Down with Gaddafi and his regime! Down with the TNC! Down with capitalist dictatorship!

When the Libyan masses destroyed the state structures in Benghazi in March this year, arming themselves, and beginning to spread the insurrection to Tripoli and other parts of the country, imperialism worked night and day to neutralize the uprising. As we have stated in our earlier statements, the sole reason for the creation of the TNC (Transitional National Council) was to destroy the revolution from within, to prevent it from being generalized to Egypt, Tunisia, France, Britain, Greece, China, India, USA, Malawi, DRC, South Africa, etc. The TNC provides a means for the ex-Gaddafi regime elements and US-imperialist-trained elements to wash their hands of the blood of the masses and to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the masses. One of the key elements of the TNC was to either neutralize the armed militias or tire them out or to send them poorly armed to the front lines to be slaughtered. Many of the revolutionary militia were killed or wounded in battle with the Gaddafi army. Several times the Nato forces even bombed the militias. Imperialism could have destroyed the Gaddafi regime at any time, but they did not. They delayed attacking Gaddafi for as long as possible. The whole process of ‘training’ the militia was to in reality bring them under the control of the TNC and thus of imperialism. The weakening of the militias reached a point where imperialism thought they were decisively under their control. The TNC then announced the formation of a new Libyan army. At the same time there was the growing impatience of the masses with the TNC- when was the final push going to be made on Gaddafi? If the TNC had delayed the offensive on Gaddafi much longer their true pro-imperialist colours would have been more clearly exposed for the masses to see. The TNC was coming under increasing threat of being overthrown by the masses. Imperialism would have lost their major foothold within the masses.

More than 60% of the masses in the USA opposed US military intervention in Libya. Why spend hundreds of millions of dollars on these wars in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, when the state claimed not to have money for education and welfare benefits? US imperialism was worried that the mass workers uprising in Wisconsin a few months ago, could become generalised to the whole USA.

The assassination of General Younis, head of the TNC army opened the way for a US-imperialist trained head, Hiftar, to take his place. Within days the entire TNC cabinet was changed. Imperialism now had absolute control of the TNC and was thus able to place itself at the head of the final assault against Gaddafi. Imperialism realized that their agent had to go as he had lost all credibility in the eyes of the masses. Imperialism needed a new mechanism to control the masses- the TNC. The aim of the masses is to get rid of the entire Gaddafi regime. The aim of imperialism is to get rid of Gaddafi and to reconstitute the Gaddafi regime, representatives of the Libyan bourgeois class, but without Gaddafi. This is why the TNC is at pains to call for the masses not to take justice into their own hands- they want to save the very bourgeois elements who they want to be part of the ‘new’ regime. The TNC and imperialism is very concerned over the control of the massive arms stockpile of the Gaddafi army. This is because as soon as they have shepherded Gaddafi out they want to disarm the militia and the masses. We say under no circumstances should the militias disarm- we call for the seizing of all the weaponry of the Gaddafi army for the general arming of the masses, for the final push to overthrow the entire Gaddafi regime. We salute the masses for already starting to take the arms from the arms stores. This shows that the independence of the militias have not been completely brought under the control of the TNC.

In Tunisia and Egypt the masses are not satisfied with the regimes. In Libya, with the TNC, imperialism hopes to establish a more stable regime that has whitewashed themselves by their association with the fight against Gaddafi. Imperialism hopes that the TNC and Nato will be welcomed as heroes on the streets of Tripoli. But we warn that the TNC and Nato are worse than Gaddafi. The TNC is comprised of elements of the Gaddafi regime- their hands are dripping with blood of the masses. Already the TNC have made deals with the ENI, who was party, in the colonial days, to wiping out half of the population of Libya. The TNC has already made deals with the French and other imperialists. The French imperialists have butchered millions of the Algerian masses. The TNC already recognizes Israel, the fascist regime that butchers Palestinians every day. The TNC and Nato are not the friends of the Libyan revolution- they are there to ensure that imperialism continues the plunder of Libyan oil. Imperialism has learnt from Iraq that they need to govern with the support of the local capitalist class- thus they need the elements of the Gaddafi regime to be part of the ‘new’ regime.

The masses need to organise independently of the TNC, arming themselves to destroy the entire Gaddafi regime and to do away with the TNC. For a workers government, made up of representatives of the armed masses in struggle, of the independently organised militas, of representatives from every workplace and every working class district, whether local or immigrant worker. Not a single member of the Gaddafi regime or ex-member of the Gaddafi regime can be part of a revolutionary provisional government. In this fight the TNC, the British, US, UK, the French and German imperialists are all prepared to act against the masses, with the imperialists readying themselves to send invasion troops, to supplement their military advisors and ground troops that are already there. Should the TNC be allowed to establish themselves in Tripoli they will act against the armed masses and the militias- their partnership with Nato and other remnants of the Gaddafi regime will stand together against the vanguard fighters of the masses- so desperate is imperialism to prevent a takeover by the masses. The entire Gaddafi regime must be disarmed, from top to bottom. For proletarian tribunals against those who murdered the masses.

The call should be made to expropriate all the local capitalists and all imperialist assets, without compensation, placing these under workers control; cancel all contracts with imperialism made by the Gaddafi regime and by the TNC. The TNC and Nato are the new enslavers.  The arming of the masses to defeat the Gaddafi regime and the TNC, both agents of plunder of Libya by imperialism.

The role of Al Jazeera and the International Criminal Court are exposed as agents of imperialism- spreading their propaganda that Seif al Islam had been captured on Monday 22^nd August 2011, when this was not true.

The South African government and the African Union cry crocodile tears while their brother leader is being deposed-perhaps they see their own reflections in the Libyan mirror- it is the African governments that opened the door for the imperialist invasion against the Libyan masses. The African Union is exposed as the direct agent of imperialism when the masses rise up against capitalist dictatorship. When capitalism is threatened by the revolutionary masses, the AU stands with imperialism.

The aim of the TNC and Nato is to prevent the spark from Benghazi and Misrata from spreading throughout the world, to Bahrain, to Saudi Arabia, to Yemen, to Egypt, to the very heart of fascist Israel, to the very heart of the imperialist centres, etc. What imperialism wants to kill off, is the very example that to resist the capitalist onslaught and to take the path to Socialism, the masses have to arm themselves and defeat their own regimes. For the working class and struggling masses in Europe, the USA and Japan to paralyze the imperialist war machine. Arms and international solidarity brigades to support the Libyan masses against their puppet regime and to expel all the Nato forces.

We need to draw the lessons that under the current period of capitalist barbarism, the masses will rise, often without a revolutionary party at its head and with the presence of many counter-revolutionary forces against them. Our first task as revolutionaries is to help develop a programme for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism on a world scale. Such programme, born in the heat of the fire, is essential for the development of a revolutionary International- the vanguard formation of the proletarian fighters of the world. Such is the path to refound the Fourth International.

Forward to Socialism!

23.8.2011 amended 24.8.2011

WIVL affiliate of the FLTI