Democratic Palestine : 16 (ص 7)
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- Democratic Palestine : 16 (ص 7)
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One of the missiles fired during U.S. aggression.
sell billions of dollars worth of goods to Libya annually.
Moreover, 40,000 Europeans are living in Libya, as compared
to some thousand US citizens. Over the years, US depen-
dence on Libyan oil, as well as exports to Libya, have dropped.
In 1979, US exports to Libya were worth $ 860 million; by 1984,
they had dropped to $ 200 million, mostly pharmaceuticals,
farm products and manufactured goods. On the other hand,
Libyan oil sales to the US dropped from $ 5 billion in 1979 to $
9 million in 1984. Economic sanctions would thus hurt US
interests least, but western European interests most. Similar
differences took place between the imperialist allies when the
US came down on European countries, forbidding work on the
Siberian pipeline.
West Germany, Greece, Austria, Italy and even the Vati-
can were among the most vehement opponents of economic
sanctions. Reagan's special envoy to West Germany had
proposed a four-step program to retaliate economicaily
against Libya - reduction of oil imports, withholding West Ger-
man technology, curtailing flights between the two countries
and increasing security controls against Libya’s embassy in
Bonn. The plan was rejected. Austrian Bruno Kreisky told the
Vienna Kurier newspaper that the bombings at Rome and Vie-
nna airports were Reagan's pretext for his anti-Libyan moves.
Greece even declared outright that Libya was not behind the
airport attacks. According to Vittorio Zucconi of the Italian La
Republica, «Economic sanctions make particularly little sense
at a time when Europeans’ main concern is to get payment for
arms already delivered to Libya. (Libya’s foreign debt is $ 4 bill-
ion with payments badly in arrears.) An economic boycott
would simply prevent Libya from paying its bills.» Even the Vat-
ican ignored Washington's call for economic sanctions, enter-
ing into a joint venture with the state-owned Libyan Arab Bank
and Italian investors.
John Whitehead had toured European capitals in
January, to drum up support for Reagan's hard-line policy. He
returned empty-handed from his eight-nation tour. The US had
threatened to strike Libya if the Europeans didn’t show more
flexibility to US proposals. According to a senior US administ-
ration official, «The large-scale US air and naval exercises now
underway off the coast of Libya were planned more than two
weeks ago to take place if US allies failed to support its
economic sanctions» (Boston Globe, January 25th). Zbigniew
Brzezinski explained in a January interview that US military
action against Qaddafi «would induce Europeans to embrace
sanctions.» However, whatever perverse methods the US
uses to coerce its European allies, the latter have remained
adamantly opposed to economic sanctions. The US was, how-
ever, able to extract a pledge that they would not undercut its
‘sanctions against Libya, by taking over contracts or filling jobs
vacated by Americans. Then under the impact of the US
aggression, EEC countries moved to enforce mass expulsion
of Libyan diplomats and others from Europe, not to mention
strengthening intelligence cooperation between Europe and
the US. .
US double talk
However, despite Reagan's war drive, even US citizens
obliged to leave Libya are dragging their feet. Oil employees
earn up to $ 100,000 a year, three times what they would earn
in the same job in the US. Most of them have decided to take
their chances and stay, while many more are trickling back into
the country. In fact, the US administration came down much
harder on individuals working in the oil field and their families
living in Libya, than they did on the five major US oil companies
operating there. «US citizens working in Libya are subject to 10
years in jail and a $ 50,000 fine,» said Robert Oakley, director
of the State Department office for ‘counterterrorism’ and
emergency planning. Moreover, all purchases, including groc-
ery shopping require a «prohibited transactions» permit from
the US Treasury Department to be acquired at the Belgium
embassy in Libya. Despite all measures, US citizens don't
seem to be intimidated. One oil engineer, who wanted to
remain anonymous, made the following statement to the Jour-
nal of Commerce on January 31st: «| am more afraid of
remaining unemployed than of what Reagan can do to me.»
The five US companies with oil concessions in Libya are
Occidental Petroleum, Amerada Hess, Marathon, Conoco and
Grace. These suspended their oil liftings in February. How-
ever, the US administration left many loopholes in the mea-
sures taken against them, enabling them to preserve their
interests in Libya through foreign subsidiaries of so-called
unrelated foreign firms. These companies account for 20% of
the country’s total oil production which is 1.1 million barrels a
day. Moreover, forty US oil service companies exist in Libya,
which handle 33% of Libya’s production to customers in
Europe and elsewhere. A unit of Halliburton Company, Brown
and Root, Inc. are managing a project to tap water underneath
the Libyan desert. The project is estimated at $ 20 billion. The
Price Brothers Company of Dayton, Ohio, is providing the
technology, machinery and equipment. For the US to simply
walk out of Libya would mean losing $ 150 million in annual
income and § 2 billion in fixed assets, and many more millions
from company projects. The US has therefore more to lose by
imposing sanctions than Libya that can find many willing to fill
the vacuum. Thus, although the US has pressured the Euro-
peans all along to do just that, i.e., walk out, it has left wide
escape clauses when legislating its own trade embargo. The
embargo was permitted not required by replacing the word
Shall with may. The final bill signed by the president reads:
«The President may prohibit any article grown, produced,
extracted or manufactured in Libya from being imported to the
US...»; a similar clause was included on exports.
According to a western oil executive, the action of US
companies is having absolutely no effect on Libya's overall oil
income. Realizing this, many companies and their employees
have confirmed that they are likely to ‘return under cover’, to
avoid losing their investments or livelihood which is tax-free.
Even State Department spokesman, Charles Redman, indi-
cated the futility of such sanctions, referring to them as «some-
what effective» but saying that at the same time, the US
administration was «looking at other things (they) could do»
(Washington Post, January 3rd). - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 16
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