Oil-rich Libya, the African country with its strategically valuable coastline, has melted down to mayhem following Noble Peace Prize winner Barack Obama’s “Qaddafi has to go” 2011 U.S.-led war, supported by NATO, that led to the overthrow and murder of the country’s leader, Muammar Qaddafi.
As reported in the Trends Journal, there has been an ongoing battle between the UN-endorsed Government of National Accord (GNA) and the militia led by Khalifa Haftar, a dual Libyan-U.S. citizen and CIA agent.
Mr. Haftar, a former Qaddafi loyalist who had a falling out with Quadaffi in the late 1980s, returned to Libya during the 2011 uprising.
Last April, President Trump reversed the U.S. position of supporting the UN-endorsed GNA government, stating that he “recognized Field Marshal Haftar’s significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libya’s oil resources.”
As the military leader of eastern Libya, its main oil hub, Haftar has been in a six-year struggle to gain full control of the country and, over the past ten months, has tried to overtake the capital of Tripoli. He is backed with military support from Russia, Egypt, and France.
Over the past several weeks, Haftar has cut off much of Libya’s oil production and broke the cease-fire agreement forged at the international conference in Berlin on 14 January. The details of that conference and agreement have been detailed in previous issues of the Trends Journal.
Torture and Intimidation
Libyans citizens are accusing Mr. Haftar of torture and murder and have sued him in the state of Virginia where he and his family reportedly own some $8 million worth of property.
The lawsuit in Virginia accuses Haftar and his sons of an “indiscriminate war against the Libyan people” including a wide use of torture and murder without benefit of judicial review.
Philippe Nassif, an advocacy director for Amnesty International, said, “We are documenting these abuses the best we can, but we know it is just the tip of the iceberg and there could be far more things happening, mostly in areas controlled by Haftar’s forces.”
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: When the mainstream media reports on Libya, the deplorable conditions its citizens are now living in – the violence, corruption, destruction of infrastructure, and ongoing mass murder and mayhem – they avoid mentioning that when Libya was under Colonel Qaddafi’s rule, the Libyan people enjoyed the highest living standard in Africa and received more benefits from the state than many advanced societies.
Additionally, the media avoids mentioning that former UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Presidents Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy of France – with the insistence of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice; and Samantha Power, Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights on the National Security Council – were the murderous maniacs responsible for death and the destruction of Libya… and for its current crisis.