ON MARCH 19, 2003 the United States of America led some of its traditional ‘war’ allies in the invasion of Iraq for a crushing ‘regime change’. They did so by contemptuously ignoring the United Nations. Eight years later, this past March 17, the US and its dependable ‘war allies’ like Britain, France and Italy secured, by majority vote in the UN Security Council, a ‘no-fly zone’ resolution against Libya that was to be flagrantly exploited by NATO’s war machine for ‘regime change’ in that North African state. What both Iraq (under the subsequently executed Saddam Hussein) and Libya (whose Muammar Gaddafi is currently being desperately hunted) have in common, apart from dictatorial rule, is the rich oil wealth that’s so very much desired by the powerful international cartels.
Up to late Thursday, as NATO bombs continued destroying Libya’s capital, Tripoli and other parts of the country, to facilitate rebels armed by the very intervening western governments to  get rid of Gaddafi (dead or in chains), South Africa was resisting a move by the countries at war with Libya to secure the UN’s permission to unfreeze some of the billions of assets belonging to the government of Libya for use by a National Transitional Council (TNC) then functioning in Benghazi, headquarters of the rebel forces.
With thousands dead and injured, and amid continuing blood-letting on the streets, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, a country deeply respected for its heroic survival against apartheid, was declaring that his administration was willing to concur to the release of no more than US$500 million (for immediate humanitarian aid) and not the US$1.5 billion being sought, since the UN has not even ‘recognised’ what exists as ‘a government’ in the form of a National Transitional Council. It subsequently reached a compromise, as the TNC was still awaiting ‘recognition’ even by the Arab League bloc of states.

South Africa’s anger
As President Zuma was to observe, “the Libyan crisis is the latest example of Africa being shown a lack of respect by the rest of the world…Those who have the power to bomb other countries have undermined the African Union’s efforts and initiatives to handle the situation in Libya…We could have avoided the loss of a lot of lives in Libya….but powerful nations had abused the resolution to further their own interests and not the Libyan people…”
It is relevant to observe here the inaction of governments of our Caribbean Community that have diplomatic relations with the African Union (AU), itself a body in whose formation President Gaddafi had played a crucial role.
In its editorial this past Tuesday, the Barbados Daily Nation noted that while “regime change was not a stated objective of the UN ‘no-fly zone’ resolution, it has been methodically used by NATO to systematically weaken the government in Tripoli at a very heavy price in loss of lives and destruction…”
Given the sentiment expressed much earlier in a mere three-line paragraph (as an afterthought?) on “the situation in Libya” in their communique of last July’s Heads of Government Conference, it is pertinent to ask:
What precisely has ANY member government, or CARICOM in general, done to officially communicate to the UN Secretary-General, or the NATO governments involved in the ‘war on Libya’ opposition to the gross misuse of the UN resolution of  last March 17  “for the protection of civilians” — NOT ‘regime change’ — in Tripoli?
While not ignoring the political sins of Gaddafi, it so happens that Libya is the latest independent nation to have its sovereignty made a mockery of by the rich and powerful who had, in more recent years, found it increasingly difficult to use dictatorial regimes in places like Tripoli and Baghdad to help fulfil their own policies and interests.
The official rhetoric coming from governments in Washington, London, Paris, or NATO headquarters cannot mask the reality that the downfall of the Gaddafi regime was, essentially, a ‘victory’ resulting from the fierce bombings by the foreign powers for whom the UN  ‘no-fly zone’ resolution was merely a fig leaf for well-planned ‘regime change’ in Tripoli.