Black Libya City Said to Fall to Rebel Siege

Glen Ford, BAR executive editor

17 Aug 2011

Refugees from Libyan city of Tawurgha

Western-backed rebels have made good their vow to “purge slaves, black skin,” with their reported capture of Tawurgha, a black Libyan city, after a long siege. Elsewhere, just 30 miles from the capital city of Tripoli, NATO bombed 85 civilians to oblivion. Facing a September 27 United Nations deadline on its “humanitarian” mission, “NATO has resorted to terror bombing to clear the way for the rebel advance.”

“President Obama has, in effect, been arming a racist lynch mob and calling them freedom fighters.”

The mostly black town of Tawurgha has fallen to NATO-backed rebels after a long siege, according to al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based media mouthpiece for the rebels. It is an event only racists could celebrate, a triumph of hate and Euro-American arms and money over an enclave of dark-skinned Libyans descended from Africans once sold in the town’s slave market. As the Wall Street Journal reported on June 21, the road to Tawurgha (sometimes spelled Ta-wer-gha), 25 miles from the port of Misurata, is punctuated by rebel graffiti vowing to “purge slaves, black skin.” Previously, Benghazi-based rebels methodically cleansed Misurata’s black neighborhoods, warning residents never to return to their jobs or classrooms.

Rebels claimed Tawurgha’s defenders used civilians as “human shields” during the final assault – the stock phrase deployed to justify massacres of non-combatants. President Obama has, in effect, been arming a racist lynch mob and calling them freedom fighters.

Government forces earlier claimed to have recaptured Misurata, itself, along with other battlefield victories, reports that are mirrored by rebel boasts of progress in encircling the capital city, Tripoli, and its 1.5 million people. The pace of military activity has quickened, dramatically, with the September 27 expiration of the Euro-American “mandate” in Libya approaching. NATO has stepped up bombing of pro-government towns along a wide front, throwing every available unit of feuding rebel forces into the fray in hopes of achieving regime change before the deadline. Rebels claims to have captured the town of Brega are in dispute. According to the rebel high command, the oil port was once defended by a brigade of “Chadian” soldiers – another “black African” threat that Amnesty International and other outside observers found to be totally fictional. The rebellion appears to run on Africanophobia.

“The pace of military activity has quickened, dramatically, with the September 27 expiration of the Euro-American “mandate” in Libya approaching.”

Should Moammar Gaddafi still be standing on September 27, NATO will be compelled to apply for an extension of its UN fig-leaf – a request that is likely to be opposed by Russia and/or China, most of the African Union and other regional powers – unless NATO, as the Israelis like to say, has already established its desired “facts on the ground.”

NATO has resorted to terror bombing to clear the way for the rebel advance. Foreign journalists witnessed the funeral of 28 of the 33 children, 20 men and 32 women who were killed in a NATO attack on the town of Majer, only about 30 miles from the capital, last week, according to a government spokesman. Unable to deny the carnage, western media gave cursory coverage, and quickly resumed their p.r. work for the rebels. NATO’s top commander in Libya, Canadian Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard, feigned innocence. "I cannot believe that 85 civilians were present when we struck in the wee hours of the morning, and given our intelligence," he told the press. "I can assure you that there (were not) 85 civilians present, but I cannot assure you that there were none at all."

“Gaddafi could not have withstood the NATO onslaught without the active support of millions.”

At times, it seems the western media, standing death watch in Tripoli, could not recognize a huge demonstration of pro-government sentiment if it materialized right in front of their eyes – as has occurred! But NATO military planners are not so deaf and dumb as their media servants. Although Libya’s government may not have the 85 percent approval Gaddafi claims, it could not have withstood the NATO onslaught without the active support of millions. NATO understands that it must bring to bear its full range of terror tactics if it is to break Tripoli’s resistance by September 27, in order to present the UN with a fait accompli.

The “no-fly” ban that morphed into a Euro-American blitzkrieg was justified to prevent a non-existent “massacre” in Benghazi – a city where human rights workers later concluded that only 110 people died prior to the intervention, many of them pro-government. Now, 30 miles from Tripoli, almost as many civilians have been wiped out by NATO in one night, and no one will ever know how many black Libyans were lynched in the fall of Tawurgha.

A Dissonance in Harlem

The Harlem Millions March, August 20, organized by New York’s December 12th Movement (D-12) and billed as a protest against NATO bombing of Libya and western sanctions against Zimbabwe, wound up shutting out Cynthia McKinney, the most prominent African American “eyewitness” to the bombing. McKinney, who traveled from Atlanta for the well-publicized appearance at the event, and whose presence was announced to the crowd by D-12’s Viola Plumber, was never called to speak, despite long and sometimes undisciplined presentations by many others leading up to final remarks from the Nation of Islam’s Min. Louis Farrakhan. This “clannish” behavior by D-12, as one disappointed visitor described it, is, to say the least, unhelpful to movement-building.

Black Is Back Coalition

On August 20, as part of an “International Day of Action” in opposition to the “Other Wars” the U.S. wages against Africans around the world, the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations has scheduled events in:

Washington, DC ([email protected]);

London, UK ([email protected] or 07862294364);

Harlem, NY ([email protected]);

Nassau, Bahamas ([email protected] or 1-242-326-1003);

St. Petersburg, FL;

Wuppertal, Germany (00491631529218 Wabuza);

Milwauker, WI (414-405-9835);

Chicago, IL ([email protected] or 708-307-7693);

Philadelphia, PA (267-702-3250).

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReportcom.

Libya

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