After the fall of Gaddafi revolution must go deeper

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press Thursday September 01, 2011 19:37 by Richard Brenner - League for the Fifth international

How will the revolution in Libya advance now that Gadaffi has fallen? The dangers and opportunities are discussed in this article by Richard Brenner. More material regarding the Libyan revolution is available at the League for the Fifth international website.

In Tripoli in the early days of the uprising, Gaddafi’s forces had already murdered between 200 and 700 unarmed demonstrators. Like all victorious uprisings the Libyan Revolution will have to crush the remaining elements of the old regime including Gaddafi and his sons. They should not be tried but put to swift revolutionary justice. At the same time the revolution needs to discipline itself. The horrifying cases of killings of black people need to be stopped. Gaddafi hired sub-Saharan mercenaries but in Tripoli gangs seem to be treating black people all as Gaddafi mercenaries. Anyone doing this should be tried and punished harshly.

the NTC is a heterogeneous body. It is made up of former Gaddafi officials, plus some of the original rebels who launched the democratic uprising in the first place before NATO got involved. There will be a struggle to decide the composition of the new government.

There are huge numbers of armed rebels on the streets and only cynical enemies of the Libyan Revolution will claim they are all just stooges or reactionaries. Many of them will soon come to realise that the imperialists are no friends of the Libyan people, that the defectors from Gaddafi’s regime are corrupt and won’t help the people, that the old murderous police and state bureaucracy will not meet the urgent needs of ordinary Libyans.