[D66] Sirte destroyed by NTC-NATO offensive in Libya

[Antid Oto]

Sirte destroyed by NTC-NATO offensive in Libya
By Chris Marsden
18 October 2011

The Libyan town of Sirte has been all but destroyed and its inhabitants turned
into homeless refugees. This situation has gone largely unreported, but those
press reports that have emerged paint a picture of a city being reduced to ruins
by attacks of the National Transitional Council (NTC) “rebels” and NATO bombing
raids against which it has no defense.

“After weeks of intense fighting, Moammar Gaddafi’s home town appeared Saturday
to have been largely destroyed, with most of its population fled and holes the
size of manhole covers blown in apartment buildings and the ousted leader’s
showcase convention center,” writes the Washington Post of Muammar Gaddafi’s
coastal hometown of around 100,000 residents.

Once considered to be a showpiece of urban development in Libya, Sirte has been
the target of NATO bombing and NTC attacks since shortly after the fall of
Tripoli in late August. In the last ten days, it has been the object of an
intensified offensive. The Post states that “the damage wreaked in Sirte raises
the question of whether its residents will go quietly into the post-Gaddafi
future—or retain a smouldering anger that could fuel an insurgency.”

The Telegraph in Britain, which backs Gaddafi’s ouster, nevertheless comments
that Sirte, which once had “a brilliant panoply of university and hospitals,
with a glittering seafront and a marble-lined conference centre to host leaders
from around the world,” is now “a squalid ruin.”

“Rebel fighters gazing at the devastation concede it is difficult to see how
much of it could ever be repaired and made habitable again,” it notes. “The
shattered remains of housing blocks and the wreckage of once comfortable
homes…are more reminiscent of the grimmest scenes from Grozny, towards the end
of Russia’s bloody Chechen war, than of anything seen in Libya so far. And the
area around the grid of streets where anything between 200 and 500 loyalists are
still holding out have become a killing ground, with loyalists, civilians and
forces of the new Libyan government dying by the day.”

Former residents who have returned “found almost every house and building either
damaged by a rocket or mortar, burned out or riddled with bullets. Water floods
the streets and the city’s infrastructure is in tatters,” writes Reuters.

These events shatter the pretences on which the NATO war against Libya was
launched—i.e. claims that the possibility that Gaddafi might carry out mass
reprisals against protesters justified a NATO intervention to disarm him. Far
from planning reprisals against defenceless protesters, the Libyan army soon
faced a war in which they were outclassed by NATO forces intervening to support
the “rebels.” Reports from Sirte now suggest that the NTC forces are now
carrying out collective punishment in the city.

Reuters comments: “the ferociousness of the bombardment of Sirte and the burning
of homes that belong to Gaddafi family members and supporters has raised
suspicions that some fighters loyal to the NTC are looking for reprisals.” It
cited residents returning to Sirte and accusing NTC fighters “of demolishing and
looting homes, shops and public buildings.”

“They envy and hate us because Muammar is from here. But we are just civilians.
The revolutionaries are coming here for revenge and destruction,” said a Sirte
resident.

Another resident, Abu Anas, states: “What’s happening in Sirte is revenge, not
liberation. When someone comes and takes your personal car and destroys your
home, this is not liberation.”

NTC forces “clearly feel no need for restraint in bombarding the Gaddafi
loyalists. That’s especially true of the many fighters from Misrata, a city to
the west scarred by a bloody siege by Gaddafi’s troops in the spring,” the Post
comments.

Numerous reports indicate that the NTC forces are looting the town. “Orders from
the National Transitional Council to outlaw looting have done nothing to deter
the rebel stragglers gutting abandoned buildings,” the Telegraph states.

Reuters reporters saw NTC fighters “roaming the streets of Sirte with chairs,
tyres and computers on the backs of their pickup trucks. Brand new BMW and
Toyota cars were seen being driven away by the fighters and being towed outside
of the city.”

Associated Press reporters “also saw trucks carrying equipment from Sirte’s
airport, including red-carpeted mobile staircases, baggage carts, airplane
towing vehicles and security screening equipment, all apparently meant for
Misrata’s badly damaged airport. Smaller pickups were loaded with rugs,
freezers, refrigerators, furniture and other household goods, apparently taken
by civilians and fighters to be used in their homes or resold.”

Tens of thousands of residents have fled the city. However, Gabriele Rossi, the
emergency coordinator in Sirte for the Doctors without Borders charity
organisation, told the Washington Post that doctors fear thousands of civilians
may be trapped in the areas of the city still being contested: “We are extremely
concerned for those people that are inside [Sirte] and cannot get access to
health care.”

A doctor for Doctors without Borders in Sirte has estimated that 10,000 people
remain trapped in the city, including women and children, some sick or injured.

According to CNN, Doctors without Borders personnel working at the Ibn Sina
hospital are still dealing with 50 patients yet to be evacuated. They are
“mostly people who have suffered violent trauma, severe burns and fractures,
according to MSF. Almost all patients need daily dressing and immediate medical
care. There are also some pregnant women in the hospital.

“There is no water supply in the hospital and one of four operating theatres has
been shelled,” the charity said. “The medical staff has been working around the
clock and are showing signs of exhaustion and post-traumatic stress disorder.”

The total number of dead and injured in the onslaught cannot be determined.
Information is scanter still regarding Bani Walid, also under NTC/NATO siege for
weeks, which the NTC now claims to have captured.

The destruction of Sirte is a fitting testament to the true character of NATO’s
“humanitarian intervention” into Libya. Begun with claims that military
bombardment would save Benghazi, the illegal war of aggression has instead laid
waste to large swaths of the country.

As for reconstruction, there are already indications that the imperialist powers
intend to use the funds they have earmarked for Libya for further fighting, not
rebuilding the devastated country.

Reuters reported this week that the emergency “relief fund” set up in a Qatari
account to circumvent sanctions—now worth over half a billion US dollars—will no
longer be available “for providing emergency cash” and will be used “to invest
in long-term projects… Thousands of Libyans fleeing fighting in the besieged
cities of Sirte and Bani Walid are straining the resources of struggling nearby
towns, but the emergency relief fund set up by foreign donors says it is no
longer its job to help.”

In reality, only $130 million of the $500 million Temporary Financing Mechanism
has been released and this has covered fuel, hospital bills and salaries.

Local authorities “say they have only received a fraction of the money they need
to cope with the flood of families escaping the fighting” in Sirte and Bani
Walid. “In Tripoli, officials said the capital’s resources were also being
tested by the arrival of thousands of internally displaced people and more money
was needed to provide services in the capital.”

A local official said Tripoli has only actually received a paltry 15 million
dinars, or $12.2 million.

“Most of Libya’s estimated $170 billion in frozen assets are still out of reach,
and despite pledges by global powers to make money available, just one third of
a promised $15 billion has been unfrozen,” the report concludes.

Yesterday UK Foreign Secretary William Hague was in Tripoli to reopen Britain’s
embassy, which was looted and torched in May in angry response to NATO’s air
strikes. He marked this “watershed” moment with a promise of a paltry £20
million pounds ($32 million) for Libya’s stabilisation fund, another £20 million
to support “political and economic reform,” and health care in the UK for at
most 50 Libyans injured in the war.

http://wsws.org/articles/2011/oct2011/liby-o18.shtml