April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

Gaddafi himself has admitted that “a few hundred were killed”, but put it
down to Al Qaeda distributing drugs to the youth!!
The story reported by TeleSUR’s correspondent in Libya, Reed Lindsay
(twitter.com/reedtelesur), confirms the reports coming from other
sources: there were popular, peaceful and unarmed demonstrations and
the army opened fire (see for instance this report: Telesur). In a report he
sent from Brega on March 2 (Telesur), he described how there were
soldiers that had joined the rebellion but also “citizens of all kinds, I have
spoken to doctors, engineers, workers from the oil company, here they are
all in rebellion, part of the uprising and armed” adding that “this rebellion
started peacefully, two weeks ago, but now the people are armed to
struggle until they achieve the overthrow of Gaddafi.” He also rejected
the notion that there is a civil war in Libya: “We are not talking about a
civil war here… this started as peaceful demonstrators being attacked by
security forces using heavy gunfire.”(Union Radio)
As part of his reporting, Reed Lindsay, has also confirmed all the reports
that show how the Libyan people who have risen up against Gaddafi are
staunchly against foreign intervention. “They say that if the US troops
arrive here, they will fight them in the same way they are fighting against
the government of Gaddafi.”
The other important point that Lindsay has made in his reports is regarding
the attitude of the people, both in Benghazi and Brega, towards Latin
American governments, and particularly those of the ALBA countries. In
Brega many people are asking “why the Venezuelan president and other
Latin American presidents who are in favour of social justice and
revolutionary change are supporting a dictator who is using the Army
against his own people” he said (Union Radio). “They are asking the ALBA
countries to break with Gaddafi and support the revolutionary struggle of
the Libyan people” he reported from Benghazi. According to him, the
people in Ajdabiya talk of a “common struggle with the peoples of Latin
America” (Twitter. We are quoting from Reed Lindsay, because he cannot
be accused of being an agent of imperialism or of distorting the news in
order to justify an intervention by imperialism.
Even the other TeleSUR correspondent, Jordan Rodríguez, who is basically
just reporting what Gaddafi and other officials are saying, without any
comment, had problems when he attempted to report about clashes in
neighbourhoods in Tripoli. His team was detained by police officers for
four hours, beaten up, threatened with guns pointed at them and their
footage was taken away (Telesur). This was the second time they had been
arrested and it happened even though they were travelling in a Venezuelan
diplomatic car.
Libyan rebels with a captured anti-aircraft gun. Photo: Al Jazeera
EnglishThere is a very important point made in these reports. The
Venezuelan revolution and particularly president Chavez are immensely
popular in the Arab world, particularly after his very vocal opposition to
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. The masses in these countries see Hugo
Chavez as the leader of an oil country who stands up to imperialism and
uses the oil money in order to improve the living conditions of the people.
This is in stark contrast to the rulers of their own countries, who are
puppets of US imperialism, do not open their mouths against Israel’s
aggressions and use the wealth of the country for their own personal
enrichment. This is precisely one of the reasons behind the revolutionary
uprising of the Arab masses. In an opinion poll conducted in 2009 in several
Arab countries, the most popular leader was Hugo Chavez with 36% of