A little reminder of one of the real reasons the US military is sending troops to Africa ---- 21st century Wars for Water has begun & Gaddafi was no criminal & only had good intentions toward his African neighbours! To the angst of the greedy elites who would rather we all remained uninformed debt slaves.
opednews.com
September 1st is
the anniversary of an event little known in the West. Today, twenty years on, the
people who deserve to be celebrating it, are instead enduring a war. Yet the
achievement changed their lives greatly and merits recognition.
A tap was turned on in Libya.
From an enormous ancient aquifer, deep below the Sahara Desert, fresh water began
to flow north through 1200 kilometres of pipeline to the coastal areas where
90% of Libyan people live, delivering around one million cubic metres of pure water
per day to the cities of Benghazi and Sirte.
Crowds gathered in the desert
for the inaugural ceremony. Phase I of the largest civil engineering venture in
the world, the Great Man-made River Project, had been completed.
It was during the 1953 search
for new oilfields in southern Libya that the ancient water aquifers were first
discovered, four huge basins with estimated capacities each ranging between
4,800 and 20,000 cubic kms. Yes, that's cubic kilometres. There is so much
water that Libya had recently also offered it to Egypt for their needs.
After the bloodless revolution
of 1969, also on September 1, the new government nationalised the oil companies
and spent much of the oil revenues to harness the supply of fresh water from
the desert aquifers by putting in hundreds of bore wells. Muammar Gaddafi's
dream was to provide fresh water for everyone, and to turn the desert green, making
Libya self-sufficient in food production. He established large farms and
encouraged the people to move to the desert. But many preferred life on the
coast and wouldn't go.
So Gaddafi next conceived a
plan to bring the water to the people. Feasibility studies were carried out by the
Libyan government in the seventies and in 1983 the Great Man-made River
Authority was set up. The project began the following year, fully funded by the
Libyan government. The almost $30 billion cost to date has been without the
need of any international loans. Nor has there been any charge on the people,
who do not pay for their reticulated water, which is regarded in Libya to be a
human right and therefore free.
GMMR Project figures are staggering.
The 'rivers' are a 4000-kilometre
network of 4m diameter lined concrete pipes, buried below the desert sands to
prevent evaporation. There are 1300 wells, 500,000 sections of pipe, 3700 kms
of haul roads, and 250 million cubic metres of excavation. All material for the
project was locally manufactured. Large reservoirs provide storage, and pumping
stations control the flow into the cities. The pipeline first reached Tripoli in
1996 and when Phase V is completed, the water will allow about 155,000 hectares
of land to be cultivated.
To achieve all this, construction
work was tendered and many overseas companies, including from US, Korea,
Turkey, Britain, Japan and Germany took up contracts for each Phase, and some have
worked for decades in Libya. The project has not been without problems,
including faulty materials and financial difficulties within some of the
contracting firms. Since the NATO air attacks on Libya began in March, most foreign
nationals have returned home, including those employed on the hydro scheme. The
final phase of the Great Man-made River Project is stalled.
Libyan people put their
hearts into work on the GMMRP from the beginning, and years ago took on most of
the managerial and technical positions as their expert knowledge increased, with
government policy encouraging their education, training and employment. They
proudly call the GMMR "the eighth wonder of the world."
(UN Human Development Index
figures for Libya since the beginning of Gaddafi's influence can be found here.)
The project was so well recognised internationally that
UNESCO in 1999 accepted Libya's offer to fund an award named after it, the Great Man-Made
River International Water Prize , the
purpose of which
is to "reward remarkable scientific research work on water usage in arid areas".
Gaddafi was often ridiculed in
the West for persevering with such an ambitious project. Pejorative terms such
"pipedream", "pet project" and "mad dog" appeared in UK and US media. Despite a
certain amount of awe for the enormity of the construction, the Great Man-made
River was often dismissed as a "vanity project" and then rarely mentioned in
western media. But truth is, it's a world class water delivery system, and often
visited by overseas engineers and planners wanting to learn from Libyan expertise
in water transfer hydro-engineering.
On 22 July this year, four
months into the air strikes to "protect civilians", NATO forces hit the GMMR water
supply pipeline. For good measure the following day, NATO destroyed the factory
near Brega that produces the pipes to repair it, along with killing six guards
there.
NATO air strikes on the electricity
supply, as well as depriving civilians of electricity, mean that water pumping
stations are no longer operating in areas even where the pipelines remain
intact. Water supply for the 70% of the population who depend on the piped supply
has been compromised with this damage to Libya's vital infrastructure.
Oh, and by the way, attacking
essential civilian infrastructure is a war crime.
Today in Sirte, which along
with Benghazi was one of the first two cities to receive the water, there
should be a celebration to mark the twenty years since fresh reticulated water
first came to their city, and Gaddafi's vision should be honoured.
But today Sirte is encircled
by the rebels, and right now is being carpet bombed by NATO. The civilians are
terrorised, and many families have tried to flee. But the rebels block all the exits,
they kill the men, and send the women and children back into the city to be
bombed. In the media the rebels are reported to have given Sirte until Saturday
to surrender before they commence a full attack. But that's not what's
happening really.
September 1, 2011, will be
remembered in history for NATO's complicity in the massacre of the people of
Sirte.
Back in 1991, at the gala opening
of GMMRP Phase I, and maybe recalling the 1986 bombing of his home (which was
carried out by US military on Reagan's orders), Muammar Gaddafi spoke these
words to the invited international dignitaries and assembled crowd:"After this achievement,
American threats against Libya will double .... The United States will make
excuses, (but) the real reason is to stop this achievement, to keep the people
of Libya oppressed."
His words were prophetic.
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