HOME SECRETARY People's Bureau into a piece managed, reactionary police ostentatiously | weaponry on the streets.
The ideological function of such a show is not difficult to discern. Symfor the police is Dality especially useful the middle of a miners' strike. Justification for the police being heavily armed time.
Patriotic hatred of "Arabs' The tactics used in the siege of the Iranian embassy were carefully calculated have just such an ideological imThe final murder of ball. the Arab guerrillas by the SAS, when they were trying to surrender was carefully calculatec as warning about the are anyone trying 'dirty tricks' in London.
The seige in London has to be put against the background COTT universal Western hostility to Qadhafi. Since was elected the US has regarded Oadhafi 'enemy number one', is determined to bring him down. In August 1981 two Libyan TELS WelC shot down in Libya's territorial Wales bv US planes patrolled Libya's coast. Leon Brittan his of stagetheatre. While the media - I• display a huge allay of What angers the United States and its allies Inal vaunan DACKS many of the movements governments which he US is opposed to In Chad Libyan troops have backed up an anti-imperialist movement. Libyan military might is seen as threatening the reactionary states in the region Egypt, Sudan. Qadhafi has given loans totalling hundreds of millions of dollars to Nicaragua, and sent planeloads of arms. For a long period Libya was a cham pion of the 'rejection front of Arab states and movements which opposed moves towards peace with Israel at the expense of the Palestinians.
US hostility to Qadhafi is therefore hardly surprising. Neither is the concerted by the Western media to present him gangster who is mentally unstable.
In the conflict between Western imperialism and Qadhati, the basic quesPolice marksmen take aim on Libyan Embassy tion at issue is Libya's self-determination lid tional independence - ItS right to conduct its own affairs and give aid to radical movements whatever the imperialists think Nonetheless basic issue should blind nobody of Qadhafi's rule in Libya itself.
Qadhafi came to power in a military coup in 1969. Since that time a number ot very radical Hicasure. have been taken, , including the nationalisation of the majority OI foreign oil holdings, irrigation projects for agriculture and a system of generous loans for peasant farmers.
Libya's very small population only million has seen a dramatic rise in its standard of livhon of large oil revenues based on the utilisato finance state projects.
Politically, Qadhati's eccentric theories, which claim to have resolved the contradiction between capitalism communism 'Universal Third Theory', the regime is a radical nationalist Qadhafi sees himself the descendent of Abdul Nasser, Egyptiar president when Arab na tionalism was at its height. His regime, despite the claim that all power has been handed over to La tightly controlled military dictatorship, with real power concentrated in the Bonapartist figure of Qadhafi himself.
There is no doubt that opposition is ruthlessly deal that as the oil revenues have declined opposition to Qadhafi has been on the increase.
The seige of the embassy can play a useful function for Qadhafi, not just for the Thatcher government. A prolonged conflict with Britain could easily play role of whipping up support for the Tripoli government a a time of growing internal dissent.
If Qadhafi did order the shooting he handed the Tories a gift on a plate glorification of the police and the SAS at the expense •emocrac rights general and the miners in val lculal Socialist defence of Libya against imperialist attack should not involve any ambiguity towards the terroristic methods which Qadhafi uses against his op ones, which should unequivocally condemned The shooting in St James' Square was a reactionary act, which can only serve the interests of reaction in Batain Libya If the police 'and th SAS do storm the People's Bureau it will be a clear not of? desire to administer justice even-handed but rather of a desire to 'teach the Arabs a lesson'.
If this event had occurred at the embassy of the United States (an embassy, incidentally, which does have a huge arsenal on the premises) or any other Western power, there would be no question of a seige violation diplomatic immunity. The seige at St James's Square is political from beginning to end. The losers wil no be Thatcher or Qadhaf but democratic right
THE DEMANDS of the Women's Socialist Action 27 April 1984 Action Women's conference has winners' of families, and
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hurls every conceivable insult at Qadhafi and his regime — 'unstable', 'dangerous', 'madman'