Most of the country's problems are centred in the east, around Benghazi — the area, incidentally, which is the centre of Libya's oil industry. This region is in the part of the country called Cyrenaica, home to the Senoussi clan to which King Idriss, the puppet of British imperialism who was overthrown by Gaddafi's coup, belonged.

It is obvious that clan loyalties that no longer have any relevance in the modern world have been conjured up by reactionaries hoping to recapture their lost glory, no doubt with appeals to the most medieval of religious traditions.

Western imperialism, outraged by Libya's nationalisation of its oil under Gaddafi, and by Gaddafi's unfailing support for anti-imperialist causes (South Africa, Palestine, Ireland etc), has also always opposed the Gaddafi regime, and will certainly have been making contacts among disaffected sections of the Libyan population, waiting for happier days when enough forces could be mustered for overthrow of the Libyan government from within.

Defence of the revolution

In these circumstances, it should be obvious that for the Gaddafi regime to survive at all and to continue implementing its progressive programme, it had to resort to repression of its most dangerous enemies.

We are in no position to say whether or not that repression was taken too far since we have no evidence either way, but to fail to suppress dangerous enemies of the revolution — and to take timely measures firmly to discourage ordinary people from being seduced by their weasel words — would certainly amount to betraying the revolution and the people.

Friends of Libya have, in recent years, been alarmed at the concessions Gaddafi felt constrained to make to the outrageous demands of western imperialism in order to break the vice of sanctions that was beginning to destroy the social gains that had been so painstakingly built up.

We have not been happy that Libya should have accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie affair, although the evidence is perfectly clear that this had nothing to do with Libya. We are even less happy that Libya gave up its right to develop an independent nuclear industry.

However, whatever concessions Libya has made with a gun pointed at its head, it has still not descended to the level of a client state in the way that Egypt and Tunisia had, or Saudi Arabia, Bahrain or Yemen.

In order to ensure Gaddafi's defeat, western imperialism has already begun imposing economic sanctions that include freezing Libyan assets abroad. Now it is seriously considering military intervention, initially in the form of imposing no fly-zones over Libya's sovereign territory — a clear act of war.

SAS officers have been intercepted trying to provide military support to insurgents, while the French imperialist government has already leapt in to 'recognise' the council formed in the east of Libya, led by former minister Mustafa Jalil, which is fighting for the government's overthrow.

Some people and organisations, such as Stop the War, have been bamboozled by the non-stop and ubiquitous Goebbelsian propaganda that has spewed forth from the imperialist media ever since Gaddafi's regime was put in place into believing that he is some kind of a monster who must be overthrown at all costs. In view of his record in defending the interests of the Libyan people, such an approach is absurd.

Stop the War, dominated as it is by organisations that devote themselves to spreading illusions in social democracy (ie, futile hopes that solutions for the working class and oppressed people are to be found within capitalism), still finds itself cheerleading for Gaddafi's opponents: their only reason for opposing imperialist military intervention is that it may be harmful to the cause of imperialism's local agents in Libya!