French-Italian proxy oil war in Libya continues

This 8 May 2019 video says about itself:

Italy Pressures France Over Support For Libya’s Rebels

France has backed Libyan rebel General Khalifa Haftar’s efforts … But after complaints from the Italian government, the French have apparently backed off their vocal support of Haftar’s advance on Tripoli. But the head of Libya’s Taghyeer Party says Haftar is taking advantage of diverging international interests in Libya to get ahead.

Guests:
Guma el Gamaty
Head of Libya’s Taghyeer Party

Mohamed Eljarh
Founder and CEO of Libya Outlook

Anne Giudicelli
CEO of Terr(o)Risc

By Alex Lantier in France:

Bombing of Turkey’s Watiya base escalates Franco-Italian proxy war in Libya

8 July 2020

Even as COVID-19 spreads, the decade-long civil war between rival imperialist-backed warlords triggered by the 2011 NATO war in Libya is spiraling out of control.

On July 5, unidentified warplanes bombed al-Watiya airbase, which Italian-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) forces recently retook from French-backed Libyan National Army (LNA) forces of Khalifa Haftar. The attack damaged hangars and destroyed military equipment from Turkey, which is coordinating its support for the GNA with Italy. LNA official Khaled al Mahjoub told Al Arabiya that “other attacks similar to the one on the base will soon be carried out. … We are in a real war with Turkey, which has oil ambitions in Libya.”

Turkish military sources told Spanish news site Atalayar the raid included “nine precision airstrikes against Turkish air defense systems,” which wounded several Turkish intelligence officials. They added that the attacks were “successful” and left “three radars completely destroyed.” However, Atalayar refuted reports that MiG-29 or Su-24 jets Moscow has given the LNA carried out the strikes, saying that it was the work of French-made Rafale jets.

Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and France itself all field Rafales, support the LNA, and could have bombed al-Watiya. On June 21, Egyptian dictator General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi threatened to intervene in Libya against Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s office reacted to the strike by tweeting that Turkey would escalate operations in Libya, attacking the coastal city of Sirte and Al Jufra, Libya’s largest airbase, both located in central Libya and held by LNA forces. It cited control of oil supply lines and Russian support for the LNA to justify its intervention.

The bombing of al-Watiya, barely 150km from Tripoli, followed visits by Turkish and Italian officials. It came only a few hours after Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar concluded a trip to Tripoli, during which he proclaimed, “Turkish sovereignty and our return, after the withdrawal of our ancestors, to return forever in Libya.” This apparently referred to the Turkish Ottoman Empire’s control over Libya, until Italy seized Libya and held it as a colony from 1911 until 1943 and its defeat during World War II.

On June 24, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio visited Tripoli, after meeting with his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in Ankara and amid joint Turkish-Italian naval drills. In Tripoli, he said the war was central to Rome’s strategic interests, calling Libya “a priority for our foreign policy and national security.”

The strike on al-Watiya has revealed the bitter divisions among the NATO imperialist powers, as well as between the regional powers, over the division of the spoils from the 2011 war.

Amid revolutionary uprisings of the working class in Egypt and Tunisia in 2011, Paris, London and Washington pushed NATO to bomb Libya and arm Islamist and tribal militias to topple Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Berlin declined to join the war, and the belligerent powers ran roughshod over initial Turkish objections. Western media and petty-bourgeois pseudo-left groups like France’s New Anti-capitalist Party claimed it was a humanitarian war to protect Libyan protesters, but it was an imperialist rape of Libya.

It set the stage not only for the ongoing proxy war in Syria between Russia and NATO, which sent to Syria many Islamist proxy militias it had mobilized in Libya, but for a ruthless struggle to carve up Libya and its massive oil reserves.

Thousands have died in fighting between rival militias unleashed by the 2011 war, and the coronavirus pandemic is now ravaging Libya. The number of cases doubled in the last two weeks of June, to 713, and now stands at 1,117. Only 269 have recovered while 34 have died, as the disease spreads across a country whose health and industrial infrastructure have been shattered by a decade of bloodshed.

This month, the International Rescue Committee reported: “This year Libya has recorded the highest number of attacks on health facilities of any country in the world. Just yesterday, an ambulance was hit by an airstrike, severely damaging the vehicle and the health facility close by. Last week two doctors were killed by a mine that exploded under a body they were moving from a hospital. With Libya’s health system already on its knees, continued attacks such as these are making it even harder for medical teams in the country to respond to the pandemic.”

The NATO powers are not bringing medical and humanitarian aid, however, but plundering Libya and threatening to escalate the fighting into an all-out regional war. Several regional powers play a major role—with Turkey and Algeria backing the GNA, and Egypt and the UAE backing the LNA. Moscow has also intervened to back the LNA against the Islamist-dominated GNA. However, a decisive aspect of the conflict is between major oil corporations like France’s Total and Italy’s ENI.

On July 3, Turkey’s Anadolu news agency wrote that the GNA is “advancing on Sirte, the gateway to the east of the country and oil fields.” It called Sirte “crucial” for two reasons: “First, Sirte has significant economic value as a gateway to Libya’s oil crescent region, consisting of vital ports such as al-Zuweytinah, Ra’s Lanuf, Marsa al Brega, and as-Sidr, which reportedly supplies 60 percent of Libya’s oil exports. Secondly, it is a strategic city that could enable the GNA to take control of the Libyan coastline from the capital to the west and Benghazi to the east.”

ENI dominates the oilfields in GNA-held northwestern Libya. But many of the oil reserves and refineries in the “oil crescent” region are held by Total and LNA militias in the Cyrenaica region around Benghazi, the center of the NATO-backed revolt against Gaddafi, and in the Fezzan. This region in southern Libya borders two former French colonies, Niger and Tchad, that Paris exerts control over as part of its so-called war on terror in Mali and the Sahel.

Conflicts between the NATO imperialist powers are increasingly evident. Commenting on French support for Haftar, Tarek Megerisi of the European Council on Foreign Relations told the Financial Times: “France has different interests to Germany and Italy in Libya, and it has moved to protect these interests. It has security interests in the Sahel and a wider security partnership that it is building with the United Arab Emirates—and in which Egypt is a big part.”

Dorothée Schmid of the French Institute on International Relations (IFRI) said there is “strategic panic” in Paris at Haftar’s recently suffered reverses. She pointed to growing chaos and uncertainty in NATO: “France is rather isolated in this affair, and everyone is waiting for the American elections.”

The only way to avert a further escalation is a mobilization of the working class in Africa and the Middle East, resuming the struggles launched a decade ago, and the unification of these struggles with growing strikes and protests in America and Europe in a socialist anti-war movement. Absent a revolutionary intervention of the working class, the ruling elites are all sliding towards war.

Naval tensions continue to grow in the Mediterranean. France withdrew from NATO operations in the Mediterranean on July 1, protesting that a Turkish warship allegedly threatened to fire on a French frigate as it tried to inspect a merchant ship bound for Libya. Egypt has for its part reportedly acquired a Russian “Bastion” coastal defense battery amid reports that Turkey intends to set up a naval base in the Libyan city of Misrata.

Kurd murdered for refusing fighting in Libya

This 26 December 2019 video says about itself:

Libya is in a state of chaos as rival governments compete for power, human smuggling runs rampant, and black markets thrive with everything from oil to hard currency. The international community is backing the Government of National Accord, which maintains a tenuous hold on the capital. But the government’s survival depends on warring militias, many of whom are paid to police the smuggling they themselves are involved in.

VICE News’ Isobel Yeung travels across Libya to see how the Libyan revolution is failing.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Kurdish man found hanged after refusing to fight in Libya

A YOUNG Kurdish man was found hanged from a walnut tree in front of his house in Afrin, northern Syria, on Saturday.

Local sources said that he was killed for refusing to go to Libya to fight for Turkish-backed mercenaries.

Mihemed Mistefa Yusif, who was just 18, was found dead in the village of Merkan where his family had been forced to relocate after militia from the Liwa Samarkand brigade confiscated their home in Hec Qasim.

French, Turkish NATO partners’ Libyan oil conflict

This 2019 video is called France and Italy on Different Sides of Libya’s Civil War.

There is a proxy war in Libya between French President Macron and French Total oil on one side, and the Italian government and Italian Eni oil on the other side.

In which Macron supports warlord Haftar; and the Italian government the jihadist-supported government in Tripoli.

The Turkish Erdogan regime, a NATO ‘partner’ like Italy and France, supports the Tripoli government as well.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain today:

Nato probe into stand-off in Libyan waters

NATO has opened investigations into a stand-off between French and Turkish ships off the coast of Libya with Ankara accused of continuing to breach a United Nations arms embargo.

Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said Nato would look into claims that the Turkish navy ignored French calls for an inspection earlier this month.

Paris has consistently accused Ankara of shipping arms to Libya and wanted to check the ship’s consignment as it was behaving suspiciously, turning off its transponder and failing to give its final destination.

Somali refugee slave in NATO’s Libya interviewed

This 30 September 2019 Deutsche Welle video says about itself:

Human trafficking in Libya | DW Documentary

Survivors call it “Hell on Earth“. In Libya, refugees are locked up in government-run prisons and private torture chambers. Often they are kept under inhuman conditions, tormenting them and even selling them into slavery.

“They treat us like animals”, say the migrants who’ve managed to escape this ‘Hell on Earth’. But what goes on there? How did they escape? And how do they cope afterward? We set out to investigate. We spoke to people still languishing in Libyan jails, as well as with refugees evacuated from Libya and brought to safety in Niger. We also interviewed one man who was fully aware of his part in the suffering: a smuggler who accepts the fact that he sells the migrants on to torturers. A report by Mariel Müller and Abderrahmahne Ammar.

By Ben Cowles:

Monday, March 9, 2020

‘They lock our legs together with a chain’: An interview with a slave

BEN COWLES spoke to a Somalian refugee being held in a bogus ‘refugee camp’ in Libya, caught while trying to reach Europe

I SPOKE with a slave last week. An African man from Somalia trapped in a detention centre in Libya.

He told me his name but I promised not to mention it. He fears the guards will kill him if they know he has spoken out. So let’s call him Hufan.

Several months ago Hufan contacted Alarm Phone, an activist network which supports people crossing the Mediterranean attempting to reach Europe.

A relative of his was on a dinghy stranded in the middle of the sea with several others. He called Alarm Phone asking them to help her.

Since March last year, when the European Union pulled all of its ships from the Libyan search and rescue zone, the only actors carrying out refugee rescues in the area are those operated by charities.

The Libyan Coastguard (LCG) is also operating in the area, though it’s hard to refer to what it does as “rescuing” refugees. It has returned thousands of people to a brutal warzone.

The European Union continues to fund, train and equip the LCG despite its private concerns, revealed by the Morning Star, that the country has “continued to arbitrarily detain migrants” in detention centres which “have links to human trafficking” and where “severe human-rights violations have been widely reported.”

Fortunately, Hufan’s relative made it to Europe. But he is now trapped inside a detention centre. Naming it would put him in danger.

I spoke with Hufan online after an Alarm Phone activist put us in touch. Our conversation, which has been edited for grammatical reasons and to keep his identity safe, is below.

Ben Cowles: Hi Hufan. This is Ben. I’m a journalist in London. How are you?
Hufan: Hi. Yes. How are you?

BC: I’m good. Are you safe to message me?
H: Now I am in the prison. But I can give you some information.

BC: Where are you from? Can you tell me about yourself?
H: I am from Somalia. I came to Libya to cross to Italy.

BC: Why did you leave Somalia?
H: I had to run away from al-Shabab. Do you know about the Islamic group al-Shabab?

BC: Yes, a little.
H: They forced us to join them. But I ran away from them with my [relative]. And now I am in a very bad situation.

My [relative] escaped the country and she is now in [Europe].

BC: You’re in prison?
H: I’ve been here for eight months now. …

BC: How did you end up in prison?
H: We were in a camp near Al Khums waiting for some people to take us to the sea. And one night the army attacked us and arrested everyone.

BC: Do you know which army? Was it the [rebel] Libyan National Army, the Government of National Accord army or someone else?
H: The people who arrested us are not an official army.

The [UN refugee agency] UNHCR sometimes visits the prison and gives us shampoo and clothes, and registers our names.

Always, they say: ‘We will take you to a safe place’. But I have been here eight months now.

BC: That is a long time. I hope they release you soon. Can you tell me about the conditions inside the prison?
H: My God. If you ever come here one day, you would cry, believe me. In one room we are more than 412. The food is not good.

Many people are sick. Some have TB. They treat us like slaves.

BC: What do you mean; how do they treat you like slaves?
H: Every morning they wake us all. And without food they make us work. After midday they give us a little bit.

If you say to the guards ‘I’m tired’, they will beat you with their machine gun. Everyday people are broken. The guards do whatever they want. They even force young boys to do sex.

I have gone far away from the guards to tell you everything. We are suffering here.

BC: What work do they make you do?
H: Every morning… if a guard has a garden or a farm or some place, he will take five or six of us out and make us work his farm.

They lock our legs together with a chain. After working, they return us to the prison.

After they return us to prison, another man will come. He will say ‘I need five people to work. Come out’. We come outside and he chooses a few of us. ‘You, one, two, three, come with me’.

And then we might have to lift heavy things for him with no payment. They don’t give us food. Maybe one slice of bread.

… Can you talk to the [International Organisation for Migration] IOM?

BC: I don’t know. I will tell your story in the newspaper. I will also speak with the IOM and UNHCR. Have you told them about the abuse?
H: Yes, one day they came and we told them everything secretly. He said we will do an investigation. That is all.

The militiamen, after they get drunk at night time, they come to the prison and they say: ‘We need two young boys.

‘Come clean my house,’ they say. When they return the boys, they are crying. They tell us they forced them to have sex.

BC: That is so terrible. I’m so sorry. Do you believe the IOM will help you?
H: No.

The problem is, the group that runs this prison is getting money and food from the IOM and UNHCR. If they release us or they take us to our countries, they will not get anything.

The militia is saying to the IOM and UNHCR that they have refugees to look after. But if they release us, they won’t get their money. So the militia wants to keep us.

BC: Do the guards know you have a phone?
H: Yes, they know I have a phone.

I translate for them. I know Arabic. I know my language, I know English and French. So they always take me out to speak with those people.

That’s why they gave me the phone also. But it doesn’t have a sim card. I have to use wifi.

These Libyans don’t really care about us. They once broke my hand.

BC: They don’t worry you will call for help?
H: Who can I call for help? They don’t worry about that.

If I tell you the truth why they gave me this phone, you won’t believe it.

They gave me this phone because there are a lot of Nigerians, Cameroonians. They don’t speak Arabic. They speak English and French. So I translate.

The guards tell them: ‘If you want to get out, you have to pay us 4,000 dinar’, which is like $1,000.

They even say that to us Somalis. But we Somalis don’t have this money.

So sometimes I have to give the phone to the Nigerians and they talk with their family. Their family sends some money by car, by taxi and they get out of the prison.

That’s why they gave me this phone. That’s the truth.

BC: How do you know the UN/IOM is giving money to the prison?
H: We are refugees here. So every month they come and they say we’re going to give you food, we’re giving you medicine.

They collect us all and hold a meeting with us outside. And one of them will tell us this with a megaphone. But we don’t see anything.

Please, whatever you print, don’t mention my name. I beg you. They will kill me.

BC: I won’t mention your name, I promise.
H: Yesterday they took more than 25 people to join the war between the Libyans.

I am looking for a moment, a time, to skip. If I get the chance I will run away with this phone.

In response to Hufan’s claims that the IOM was giving money to the prison guards, a spokeswoman told the Star: “We take this claim very seriously as IOM does not provide cash assistance in Libya and does not distribute food to migrants in detention.”

Libyan coastguard fires warning shots at NGO ship during rescue for the second time: here.

Civilian casualties mount as foreign powers continue to fuel Libya’s civil war. By Alberto Escalera, 20 May 2020. Libya’s civil war is fueled by a complex interplay between the competing interests of international energy monopolies and local power struggles to control oil and gas revenues.

Further evidence Libya is unsafe for refugees after 30 killed in unofficial migrant detention centre: here.

Unexploded bombs threaten Libyan civilians

This 23 January 2014 video from Switzerland says about itself:

ENI Has No Plans to Exit Libya

Paolo Scaroni, the chief executive of Italian oil major ENI, discusses with [Rupert Murdoch’s] Wall Street Journal‘s Deborah Ball at the World Economic Forum the challenges and opportunities facing the oil and gas sector. Photo: Getty Images

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Monday, February 17, 2020

Unexploded bombs threaten civilians in Libya as truce “hangs by a thread”

UN REPRESENTATIVE to Libya Stephanie Williams has dismissed the UN-backed arms embargo as “a joke”.

The country is spiralling into an increasingly deadly situation as battle rages between the … Government of National Accord (GNA) based in Tripoli and General Khalifa Hiftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA), which controls large parts of the east.

After foreign ministers met in Munich on Sunday, Ms Williams warned: “The situation on the ground remains deeply troubling. The truce is holding only by a thread … the economic situation continues to deteriorate.”

In January a Berlin conference of world leaders agreed to stop sending weapons to the competing Libyan forces in a bid to de-escalate the situation and find a political solution.

But the embargo has been repeatedly breached, in particular by Turkey, which has sent equipment and thousands of jihadist fighters from the battlefields of Syria to support the Western-backed GNA.

‘Western-backed’ is not completely correct. The Italian government and Italian Big Oil corporation ENI support the GNA. But French President Macron, European Union and NATO ally of the Italian government, and French Big Oil corporation Total support warlord Khalifa Haftar.

“The arms embargo has become a joke, we all really need to step up here,” Ms Williams said.

Talks on how to police the influx of weapons into Libya continued yesterday. They were marked by some reluctance to launch another naval mission in the region.

“It’s complicated because there are violations by land, sea and air, but it needs to be monitored and there needs to be accountability,” Ms Williams insisted.

UN Mines Action Service spokesman Bob Seddon warned of the increased danger posed by “explosive remnants of war”.

He said: “It is estimated that there are between 150,000 to 200,000 tonnes of uncontrolled munitions across Libya.”

Remnants of cluster munitions are alleged to have been found on the battlefields.

At least 900 civilian deaths have been attributed to explosives, the campaign group Action on Armed Violence said.

The foreign ministers of all 27 EU countries agreed to launch a new military mission in Libya on Monday: here.

Fortress Europe’s dirty secret. EU condemned for its continued support of the Libyan Coastguard after the Star reveals the EU’s own reports were warning about the mistreatment of refugees in Libya: here.

Exclusive: Revealed: EU to continue supporting the Libyan Coastguard despite its fears of human rights abuses: here.

French-Italian proxy oil war kills Libyan civilians

This 14 February 2020 video says about itself:

Libyans fatigued by worsening crisis – Red Cross chief

Paul Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), warns that the situation in Libya could lead to many civilians fleeing their country, if things continue to escalate.

On Thursday, fighting continued in Libya’s capital Tripoli, a day after the UN Security Council resolution called for a “lasting ceasefire”. Reports say civilian casualties were recorded.

The ICRC boss said: “The Libyans want to stay home. They want to go home. They are building and hoping for a political process that will allow them to get back on track.

“But I don’t rule out that if we don’t manage to stabilize this situation politically, humanely, that all of a sudden we see similar movements as we’ve seen in other regions when people lose hope,” he added.

The Red Cross chief also highlighted the inaccessibility of emergency supplies plus how the conflict is distorting the lives of many civilians.

He further disclosed that Libyans he had interacted with expressed fatigue with the ongoing situation. “The Libyan people, at least all the people I meet who are the beneficiaries of our actions, are fed up with this conflict, want to end this conflict, want a return to a normality they experienced before. While the actors [of the conflict], I don’t think they are there yet.”

Tripoli’s sole functioning airport of Mitiga, frequently shut down by shelling, suspended flights for several hours after it was hit by a rocket strike before resuming operations.

European Union returns refugees to Libyan slavery

This November 2017 video is called SLAVE TRADE IN LIBYA | SHOCKING DOCUMENTARY.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Sunday, February 2, 2020

EU refugee policy condemned on the 3rd anniversary of Libyan Coastguard deal

Around 40,000 people have been intercepted at sea and brought back to war-torn Libya since the EU’s 2017 Malta Declaration

MONDAY marks the third anniversary of a deal struck between the European Union and Libya which has caused tens of thousands of refugees to be pushed back to a war zone — in contravention of international human-rights law.

At a meeting in Valletta, Malta, on February 3 2017, EU leaders met to discuss human trafficking and “measures to stem the flow of irregular migrants from Libya to Italy.”

The result of the meeting was the Malta Declaration, part of which states that “priority will be given to … training, equipment and support to the Libyan national coastguard and other relevant agencies.”

According to analysis by migrant researcher Matteo Villa at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, “around 40,000 people have been intercepted at sea and brought back to Libya” since the 2017 agreements with Libya.

The civil refugee-rescue fleet — a small collection of NGOs that have been the main actors carrying out search-and-rescue missions in the central Mediterranean since April 2019 — condemned the EU’s support for the Libyan Coastguard.

Sophie Beau, international vice-president of SOS Mediterranee — which, along with Doctors Without Borders (MSF), operates the rescue ship Ocean Viking — said that the declaration “laid the foundation for a massive breach of international law, financed by European taxpayers’ money.

“While the European Union pulled back from saving lives at sea over the past years,” Ms Beau said, “they simultaneously financed, trained and equipped the Libyan Coastguard to intercept people fleeing the country.

“They are returning them to a cycle of violence and abuse in war-torn Libya.

“Rescued people on board endlessly report to us shocking experiences of torture, rape, slavery and even executions, and most of the survivors are hurt or traumatised.”

Axel Steier, co-founder of the German refugee rescue charity Mission Lifeline, told the Morning Star that Europe’s interests are clear: keep refugees away.

“Europe’s incantations of ‘We fight the smugglers’ are of no use,” Mr Steier said.

“As long as there are no legal entry routes, people will continue to flee across the sea.”

Article 33 of the 1951 Refugee Convention, of which all EU member states are signatories, states: “No contracting state shall expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where [their] life or freedom would be threatened on account of [their] race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”

Alarm Phone, an activist network providing support to people attempting to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean and Aegean seas, was equally damning.

“We do not doubt that Italy and Europe will continue to be the major collaborator with the cruel practices of the so-called Libyan Coastguard, thereby financing human-rights violations, making sea crossings even more dangerous, and forcibly pushing people back to a war zone and torture,” an Alarm Phone spokesperson told the Star.

“Italy and Europe are therefore fully responsible for the violence, deaths at sea and human-rights violations. By delegating to Libya they hide and deny their responsibility.

“But people on the move do not have a choice. In January alone, despite bad weather conditions, thousands of people made the deadly journey across the sea to flee war and violence.

“They do not have a voice in the conferences and deals between the EU and Libya, but many still bravely succeed in reaching Europe.

“We listen to them calling us in their hardest moments, struggling at sea in unseaworthy boats. We will continue to organise ourselves as part of the civil fleet for freedom of movement.”

Oxfam has accused the EU of using its aid money to Africa, particularly its emergency trust fund for stability and addressing root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa, as a policy tool to lower migration to Europe.

“Since July 2017,” a report released last week states, “nearly €90 million [£75.6m] has been released through the EUTF for Africa to train, equip and support the capacity of the Libyan coastguard to intercept migrants at sea and land borders …”

NATO governments fighting about Libyan oil

This 19 January 2020 video says about itself:

On the eve of the international summit in Berlin to relaunch the peace process in Libya, supporters of Khalifa Haftar, the eastern Libyan commander, have hit hard.

On Saturday morning, his forces blocked the country’s main oil terminals in order to economically cripple the … Government of National Unity in Tripoli.

In a press release, the National Oil Company reported a halt of exports in the ports known as “oil crescent”.

By Alex Lantier in France:

War tensions mount between NATO powers over Libya, Mediterranean

31 January 2020

Following the January 19 Berlin conference on Libya, war tensions between NATO powers over Libya and the Mediterranean continue to mount, after Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited Paris on Wednesday for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron. The Berlin conference has set the stage not for peace, but only for stepped-up imperialist military interventions to divide up the profits to be extracted from Libya and the entire region.

With Mitsotakis, Macron announced the dispatching of French warships to the Aegean Sea and the formation of a French-Greek military alliance, while denouncing Turkish policy in Libya. Amid explosive border tensions and conflicts over eastern Mediterranean natural gas deposits between Turkey and Greece, Paris is threatening to support Greece in a war with Turkey.

Macron accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of “not respecting his promises” in Berlin, saying that “at this very moment” Turkish ships were taking Syrian Islamist mercenaries to Libya. “We have seen in recent days Turkish vessels arriving on Libyan soil … in violation of explicit engagements taken by President Erdogan at the Berlin conference,” Macron said. He added, “This threatens the security of all residents of Europe and the Sahel.”

Macron, who has backed warlord Khalifa Haftar in the civil war provoked by the 2011 NATO war in Libya, said he “condemns with the greatest firmness the recent accord” between Turkey and Haftar’s main rival, Fayez al-Serraj’s Government of National Accord (GNA).

During the Macron-Mitsotakis conference, anonymous intelligence officials told French media that Rafale jets flying from the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle had detected Turkish ships transporting heavy armored vehicles and mercenaries into Libya’s capital of Tripoli, held by the GNA. They also alleged that the ships transporting the troops and hardware were escorted by one of several Turkish frigates cruising in Libyan waters.

Macron maintained a hypocritical and self-interested silence on French-backed Egyptian and United Arab Emirates (UAE) weapons shipments to France’s Libyan proxy, Haftar. “The position of Paris remains totally inflexible,” Le Monde wrote. “Marshal Haftar, who more or less controls most of Libya’s territory, must be taken into account and his demands—disbanding Islamist ‘militias’, giving more oil revenue to the eastern Libyan region of Cyrenaica—are not negotiable.”

Macron also announced a “strategic security partnership” between France and Greece and declared that he “condemns the intrusions and provocations of Turkey” in Greek airspace and waters. France will rotate its warships through the eastern Mediterranean to ensure that at least one French frigate is in the area at all times. The purpose of the stepped-up French naval presence, Macron added, is “to fully ensure the security of a region that is strategic for Europe.”

Mitsotakis hailed the deal with France, saying: “Greece and France are pursuing a new framework of strategic defense.” Details of the Franco-Greek military alliance are to be announced in coming weeks. However, it appears French warships will likely patrol gas-rich waters off Cyprus, where the Greek Cypriot government has given French energy giant Total exploration rights.

While Mitsotakis called the French warships “guarantors of peace” in the Aegean, it is clear that the danger of military conflict between major NATO allies is very real. Greek Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos said his staff is “examining all scenarios, even that of military engagement” with Turkish forces at flashpoints like the Aegean Sea or Cyprus.

Turkish officials responded by denouncing the French intervention in the eastern Mediterranean. “If France wants to contribute to the implementation of decisions taken at the [Berlin] Conference, it should first stop supporting Haftar,” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy declared in a statement. “The main party responsible for all Libya’s problems since the beginning of the 2011 crisis is France,” Aksoy added, noting that France “unconditionally supports Haftar to have its say over the natural resources in Libya.”

NATO’s 2011 war against Libya launched a bloody scramble for profits and strategic advantage in the region that has had disastrous consequences. After the Berlin conference, the imperialist powers are again recklessly intensifying their military intervention. As France, Russia, Egypt, and the UAE intervene to back Haftar in Libya while Italy, Turkey and Qatar back Serraj, the danger of a major regional war over Libya or the eastern Mediterranean is ever greater.

The scramble for Africa and the Mediterranean is intensifying deep and explosive divisions among the major NATO imperialist powers. Last year, France withdrew its ambassador to Italy as tensions mounted between Paris and Rome over Libya.

While Washington has not taken a public position on Greece or Libya, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signed deals last October to build major new US military bases in Greece, saying Washington needs them “to help secure the eastern Mediterranean.” White House spokesman Judd Deere claimed that tensions between NATO powers forced Trump to call Erdogan on Monday. During the call, Trump reportedly stressed the “importance of Turkey and Greece resolving their differences in the east Mediterranean.”

Faced with the prospect of US and French military build-ups in Greece, sections of the Turkish bourgeoisie close to Erdogan are calling for closer ties with Berlin to counteract Paris.

The pro-government Daily Sabah call for an outreach to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who it said needs close cooperation with Turkey to power German industry and keep Middle Eastern refugees from reaching Europe. “Let’s give credit where credit is due: Merkel’s foreign policy is far more reasonable than French President Emmanuel Macron’s approach,” it stated, adding, “Merkel knows that the US abdication of its global responsibilities compels Europeans to take care of themselves and, by extension, to work with Erdoğan’s Turkey.”

It concluded, “To improve Germany’s relations with Turkey and keep the upper hand in Libya, Merkel needs to overcome two obstacles: French and Greek adventurism. Macron undermines Libyan peace and stability by throwing his weight behind Haftar … Germany has to stop France and Greece. Let’s see if Merkel will manage to wrap up her political career by completing this urgent mission.”

As imperialist wars spread across the Middle East and Africa, Macron is pursuing a reckless policy in defense of French imperialist interests. On the one hand, he is continuing neo-colonial wars and intervention in Mali and the broader Sahel, south of Libya, supposedly to fight Islamist militias. At the same time, he is bidding to obtain for French oil firm Total a lion’s share of Libyan oil, should Haftar conquer the country, and of eastern Mediterranean gas via deals with the Greek Cypriot government.

This poses a growing risk of an outright military confrontation with Turkey, as Macron is launching an alliance with Greece amid explosive Greek-Turkish tensions. Britain’s Guardian newspaper wrote that, “Friction between the two neighbours has not been so acute since the invasion of Cyprus in 1974” by Turkey, which led to war with Greece. It added that, for Mitsotakis, “hostile relations with Turkey have eclipsed all other issues on the agenda of his near seven-month-old government.”

While he claimed the war danger is “slim, not least because it would be too much of a lose-lose situation,” University of Piraeus Professor Aristotle Tziampiris told the Guardian that “the chances of a [hot] incident, by design or accident, are very real and that is what is worrying us all.”

Turkey’s Erdogan Libyan anti-refugee scandal

This 3 January 2020 video says about itself:

Turkey’s recent maritime deal with Libya’s Government of National Accord [one of several governments] has caused tensions in the eastern Mediterranean. The agreement, which mapped out a sea area between Turkey and Libya, would allow Ankara access to oil shale deposits in the region.

Greece, Cyprus, Egypt and the European Union have expressed opposition. Athens said it clearly ignored the presence of the Greek island of Crete while Egypt dismissed the deal as “illegal”. Despite opposition, Ankara still sent the agreement to the United Nations a week after it was signed. And Turkey’s energy minister later said the country will begin “exploration of oil and gas in the eastern Mediterranean.”

By Ben Cowles:

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Turkish naval ship aids pushback of refugees to Libya

Meanwhile, NGOs remain the only ships in the Mediterranean to rescue people fleeing the war zone

A TURKISH naval ship aided the return of refugees to war-torn Libya today after pulling around 30 people from a dinghy in the central Mediterranean Sea in the morning.

Turkey’s National Defence Department tweeted a video today of one of its ships, the Gaziantep, coming across a refugee dinghy, its crew boarding the visibly-dazed survivors onto their vessel before returning them to a smaller military ship that it said was the Libyan Coastguard.

German refugee-rescue charity Sea Watch said that its plane, Moonbird, documented the capture.

“Turkey, a signatory to the [European Convention on Human Rights] and a member of Nato, has thus become complicit in yet another serious violation of human rights,” Sea Watch tweeted.

The UN refugee agency’s (UNHCR) special envoy for the central Mediterranean, Vincent Cochetel, said that the rescue was appreciated, but “all returns to Libya from international waters are contrary to international maritime and human rights law.

“It applies to all countries and all military forces present in the Mediterranean. Returns to Libya [equal] risks of torture, arbitrary detention, slavery [and] risks to life.”

The Gaziantep was taking part in a Nato operation called Sea Guardian at the time of the rescue.

One of the many tasks of the Mediterranean-based Nato mission, its website states, is “providing support … to [the European Union’s anti-human-trafficking military mission] Operation Sophia.”

In April last year, the EU pulled all of Operation Sophia’s ships from the Mediterranean under pressure from Italy’s then far-right coalition government, leaving a small collection of NGO ships as the only actors carrying out refugee rescues off the Libyan coast.

“Turkey shows that it does not believe in human rights,” Axel Steier, co-founder of the German refugee rescue charity Mission Lifeline, told the Star today.

“We are seeing people with Turkey’s consent being kidnapped to Libya.

“The truth is that Nato members can do what they want. All other states are watching and there are no consequences.

“The system is simply completely degenerate and refugees, especially, suffer extremely.”

Meanwhile, the Open Arms, a ship run by the Spanish NGO of the same name and the only rescue ship off the Libyan coast, found another group stranded in the Mediterranean this afternoon.

The ship was alerted by the activist network Alarm Phone of the boat in distress this morning.

“[We] rescued a small vessel in danger with 45 people, in poor physical condition,” Open Arms wrote above a tweeted video of the rescue.

“A five-year-old boy, injured. We now have 282 people on board and medical cases that may require evacuation.”

Alarm Phone later praised the actions of the civil refugee-rescue fleet.

“Moments ago, Open Arms carried out a successful rescue operation! 45 people are now safely on board.

“Moonbird was once more crucial to monitor the distress situation from above! Civil fleet to the rescue once again, with phones, aircraft and ships!”

This morning, the NGO ship operated by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the Ocean Viking, disembarked over 400 refugees in Taranto, Italy.

SOS Mediterranee’s Director of Operations Frederic Penard told the Star: “The Ocean Viking conducted five rescues in less than 72 hours.

“We had to cover hundreds of nautical miles to search for multiple boats in distress while crews were already taking care of hundreds of people on deck.

“All these rescues occurred at night, in very challenging conditions.

“While Europe was sleeping, the boats we found were overcrowded, near capsizing or breaking after having spent hours at sea with no assistance.

“Without civil rescue ships, the area of the Mediterranean Sea would mostly be left unattended.

“On Sunday, the Libyan coastguards themselves admitted that they were not in a capacity to conduct operations that day.

“The situation in the central Mediterranean this past weekend has shown again a dire need of search-and-rescue capacity and co-ordination to save lives.”

Journalists jailed in Turkey after revealing name of intelligence official killed in Libya: here.

THE SYRIAN Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) says Turkey has so far sent more than 4,500 allied Takfiri terrorists from Syria to Libya, after the Turkish parliament passed a bill earlier this year to allow the government to deploy forces to the North African country to intervene in the ongoing war: here.

Bloodshed for oil in Libya continues

This 17 January 2020 video from the USA says about itself:

Interest in its Natural Resources Is Tearing Libya Apart

Political writer Greg Shupak discusses the failed attempt in Moscow to reach a ceasefire agreement in the Libyan civil war, and the new attempt in Berlin. As Turkey, the UAE, Egypt, and other regional players

Turkey accused of fuelling resurgence of Isis in Libya: here.

not forgetting the proxy war in Libya between French President Macron and French Total oil on one side, and the Italian government and Italian Eni oil on the other side

interfere to promote their interests in Libya’s natural resources, the country seems as far as it ever was from achieving peace.

Battle continues to rage in Libya despite peace conference as Turkey floods country with jihadists: here.

The Libya conference, which took place this past Sunday in Berlin, was not about “peace” in the war-torn country, but about the distribution of the loot. It is reminiscent of the conferences at which the colonial powers of the 19th century divided up entire regions and continents among themselves: here.

UKRANIAN JET VICTIM RAN SUSPICIOUS COMPANY A passenger killed on the Ukrainian jet downed by Iranian missiles earlier this month was a businesswoman who was the boss of two companies cited in a U.N. report for links to the shadowy arms trade supplying the protracted civil war in Libya. [CNN]