Kwame Nkrumah Foresaw Western Re

In the 1960s Kwame Nkrumah warned that unless the African continent united into a single continental government with a Africa-wide national army and command, the individual countries would never be able to protect their independence and secure their rich natural and mineral resources.

NATO's illegal war against Libya and the vicious bombardments is the best evidence of Nkrumah's fears coming to realization.

Using the insurgents in Benghazi as cover and abusing United Nations Resolution 1973, crafted to protect civilians caught in the civil war, the leaders of France and Britain, former imperial exploitators of Africa, have launched war on Libya and are determined to instal a puppet regime that will be pliant to Western interests.

All the social gains and programs built in Libya since the monarchy was deposed would likely be reversed and World Bank and IMF sanctioned regimes would take their place.

Yet this is the hour for Africa to stand up.

Challenging NATO's illegal war would insert the African continent prominently on the world stage and change the continent's heretofore servitude-like relations with the West. Yet even as NATO continues to destroy billions of dollars of Libya's property through the bombardments, the entire continent is completely mute because of a leadership vacuum.

South Africa's president Jacob Zuma traveled with a team of African leaders to broker a ceasefire and promote the African Union (AU) peace proposal that called for a halt to the fighting, a relief corridoor for civilians, and negotiations for a constitution and elections. The proposal was dead on arrival. Although embraced by Tripoli, NATO and its mouthpiece, the Benghazi, rejected the AU plan.

Yet rather than fading into the underworld, Zuma should call a special meeting in South Africa, invite all African presidents and promote and publicize the plan. Zuma should also invite China, Brazil, India and Russia --which is now reconsidering its position given Vladimir Putin's angry denunciations of the NATO war-- and get these countries to endorse the AU Libyan peace proposal.

African leaders must call for an end to the charade--NATO's Libyan operation is not about "saving civilian lives." It is undisguised conquest pure and simple--with daily attacks by NATO planes and multiple failed assassination attempts against Muammar al-Quathafi.

Civil war erupted in Libya in February when insurrectionists in Benghazi seized control of that City. The rebels marched rapidly towards the east and overran several other coastal towns.

By the end of February and into March, the tide quickly reversed when the Libyan army launched counterattacks, rolling back the rebels to Benghazi, where a panicky exodus towards Egypt started. Fearful that a victorious Libyan army would massacre civilians in Benghazi, the United Nations Security Council voted for Resolution 1973 which authorized the use of "all necessary measures" to protect civilians in Libya.

Instead, NATO --in essence France's erratic president Nicholas Sarkozi and British prime minister David Cameron-- turned the authority into an outright aerial invasion of Libya in support of Benghazi, which has yet to prove that it has support throughout Libya.

Even with NATO taking over the war, spontaneous uprisings have not occurred in Western Libya; unlike as in Syria, where people have stood up against Bashar al-Assad's ruthless security forces. Ironically, the U.S. and NATO have turned a blind eye to the massacres in Syria.

There are several possible reasons why many Libyans might question and be wary of Benghazi.

[] Benghazi has embraced monarchists, including the son of King Idris, deposed when al-Ouathafi seized power.

[] Benghazi's leadership includes many former al-Quathafi officials, including the minister of justice, and two former generals in the Libyan army, who are now fighting among themselves for leadership of the rebel army.

[] Benghazi in a front page article in The Financial Times informed the world that Libya's oil concessions post-Quathafi would be apportioned based on the level of support each Western country provides in deposing al-Quathafi.

[] Benghazi fighters are being trained by former al-Qaeda leaders, as well documented by The Wall Street Journal.

[] Benghazi has been selling oil, Libya's national asset, illegally --even though the UN knows about it-- through the dictatorship of Qatar.

[] Benghazi is being trained by the United States CIA as well as by French and British officers.

[] Benghazi has launched a campaign of revenge and witchhunting, killing anyone suspected of having previously worked with al-Quathafi; this has even been reported on the pages of the pro-Benghazi New York Times. (The International Criminal Court's Luis Moreno Ocampo has said nothing about this as he focuses exclusively on "investigating" Tripoli).

[] Benghazi has executed Black Africans and dark-skinned Libyans, in the most vicious manner; there are videotapes on YouTube showing cheering Benghazi residents taking video images with cell phone cameras of the bodies of mutiliated Africans. Again the ICC's Ocampo says nothing about this and The New York Times' editors are not bothered by the barbarity against Black people.

In sum: Benghazi has demonstrated to nationalist Libyans that they are not capable of ruling the entire country and that their affiliation with the CIA and NATO does not speak well to any independent nationalist credentials.

Even Libyans who have tired of al-Quathafi's 42-years regime might be wary of such a compromised and corrupted entity such as Benghazi--hence the absence of a national popular uprising.

National popular uprisings occurred in Tunisia and Egypt; and there is one underway in Syria. There was no need for NATO bombardment in each of those countries.

Libya is actually fighting a war against European invaders who are using Benghazi as cover for their own designs on Libya and its phenomenal oil wealth and its independent foreign policy.

How else to explain the fact that NATO is now openly using information from the Benghazi rebels to bombard Libya? How else to explain the multiple attacks against the al-Quathafi compound in Tripoli? Do all these elements fit within the dictate of Resolution 1973?

Yesterday, the mask of neo-colonialism was tossed aside when the British military commander Gen. David Richards said NATO should now start destroying Libya's infrastructure.

Does this also fit within Resolution 1973? Or is it more in line with maximum infrastructure destruction to pave the way for future reconstruction contracts for Western companies?

The whole world is watching NATO's criminality against Libya; what Russia's Vladimir Putin termed a "call to crusade."

That 53 African countries --Morocco has withdrawn from the AU-- are not able to come together and stand with Libya and to challenge and counter NATO's illegal aerial invasion proves that African countries are not yet independent.

Nkrumah's fears have been vindicated.