“In Derna, death is everywhere. The people here told us Derna was the most beautiful city in Libya. Today, you walk through it and see nothing but mud, silt, and demolished houses. The smell of corpses is everywhere, the smell of death from the sea, where thousands of decomposed corpses have been swept away.” These were the words of Raed Qazmouz, head of a Palestinian rescue team, to Al Jazeera.

As of the evening of Friday 1 July, an uprising has broken out across Libya. The parliament building in Tobruk, Cyrenaica was stormed by protesters, and partly burned, after the masses used a bulldozer to smash through the gates of the palace.

Just before Christmas, outgoing US Attorney General Bill Barr announced additional charges relating to the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. This announcement is clearly politically motivated, and is symbolic of how the entire investigation has been focused on imperialist interests, rather than a genuine desire to bring the perpetrators to justice.

In recent weeks, the potential for open conflict between various states in the South-Eastern Mediterranean has increased dramatically. The Communist Tendency (IMT section in Greece) has already released a statement on the escalation of war tensions between Greece and Turkey over access to hydrocarbons in specific areas of the Mediterranean Sea. Since then, the Turkish air force and navy have been carrying out military exercises in the Eastern Mediterranean, which the Egyptian and French navy have countered with their

Libya is gripped by civil war. General Haftar has launched an offensive to oust President Fayez al-Serraj and his Government of National Accord (GNA), which is recognised by the UN. The offensive began on the same day that the General Secretary of the UN, António Guterres, arrived in Tripoli to secure a national reconciliation conference, scheduled on 14 April. His visit was useless, as the UN has been in Libya since 2011.

The imperialist military interventions in Iraq, Syria and Libya were portrayed by Western leaders as “humanitarian” operations to restore democracy and human rights. But what has instead occurred is the exact opposite with the rise of different degrees of barbarism in all three countries. Just like in Syria and Iraq, we are now also witnessing the rise of slave-like conditions in Libya on a systematic level.

Five years ago, on October 20, 2011, Muammar Gaddafi was caught and shot dead by the militias of the Libyan National Transitional Council, with the active support of the French Intelligence services. But what have the imperialists achieved?

Everything has now been set in place for an imperialist intervention in Libya. Ashton Carter, United States Defence Secretary, has anointed Italy as leader of the “Coalition”. Meanwhile, in Italy, the past imperialist master of Libya, the war drums are beating.

The political, tribal, and religious divisions in Libya, which have been fuelled for many years by imperialism, are dragging the country into a bloody civil war, never seen before. Just as in Iraq, military intervention by the imperialists rather than stabilise the country enormously destabilised it.

The capture and killing of Colonel Gaddafi has been described in detail by the mass media in all its gory details. With the death of Gaddafi and the taking of Sirte the National Transitional Council is talking about forming a transitional government. The NTC is recognized by the imperialist powers whose interests it represents. However, many ordinary Libyans look with justified mistrust at the NTC and their imperialist backers.

Workers at Waha Oil company have been on strike and holding protests for 7 weeks now. Their main demand is the purge of the top management of the company from directors whom they accuse of being stooges of the old regime. It is an example of class issues coming to the fore once the old regime has been put to one side.

Twenty four hours ago, the streets of Tripoli were full of the sounds of rejoicing. Now they are filled with the sounds of gunfire. The real battle for Tripoli has commenced.

The end came suddenly and without warning. In the moment of truth the Gaddafi regime fell like a house of cards.

Last night the streets of Tripoli were filled with wild rejoicing as rebel forces occupied Green Square in Tripoli. Libyan rebels waved opposition flags and fired shots into the air in jubilation after reaching the central square of the capital in the early hours of Monday. Until now the vast square was reserved for carefully orchestrated rallies praising Moammar Gaddafi. Now it erupted in celebration after rebel troops pushed into the centre of the Libyan capital.

We provide a brief historical outline of the development of the Gaddafi regime from the bourgeois Arab nationalism of the early days, to the period of so-called Islamic socialism, to the recent period of opening up to foreign investment, with major concessions to multinational corporations and the beginnings of widespread privatisations.

What started as a genuine revolution against Gaddafi, has been taken over by reactionary bourgeois elements. In the Interim Council, and now the newly formed Interim Government, direct representatives of imperialist interests have been promoted to leading positions.