The Battle for Libya is won…the War for Africa begins

By Edwin Mast-Ingle

24-10-2011

(www.mi5.co.za)

The US and its European allies has won another battle in the war with China for the heart, soul and riches of Africa with the ousting of Gaddafi in Libya leaving the country completely vulnerable to exploitation immediately and for as long as its oil reserves last.

Brilliant spin-doctoring has obscured the US’s three-fold purpose in Libya – to access the foreign funds estimated at in excess in US$200-billion to avoid further crises in international monetary structures; control the oil which is the richest in Africa, easily accessible by Europe and comprising two per cent of the world’s supply; and finally to ensure an on-going low-key war among the 41 tribes that will provide a lucrative market for arms manufacturers that head up a long list seen plying trade in Iraq.

Key to this is the oil reserves which are the largest in Africa and eighth on the world stakes with46.4 billion barrels as of 2010. Oil production was 1.7 million barrels per day giving Libya 77 years of reserves at current production rates if no new reserves were to be found.[1] Libya is considered a highly attractive oil area due to its low cost of oil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Libya

The ‘chosen’ successor for Ghaddafi is Abdelhakim Belhadj, former head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which was listed as a terrorist organization after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He was detained at a secret prison by the CIA in 2004 before he was returned to Libya.

The spin-doctoring for the world at large has also succeeded in obliterating any good that may have come out of the country as far as Africa is concerned.  According to a Reuters report on Nov 24, 2010 Libya was pouring aid and investment into Africa.  These included:

·         An offer of $97-billion in the continent to free it from Western influence on condition that the states rid themselves of corruption and nepotism.

·         $65 billion into sovereign wealth funds, including one specifically designed to make investments in Africa.

·         LAP Green Networks, a mobile phone operator which says it has commercial operations in Niger, Ivory Coast, Uganda and Rwanda and is planning to launch operations in Chad, Sierra Leone, Togo and southern Sudan. LAP is also the main shareholder in Afriqiyah Airways. Its name is the Arabic for Africa and it says its mission is to link African states to each other. It operates routes that are poorly served by major airlines. Destinations include Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, Bangui in Central African Republic and Douala in Cameroon.

·         Libya is one of the biggest contributors to the budget of the African Union, the 53-country body which is supposed to function along the lines of the European Union. A senior Libyan diplomat told Reuters Libya is one of five countries — the others are Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa — which cover 75 per cent of the union’s budget.

·         Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi announced the creation of a $100 million investment fund for Niger as part of a strengthening of bilateral ties. Under earlier agreements, Tripoli is contributing 100 million euros for the construction of a Trans-Sahara highway in the north of Niger, according to sources close to Niger’s foreign ministry.

·         Mauritania has debts to Libya of about $200 million. During discussions on debt relief in May this year, the Libyan central bank announced Libya would provide $50-million in grants to build a hospital and a university.

The list goes on to cover countries such as the Congo, Gambia and others undisclosed for sensitive or political reasons.

Recently, however, the Obama administration offered millions of dollars in new aid to Libya as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton encouraged the country’s unsteady new leadership to commit to a democratic future free of retribution, according to John Pilger, an Australian writing in the Tehran News.

“On 14 October, President Barack Obama announced he was sending United States Special Forces troops to Uganda to join the civil war there. In the next few months, U.S. combat troops will be sent to South Sudan, Congo and Central African Republic. They will only “engage” for “self-defence”, says Obama, satirically. With Libya secured, an American invasion of the African continent is under way.”

“In Africa, says Obama, the “humanitarian mission” is to assist the government of Uganda defeat the Lord’s resistance Army (LRA), which “has murdered, raped and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa”. This is an accurate description of the LRA, evoking multiple atrocities administered by the United States, such as the bloodbath in the 1960s following the CIA-arranged murder of Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese independence leader and first legally elected prime minister, and the CIA coup that installed Mobutu Sese Seko, regarded as Africa’s most venal tyrant.” (The full story is worth the read at www.johnpilger.com)

(Note by the author: As a journalist I was in the Congo at the time.  What remains untold is that the United Nations was called in – not to bring about peace, but to protect the Union Meniere copper mines at the time associated with the brother-in-law of Dag Hammarskjold, the then UN head.  Hammarskjold died in a plane crash in the then Northern Rhodesia returning from the Congo.  I was first on the scene by complete coincidence to find the plane riddled with bullet holes – a fact never disclosed.)

The future for Libya is now in the hands of Obama, the US and EU.  It now remains to be seen if they will honour the investments and pledges Libya has made to Africa or simply loot the whole lot themselves.  It also remains to be seen how the reinvented terrorist Abdelhakim Belhadj compares to Ghaddafi and after Sudan whether Nigeria or South Africa will be the US’s next target.

On the way out you might consider the following attributed to Ghaddafi:

·         There is no electricity bill in Libya; electricity is free for all its citizens.

·          There is no interest on loans, banks in Libya are state-owned and loans given to all its citizens at 0% interest by law.

·          Home considered a human right in Libya. Gaddafi vowed that his parents would not get a house until everyone in Libya had a home. Gaddafi’s father has died while he, his wife and his mother are still living in a tent.

·          All newlyweds in Libya receive $60,000 Dinar (US$50,000) by the government to buy their first apartment so to help start up the family.

·         Education and medical treatments are free in Libya. Before Gaddafi only 25% of Libyans are literate. Today the figure is 83%.

·         Should Libyans want to take up farming career, they would receive farming land, a farming house, equipment, seeds and livestock to kick-start their farms – all for free.

·          If Libyans cannot find the education or medical facilities they need in Libya, the government funds them to go abroad for it, not only free but they get US$2,300 a month, accommodation and car allowance.

·         The government subsidized 50% of the price of a car.

·         The price of petrol in Libya was until recently $0.14 per litre.

·          Libya has no external debt and its reserves amount to $150 billion now frozen globally.

·          If a Libyan is unable to get employment after graduation the state would pay the average salary of the profession as if he or she is employed until employment is found.

·         A portion of Libyan oil sale is, credited directly to the bank accounts of all Libyan citizens.

·          A mother who gave birth to a child receives US$5,000.

·         Forty loaves of bread in Libya costs $ 0.15

·         Twenty-five per cent of Libyans have a university degree.

·          Gaddafi carried out the world’s largest irrigation project, known as the Great Man-Made River project, to make water readily available throughout the desert country.

  (The www.mi5.co.za website aims to give a clearer view of what can be expected in 2012…and beyond)