensate for the terminals held by eastern militias and tribesmen, and said that it will need $6 billion more.
"This is to show to people how this is getting dangerous," he said. Libya is losing millions of dollars every day after production dropped from 1.4 billion barrels a day to a few thousands since the closure.
The groups holding the terminals meanwhile stepped up their demands, saying after a meeting in the eastern city of Tobruk on Wednesday that the oil terminals will not open until the government agrees to set up a committee with representatives of the country's three regions to divide up oil revenues.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/12/04/3796594/libya-spends-foreign-reserves.html