It is time to end the NATO intervention in Libya and call for a cease fire and a negotiated settlement now.

 

The NATO powers, especially, France, the U.K., Italy and the United States, have gone far beyond any authority given them by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973, which authorized the creation of a no-fly zone to protect unarmed Libyan civilians from being slaughtered by forces loyal to Moammar Gadaffi. They have used the resolution as a pretext for a full-fledged military effort to oust Gadaffi and his allies from power, and to install a government more friendly to their own interests. The world is right to suspect that this intervention is less about protecting civilians than about protecting oil, gas, water, banking and geopolitical interests of the wealthy countries, who have seen their influence in the area slipping due to the “Arab Spring”. 

 

The military situation on the ground is beginning to look like a stalemate and a protracted war. The idea that Gadaffi and his followers would quickly be ousted, like Presidents Ben-Ali of Tunisia and Mubarak of Egypt, is fading. While the rebels have strong support in eastern Libya, Gadaffi has support in the West, around the capital of Tripoli. As the conflict, involving pro-Gadaffi troops, mercenaries and tribal levies, NATO air strikes and rebel action, goes on, more and more people are dying and a larger and larger refugee situation is being created. On May 6, perhaps 600 refugees, mostly Somalis who had been working in Libya and were fleeing the fighting, drowned in the Mediterranean when their boat foundered. It is typical of reactionary NATO leaders such as President Sarkozy of France and Prime Minister Berlusconi of Italy that they ostentatiously wash their hands of this refugee crisis by calling for the gutting of the Schengen regime, the European Union policy that allows movement of people from one European Union nation to another.

 

This situation cries out for a cease fire and a mediated solution. Instead, NATO appears to be escalating the conflict.  The bombing on April 30 which killed Gadaffi’s son and 3 infant grandchildren was part of that escalation. The claim that this was just due to coincidence insults our intelligence. No matter what one thinks about Gadaffi, this is a very bad road for the NATO powers and the United States to embark on.

 

By now, many of the Security Council member countries which either voted for Resolution 1973 or abstained, have repudiated the way NATO has interpreted it. A call for a cease fire has come from countries whose joint population constitutes a majority of our planet’s inhabitants: China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, Turkey, Vietnam, South Africa, the ALBA group of countries in Latin America and the African Union (including South Africa, which voted for Resolution 1973 in the Security Council) now are demanding a cease fire and negotiations. Even NATO member Germany dissents from the present course of action. And now United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has added his voice to the call for a cease fire. Yet NATO military commanders are now asking for the right to bomb infrastructural targets.

 

The Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA) calls upon the people of our country, including especially the anti-war movement, organized labor and other democratic people’s movements, to demand that Obama administration to break with the aggressive policy its NATO allies, stop its armed participation in the NATO intervention, and join the international call for a cease fire in Libya and a negotiated solution, the results to be determined by the Libyan people only.