{"id":102804,"date":"2017-12-04T12:00:16","date_gmt":"2017-12-04T12:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=102804"},"modified":"2017-12-11T10:31:26","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T10:31:26","slug":"media-erase-nato-role-in-bringing-slave-markets-to-libya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/12\/media-erase-nato-role-in-bringing-slave-markets-to-libya\/","title":{"rendered":"Media Erase NATO Role in Bringing Slave Markets to Libya"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

For Sale<\/p><\/div>\n

28 Nov 2017 – <\/em>Twenty-first century slave markets. Human beings sold for a few hundred dollars. Massive protests throughout the world.<\/p>\n

The American and British media have awakened to the grim reality in Libya, where African refugees are for sale in open-air slave markets. Yet a crucial detail in this scandal has been downplayed or even ignored in many corporate media reports: the role of\u00a0the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in bringing slavery to the North African nation.<\/p>\n

In March 2011, NATO launched a war in Libya expressly aimed at toppling the government of longtime leader Muammar Qadhafi. The US and its allies flew some 26,000 sorties<\/a> over Libya and launched hundreds of cruise missiles, destroying the government\u2019s ability to resist rebel forces.<\/p>\n

US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, along with their European counterparts, insisted the military intervention was being carried out for humanitarian reasons. But political scientist Micah Zenko (Foreign Policy<\/strong>,\u00a03\/22\/16<\/a>) used NATO\u2019s own materials to show how \u201cthe Libyan intervention was about regime change from the very start.\u201d<\/p>\n

NATO supported an array of rebel groups fighting on the ground in Libya, many of which were dominated by Islamist extremists and harbored violently racist views. Militants in the NATO-backed rebel stronghold of Misrata even referred<\/a> to themselves in 2011 as\u00a0\u201cthe brigade for purging slaves, black skin\u201d\u2014an eerie foreshadowing of the horrors that were to come.<\/p>\n

The war ended in October 2011. US and European aircraft attacked Qadhafi\u2019s convoy, and he was brutally murdered by extremist rebels\u2014sodomized with a bayonet. Secretary Clinton, who played a decisive role<\/a> in the war, declared live on CBS News<\/strong> (10\/20\/11<\/a>), \u201cWe came, we saw, he died!\u201d The Libyan government dissolved soon after.<\/p>\n

In the six years since, Libya has been roiled by chaos and bloodshed. Multiple would-be governments are competing for control of the oil-rich country, and in some areas there is still no functioning central authority. Many thousands of people have died, although the true numbers are impossible to verify. Millions of Libyans have been displaced\u2014a staggering number, nearly one-third of the population, had\u00a0fled<\/a>\u00a0to neighboring Tunisia by 2014.<\/p>\n

Corporate media, however, have largely forgotten about the key role NATO played in destroying Libya\u2019s government, destabilizing the country and\u00a0empowering human traffickers.<\/p>\n

Moreover, even the few news reports that do acknowledge\u00a0NATO\u2019s complicity in the\u00a0chaos in Libya do not go a step further and detail the well-documented, violent racism of the NATO-backed Libyan rebels who ushered in slavery after ethnically cleansing and committing brutal crimes against black Libyans.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

CNN (11\/14\/17) does not bring up the US role in allowing people to be sold.<\/p><\/div>\n

O NATO, Where Art Thou?<\/strong><\/p>\n

CNN<\/strong>\u00a0(11\/14\/17<\/a>) published an explosive story in mid-November that\u00a0offered a firsthand look at the slave trade in Libya. The media network obtained terrifying video that shows young African refugees being auctioned,\u00a0\u201cbig strong boys for farm work,\u201d sold for as little as $400.<\/p>\n

The flashy\u00a0CNN<\/strong>\u00a0multimedia report included bonuses galore: two videos, two animated gifs, two photos and a chart. But something was missing: The 1,000-word story made no mention of NATO, or the 2011 war that destroyed Libya\u2019s government, or Muammar Qadhafi, or any kind of historical and political context whatsoever.<\/p>\n

Despite these huge flaws, the\u00a0CNN<\/strong>\u00a0report was widely celebrated, and made an impact in a corporate media apparatus that otherwise cares little about North Africa. A flurry of media reports followed.\u00a0These stories overwhelmingly spoke of slavery in Libya as an apolitical and timeless human rights issue, not as a political problem rooted in very recent history.<\/p>\n

In subsequent stories, when Libyan and United Nations officials announced they would launch an investigation into the slave auctions,\u00a0CNN<\/strong>\u00a0(11\/17\/17<\/a>,\u00a011\/20\/17<\/a>) again failed to mention the 2011 war, let alone NATO\u2019s role in it.<\/p>\n

One\u00a0CNN<\/strong>\u00a0report (11\/21\/17<\/a>) on a UN Security Council meeting noted, \u201cAmbassadors from Senegal to Sweden also blamed trafficking\u2019s root causes: unstable countries, poverty, profits from slave trading and lack of legal enforcement.\u201d But it failed to explain why<\/em> Libya is unstable.<\/p>\n

Another 1,200-word\u00a0CNN<\/strong>\u00a0follow-up article (11\/23\/17<\/a>) was just as obfuscatory. It was only in the 35th paragraph of this 36-graf story that a Human Rights Watch researcher noted, \u201cLibyan interim authorities have been dragging their feet on virtually all investigations they supposedly started, yet never concluded, since the 2011 uprising.\u201d\u00a0NATO\u2019s leadership in this 2011 uprising was, however, ignored.<\/p>\n

An\u00a0Agence France-Presse<\/strong>\u00a0news wire that was published by\u00a0Voice of America<\/strong>\u00a0(11\/17\/17<\/a>) and other websites similarly failed to provide any historical context for the political situation in Libya. \u201cTestimony collected by AFP<\/strong> in recent years has revealed a litany of rights abuses at the hands of gang leaders, human traffickers and the Libyan security forces,\u201d the article said, but it did not recount anything that happened before 2017.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A New York Times story (11\/19\/17) was exceptional in connecting the rise in Libyan slavery to Muammar Qadhafi\u2019s overthrow\u2013yet it failed to mention the US\u2019s leading role in that overthrow.<\/p><\/div>\n

Reports by the\u00a0BBC<\/strong>\u00a0(11\/18\/17<\/a>), the New York Times<\/strong>\u00a0(11\/20\/17<\/a>),\u00a0Deutsche Welle<\/strong>\u00a0(reprinted by\u00a0USA Today<\/strong>,\u00a011\/23\/17<\/a>) and the\u00a0Associated Press<\/strong>\u00a0(reprinted by the Washington Post<\/strong>,\u00a011\/23\/17<\/a>) also\u00a0failed to mention the 2011 war, let alone NATO\u2019s role in it.<\/p>\n

Another\u00a0New York Times<\/strong>\u00a0story (11\/19\/17<\/a>) did provide a bit of context:<\/p>\n

Since the Arab Spring uprising of 2011 ended the brutal rule of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, Libya\u2019s coast has became a hub for human trafficking and smuggling. That has fueled the illegal migration crisis that Europe has been scrambling to contain since 2014. Libya, which slid into chaos and civil war after the revolt, is now divided among three main factions.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yet the\u00a0Times<\/strong>\u00a0still erased NATO\u2019s key place in this uprising of 2011.<\/p>\n

In an account of the large protests that erupted outside Libyan embassies in\u00a0Europe and Africa in response to reports of slave auctions, Reuters<\/strong> (11\/20\/17<\/a>) indicated, \u201cSix years after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya is still a lawless state where armed groups compete for land and resources and people-smuggling networks operate with impunity.\u201d But it did not provide any more information about how Qadhafi was toppled.<\/p>\n

A report in the\u00a0Huffington Post<\/strong>\u00a0(11\/22\/17<\/a>), later republished by\u00a0AOL<\/strong>\u00a0(11\/27\/17<\/a>), did concede that Libya is \u201cone of the world\u2019s most unstable [sic], mired in conflict since dictator Muammar Gaddafi was ousted and killed in 2011.\u201d It made no mention of NATO\u2019s leadership in that ousting and killing.<\/p>\n

Part of the problem has been the unwillingness of international organizations to point out the responsibility of powerful Western governments. In his statement on the reports of slavery in Libya,\u00a0United Nations\u00a0Secretary-General\u00a0Ant\u00f3nio Guterres\u00a0(11\/20\/17<\/a>) did not mention anything about what has happened politically inside the North African nation in the past six years.\u00a0The\u00a0UN News Centre<\/strong>\u00a0report (11\/20\/17<\/a>) on Guterres\u2019 comments was just as contextless and uninformative, as was the press release (11\/21\/17<\/a>) on the issue from the\u00a0International Organization for Migration.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera<\/strong>\u00a0(11\/26\/17<\/a>) did cite an IOM official who suggested, in\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/strong>\u2018s words, that \u201cthe international community should pay more attention to post-Gaddafi Libya.\u201d But the media outlet provided no context as to how Libya became post-Qadhafi in the first place.\u00a0In fact, Al Jazeera<\/strong>\u2018s source went out of his way to make the issue apolitical: \u201cModern-day slavery is widespread around the world and Libya is by no means unique.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it is true that slavery and human trafficking happen in other countries, this widespread media narrative depoliticizes the problem in Libya, which has its roots in explicit political decisions made by governments and their leaders: namely, the choice to overthrow Libya\u2019s stable government, turning the oil-rich North African nation into a failed state ruled by competing warlords and militias, some of which are involved in and profit from slavery and trafficking.<\/p>\n

Selective Attention to NATO\u2019s Aftermath in Libya<\/strong><\/p>\n

Corporate media reporting on Libya largely mirrors reporting on Yemen (FAIR.org<\/strong>,\u00a011\/20\/17<\/a>,\u00a08\/31\/17<\/a>,\u00a02\/27\/17<\/a>), Syria (FAIR.org<\/strong>,\u00a04\/7\/17<\/a>,\u00a09\/5\/15<\/a>) and beyond: The role of the US government and its allies in creating chaos abroad is minimized, if not outright ignored.<\/p>\n

Strikingly, one of the only\u00a0exceptions to this overwhelming media trend came back in April from,\u00a0of all places, the\u00a0New York Times<\/strong>\u00a0editorial board. The\u00a0Times<\/strong>\u00a0editorial (4\/14\/17<\/a>) did not mince words, directly linking the US-backed military operation to the ongoing catastrophe:<\/p>\n

None of this would be possible if not for the political chaos in Libya since the civil war in 2011, when \u2014 with the involvement of a NATO coalition that included the United States \u2014 Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was toppled. Migrants have become the gold that finances Libya\u2019s warring factions.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a significant reversal. Immediately after NATO launched its war in Libya in March 2011, the\u00a0Times<\/strong>\u00a0editorial board (3\/21\/11<\/a>) cheered on the bombing, effusing, \u201cCol. Muammar el-Qaddafi has long been a thug and a murderer who has never paid for his many crimes.\u201d It waxed poetic on the \u201cextraordinary,\u201d \u201castonishing\u201d military intervention, and hoped for Qadhafi\u2019s imminent downfall.<\/p>\n

The April 2017\u00a0Times<\/strong>\u00a0editorial stopped far short of a being a mea culpa, yet it was still a rare admission of truth.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

This Guardian piece (4\/10\/17) cites \u201cthe overthrow of autocratic leader Muammar Qadhafi,\u201d but does not say that the US (or Britain) was instrumental in overthrowing him.<\/p><\/div>\n

At the time this surprisingly honest editorial was written, there had briefly been a bit of media attention to Libya. The International Organization for Migration had just conducted an investigation into slavery in post\u2013regime change Libya, leading to a string of news reports in the Guardian<\/strong>\u00a0(4\/10\/17<\/a>) and elsewhere. Practically as soon as this appalling story got the interest of corporate media, however, it quickly died out. Attention shifted back to Russia, North Korea and the bogeymen of the day.<\/p>\n

When Western governments were hoping to militarily intervene in the country in the lead-up to March 19, 2011, there was a constant torrent of media reports on the evils of Qadhafi and his government\u2014including a healthy dose of fake news (Salon<\/strong>, 9\/16\/16<\/a>). Major newspapers staunchly\u00a0supported the NATO intervention<\/a>, and made no secret of their pro-war editorial lines.<\/p>\n

When the US government and its allies were preparing for war, the corporate media apparatus did what it does best, and helped sell yet another military intervention to the public.<\/p>\n

In the years since, on the other hand, there has been exponentially less interest in the disastrous aftermath of that NATO war. There will be short spikes of interest, as there was\u00a0in early 2017. The most recent spurt of press coverage was inspired by the publication of\u00a0CNN<\/strong>\u2018s shocking video footage. But the coverage invariably rapidly peaks and goes away.<\/p>\n

The Extreme Racism of Libyan Rebels<\/strong><\/p>\n

The catastrophe Libya might endure after the collapse of its state had been predictable at the time. Qadhafi himself had warned<\/a> NATO\u00a0member states, while they were waging war against him, that they were going to unleash chaos throughout the region. Yet Western leaders\u2014Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the US, David Cameron in the UK, Nicolas Sarkozy in France, Stephen Harper in Canada\u2014ignored Qadhafi\u2019s admonition and violently toppled his government.<\/p>\n

Even from the small number of media reports on slavery in Libya that do manage to acknowledge NATO\u2019s responsibility for destabilizing the country, nevertheless, something is still missing.<\/p>\n

Looking back\u00a0at Libya\u2019s anti-Qadhafi rebels, both during and after the 2011 war, it is very clear that hardline anti-black racism was widespread in\u00a0the NATO-backed opposition. A 2016 investigation by the British House of Common\u2019s Foreign Affairs Committee (Salon<\/strong>,\u00a09\/16\/16<\/a>) acknowledged that \u201cmilitant Islamist militias played a critical role in the rebellion from February 2011 onwards.\u201d But many rebels were not just fundamentalist; they were also violently racist.<\/p>\n

It is unfortunately no surprise that these extremist Libyan militants later enslaved African refugees and migrants: They were hinting at it from the very beginning.<\/p>\n

Most American and European media coverage at the time of\u00a0NATO\u2019s military intervention was\u00a0decidedly pro-rebel. When reporters got on the ground, however, they began publishing a few more nuanced pieces that hinted at the reality of the opposition. These were insignificant in number, but they are enlightening and worth revisiting.<\/p>\n

Three months into the NATO war, in June 2011, the Wall Street Journal<\/strong>\u2018s Sam Dagher (6\/21\/11<\/a>) reported from Misrata, Libya\u2019s third-largest city and a major hub for the opposition, where he noted he saw rebel slogans like \u201cthe brigade for purging slaves, black skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dahger indicated that the rebel stronghold of Misrata was dominated by\u00a0\u201ctightly knit white merchant families,\u201d whereas \u201cthe south of the country, which is predominantly black, mainly backs Col. Gadhafi.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other graffiti in Misrata read \u201cTraitors keep out.\u201d By \u201ctraitors,\u201d rebels were referring to Libyans from the town of\u00a0Tawergha, which the\u00a0Journal<\/strong>\u00a0explained\u00a0is \u201cinhabited mostly by black Libyans, a legacy of its 19th-century origins as a transit town in the slave trade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dagher reported that some Libyan rebel leaders were \u201ccalling for the expulsion of Tawerghans from the area\u201d and \u201cbanning Tawergha natives from ever working, living or sending their children to schools in Misrata.\u201d He added that predominately\u00a0Tawergha neighborhoods in Misrata had already been emptied. Black Libyans were \u201cgone or in hiding, fearing revenge attacks by Misratans, amid reports of bounties for their capture.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rebel commander Ibrahim al-Halbous told the\u00a0Journal<\/strong>, \u201cTawergha no longer exists, only Misrata.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al-Halbous would later reappear in a report by the Sunday Telegraph<\/strong>\u00a0(9\/11\/11<\/a>), reiterating to the British newspaper,\u00a0\u201cTawarga no longer exists.\u201d (When Halbous was injured in September, the\u00a0New York Times<\/strong>\u20149\/20\/11<\/a>\u2014portrayed him sympathetically as a martyr in the heroic fight against Qadhafi. The Halbous brigade has in the years since become an\u00a0influential<\/a>\u00a0militia in Libya.)<\/p>\n

Like Dagher, the\u00a0Telegraph<\/strong>\u2018s Andrew Gilligan drew attention to the slogan painted on the road\u00a0between Misrata and\u00a0Tawergha:\u00a0\u201cthe brigade for purging slaves [and] black skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilligan reported from\u00a0Tawergha, or rather from the remnants of the majority-black town, which he noted had \u201cbeen emptied of its people, vandalized and partly burned by rebel forces.\u201d A rebel leader\u00a0said of the dark-skinned residents,\u00a0\u201cWe said if they didn\u2019t go, they would be conquered and imprisoned. Every single one of them has left, and we will never allow them to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilligan noted \u201ca racist undercurrent. Many Tawargas, though neither immigrants nor Gaddafi\u2019s much-ballyhooed African mercenaries, are descended from slaves, and are darker than most Libyans.\u201d<\/p>\n

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization assisted these virulently racist rebels in Misrata. NATO forces frequently launched\u00a0air attacks<\/a>\u00a0on the city.\u00a0French fighter jets<\/a>\u00a0shot down Libyan planes over Misrata. The\u00a0US and UK<\/a>\u00a0fired cruise missiles at Libyan government targets, and the US launched Predator drone strikes. The\u00a0Canadian air force<\/a>\u00a0also attacked Libyan forces, pushing them out of Misrata.<\/p>\n

In a public relations video NATO published in May 2011, early in the Libya war,\u00a0the Western military alliance openly admitted that\u00a0it\u00a0intentionally\u00a0allowed\u00a0\u201cLibyan rebels to transport arms from Benghazi to Misrata.\u201d\u00a0Political scientist Micah Zenko\u00a0(Foreign Policy<\/strong>, 3\/22\/16<\/a>) pointed out the implications of this video: \u201cA NATO surface vessel stationed in the Mediterranean to enforce an arms embargo did exactly the opposite, and NATO was comfortable posting a video demonstrating its hypocrisy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Human Rights Watch (9\/4\/11) documented racist persecution in post-Qadhafi Libya.<\/p><\/div>\n

Throughout the war and after,\u00a0Libyan rebels continued carrying out racist sectarian attacks against\u00a0their black compatriots. These attacks have been well documented by mainstream human rights organizations.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch\u2019s longtime executive director\u00a0Kenneth Roth<\/a>\u00a0cheered on NATO intervention in Libya in 2011, calling the UN Security Council\u2019s unanimous endorsement of a no-fly zone a \u201cremarkable\u201d confirmation of the so-called\u00a0\u201cresponsibility to protect\u201d doctrine.<\/p>\n

Roth\u2019s organization, however, could not ignore the crimes anti-Qadhafi militants committed against dark-skinned Libyans and migrants.<\/p>\n

In September 2011, when the war was still ongoing, Human Rights Watch reported<\/a>\u00a0on Libyan rebels\u2019 \u201carbitrary arrests and abuse of African migrant workers and black Libyans assumed to be [pro-Qadhafi] mercenaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then in October, the top US human rights organization noted that\u00a0Libyan militias<\/a>\u00a0were \u201cterrorizing the displaced residents of the nearby town of\u00a0Tawergha,\u201d\u00a0the majority-black community that had been a stronghold of support for Qadhafi. \u201cThe entire town of 30,000 people is abandoned\u2014some of it ransacked and burned\u2014and Misrata brigade commanders say the residents of Tawergha should never return,\u201d HRW added. Witnesses \u201cgave credible accounts of some Misrata militias shooting unarmed Tawerghans, and of arbitrary arrests and beatings of Tawerghan detainees, in a few cases leading to death.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2013, HRW reported further on the\u00a0ethnic cleansing<\/a>\u00a0of the black community of\u00a0Tawergha. The human rights organization, whose chief had so effusively supported the military intervention, wrote: \u201cThe forced displacement of roughly 40,000 people, arbitrary detentions, torture and killings are widespread, systematic and sufficiently organized to be crimes against humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

These atrocities are undeniable, and they lead a path straight to the enslavement of African refugees and migrants. But to\u00a0acknowledge NATO\u2019s complicity in\u00a0empowering these racist extremist militants, corporate media would have to acknowledge NATO\u2019s role in the 2011 regime change war in Libya in the first place.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Ben Norton is a journalist and writer. He is a reporter for <\/em>AlterNet\u2019s Grayzone Project and a contributor to<\/em> FAIR. His website is BenNorton.com<\/a>, and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 fair.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

28 Nov 2017 – The American and British media have awakened to the grim reality in Libya, where African refugees are for sale in open-air slave markets. Yet a crucial detail in this scandal has been downplayed or even ignored in many corporate media reports: the role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in bringing slavery to the North African nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":102806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[224,57,62,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-rights","category-militarism","category-media","category-middle-east-north-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}