Hillary Clinton email: NATO’s war on Libya in 2011 was about gold, oil and a Pan-African currency

Implications for Alliance of Sahel States' bid for self determination

In 2011, Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first Black president, resisted pressure from Western leaders to sever ties with Colonel Gaddafi of Libya, who bankrolled his election campaign. On meeting Gaddafi for the first time in 1997, Mandela called him ‘my brother leader.’  

For many across Africa, Gaddafi symbolises African independence and self determination.  

But in 2011, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) overthrew Colonel Muammir Gaddafi, citing the ‘responsibility to protect’ Libyan citizens from political repression.

An email sent to the then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicates a vastly different reason why the Presidents Sarkozy of France and Obama of the US ordered NATO to bomb Libya over a period of eight months.

Gaddafi’s Libya, 1969-2011

Libya was an Italian colony from 1912 to 1943. After the defeat of Mussolini’s Italy in World War 2, it passed into French and British hands until 1951, the year it gained independence but remained attached to Great Britain. Oil from Libya was first exported in 1961.

In 1969, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi led a bloodless coup called the Al-Fateh Revolution that overthrew the British-backed King Idris and ousted British and American military bases.

The new government Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, criminalized insults to the state, its flag and the revolution and pursued repressive measures including torture and illegal detention, according to Amnesty International. Famously, Gaddafi gave military support to military dictator Idi Amin of Uganda in 1978.

What enhanced Gaddafi’s reputation across Africa were economic and social reforms which included:

• The nationalisation of Libya’s oil, water, food,  gold; a state-owned bank and a state managed currency.

• The construction of the Great Man-made River project, thousands of miles of pipelines which drew water from underground in the Sahara, funded without investment by major countries or loans from world banks.

A welfare state and other reforms

• Profits from nationally-owned resources were used to fund free water, almost free gasoline, free health system and free medical care and education, which dramatically increased literacy and life expectancy.

• Laws affirming equality of the sexes, wage parity, women’s consent to marriage, and criminalizing the marriage of girls under the age of sixteen, although women’s emancipation continued to be limited by cultural bias.

• ·An original system of local democracy. Warring factions and Islamist militia within the country were brought under control.

• A transformed Libya went from being one of the poorest countries in Africa to the richest and most independent, setting an example for other resource-rich but poverty-stricken countries.

Gaddafi funded many national liberation and community groups.

He had a vision of a united Africa, which included:

• An Africa-wide irrigation system, modelled after Libya’s Great Man-made River project.

• A de-dollarised pan-African currency, based on gold.

• The creation of the African Union (est 2002) to plan for a single President, a united defense force, and foreign and trade policy.

Hillary Clinton email: an explanation of NATO’s overthrow of Gaddafi

Protests and a rebel force rose against Gaddafi in February 2011. The United Nations Security Council voted for Resolution 1973 citing the need for no-fly zones and ‘any means necessary’ to protect protestors. China, Brazil, India, Germany and Russia abstained, citing infringement of national sovereignty, suspicious that the US and its western European allies were imposing human rights judgements selectively.

In less than a year, Gaddafi was murdered and power passed into the hands of rebel groups.

Four years later, an email to Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State during NATO’s bombing of Libya, revealed an account of hidden motives for the overthrow of Gaddafi. Dated April 2, 2011, the email was from Sidney Blumenthal, a close confidante who was Senior Advisor to President Bill Clinton.

Excerpts from the Blumental email, cited in the Ecologist

‘Qaddafi's government holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver ... This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA)…

‘According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy's decision to commit France to the attack on Libya. According to these individuals Sarkozy's plans are driven by the following issues:

1. A desire to gain a greater share of Libya oil production,
2. Increase French influence in North Africa,
3. Improve his internal political situation in France,
4. Provide the French military with an opportunity to reassert its position in the world,
5. Address the concern of his advisors over Qaddafi's long term plans to supplant France as the dominant power in Francophone Africa."

The Foreign Policy Journal reported that ‘The same intelligence  email from Sydney Blumenthal also confirms what has become a well-known theme of Western supported insurgencies in the Middle East: the contradiction of special forces training militias that are simultaneously suspected of links to Al Qaeda.’

The Blumental email was taken at face value by prestigious news organisations such as the  Ecologist and Foreign Policy Journal.

Not so convinced is Africa Check, a ‘fact check’ organisation originating in London, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Google News Initiative inter alia.

Africa Check says of the Blumenthal email, ‘It is possible that the information is correct. Blumenthal’s sources may actually have had indirect access to Gaddafi, and the rumours they passed on may have been correct. However, the claims are still unconfirmed, and there are substantial reasons to doubt their accuracy.’

The 2011 ouster of Gaddafi resulted in a failed state

According to Paul Cook, a former Marine and  US representative for California's 8th congressional district from 2013 to 2020 in testimony to a Congressional committee in 2016:

‘Unfortunately, it was U.S. policy that transformed Libya  into the complete failure that it is today. 2011 we decided to intervene in Libya and establish no-fly zones to aid Libyan rebels plotting against Gaddafi.  Under the safety of the no-fly zone we imposed, Islamic  terrorist groups long subdued under Gaddafi's regime sprung up, amassed weapons, training and military experience.’

Islamist terrorist groups moved operations south from Libya and are today creating chaos throughout  Central and West Africa.

There were many other adverse consequences:

• Over-run by rival militia, Libya descended into civil war and remains chaotic. Al Jazeera reports a geopolitical struggle between Libyan  ‘eastern and western factions drawing backing from Russia and Turkey respectively.’

• NATO bombed the Great Man-made River project, a war crime that delayed the completion of the water system.

• Unknown entities looted Libya’s gold reserves around the time of Gaddafi’s ouster. Some estimates suggest that 20% of the stock was stolen.

• Women’s status in Libya deteriorated under the scourge of rival militant groups.

• African unity plans were abandoned.

• Refugees began fleeing from Libya, joining refugee flights from other US wars (Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan)

Conclusion: The world has changed since the 2011 fall of Gaddafi

African countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are liberating their national assets from neocolonial domination, following the Gaddafi development model. Will their bold moves put them at risk from a NATO attack?

What’s changed since the NATO war on Libya in 2011 is the countervailing rise of the multipolar world, led by the People’s Republic of China (PRC.)

The success of China’s trajectory is evident. It has  lifted 770 million people out of poverty in a mere 30 years. 53 out of 54 nations in Africa are part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its worldwide infrastructure projects which began in 2013. Beijing promotes itself as a builder of world peace.

China used to rarely deploy its veto at the United Nations Security Council, preferring to abstain if it disagreed with a resolution, as it did in the vote approving the attack on Libya in 2011.

Since increasing its funding of the United Nations, China has been using the veto more frequently. At the UN General Assembly, China votes closer to the Group of 77 plus China which has expanded to 134 Global South countries dissatisfied with the US-led international order. The PRC votes sometimes, but not always, with Russia, and votes often in opposition to the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.

For these reasons China is likely to veto any UNSC resolution introduced by the West that approves an attack on Global South countries, especially those seeking self-determination.

  Image source 2011: Libya's water supply: The Great Man-Made River.