NATO'S Massacre At Majer, Libya
By Franklin Lamb
13 August, 2011
Countercurrents.org
Majer, Libya: Located about 20
miles east of the ancient Roman city of Leptis Magna, six miles south of
Zliten, and off Libya's southern coast across the Mediterranean from
Rome, Majer was a picturesque village known for the fine quality of its
dates and is claimed by locals to produce the best tarbuni (date juice)
in Libya.
Family members, eyewitnesses and Libyan government
officials claim that NATO's air-strikes at Majer killed 85 people,
including 33 children, 32 women and 20 men. Reporters and visitors were
shown 30 of the bodies in a local morgue, including a mother and two
children. Officials and residents explained that approximately 50 bodies
were taken to other locations for family burial and most of the injured
rushed to hospitals at Tripoli.
At Majer, NATO chose to bomb three neighboring
compounds and visitors examined a total of five bombed-out houses. There
was no evidence of weapons at the farmhouses, but rather mattresses,
clothes and books littered the area. One badly injured 15-year old young
lady, Salwa Ageil Al Jaoud, had earlier written her name inside one
notebook found amidst the rubble. She was later visited in hospital and
attested, like the witnesses at Qana had, that there was no military
presence in the homes that were bombed.
NATO used the same tactic that Israel used during
the two Qana massacres. After the first three bombs dropped at around
11:00 pm (2100 GMT) on Monday, August 8, many residents of the area ran
to the bombed houses to try to save their loved ones. NATO then
instantly struck with more bombs slaughtering 85 Libyans.
The badly burned and mangled bodies of two boys
named Adil Moayed Gafes and Aynan Gafees were pulled from the rubble by
family members deeply in shock. One anguished gentleman repeated the
words, ""There is no God but Allah, and a martyr is loved by Allah," and
soon others joined in.
Standing on a pile of rubble, Libyan government
spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, declared, "This is a crime beyond
imagination. Everything about this place is civilian!"
According to Libyan officials interviewed at the
Rixos Hotel here in Tripoli last night, NATO attacked Majer "to try to
help rebel fighters enter the government-held city from the south as it
deepens its involvement and military command and control of one side in
what has become a civil war hoping for billions of dollars in
reconstruction contracts and special oil deals from its chosen team set
up in eastern Libya."
Seemingly borrowing a page from the Israeli army
media office, NATO's Carmen Romero, the NATO Deputy Spokesperson and
Colonel Roland Lavoie, Operation ''Unified Protector'' military
spokesperson on 8/9/11 told a joint Brussels-Naples news conference that
"the village bombed contained a military assembly area and that NATO to
date had no evidence of any civilian casualties but that NATO always
takes extraordinary measures to assure the safety of civilians."
It
is predictable, that as the evidence of the massacre at Majer becomes
public and NATO is pressed to explain the killing of yet more Libya
civilians, NATO, probably within the next 48 hours, will announce "an
internal investigation" into the events at Majer while asserting in
advance, as the Israelis regularly do, that their bombing was only
directed at "legitimate military targets."
Every Muslim and Christian Palestinian refugee in
Lebanon, and every Lebanese citizen whose family members or loved ones
were slaughtered during Israel's two massacres at Qana, Lebanon, is
reminded today of the indescribable loss suffered yesterday by their
Libyan sisters and brothers at Majer, Libya.
The Majer massacre was perpetrated yet again with
American weapons once more gifted by American taxpayers without their
knowledge or consent and against every American humanitarian value
shared by all people of good will.
As at Qana, the inventory of American weapons that has been provided
to NATO and available for use here in Libya since March 29, 2011,
sometimes indiscriminately, in order "to protect civilians" includes,
but if not limited to, the following:
B-2 stealth bombers from the 509th Bomb Wing at
Whiteman Air Force Base, F-15Es currently based at the 492nd Fighter
Squadron and 494th Fighter Squadron at RAF Lakenheath, Britain, F-16CJ
"defense-suppression" aircraft based at the 480th Fighter Squadron at
Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, EC-130 Commando Solo psychological
operations aircraft from the 193rd Special Operations Wing, Pennsylvania
Air National Guard, Middletown, PA, KC-135s from the 100th Air
Refueling Wing currently based at Mildenhall, Britain and the 92nd, Air
Refueling Wing, Fairchild AFB, WA,C-130Js recently based at the 37th
Airlift Squadron at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, and A-10 attack
fighters, and AC-130 gunships. The NATO attacks on Libya began with the
bombing of claimed Libyan air-defense equipment using 110 American
Tomahawk and Tactical Tomahawk cruise missiles. Also launched were
bombing attacks using three American B-2 Spirit Bombers delivering 45
Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) against Libyan air bases.
Tomahawks were also fired from British ships in the area.
U.S. Navy ships being used by NATO "to protect Libyan civilians" include:
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Stout (DDG 55)
and USS Barry (DDG 52),Submarines USS Providence (SSN 719), USS
Scranton (SSN 756) and USS Florida (SSGN 728),Marine amphibious ships
USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) and USS Ponce (LPD 15) Command ship USS Mount
Whitney (LCC/JCC 20), Support ships Lewis and Clark, Robert E. Peary and
Kanawha,AV-8B Harrier fighters, CH-53 Super Stallion helicopters and
MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft aboard the Kearsarge and Ponce, KC-130J
tanker aircraft flying from Sigonella Air Base, Italy, EA-18G Growler
electronic attack aircraft of VAQ-132, based at Whidbey Island, WA and
flying from Aviano Air Base, Italy (the above listed aircraft were
diverted from Iraq at NATO's request "to help protect Libyan
civilians"), P-3 Orion sub-hunters and EP-3 Aries electronic attack
aircraft.
In addition to the above listed weapons, more than
50 types of American bombs and missiles are stockpiled for NATO use "to
protect civilians in Libya" and their use to date is illegal under both
American and International law, because it has resulted in the killing,
maiming or wounding of approximately 7,800 Libyan civilians between
March 29 and August 9, 2011.
A survey of NATO bombing sites, ground inspections,
cataloged serial numbers from unexploded ordnance, examination of bomb
and missile fragments at civilian sites in Western Libya, and
consultation with Libyan military sources confirm what two US Senate
Armed Services Committee staffers and international lawyers have
postulated. NATO, like their Israeli allies at Qana, Lebanon, committed
war crimes and crimes against humanity at Majer, Libya on August 8,
2011.
Specifically, NATO stands accused of committing the
following crimes against the people of Libya according to a consensus
from meetings with an increasing number of visiting international
lawyers and human rights advocates who have come here from Europe, Asia
and South and North America.
Applicable international law includes but is not
limited to Article 3 of the Statute of The Hague International Penal
Court which clearly states that one criterion for indictment for war
crimes is: "Attack or bombardment, by whatever means, against undefended
cities, towns, villages, buildings or houses".
NATO's continuous use
of civilian targets for military purposes, a scenario which NATO
wantonly and callously calls "collateral damage" fits this clause
exactly and would be a cornerstone of a case accusing this organization
of being guilty of war crimes.
Violation of the Geneva Convention IV,
Article 3 (a): "To this end the following acts are and shall remain
prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the
above-mentioned persons: violence to life and person, in particular
murder of all kinds."
These are similar causes of action that were filed
against Israeli officials by American lawyers at the New York based
Center for Constitutional Rights in Ali Saadallah BELHAS, et al.,
Plaintiffs, v. Moshe YA`ALON, Defendant (466 F.Supp.2d 127 (2006) A case
that educated the international legal community and the public about
the necessity to strip sovereign immunity from international outlaws and
allow lawsuits in domestic as well as international courts.
The NATO massacre at Majer requires international law suits that achieve
nothing less.
Franklin Lamb is in Libya and can be reached at [email protected].
http://www.countercurrents.org/lamb130811.htm
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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