Libya: Gaddaf's 'left' Friend
Socialist Press1977 1977-03-02Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 3 →
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What is the explanation of the suspiciously intimate political relationship between the leadership of the Workers Revolutionary Party and the anti-communist regime of Colonel Muammar al Gaddafi in Libya?
The question emerged again last week as the WRP bestowed coy support on the launching in Britain of Gaddafi's 'Green Book' which sets out his political 'philosophy' This followed regular glowing reports in the WRP's press anonymous Libya which might well have been taken verbatim from Gaddafi's oil-rich propaganda services.
Last Saturday's issue of the WRP's paper Newstine carried a vigorous plug for the 'public discussion meeting' - complete with cine cameras and a full complement of Libyan diplomatic staff - on Gaddafi's 'Green Book' , run two days previously by the Libyan embassy in a virtually empty Kensington Town Hall.
The Newsline reporter (and WRP Central Committee member and full time official, Roy Battersby) complained that "Gaddafi's writings and his drive towards people's democracy hardly received the attention they deserve.
The book is an uncompromising Watere paces 00820 0 The 500 :: 000*7 lnd. as in fis contricution e: the meeting itself, Battersb: bleated that the two main platform speakers - right-wing Labour MPs Andrew Faulds and Prenticite John Cartwright - had paid too much attention to the defence of Parliamentary 'democracy' against Gaddafi's criticisms.
What Mr. Battersby did not tell Newsline readers was that his fellow WRP Central Committee member, Vanessa Redgrave, had also accepted an invitation to appear on the platform.
Her name was widely publicised (in the Times, for example,) as a speaker; the organisers explained she was 'unfortunately prevented' from coming.
An examination of Gaddafi's real political philosophy reveals why the WRP leadership are so diplomatically shy about making their opportunist relations with the Libyan state over-public.
When Gaddafi launched his *popular revolution' in 1973 he precisemed what he called his Its:es These included: at * • e polinically == - +23:
"Anyone »ho spezas ci munism, Marxism or atheism be isolated and put in prison" (Speech at Zurawa, 15th April, 1973).
In fulfillment of his policies Gaddafi has used troops, for example, to shoot down left-wing students demonstrating in Benghazi Interviewed by a sympathetic journalist in 1974 Gaddafi also outlined his notorious policy of reinstating medieval islamic law.
He was in favour, he explained, of cutting off the hands of thieves.
He thought, however, there was room for 'interpretation' and that the penalty should not automaticall be applied to those who stole in order to eat.
Gadaffi Any humanity, he explained, required that these days amputations should be carried out under anaesthetic.
But the case of adultery, he went on, was unambiguous:
"The punishment is flogging: more precisely the adulterer is to receive a hundred lashes. There, things are clear and unequivocal: a ded zahes are a bundred lashes t50 s: * ri= Es prs ment.
It was, indeed. dipiomati DiM s Redgrave to find an excuse not to appear.
On the day of her public meeting Gaddafi's announced that henceforth all forms of private capital will be allowed to invest in the country: a policy warmly advocated by both the Labour MPs.
The question to which members of the WRP should demand an answer is - Why does Gerry Healy's leadership lend its name and press to the support of this reactionary charade?