For Qaddafi, a slow goodbye

The Cuban media are treating the uprising in Libya differently than that of Egypt.

Coverage of events in Egypt was not extensive, but there were daily articles that got the facts right, tracing the course of the protests and noting for instance the protesters’ simple demand that Mubarak leave office.

Libya coverage is more sparse and is now distorted. Today’s Granma story fails to note that the government has lost control of significant parts of Libyan territory and the Libyan military. It leads with this: “Following the speech delivered by Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi, demonstrators went to the Green Square on Wednesday to support the government.” And the violence that led to hundreds of demonstrators’ deaths was attributed to their attempt “to take military bases,” according to an Interior Ministry statement cited in the story. More here at Penultimos Dias.

Cuban diplomats are calling for non-intervention, as is Fidel Castro in his latest commentary. In it, he calls Egypt’s Sadat a “traitor” to the Palestinian cause while saying nothing about Qaddafi. “It is evident that a civil war is developing in Libya,” he says. From the news dispatches, he anticipates a NATO intervention. “No one in the world will ever agree with the death of defenseless civilians in Libya or anywhere else,” he says, but then has a shot at the United States: “Will the United States and NATO apply this principle to the defenseless civilians that yanqui drones and soldiers kill every day in Afghanistan and Pakistan?”