Pan-Africanists in Barbados Write Open Letter to US and UK on the Libya War

Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) was one of the most powerful leaders of the 20th century. His Universal Negro Improvement Assocation, African Communities League, had millions of members throughout the world., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

17th August 2011

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington D.C. U.S.A

AND

Prime Minister David Cameron
No 10 Downing Street
LondonU.K.

Dear Sirs,

I am writing this letter to you in my capacity as the representative of a group of 13 non- governmental, community-based organisations of the Caribbean nation of Barbados.

Today- 17th August 2011 ( birthday of the great Caribbean Pan-Africanist, the Honourable Marcus Garvey)- our group of organisations staged a public protest march in Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, and directed it against the United States embassy and the British High Commission, in protest against the ongoing unjust and illegal policies and actions of the governments of the U.S.A and the United Kingdom towards the sovereign nation and people of Libya.

As you are aware, over the past five months U.S., British and French military forces, acting under the auspices of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) have carried out a horrendous military assault on the nation, people and government of Libya.

Your airforces and navies have relentlessly attacked Tripoli and other Libyan cities with bombs and cruise missiles, including 2,000 pound bombs launched from the most sophisticated B-2 military air-craft.During the course of these air-strikes you have killed at least 2,000 innocent Libyan civilians, inclusive of the son and infant grand-children of Colonel Muammar Gadaffi!

You have also destroyed much of the physical infrastructure of Libya, and have terrorised ordinary Libyans in their homes, schools, mosques and communities.

In addition, you have sent military and intelligence personnel connected to the Central Intelligence Agency, MI 6 and British Special Forces into Libya to train, organise and funnel weapons to the rabble of Al-Qaeda linked Islamic fundamentalist fighters that constitute the core of the so-called "opposition" in Libya, and that your controlled corporate news media tries to convince the world are "unarmed civilian protesters".

And inexcusably, you have sat idly by while your rented rabble have engaged in murderous racist attacks against sub-Saharan African migrants and dark skinned Libyans.

Furthermore, you have joined with President Nicholas Sarkozy of France, and have openly declared that your collective intention is to eliminate Muammar Gaddafi, and to drive the Libyan government out of power, and indeed, out of Libya itself.

Without the benefit of any electoral process or any consulting of the Libyan people, you have arrogantly and autocratically decreed that the so-called rebels are to be considered the legitimate government of Libya.

And concomitant with this, your governments have confiscated, and in some cases appropriated, billions of dollars belonging to the government and people of Libya, even while your trans-national petroleum corporations have commenced upon the commercial exploitation of Libya's massive oil resources!

How in God's name can you justify such monstrous criminality and such egregious breaches of the most sacred and fundamental principles of international law and morality?

For the past five months you have been asserting that you are acting under the authority of Resolution 1973, adopted by the United Nations Security Council on 17th March 2011.

But when one reads the text of that Resolution it becomes clear that the focus of the Resolution is the protection of civilians and civilian populated areas in Libya, including the establishment of "a ban on all flights in the airspace of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya in order to help protect civilians".

The Resolution also expressly EXCLUDES "a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory", and calls for the strict implementation of an arms embargo on the entire nation of Libya.

Nowhere in Resolution 1973 are you authorized to murder Muammar Gaddafi or his relatives! Nowhere are you mandated to impose a so-called "regime change" on Libya! Nowhere, in a Resolution devoted to protecting "civilians and civilian population areas," are you authorised to rain down bombs and missiles on the largest and most densely populated civilian area in Libya- the capital city of Tripoli!

Nowhere, in a Resolution calling for a strict arms embargo, are you mandated to supply offensive weapons to your rented rebels!

Nowhere, in a Resolution that expressly forbids any form of foreign occupation, were you given approval to send your military and intelligence personnel into Libya! The stark reality is that all of your policies and actions as outlined above are outside the parameters of and in flagrant violation of Resolution 1973!

The sad and unfortunate truth is that you have abused and perverted the name and authority of the United Nations organisation! You have exploited and used the United Nations to commit a heinous crime, and in doing so have held up that crucial world organisation to international contempt and ridicule.

In the process, you have damaged not only the United Nations organisation, but yourselves as well! The opportunistic self-interest that underlies your assault on Libya is so obvious and transparent that all around the world hundreds of millions of people are seeing you in a new light and reassessing their attitude to you.

Granted, this is not the first time that you have engaged in an imperialistic assault on a Third World nation, but usually you were able to put forward some sort of half plausible excuse- such as your claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

But in the case of Libya your attempt to convince the world that heavily armed Islamic fundamentalist militias were peaceful civilian protestors and that the Libyan government was not entitled to defend itself against armed attack, was so ridiculous that it amounted to no justification at all!

And so, the purpose of this letter is to inform you that a very significant, and a growing, segment of the Barbadian population is appalled and outraged by your ongoing criminal and genocidal assault on Libya.

Traditionally, the people of Barbados, as a whole, have been well disposed towards the USA and Britain, but we are a people who believe deeply in fairness, justice and the rule of law, and we know that "God don't like ugly".

What you are doing to Libya is wrong- wrong in law, wrong in morality, and wrong in the sight of God - and we are calling upon you to stop it - now!

Stop the evil bombardment of Tripoli and other Libyan cities! Stop the effort to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi!

Stop the mayhem and chaos that you have orchestrated and put into motion! As long ago as the 10th of March 2011 the chairperson of the 53 nation African Union (AU) contacted the UN Security Council and the European Union and informed them that the AU had established a High Level Committee comprising five African heads of state and the Chairperson of the AU Commission to commence work on finding a negotiated peaceful solution to whatever civil conflict existed in Libya - a founding member of the AU.

And in so doing, the AU also made it clear that there should be no foreign military intervention - in any form whatsoever - in Libya!In spite of this clear opportunity for a peaceful settlement of whatever civil dispute might have existed, you arrogantly shunted aside the AU and proceeded on your predetermined course of warfare.Well, the AU has never lost its confidence that, with appropriate support from the international community, it can negotiate and broker a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Libya.

And so, even at this late stage, we urge you to finally do the right thing by withdrawing your "dogs of war" and permitting the African Union - the international organisation possessed of the greatest legitimacy to deal with internal conflict in an African country - to negotiate a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Libya.

Remember, the eyes of the world are on you, and your actions are being carefully assessed. This is a new age of enlightened public opinion and of rapid and all pervasive communication, and when the masses of the people of the world deliver their judgment, they will deliver it with an awesome finality!

The implications for the credibility, reputation and long term interests of the U.S.A, Britain, France and the United Nations are clear. Once again - in your own best interest- we urge you to do the right thing!

Yours faithfully DAVID A. COMISSIONG(On behalf of the Clement Payne Movement, the Israel Lovell Foundation, the Peoples Empowerment Party, Universal Day of Hope Trust, Barbados Study Group, Congress of African People, I Y Pad (Barbados NGO Chapter), Caribbean Movement For Peace & Integration, Afrikan Reparations Inc, Akobie Centre, International NGO Congress, Global Afrikan Congress (Barbados Chapter), Cuba/Barbados Friendship Association)