recognizing the 'un'-people

[xchrom]

http://www.nationofchange.org/recognizing-unpeople-1326034449

On June 15, three months after the NATO bomb­ing of Libya began, the African Union pre­sented to the U.N. Se­cu­rity Coun­cil the African po­si­tion on the at­tack – in re­al­ity, bomb­ing by their tra­di­tional im­pe­r­ial ag­gres­sors: France and Britain, joined by the U.S., which ini­tially co­or­di­nated the as­sault, and mar­gin­ally some other na­tions.

It should be re­called that there were two in­ter­ven­tions. The first, under U.N. Se­cu­rity Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tion 1973, adopted on March 17, called for a no-fly zone, a cease-fire and mea­sures to pro­tect civil­ians. After a few mo­ments, that in­ter­ven­tion was cast aside as the im­pe­r­ial tri­umvi­rate joined the rebel army, serv­ing as its air force.

At the out­set of the bomb­ing, the A.U. called for ef­forts at diplo­macy and ne­go­ti­a­tions to try to head off a likely hu­man­i­tar­ian cat­a­stro­phe in Libya. Within the month, the A.U. was joined by the BRICS coun­tries (Brazil, Rus­sia, India, China and South Africa) and oth­ers, in­clud­ing the major re­gional NATO power Turkey.

In fact, the tri­umvi­rate was quite iso­lated in its at­tacks – un­der­taken to elim­i­nate the mer­cu­r­ial tyrant whom they had sup­ported when it was ad­van­ta­geous. The hope was for a regime like­lier to be amenable to West­ern de­mands for con­trol over Libya’s rich re­sources and, per­haps, to offer an African base for the U.S. Africa com­mand AFRICOM, so far con­fined to Stuttgart.