The ugly reality of imperialist “liberation”

Torture in Libya: The ugly reality of imperialist “liberation”
1 February 2012 – wsws

Multiple reports of widespread torture in the detention centers run by the new imperialist-backed Libyan regime and NATO’s “rebels” give the lie to all those who justified last year’s war in the name of human rights and “liberation.”

It is just over 100 days since the lynch-mob murder of Libya’s former ruler Muammar Gaddafi, a grisly act that marked the culmination of the eight-month US-NATO war. At the time, President Barack Obama took to the White House Rose Garden to hail the assassination as the advent of “a new and democratic Libya.”

The evidence and testimony provided by aid groups and human rights organizations over the past week paint a very different picture. A criminal imperialist war that ended with a brutal murder has, unsurprisingly, yielded a regime of terror, torture and repression.

According to a report released by Amnesty International (AI), “torture is being carried out by officially recognized military and security entities as well as by a multitude of armed militias operating outside of any legal framework.”

The organization reported numerous cases of detainees having been tortured to death. It also reported meeting with others who bore “visible marks indicating torture in recent days and weeks.” AI continued: “Their injuries included open wounds on the head, limbs, back and other parts of the body.”

Prisoners are “suspended in contorted positions, beaten for hours with whips, cables, plastic hoses, metal chains and bars and wooden sticks, and given electric shocks with live wires and Taser-like electro-shock weapons,” according to the Amnesty report. A spokesperson for the organization described the failure of the US- and NATO-backed National Transitional Council (NTC) to conduct any investigation, much less take any action against the torture, as “horrifying.”

Amnesty’s findings were corroborated by UN human rights chief Navi Pillay, who told the Security Council recently that torture is widespread. “There’s torture, extrajudicial executions, rape of both men and women,” she said. …more