Muammar Gaddafi: Difference between revisions
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Muammar Gaddafi is a DEVIL who thinks that he is the most powerful king in the world ! |
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{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2012}} |
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{{Infobox officeholder |
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|name = Muammar Gaddafi |
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|image = Muammar al-Gaddafi at the AU summit.jpg |
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|caption = Gaddafi in 2009 |
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|office = [[Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution|Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution of Libya]] |
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|president = {{List collapsed|title=''See list''|1={{plain list| |
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* [[Abdul Ati al-Obeidi]] |
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* [[Muhammad az-Zaruq Rajab]] |
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* [[Mifta al-Usta Umar]] |
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* [[Abdul Razzaq as-Sawsa]] |
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* [[Muhammad az-Zanati]] |
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* [[Miftah Muhammed K'eba]] |
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* [[Imbarek Shamekh]] |
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* [[Mohamed Abu Al-Quasim al-Zwai]] |
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}} |
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}} |
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|primeminister = {{List collapsed|title=''See list''|1={{plain list| |
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* [[Jadallah Azzuz at-Talhi]] |
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* [[Muhammad az-Zaruq Rajab]] |
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* [[Jadallah Azzuz at-Talhi]] |
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* [[Umar Mustafa al-Muntasir]] |
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* [[Abuzed Omar Dorda]] |
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* [[Abdul Majid al-Qa′ud]] |
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* [[Muhammad Ahmad al-Mangoush]] |
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* [[Imbarek Shamekh]] |
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* [[Shukri Ghanem]] |
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* [[Baghdadi Mahmudi]] |
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}} |
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}} |
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|term_start = 1 September 1969 |
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|term_end = 20 October 2011{{#Tag:ref|For purposes of this article, 23 August 2011 is considered to be the date that Gaddafi left office. Other dates might have been chosen. |
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*On 15 July 2011, at a meeting in Istanbul, more than 30 governments, including the United States, withdrew recognition from Gaddafi's government and recognised the National Transitional Council (NTC) as the legitimate government of Libya.<ref name="INDtncofficialgov">{{cite news | url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/west-prepares-to-hand-rebels-gaddafis-billions-2314576.html | title=West prepares to hand rebels Gaddafi's billions |work=The Independent|location=London | date=16 July 2011| accessdate=16 July 2011 | first=Justin | last=Vela}}</ref> |
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*On 23 August 2011, during the [[Battle of Tripoli (2011)|Battle of Tripoli]], Gaddafi lost effective political and military control of Tripoli after his compound was captured by rebel forces.<ref name=liveblog23811>Staff (23 August 2011). [http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-23-2011-1819 "''Libya Live Blog'': Tuesday, August 23, 2011 – 16:19"]. [[Al Jazeera]]. Retrieved 23 August 2011.</ref> |
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*On 25 August 2011, the [[Arab League]] proclaimed the anti-Gaddafi National Transitional Council to be "the legitimate representative of the Libyan state".<ref name=taipeitimmes20110826 /> |
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*On 20 October 2011, Gaddafi was captured and killed near his hometown of Sirte.<ref name=bbc20111021>{{cite news|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15390980 |title=Muammar Gaddafi: How he died |publisher=BBC|accessdate=21 October 2011}}</ref> |
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* In a ceremony on 23 October 2011, officials of the interim National Transitional Council declared, "We declare to the whole world that we have liberated our beloved country, with its cities, villages, hill-tops, mountains, deserts and skies."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/10/23/libya-declaration-liberation-idUKL5E7LN0P620111023|title=UPDATE 4-Libya declares nation liberated after Gaddafi death|date=23 October 2011|work=Reuters|first=Yasmine|last=Saleh}}</ref>|group=nb}} |
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|predecessor = ''Position established'' |
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|successor = ''Position abolished'' |
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|office1 = [[List of heads of state of Libya|Secretary General of the General People's Congress of Libya]] |
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|primeminister1 = [[Abdul Ati al-Obeidi]] |
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|term_start1 = 2 March 1977 |
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|term_end1 = 2 March 1979 |
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|predecessor1 = Himself <small>(Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council)</small> |
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|successor1 = [[Abdul Ati al-Obeidi]] |
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|office2 = [[List of heads of government of Libya|Prime Minister of Libya]] |
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|term_start2 = 16 January 1970 |
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|term_end2 = 16 July 1972 |
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|predecessor2 = [[Mahmud Sulayman al-Maghribi]] |
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|successor2 = [[Abdessalam Jalloud]] |
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|office3 = [[List of heads of state of Libya|Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council of Libya]] |
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|primeminister3 = {{plain list| |
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* [[Mahmud Sulayman al-Maghribi]] |
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* [[Abdessalam Jalloud]] |
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* [[Abdul Ati al-Obeidi]] |
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}} |
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|term_start3 = 1 September 1969 |
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|term_end3 = 2 March 1977 |
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|predecessor3 = [[Idris of Libya|Idris]] <small>(King)</small> |
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|successor3 = Himself <small>(Secretary General of the General People's Congress)</small> |
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|office4 = [[Chairperson of the African Union]] |
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|term_start4 = 2 February 2009 |
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|term_end4 = 31 January 2010 |
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|predecessor4 = [[Jakaya Kikwete]] |
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|successor4 = [[Bingu wa Mutharika]] |
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|birth_date = <!--DO NOT ADD 7, sources contradict one another regarding this, see talk page-->7 June 1942<ref group=nb name="dob">Some sources, such as a [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12537524 BBC Obituary Muammar al-Gaddafi], give the date as 7 June. Other sources say 7 June 1942; others say "Spring of 1942" (''Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East, 2004'') or "September 1942" (''Encyclopedia of World Biography, 1998'')</ref> |
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|birth_place = [[Qasr Abu Hadi]], [[Italian Libya|Libya]] |
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|death_date = {{death date and age|2011|10|20|1942|6|7|df=yes}} |
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|death_place = [[Sirte]], Libya |
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|resting_place = Undisclosed |
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|party = [[Arab Socialist Union (Libya)|Arab Socialist Union]] <small>(1971–1977)</small> |
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[[Independent (politician)|Independent]] <small>(1977–2011)</small> |
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|spouse = {{plain list| |
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* Fatiha al-Nuri <small>(1969–1970)</small> |
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* [[Safia Farkash|Safia el-Brasai]] <small>(1970–2011)</small> |
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}} |
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|children = {{List collapsed|title=''Sons''|1={{plain list| |
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* [[Muhammad Gaddafi|Muhammad]] <small>(born 1970)</small> |
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* [[Saif al-Islam Gaddafi|Saif al-Islam]] <small>(born 1972)</small> |
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* [[Al-Saadi Gaddafi|Al-Saadi]] <small>(born 1973)</small> |
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* [[Mutassim Gaddafi|Mutassim]] <small>(1974–2011)</small> |
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* [[Hannibal Muammar Gaddafi|Hannibal]] <small>(born 1975)</small> |
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* [[Saif al-Arab Gaddafi|Saif al-Arab]] <small>(1982–2011)</small> |
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* [[Khamis Gaddafi|Khamis]] <small>(1983–2012)</small> |
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* Milad <small>(adopted)</small> |
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}} |
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}}{{List collapsed|title=''Daughters''|1={{plain list| |
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* [[Ayesha Gaddafi|Ayesha]] <small>(born 1976)</small> |
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* Hanna <small>(adopted)</small> |
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}} |
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}} |
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|alma_mater = [[Benghazi Military University Academy]] |
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|religion = [[Sunni Islam]] |
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|signature = Muammar al-Gaddafi Signature.svg |
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|allegiance = [[File:Flag of Libya (1977-2011).svg|30px]] |
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{{plain list| |
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* {{flagicon|Libya|1951}} [[Kingdom of Libya]]<div style="font-size:85%;">(1961–1969)</div> |
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* {{flagicon|Libya|1972}} [[Libyan Arab Republic]]<div style="font-size:85%;">(1969–1977)</div> |
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* {{flagicon|Libya|1977}} [[Libyan Arab Jamahiriya]]<div style="font-size:85%;">(1977–2011)</div> |
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}} |
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|branch = [[Libyan Army (1951–2011)|Libyan Army]] |
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|serviceyears = 1961–2011 |
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|rank = [[Colonel]] |
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|commands = [[Libyan Army (1951–2011)|Libyan Armed Forces]] |
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|battles = {{plain list| |
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* [[Libyan coup d'etat (1969)]] |
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* [[Libyan–Egyptian War]] |
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* [[Chadian–Libyan conflict]] |
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* [[Uganda–Tanzania war]] |
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* [[Bombing of Libya (1986)]] |
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* [[Libyan civil war]] |
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}} |
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|awards = {{plain list| |
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* [[Order of the Yugoslav Star]] |
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* [[South African civil honours#Republic of South Africa|Order of Good Hope]] |
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}} |
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}} |
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'''Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi'''<ref name="iccwarrant">{{cite web|title=The Prosecutor v. Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi and Abdullah al-Senussi|url=http://www.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ICC/Situations+and+Cases/Situations/ICC0111/Related+Cases/ICC01110111/Court+Records/ |work=ICC-01/11-01/11|publisher=[[International Criminal Court]]|accessdate=3 September 2011|date=4 July 2011}}</ref> ({{lang-ar|معمر محمد أبو منيار القذافي}} {{IPAc-en|icon|ˈ|m|oʊ|.|ə|m|ɑr|_|ɡ|ə|ˈ|d|ɑː|f|i}} {{Audio|Ar-Muammar al-Qaddafi.ogg|audio}}) (''c''.1942–43{{spaced ndash}}20 October 2011), commonly known as '''Colonel Gaddafi''',{{#tag:ref|Due to the lack of standardization of [[Romanization of Arabic|transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic]], Gaddafi's name has been [[romanization|romanized]] in various different ways. A 1986 column by ''[[The Straight Dope]]'' lists 32 spellings known from the U.S. [[Library of Congress]],<ref>{{cite web |
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|url=http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_264b.html |title=How are you supposed to spell Muammar Gaddafi/Khadafy/Qadhafi? |publisher=The Straight Dope |year=1986 |accessdate=5 March 2006}}</ref> while [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] and MSNBC identified 112 possible spellings.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/09/how-many-different-ways-can-you-spell-gaddafi.html |title=How many different ways can you spell 'Gaddafi' |publisher=ABC News |date=September 2009 |accessdate=22 February 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite video|person=Chris Matthews|title=Hardball With Chris Matthews|url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/#44994620|date=21 October 2011|publisher=MSNBC|accessdate=22 October 2011}}</ref> A 2007 interview with Gaddafi's son [[Saif al-Islam Gaddafi]] confirms that he uses the spelling "Qadhafi",<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thedailybeast.com/videos/2011/03/01/saif-gaddafi-on-how-to-spell-his-last-name.html |title=Saif Gaddafi on How to Spell His Last Name |publisher=The Daily Beast |date=1 March 2011 |accessdate=1 September 2011}}</ref> and Muammar's official passport uses the spelling "Al-Gathafi".<ref>{{cite news|newspaper=The Atlantic|title=Rebel Discovers Qaddafi Passport, Real Spelling of Leader's Name|url=http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/08/rebel-discovers-qaddafi-passport-real-spelling-of-leaders-name/244077/}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4g_8zBdwzk |title=Mohamed Al-Gaddafi's Passport August 24, 2011 |publisher=YouTube |date=24 August 2011 |accessdate=1 September 2011}}</ref>|group=nb}} was a [[Libyan people|Libyan]] revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He served as the ruler of the [[Libyan Arab Republic]] from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the [[Libyan Arab Jamahiriya]] from 1977 to 2011, during which industry and business was nationalized. Politically an [[Arab nationalism|Arab nationalist]], he formulated his own ideology, [[Third International Theory]], later embracing [[Pan-Africanism]] and serving as [[Chairperson of the African Union|Chairperson]] of the [[African Union]] from 2009 to 2010. |
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<!--Early life and the republic:--> |
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but he is not ! he is just an Idiot who has to retard like before 10 years now ! |
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The son of an impoverished [[Bedouin]] goatherd, Gaddafi became involved in Arab nationalist politics while at school in [[Sabha, Libya|Sabha]], subsequently enrolling in the [[Benghazi Military University Academy|Royal Military Academy, Benghazi]]. Founding a revolutionary group within the ranks of the Libyan military, in 1969 he seized power from [[Idris of Libya|King Idris]] in a [[Nonviolent revolution|bloodless]] [[Libyan coup d'etat (1969)|coup]]. Becoming leader of the governing [[Libyan Revolutionary Command Council|Revolutionary Command Council]] (RCC), he dissolved the monarchy and proclaimed the Libyan Arab Republic. Ruling by decree, he implemented measures to remove foreign [[imperialism|imperialist]] influence from Libya, and strengthened ties to other Arab nationalist governments. Intent on pushing Libya toward [[socialism]], he nationalized the country's oil industry and used the increased revenues to bolster the military, implement social programs and fund revolutionary groups across the world. In 1973 he announced the start of a "Popular Revolution" with the formation of [[General People's Committee]]s (GPCs), a system of [[direct democracy]], but retained personal control over major decisions. He outlined his Third International Theory that year, publishing these ideas in ''[[The Green Book (Libya)|The Green Book]]''. |
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<!--Jamahiriya and downfall:--> |
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he killed all the Libyans in Libya . |
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In 1977, he dissolved the Republic and created the ''[[Wikt:Jamahiriya|Jamahiriya]]'', officially adopting a symbolic role within the country's governance structure. He retained power as the leader of the Revolutionary Committees; founded to accompany the GPCs, they implemented revolutionary justice and suppressed opponents. Overseeing unsuccessful border conflicts with Egypt and Chad, Gaddafi's support for foreign militants led to Libya being labelled an "international pariah", with a particularly hostile relationship developing with the United States and United Kingdom. From 1999, Gaddafi encouraged the privatization of the economy, moving to integrate with the rest of Africa and seeking better relations with the West. In 2011, an anti-Gaddafist uprising led by the [[National Transitional Council]] (NTC) broke out, resulting in the [[Libyan civil war]]. [[NATO]] [[2011 military intervention in Libya|intervened militarily]] on the side of the NTC, resulting in the government's downfall. Retreating to [[Sirte]], Gaddafi was captured and killed by NTC fighters. |
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<!--Legacy and assessment:--> |
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he just made Libya the worst country you can imagine ! . |
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Gaddafi is a controversial and highly divisive world figure, being lauded as a champion of anti-imperialism and both Arab and African nationalism, but critics have accused him of being a dictator and autocrat whose authoritarian administration oversaw [[Human rights in Libya|multiple human rights abuses]] and supported international [[terrorism]]. |
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{{TOC limit|3}} |
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==Early life== |
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And even the worst thing he killed me ! After I wrote this ! |
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===Childhood: 1942/43–1950=== |
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Muammar Gaddafi was born in his family tent near to [[Qasr Abu Hadi]], a rural area outside the town of [[Sirte]] in the deserts of western Libya.<ref name="Bruce St John 135">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 135.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 9">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 9.</ref> Ethnically an [[Arab]], he came from a small, relatively unimportant tribal group called the [[Qadhadhfa]].<ref name="Kawczynski 9"/> His father, Mohammad Abdul Salam bin Hamed bin Mohammad, was known as Abu Meniar, while his mother was named Aisha; they lived off of Abu Meniar's subsistence as a goat and camel herder.<ref name="Kawczynski 9"/> Nomadic [[Bedouin]], they were illiterate and kept no birth records; as such, Gaddafi's date of birth is not known with any certainty, and sources have positioned his birth in either 1942 or in the spring of 1943.<ref name="Bruce St John 135"/><ref name="Kawczynski 9"/> His parents' only surviving son, he had three older sisters.<ref name="Bruce St John 135"/><ref name="Kawczynski 9"/> Raised in Bedouin culture, Gaddafi's upbringing influenced his personal tastes for the rest of the life; he repeatedly expressed his preference for the desert to the city, retreating there to meditate.<ref name="Bruce St John 135"/><ref name="Kawczynski 9"/> |
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At the time of his birth, Libya was [[Italian Libya|occupied by Italy]], witnessing the conflict between Italian and British troops as a part of the [[North African Campaign]] of [[World War II]]; as a result, Gaddafi was aware of the involvement of European colonialists in his country from childhood.<ref name="Bruce St John 135"/> According to later claims, Gaddafi's paternal grandfather, Abdessalam Bouminyar, had died fighting the Italian Army in [[Khoms, Libya|Khoms]] during the first battle of the [[Italo-Turkish War|Italian invasion of 1911]].<ref name="Kawczynski 4">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 4.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newsy.com/videos/amid-unrest-gaddafi-vows-death-before-resignation/ |title=Global Video News: Gaddafi Regime Still Twitching in Libya |publisher=Newsy.com |date=22 February 2011 |accessdate=1 September 2011}}</ref> At World War II's end in 1945, British and French forces had taken control of Libya, and although intending on dividing the nation between themselves, the [[General Assembly of the United Nations]] declared that the country be granted political independence. In 1951, the UN created the [[United Kingdom of Libya]], a federal state under the leadership of a pro-western monarch, [[Idris of Libya|Idris]], who banned political parties and established an [[absolute monarchy]].<ref name="Bruce St John 108">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 108.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 7-9,14">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 7–9, 14.</ref> |
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p.s ( he didn't Really killed me ! , it's he's supporters who attacked me ) |
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===Education and political activism: 1950–1963=== |
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-------------- |
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[[File:Nasser.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Egyptian President Nasser became Gaddafi's ideological hero early in life.]] |
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by :- A Libyan rebal :) |
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Gaddafi's earliest education was provided by a local tribal teacher, comprising largely of the traditional Islamic teachings which influenced him throughout his life.<ref name="Bruce St John 135-36">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 135–136.</ref> Subsequently moving to nearby Sirte to attend elementary school, he progressed through six grades in four years. Education in Libya was not free, and paying for it strained his impoverished family's resources. During the week he slept in the local [[mosque]], and at weekends walked 20 miles to visit his parents.<ref name="Bruce St John 136">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 136.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 10">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 10.</ref> From Sirte, he and his family moved to the market town of [[Sabha, Libya|Sabha]] in [[Fezzan]], south-central Libya. Here, his father worked as the caretaker for a local tribal leader while Muammar attended secondary school, something neither parent had done.<ref name="Bruce St John 136"/><ref name="Kawczynski 10-11">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 10–11.</ref> Gaddafi was popular at the school; some friends made there would receive significant jobs in his later administration, most notably his best friend, AbdulSalam Jalloud.<ref name="Kawczynski 11">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 11.</ref> |
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Many teachers at Sabha were Egyptian, and for the first time Gaddafi had access to pan-Arab newspapers and radio broadcasts, most notably the [[Cairo]]-based ''[[Voice of the Arabs]]''.<ref name="Bruce St John 136"/><ref name="Kawczynski 11-12">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 11–12.</ref> Growing up, Gaddafi witnessed significant events rock the [[Arab world]], including the [[1948 Arab-Israeli War]], the [[Egyptian Revolution of 1952]], the [[Suez Crisis]] of 1956, and the short-lived existence of the [[United Arab Republic]] between 1958 and 1961.<ref name="Bruce St John 136"/> Gaddafi took an active interest in the political changes being implemented in the [[Egypt|Arab Republic of Egypt]] under the presidency of [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]] of the [[Arab Socialist Union (Egypt)|Arab Socialist Union]], who had ascended to power in 1956. An advocate of [[Arab nationalism]], Nasser argued for greater unity within the Arab world, the rejection of Western [[colonialism]], [[neo-colonialism]], and [[zionism]], and a transition from [[capitalism]] to [[socialism]]. Such ideas inspired Gaddafi, who viewed Nasser as a hero.<ref name="Bruce St John 136"/><ref name="Kawczynski 11-12"/><ref name="Vandewalle 10">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 10.</ref> Becoming actively involved in politics, Gaddafi helped organize demonstrations and distribute posters criticizing the monarchy.<ref name="Bruce St John 136"/><ref name="Kawczynski 11-12"/> |
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Such activity caught the authorities' attention, who expelled him from the school and ordered his family to leave Sabha.<ref name="Bruce St John 136"/><ref name="Kawczynski 11"/> Intent on finishing his secondary education, Gaddafi moved to [[Misrata]], where he attended Misrata Secondary School.<ref name="Kawczynski 11"/><ref name="Bruce St John 137">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 137.</ref> Maintaining his interest in Arab nationalist activism, he refused to join any of the banned political parties then active in the city – including the [[Arab Nationalist Movement]], the [[Ba'ath Party#Branches by reason#Libya|Arab Socialist Resurrection (Baath) Party]], and the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] – claiming he rejected factionalism.<ref name="Bruce St John 137"/> He read voraciously, including everything that he could find on the subjects of Nasser and the [[French Revolution of 1789]], as well as the works of Syrian political theorist [[Michel Aflaq]] and biographies of [[Abraham Lincoln]], [[Sun Yat-Sen]], and [[Mustafa Kemal Atatürk]].<ref name="Bruce St John 137"/> |
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===Military training: 1963–1966=== |
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[[File:Gaddafi in London.jpg|thumb|right|Gaddafi in London, 1966.]] |
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Deciding to study History at the [[University of Libya]] in [[Benghazi]], Gaddafi soon dropped out to join the military.<ref name="Bruce St John 138">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 138.</ref> In 1963 he began training at the [[Benghazi Military University Academy|Royal Military Academy]], Benghazi, alongside several friends from Misrata who shared his political views. The armed forces offered the only good opportunity for upward social mobility for Libyans from underprivileged backgrounds such as himself, and was an obvious instrument of political change, having the potential for ousting Idris' absolute monarchy.<ref name="Bruce St John 138"/><ref name="Kawczynski 12">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 12.</ref> With a group of loyal cadres, in 1964 Gaddafi founded the Central Committee of the Free Officers Movement, named after [[Free Officers Movement (Egypt)|the Egyptian group]] founded in 1949 by Nasser, devoting themselves to the revolutionary cause. Led by Gaddafi, they met clandestinely, offering their salaries into a single fund.<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 12–13.</ref> Gaddafi traveled around Libya when he could, gathering intelligence and developing connections with those sympathetic to his cause; the government's intelligence services failed to pay much attention, considering him of little threat due to his poor background.<ref name="Kawczynski 13"/> Gaddafi graduated in August 1965,<ref name="Bruce St John 138"/> becoming commissioned as a communications officer in the Libyan Army's signal corps.<ref name="Bruce St John 138"/> |
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In April 1966, he was assigned to the [[United Kingdom]] for further training; over nine months he underwent an English-language course at [[Beaconsfield]], [[Buckinghamshire]], a [[Army Air Corps (United Kingdom)|Royal Air Corps]] signal instructors course in [[Bovington Camp]], [[Dorset]], and an infantry signal instructors course at [[Hythe, Kent]].<ref name="Bruce St John 138"/><ref name="Kawczynski 13">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 13.</ref> Despite later rumours to the contrary, he did not attend the [[Royal Military Academy Sandhurst]].<ref name="Kawczynski 13"/><ref>{{cite web| url= http://www.army.mod.uk/documents/general/rmasarchives.pdf| title= The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst's Archives| author=Ministry of Defence, United Kingdom| year= 2009| publisher=Ministry of Defence| page= 1}}</ref> The director of the Bovington signal course put together a report noting that Gaddafi successfully overcame early problems with learning English, displaying a firm command of voice procedure. Noting that Gaddafi's favourite hobbies were reading and playing [[Association football|football]], he thought him an "amusing officer, always cheerful, hard-working, and conscientious."<ref name="Bruce St John 138-39">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 138–139.</ref> Gaddafi disliked his time in England, claiming British Army officers racially insulted him and finding it difficult adjusting to the country's culture; asserting his Arab identity in [[London]], he walked around [[Piccadilly]] wearing traditional Libyan robes. He later related that while he traveled to England believing it more advanced than Libya, he returned home "more confident and proud of our values, ideals and social character."<ref name="Kawczynski 13"/><ref name="Bruce St John 139">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 139.</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1375227/Libya-Portrait-young-Gaddafi-shows-nutcase-loathed-ugly-British.html|title=Portrait of the young Gaddafi: A nutcase who loathed the 'ugly British' and was so unworldly he drank water from a finger bowl|work=Daily Mail|location=London |date=13 April 2011|accessdate=6 September 2011|first1=Sharon|last1=Churcher|first2=Robert|last2=Verkaik}}</ref> |
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==Libyan Arab Republic== |
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===Coup d'etat: 1969=== |
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[[File:Flag_of_Libya_(1969–1972).svg|thumb|right|180px|[[Flag of Libya|Flag]] of the Libyan Arab Republic (1969–1977).]] |
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The government of King Idris had become increasingly unpopular by the latter part of the 1960s. After the discovery of oil in Libya in 1959, the government had begun to take advantage of this, beginning the commodity's export in 1963, providing a huge boost to the country's economy. In an attempt to make the oil industry as profitable as possible, the government replaced the federal system with a centralized one, causing problems in a country that was deeply divided along regional, ethnic and tribal lines.<ref name="Kawczynski 15-16">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 15–16.</ref> Within the oil industry, corruption was widespread, with entrenched systems of patronage.<ref name="Kawczynski 16">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 16.</ref> Arab nationalism was becoming increasingly popular across Libya, and protests flared up in 1967, following Egypt's defeat in the [[Six Day War]] with Israel; being allies with the U.S. and European powers, the Idris administration was seen as favorable to Israel, and therefore anti-Arab. Anti-western riots broke out in Tripoli and Benghazi, while Libyan workers shut down the oil terminals in solidarity with Egypt.<ref name="Kawczynski 16-17">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 16–17.</ref> By 1969, the U.S. [[Central Intelligence Agency]] were expecting segments of the Libyan armed forces to institute a ''coup d'etat'', but had no knowledge of Gaddafi's Free Officers Movement, instead monitoring a separate revolutionary group known as the Black Boots, led by Abdul Aziz Shalhi.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 139–140.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 19"/> |
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In mid-1969, King Idris traveled abroad to spend the summer in Turkey and Greece. Gaddafi's Free Officers recognized this as their chance to overthrow the monarchy, initiating a plan that they called "Operation Jerusalem".<ref name="Kawczynski 18">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 18.</ref> On 1 September, they occupied airports, police depots, radio stations and government offices in Tripoli and Benghazi.<ref name="Kawczynski 18"/> Gaddafi addressed the populace by radio, proclaiming an end to the old regime, "the stench of which has sickened and horrified us all."<ref name="Kawczynski 18"/> Idris' nephew, Crown Prince [[Hasan as-Senussi|Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida al-Mahdi as-Sanussi]], was formally deposed by the revolutionary officers and put under [[house arrest]]; having overthrown and abolished the monarchy, Gaddafi proclaimed the foundation of the [[History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi|Libyan Arab Republic]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/1/newsid_3911000/3911587.stm|title=Bloodless coup in Libya|publisher=BBC News |date=20 December 2003|accessdate=14 February 2010|location=London}}</ref> They did not meet any serious resistance, and they wielded little violence against the monarchists.<ref name="Kawczynski 18"/> Due to the bloodless nature of the ''coup'', it was initially labelled the "White Revolution", although later became known as the "One September Revolution" after the date on which it occurred.<ref name="Bruce St John 134">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 134.</ref> Gaddafi was insistent that the Free Officers' ascent to power represented not just a ''coup'' but a revolution, representing the start of a widespread change in the socioeconomic and political nature of Libyan society.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 159.</ref> He would proclaim that the revolution meant "freedom, [[socialism]], and unity" for Libya, and over the coming years would implement measures to achieve this.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 148.</ref> |
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===Consolidating leadership: 1969–1973=== |
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Setting up a new government, the 12 member central committee of the Free Unionist Officers converted themselves into a [[Libyan Revolutionary Command Council|Revolutionary Command Council]] (RCC), who wielded control over the newly proclaimed Libyan Arab Republic.<ref name="Bruce St John 134"/><ref name="Vandewalle 9"/> Captain Gaddafi promoted himself to the rank of Colonel, and was recognized as both leader of the RCC as well as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, becoming the ''de facto'' head of state.<ref name="Bruce St John 134"/> Although the RCC was theoretically a collegial body that operated through discussion and consensus building, from the start it was dominated by the opinions and decisions of Gaddafi,<ref name="Bruce St John 134"/> although some of the others attempted to constrain what they saw as his excesses.<ref name="Kawczynski 20">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 20.</ref> Gaddafi remained the public face of the government, with the identities of the other RCC members only being publicly revealed in the ''Official Gazette'' on 10 January 1970.<ref name="Bruce St John 134"/><ref name="Vandewalle 9"/> All of them were young men, from (typically rural) working and middle-class backgrounds, and none had university degrees; in this way they were all distinct from the wealthy, highly educated conservatives who had previously governed the country.<ref name="Vandewalle 10">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 10.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 20"/> The coup completed, the RCC then proceeded with their intentions of consolidating the revolutionary government and modernizing the country.<ref name="Bruce St John 134"/> As a result, they began to purge monarchists and members of Idris' [[Senussi]] clan from Libya's political world and armed forces; Gaddafi believed that this elite were opposed to the will of the Libyan people and had to be expunged.<ref name="Vandewalle 11">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 11.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 21"/><ref name="Kawczynski 23"/> They maintained the previous administration's ban on political parties, and [[rule by decree|ruled by decree]].<ref name="Vandewalle 11"/><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 153.</ref> |
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====Economic and social reform==== |
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With [[crude oil]] being the country's primary export, Gaddafi sought to improve the position of the Libyan oil sector. In October 1969, he proclaimed that the current trade terms were unfair, benefiting foreign oil corporations more than the Libyan state, and in December the RCC began successful talks to increase the price at which they sold their country's oil by threatening to reduce production. In 1970, other [[OPEC]] states followed suit, leading to a global increase in the price of crude oil.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 145–146.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yXBRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Aw8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7216,2358896 |title='Shotgun Wedding' For the Companies |work=Lakeland Ledger|date=8 October 1972 |accessdate=14 August 2012}}</ref> The RCC followed this with further talks with the oil companies operating in Libya, known as the Tripoli Agreement, in which they secured income tax, back-payments and better pricing; these measures would bring Libya an estimated $1 billion in additional revenues in its first year.<ref name="Bruce St John 147">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 147.</ref><ref name="Vandewalle 15">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 15.</ref> Further increasing state control over the oil sector, the RCC began a program of [[nationalization]], starting with the expropriation of [[British Petroleum]]'s share of the British Petroleum-N.B. Hunt Sahir Field in December 1971. In September 1973, this was followed by the announcement that all foreign oil producers active in the country were to be nationalized under state control. For Gaddafi, this was an important step towards establishing socialism.<ref name="Bruce St John 147">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 147.</ref> |
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[[File:Sadat Qaddafi Assad 1971.jpg|thumb|left|250px|[[Anwar Sadat]], Muammar Gaddafi and [[Hafez al-Assad]] signing in 1971 the federation agreement of the three countries within the Union of Arab Republics.]] |
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The RCC also attempted to suppress regional and tribal affiliation in the country, instead replacing it with a unified pan-Libyan identity. In doing so, they tried to discredit tribal leaders, tying them to the old colonial regime, and in August 1971 a military court was assembled in Sebha to put many of them on trial for counter-revolutionary activity.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 154.</ref> Long-standing administrative boundaries were re-drawn, crossing tribal boundaries, while pro-revolutionary modernizers were brought in to replace traditional leaders, but the communities that they served often rejected them for more established figures.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 154–155.</ref> Realizing the failures of the modernizers, on 11 June 1971, Gaddafi proclaimed the creation of the [[Libyan Arab Socialist Union|Arab Socialist Union]] (ASU), a mass mobilization [[vanguard party]] of which he would be president. The ASU recognized the RCC as its "Supreme Leading Authority", and was designed to further revolutionary enthusiasm throughout the country.<ref name="Vandewalle 11">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 11.</ref><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 155.</ref> |
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The RCC also implemented measures for social reform, adopting Gaddafi's Islamic moral beliefs as a basis. [[Sharia]] law was implemented, the consumption of alcohol was banned, night clubs and Christian churches were shut down, traditional Libyan dress was encouraged, Arabic was decreed as the only language permitted in official communications and road signs, and the months of the [[Gregorian calendar]] were renamed.<ref name="Bruce St John 134"/><ref name="Kawczynski 21">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 21.</ref><ref name="Vandewalle 31">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 31.</ref> From 1969 to 1973, the government introduced social welfare programs, funded with oil money, which led to house-building projects and improved healthcare; education remained a lesser priority. In doing so, they greatly expanded the [[public sector]], providing employment for thousands.<ref name="Kawczynski 23"/><ref name="Bruce St John 149">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 149.</ref> These early social programs proved popular within Libya.<ref name="Bruce St John 149"/><ref name="Kawczynski 22">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 22.</ref> This popularity was in part due to Gaddafi's personal charisma, virility, youth and underdog status, as well as his rhetoric emphasizing his role as the successor to the anti-Italian fighter and national hero [[Omar Mukhtar]].<ref name="Kawczynski 22"/><ref name="Vandewalle 31-32">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. pp. 31–32.</ref> |
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====Foreign relations==== |
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[[File:Nasser Gaddafi 1969.jpg|thumb|upright|Gaddafi (left) with Egyptian President Nasser in 1969.]] |
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On its ascendancy to power, the influence of Nasser's Arab nationalism over the RCC was clearly apparent.<ref name="Bruce St John 137"/><ref name="Vandewalle 9">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 9.</ref> The new administration was immediately recognized by four neighboring states with Arab nationalist governments: Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Sudan,<ref name="Kawczynski 18"/> while Egypt sent experts in various fields to aid the RCC, who were unanimously inexperienced in governance.<ref name="Kawczynski 18"/> Gaddafi propounded Pan-Arab ideas, proclaiming the need for a single Arab state stretching across North Africa and the Middle East; in December 1969, Libya founded the [[Arab Revolutionary Front]] with Egypt and Sudan as a step towards political unification, and the following year, Syria stated its intention to join.<ref name="Bruce St John 186">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 186.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 65">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 65.</ref> After Nasser died in November 1970, his successor, [[Anwar Sadat]], suggested that rather than a unified state, they create [[Federation of Arab Republics|a political federation]], implemented in April 1971; in doing so, Egypt, Syria and Sudan got large grants of Libyan oil money.<ref name="Kawczynski 65"/><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 151–152.</ref> In February 1972, Gaddafi and Sadat signed an unofficial charter of merger between Libya and Egypt, but it was never implemented as relations broke down the following year. Sadat became increasingly wary of Libya's radical direction, and the September 1973 deadline for implementing the Federation passed by with no action taken, leaving it defunct.<ref name="Kawczynski 66">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 66.</ref><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 182.</ref><ref name="bangor_201108">{{cite web | url=http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=QRtbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qk4NAAAAIBAJ&pg=1923,335727| title=Libyan Leader Impatient Over Union With Egypt | publisher=UPI | work=Bangor Daily News | date=3 July 1973 | accessdate=23 August 2011 | page=3}}</ref> |
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Straight after the 1969 coup, representatives of the [[Allied Control Council|Four Powers]] – France, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union – were called to meet with members of the RCC.<ref name="Bruce St John 140">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 140.</ref> The U.K. and U.S. quickly extended diplomatic recognition to the RCC, hoping to secure the position of their military bases in the country and fearing further instability. Hoping to ingratiate themselves with Gaddafi's administration, in early 1970 the U.S. informed the Libyan regime of at least one planned counter-''coup''.<ref name="Kawczynski 18"/><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 140–141.</ref> Such attempts to form a working relationship with the RCC failed; Gaddafi was determined to reassert Libyan national sovereignty and expunge foreign colonial and imperialist influences. The new administration insisted that the U.S. and U.K. remove their military bases from Libya, with Gaddafi proclaiming that "the armed forces which rose to express the people's revolution [will not] tolerate living in their shacks while the bases of imperialism exist in Libyan territory." The Western powers complied, with the British leaving in March and the Americans in June 1970.<ref name="Kawczynski 19">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 19.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 141143">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 141–143.</ref> |
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[[File:Oil Rich Libya.ogv|thumb|left|1972 anti-Gaddafist British [[newsreel]] including interview with Gaddafi about his support for foreign militants.]] |
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Moving to reduce Italian influence, in October 1970, all Italian-owned assets were expropriated and the 12,000-strong [[Italian settlers in Libya|Italian community]] expelled from Libyay; the day became a [[Public holiday|national holiday]].<ref name="Bruce St John 142">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 142.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 21–22.</ref><ref name="BBC NEWS 271005">[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4380360.stm Libya cuts ties to mark Italy era.]. BBC News. 27 October 2005.</ref> Aiming to reduce the power of the [[NATO|North Atlantic Treaty Organization]] (NATO) in the Mediterranean, in 1971 Libya requested that [[Malta]] cease to allow NATO to use its land for a military base, in turn offering to provide them with large amounts of foreign aid. Ultimately, the Maltese government continued to allow NATO to use the island for their activity, but only on the condition that they would not use it for launching an attack on any Arab country.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 150–151.</ref> Orchestrating a military build-up, Gaddafi's RCC began purchasing weapons from France and the Soviet Union; the commercial relationship with the latter led to an increasingly strained relationship with the U.S., who were then engaged in the [[Cold War]] with the Soviets.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 144–145.</ref> |
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Gaddafi was especially critical of the U.S. due to their support for Israel; Gaddafi supported the [[Palestinians]] in the [[Israeli-Palestinian conflict]], viewing the 1948 creation of Israel as an oppressive indignity forced on the Arab world by Western colonialists.<ref name="Vandewalle 34">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 34.</ref><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 150–152.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 64">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 64.</ref> In 1970, he initiated a Jihad Fund to finance those battling Israel,<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 185.</ref> and in a 11 June 1972 speech, announced the creation of the First Nasserite Volunteers Centre to train guerrillas in tactics against the [[Zionism|Zionist]] state.<ref name="Bruce St John 151">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 151.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 37">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 37.</ref> His relationship with Palestinian leader [[Yasser Arafat]] of [[Fatah]] was strained, with Gaddafi considering him too moderate and calling for more violent action.<ref name="Kawczynski 37">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 37.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 178"/> He funded the [[Black September (group)|Black September]] group who perpetrated the 1972 [[Munich massacre]] of Israeli athletes in [[West Germany]]; Gaddafi had the militants' bodies flown to Libya for a hero's funeral.<ref name="Bruce St John 178">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 178.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 38">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 38.</ref> Using Libya's oil wealth, Gaddafi financially supported other militant groups across the world, including the [[Black Panther Party]] and [[Nation of Islam]] in the U.S., the [[Provisional Irish Republican Army]] in the U.K., [[ETA]] in Spain, the [[Red Brigades]] in Italy, the [[Red Army Faction]] in West Germany, the [[Sandinista National Liberation Front]] in Nicaragua, the [[Japanese Red Army|Red Army]] in Japan, the [[Free Aceh Movement]] in Indonesia and the [[Moro National Liberation Front]] in the Philippines. Gaddafi remained indiscriminate in the causes he funded, sometimes switching from supporting one side in a conflict to the other, as in the [[Eritrean War of Independence]]. Throughout the rest of the 1970s, these groups received financial support from Libya, which came to be seen as a leader in the [[Third World]]'s struggle against colonialism and neocolonialism.<ref name="Bruce St John 151">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 151.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 34-35">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 34–35, 40–53.</ref> |
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===The "Popular Revolution": 1973–1977=== |
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[[File:Green book.jpg|thumb|right|Gaddafi's ''Green Book''.]] |
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On 16 April 1973, Gaddafi gave a speech in [[Zuwara]] proclaiming the start of a "Popular Revolution" in Libya.<ref name="Kawczynski 22"/><ref name="Vandewalle 12">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 12.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 156">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 156.</ref> He initiated this new beginning with a five-point plan, the first point of which dissolved all existing laws, which were to be replaced by revolutionary enactments. The second point proclaimed that all opponents of the revolution had to be removed, while the third initiated an administrative revolution that Gaddafi proclaimed would remove all traces of [[bureaucracy]] and the [[bourgeoisie]] from Libya. The fourth point announced that the population must be armed to defend the revolution, while the fifth proclaimed the beginning of a cultural revolution that would expunge Libya of foreign influences.<ref name="Kawczynski 22"/><ref name="Bruce St John 156">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 156.</ref> |
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As a part of this Popular Revolution, Gaddafi invited the Libyan people to found [[General People's Committee]]s across the country, as conduits for raising political consciousness. Although he offered little guidance for how people should go about setting up these councils, Gaddafi exclaimed that they would offer a form of [[Direct democracy|direct]] [[Participatory democracy|political participation]] for all Libyans that was innately more democratic than a traditional party-based [[Representative democracy|representative system]]. In doing so, he hoped that the councils would mobilize the people behind the RCC, erode the power of the traditional leaders and the traditional bureaucracy, and allow for the formation of a new revolutionary legal system chosen by the people.<ref name="Bruce St John 156"/> The People's Committees led to a high percentage of public involvement in decision making, within the limits permitted by the RCC.<ref name="Bruce St John 157">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 157.</ref> They also served as a surveillance system, aiding the security services in locating individuals with views critical of the RCC, leading to the arrest of [[Ba'athism|Ba'athists]], [[Marxism|Marxists]] and [[Islamism|Islamists]].<ref name="Bruce St John 157"/><ref name="Mohamed Eljhami">{{cite web|url=http://www.meforum.org/878/libya-and-the-us-qadhafi-unrepentant|title=Libya and the U.S.: Qadhafi Unrepentant|publisher=The Middle East Quarterly|author=Mohamed Eljahmi|year=2006}}</ref> The base form of these Revolutionary Committees were the local working groups, who proceeded to send elected representatives to the district level, and from that to the national level – divided between the [[General People's Congress (Libya)|General People's Congress]] and the [[General People's Committee]] – in a pyramid structure.<ref name="Kawczynski 26">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 26.</ref> Above these Committees remained Gaddafi and the RCC, who ultimately remained responsible for all major decisions.<ref name="Bruce St John 163">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 163.</ref> |
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====Third Universal Theory and ''The Green Book''==== |
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In June 1973, Gaddafi announced the creation of a political ideology that would underpin the new Popular Revolution. Referred to as "[[Third Universal Theory]]", it rejected the [[capitalism]] of the western world and the [[atheism]] of the [[communism|communist]] powers, proclaiming that both the United States and the Soviet Union were imperialist.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 157–158.</ref> As a part of this theory, Gaddafi praised [[nationalism]] as a progressive force and continued to advocate the creation of a pan-Arab state which would lead both the Islamic and Third Worlds against the forces of imperialism.<ref name="Bruce St John 158">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 158.</ref> Gaddafi saw [[Islam]] as having a key role in this ideology, calling for an Islamic Revival that returned to the origins of the [[Qur'an]], rejecting scholarly interpretations and the [[Hadith]]; in doing so he angered many Libyan clerics.<ref name="Bruce St John 159">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 159.</ref> |
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[[File:Kadaffi lopez rega.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Gaddafi and the Argentine Commissioner General [[José López Rega]].]] |
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Gaddafi summarized his thought regarding Third Universal Theory in three short volumes published between 1975 and 1979, that were collectively known as ''[[The Green Book (Muammar Gaddafi)|The Green Book]]''. The first volume, ''The Solution of the Problem of Democracy: The Authority of the People'', was devoted to the issue of democracy, outlining the flaws of representative systems in favor of direct, participatory democracy in the form of his Revolutionary Committees. The second, ''The Solution of the Economic Problem'', dealt with Gaddafi's beliefs regarding socialism, while the third, ''The Social Basis of the Third International Theory'', explored social issues regarding the family and the tribe. While the first two volumes had expressed views advocating radical reform, the third adopted a socially conservative stance, proclaiming that while men and women were equal, they were biologically designed for different roles in life.<ref name="Vandewalle 19">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 19.</ref><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 161–165.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 24">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 24.</ref> In ensuing years, government supporters would adopt quotes from ''The Green Book'', such as "Representation is Fraud", as revolutionary slogans.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 162.</ref> |
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The swift implementation of these radical reforms led to discontent, furthered by widespread opposition to the RCC's decision to spend oil money on foreign causes, and in 1975, there were student demonstrations against Gaddafi's government. The RCC responded with mass arrests, and introduced compulsory [[national service]] for young people.<ref name="Kawczynski 23">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 23.</ref><ref name="Vandewalle 18">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 18.</ref> Dissent also arose from conservative clerics and the Muslim Brotherhood, many of whom began to preach against the government, subsequently being persecuted as anti-revolutionary elements.<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 29–30.</ref> Two members of the RCC, Bashir Saghir al-Hawaadi and Omar Mehishi, had become particularly concerned with Gaddafi's social experiment, and decided to launch a ''coup d'etat'' to overthrow him that year. They failed, and in the aftermath only five of the original twelve RCC members remained in power.<ref name="Kawczynski 23"/><ref name="Vandewalle 18"/><ref name="Bruce St John 165">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 165.</ref> Ultimately, this led to collapse of the RCC, which would be officially abolished in March 1977.<ref name="Bruce St John 165"/> Meanwhile, in September 1975 Gaddafi implemented further measures to increase popular mobilization, introducing objectives to try and improve the relationship between the Revolutionary Committees and the ASU.<ref name="Bruce St John 165"/> He also began to appoint members of his family and tribe to high positions in the security and armed forces.<ref name="Vandewalle 19">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 19.</ref> |
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====Foreign relations==== |
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[[File:Gaddafi 1976.jpg|thumb|175px|Gaddafi in 1976 with a child on his lap.]] |
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Following Anwar Sadat's ascension to the Egyptian presidency, Libya's relations with Egypt deteriorated. Sadat was perturbed by Gaddafi's unpredictability and insistence that Egypt required a cultural revolution.<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 66.</ref> In February 1973, Israeli forces shot down [[Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114|Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA) Flight 114]], which had strayed from Egyptian airspace into Israeli-held territory during a sandstorm. Gaddafi was infuriated that Egypt had not done more to prevent the incident, and in retaliation planned to destroy the ''[[RMS Queen Elizabeth 2]]'', a British ship chartered by American Jews to sail to [[Haifa]] for Israel's 25th anniversary. Gaddafi ordered an Egyptian submarine to target the ship, but Sadat discovered and cancelled the order, fearing a military escalation.<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 66–67.</ref> The [[Yom Kippur War]] between an Egyptian-Syrian alliance and Israel also led to the deterioration of relations between the two leaders; Gaddafi was infuriated that he had not been consulted on the war plans, and was angry that Egypt eventually conceded to peace talks with Israel, believing that they should have fought on till victory.<ref name="Bruce St John 182-3">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 182–183.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 2011. p. 67">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 67.</ref> Sadat and Gaddafi became openly hostile, the latter proclaiming that Sadat had betrayed Nasser's vision and should be overthrown.<ref name="Kawczynski 2011. p. 67"/> Relations also deteriorated with Sudan, where Islamist President [[Gaafar Nimeiry]] had developed closer links to Egypt and the West; by 1975, Gaddafi was sponsoring merceneries to overthrow Nimeiri, who proclaimed the former to have "a split personality – both parts evil".<ref name="Bruce St John 191">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 191.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 79–80.</ref> |
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Gaddafi's break with Egypt and Sudan led him to focus his attention on the rest of Africa. Expanding Libyan influence southward, in late 1972 and early 1973, Libya invaded [[Chad]] in order to annex the [[Aouzou Strip]], a desert region suspected of containing underground uranium deposits.<ref name="Bruce St John 187">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 187.</ref> One of his primary ambitions was to reduce Israeli influence in the continent, successfully convincing eight states to break off diplomatic relations with Israel in 1973, offering financial incentives to do so.<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 77.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 184">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 184.</ref> Intent on propagating Islam, in 1973 Gaddafi founded the Islamic Call Society, which had begun operations in 132 centers across Africa within a decade.<ref name="Bruce St John 186"/> He achieved early success, in 1973 converting Gabonese President [[Omar Bongo]] to the faith, which he repeated three years later with [[Jean-Bédel Bokassa]], president of the [[Central African Republic]].<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 77–78.</ref> Gaddafi sought to develop closer links in the [[Maghreb]] area of northwest Africa. In January 1974, Libya and Tunisia announced a political union, forming the [[Arab Islamic Republic]]; although advocated by Gaddafi and Tunisian President [[Habib Bourguiba]], the move was deeply unpopular within Tunisia, and soon abandoned.<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 71–72.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 183">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 183.</ref> Retaliating, Gaddafi sponsored anti-government militants in Tunisia into the 1980s.<ref name="Bruce St John 183"/><ref name="Kawczynski 72">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 72.</ref> Turning his attention to Algeria, in 1975, Libya signed the Hassi Messaoud defence agreement to counter the threat of Moroccan expansionism, also funding the [[Polisario Front]] of [[Western Sahara]] in their liberation struggle against Morocco.<ref name="Bruce St John 183"/><ref name="Kawczynski 71">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 71.</ref> |
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==Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya== |
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===Foundation: 1977=== |
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[[File:Flag of Libya (1977-2011).svg|thumb|right|200px|[[Flag of Libya|Flag]] of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.]] |
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On 2 March 1977 the General People's Congress adopted the "Declaration of the Establishment of the People's Authority" at Gaddafi's behest. Dissolving the Libyan Arab Republic, it was replaced by the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya ({{lang-ar|الجماهيرية العربية الليبية الشعبية الاشتراكية}}, ''{{transl|ar|al-Jamāhīrīyah al-‘Arabīyah al-Lībīyah ash-Sha‘bīyah al-Ishtirākīyah}})'', a "state of the masses" conceptualized by Gaddafi.<ref name="Bruce St John 166-168">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 166–168.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 26–27.</ref> Officially, the ''Jamahiriya'' was a [[direct democracy]] in which the people ruled themselves through [[Basic People's Congress (political)|Basic People's Congress]]es, where all adult Libyans participated and voted on national decisions. In principle, the People's Congresses were Libya's highest authority, with major decisions proposed by government officials or Gaddafi himself requiring the consent of the People's Congresses.<ref name="Bruce St John 166-168"/><ref name="Vandewalle 19-20">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. pp. 19–20.</ref> Gaddafi proclaimed that the People's Congresses provided for Libya's every political need, rendering other political organizations unnecessary; all non-authorized groups, including political parties, professional associations, independent trade unions and women's groups, were banned.<ref name="Bruce St John 166-168"/><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 27.</ref> |
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With preceding legal institutions abolished, Gaddafi envisioned the ''Jamahiriya'' as following the [[Qur'an]] for legal guidance, adopting Islamic [[sharia]] law; he proclaimed "man-made" laws unnatural and dictatorial, only permitting [[God in Islam|God]]'s law.<ref name="Bruce St John 167">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 167.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 27–28.</ref> Within a year he was backtracking, announcing that sharia was innapropriate for the ''Jamahiriya'' because it guaranteed the protection of private property, contravening ''The Green Book'''s socialism.<ref name="Vandewalle 28">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 28.</ref> In July, a [[Libyan–Egyptian War|border war broke out]] with Egypt, in which the Egyptians defeated Libya despite their technological inferiority. The conflict lasted a week before both sides agreed to a peace treaty brokered by several Arab states.<ref name="Bruce St John 183">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 183.</ref><ref name="Vandewalle 35">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 35.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 67–68.</ref> That year, Gaddafi was invited to [[Moscow]] by the Soviet government in recognition of their increasing commercial relationship.<ref name="Bruce St John 180">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 180.</ref> |
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===Revolutionary Committees and furthering socialism: 1978–1980=== |
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In December 1978, Gaddafi stepped down as Secretary-General of the General People's Congress (GPC), announcing his wish to focus on revolutionary rather than governmental activities; this was a part of his new emphasis on separating the apparatus of the revolution from the apparatus of government. Adopting the title of "Leader of the Revolution", he continued as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.<ref name="Vandewalle 26">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 26.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 31">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 3.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 169">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 169.</ref> Gaddafi continued exerting considerable influence over Libya, with many critics insisting that the structure of Libya's direct democracy gave him "the freedom to manipulate outcomes",<ref name="bbc_robbins">{{cite news|last=Robbins|first=James|title=Eyewitness: Dialogue in the desert|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6425873.stm|accessdate=22 October 2011|date=7 March 2007|work=BBC News}}</ref> comparing him to a [[demagogue]].<ref name="nytimes_green">{{cite news|last=Bazzi|first=Mohamad|title=What Did Qaddafi’s Green Book Really Say?|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/books/review/what-did-qaddafis-green-book-really-say.html|accessdate=28 October 2011|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=27 May 2011}}</ref> On 2 March 1979, the GPC announced the separation of government and revolution, the latter being represented by new Revolutionary Committees, who operated in tandem with the People's Committees in schools, universities, unions, the police force and the military. Dominated by revolutionary zealots, the Reolutionary Committees were accountable to the "Leader of the Revolution", whom they met annually, and were coordinated by a Central Coordinating Office for Revolutionary Committees. Publishing their own weekly magazine, ''The Green March'' (''al-Zahf al-Akhdar''), in October 1980 they took control of all press. Responsible for perpetuating revolutionary fervor, they performed ideological surveillance, later adopting a significant security role, making arrests and putting people on trial according to the "law of the revolution" (''qanun al-thawra'').<ref name="Kawczynski 31">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 31.</ref><ref>[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. pp. 25–26.</ref><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 169–171.</ref> With no legal code or safeguards, the administration of revolutionary justice was largely arbitrary and resulted in widespread abuses and the suppression of [[civil liberties]].<ref name="Vandewalle 28">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 28.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 174">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 174.</ref> |
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{{Quote box|width=246px|bgcolor=#ACE1AF|align=right|quote="If socialism is defined as a redistribution of wealth and resources, a socialist revolution clearly occurred in Libya after 1969 and most especially in the second half of the 1970s. The management of the economy was increasingly socialist in intent and effect with wealth in housing, capital and land significantly redistributed or in the process of redistribution. Private enterprise was virtually eliminated, largely replaced by a centrally controlled economy."|salign = right |source=— Libyan Studies scholar Ronald St Bruce.<ref name="Bruce St John 173">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 173.</ref>}} |
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1978 saw the Libyan government push towards socialism. In March, they published guidelines for housing redistribution, attempting to ensure that every adult Libyan owned their own home and was not "enslaved" to paying rent. Most families were banned from owning more than one house, and houses that had formerly been rented were expropriated by the government and sold to the tenants at a heavily subsidized price.<ref name="Bruce St John 171-72">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 171–172.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 221">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 221.</ref> In September, Gaddafi called for the People's Committees to eliminate the "bureaucracy of the public sector" and the "dictatorship of the private sector"; the People's Committees seized control of several hundred companies, converting them into workers' cooperatives run by elected representatives.<ref name="Bruce St John 168">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 168.</ref> In 1979, the committees began redistribution of land in the Jefara plain, continuing through to 1981.<ref name="Bruce St John 172">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 172.</ref> In May 1980, measures to redistribute and equalize wealth were implemented; anyone with over 1000 [[dinar]] in their bank account saw that extra money expropriated.<ref name="Kawczynski 221">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 221.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 172"/> The following year, the GPC announced that the government would take control of all import, export and distribution functions, with state supermarkets replacing privately owned businesses; this led to a decline in the availability of consumer goods and the development of a thriving [[black market]].<ref name="Bruce St John 172"/><ref>[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 21.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 220">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 220.</ref> |
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The ''Jamahiriya'''s radical socialist direction and revolutionary justice earned the government many enemies. Many who had seen their wealth and property confiscated turned against the administration, and a number of western-funded opposition groups were founded by exiles; most prominent was the [[National Front for the Salvation of Libya]] (NFSL), founded in 1981 by [[Mohammed Magariaf]], which orchestrated militant attacks against Libya's government.<ref name="Vandewalle 32">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 32.</ref><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 173–174.</ref> The Revolutionary Committees set up overseas branches to suppress such counter-revolutionary activity, assassinating various dissidents.<ref name="Vandewalle 27">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 27.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 171">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 171.</ref> In 1979, the U.S. government placed Libya on their list of [[state sponsors of terrorism]],<ref name="Bruce St John 179">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 179.</ref> while at the end of the year [[1979 U.S. embassy burning in Libya|a demonstration torched the U.S. embassy]] in Tripoli.<ref name="Bruce St John 179">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 179.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 115">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 115.</ref> The following year, Libyan fighters began intercepting U.S. flighter jets flying over the Mediterranean, signalling the collapse of relations between the two countries.<ref name="Bruce St John 179">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 179.</ref> Libyan relations with [[Lebanon]] also deteriorated over the 1978 disappearance of Shia imam [[Musa al-Sadr]] when on a visit to Libya; the Lebanese accused Gaddafi of having him killed or imprisoned, a charge he denied.<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 70–71.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 239">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 239.</ref> Relations with Syria improved, as Gaddafi and Syrian President [[Hafez al-Assad]] shared an enmity with Israel and Egypt's Sadat. In 1980, they proposed a political union, with Libya paying off Syria's £1 billion debt to the Soviet Union; although pressures led Assad to pull out, they remained allies.<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 68–69.</ref> Another key ally was Uganda, and in 1979, Gaddafi unsuccessfully sent troops into [[Uganda-Tanzania War|Uganda to defend the regime]] of his friend, President [[Idi Amin]], from Tanzanian invaders.<ref name="Bruce St John 189">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 189.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 78–79.</ref> |
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==="International Pariah": 1981–1986=== |
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[[File:Leptis magna museum.jpg|thumb|left|Image of Gaddafi at the [[Leptis Magna Museum]] in [[Khoms, Libya]].]] |
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The early and mid 1980s saw economic trouble for Libya; from 1982 to 1986, the country's annual oil revenues dropped from $21 billion to $5.4 billion.<ref name="Vandewalle 23">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 23.</ref><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 192.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 104">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 104.</ref> Focusing on irrigation projects, 1983 saw construction start on the [[Great Manmade River]]; although designed to be finished by the end of the decade, it would still be incomplete at the start of the 21st century.<ref name="Bruce St John 249">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 249.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 224">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 224.</ref> Military spending increased, while other administrative budgets were cut back.<ref name="Vandewalle 35">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 35.</ref> In December 1980, Libya re-invaded Chad at the request of the [[Transitional Government of National Unity|GUNT government]] to aid in the civil war; in January 1981, Gaddafi suggested a political merger. The [[Organisation of African Unity]] (OAU) rejected this, and called for a Libyan withdrawal, which came about in November 1981.<ref name="Vandewalle 35">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 35.</ref><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 189–190.</ref> Many African nations had tired of Libya's policies of interference in foreign affairs; by 1980, nine African states had cut off diplomatic relations with Libya,<ref name="Bruce St John 189">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 189.</ref> while in 1982 the OAU cancelled its scheduled conference in Tripoli in order to prevent Gaddafi gaining chairmanship.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 190–191.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 81">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 81.</ref> Proposing political unity with Morocco, in August 1984, Gaddafi and Moroccan monarch [[Hassan II of Morocco|Hassan II]] signed the Oujda Treaty, forming the Arab-African Union; such a union was considered surprising due to the strong political differences that existed between the two governments. Relations remained strained, particularly due to the Moroccan regime's friendly relations with the U.S. and Israel; in August 1986, Hassan abolished the union.<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 72–75.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 216">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 216.</ref> |
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In 1980, [[Ronald Reagan]] was elected to the U.S. presidency, and famously declaring Gaddafi to be both an "international pariah" and the "mad dog of the middle east", he pursued a hard line approach to Libya, erroneously considering its government a [[puppet regime]] of the Soviet Union.<ref name="Bruce St John 179-180">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 179–180.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 115–116, 120.</ref> In turn, Gaddafi played up his commercial relationship with the Soviets, visiting again in 1981 and threatening to join the [[Warsaw Pact]].<ref name="Kawczynski 115">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 115.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 210-11">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 210–211.</ref> Beginning U.S. military exercises in the Gulfe of Sirte – an area of sea that Libya claimed as a part of its territorial waters – [[Gulf of Sidra incident (1981)|in August 1981 the U.S. shot down]] two Libyan [[Sukhoi Su-17|Su-22]] planes that were monitoring them.<ref name="Vandewalle 36">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 36.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 118–119.</ref> Closing down the Libyan embassy in Washington D.C., Raegan advised U.S. companies operating in the country to reduce the number of American personnel stationed there.<ref name="Bruce St John 180">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 180.</ref><ref name="Vandewalle 37">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 37.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 117-18">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 117–118.</ref> In March 1982, the U.S. implemented an embargo of Libyan oil,<ref name="Vandewalle 37">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 37.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 117-18">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 117–118.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 181">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 181.</ref> and in 1986 ordered all U.S. companies to cease operating in the country.<ref name="Kawczynski 117-18">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 117–118.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 176">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 176.</ref> Relations were also strained with the U.K., particularly after Libyan diplomats were accused of shooting dead [[Yvonne Fletcher]], a British policewoman stationed outside their London embassy, in April 1984.<ref name="Vandewalle 37">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 37.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 209">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 209.</ref> In Spring 1986, [[Action in the Gulf of Sidra (1986)|the U.S. Navy again began performing exercises in the Gulf of Sirte]]; the Libyan military retaliated, but failed as the U.S. sank several Libyan ships.<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 121–122.</ref> |
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After the U.S. accused Libya of orchestrating the [[1986 Berlin discotheque bombing]], in which two American soldiers died, Reagan decided to retaliate militarily.<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 122.</ref> In doing so, he was supported by the U.K. but opposed by other European allies, who highlighted that it would contravene international law.<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 123–125.</ref> In [[1986 United States bombing of Libya|Operation El Dorado Canyon]], orchestrated on 15 April 1986, U.S. military planes launched a series of air-strikes on Libya, bombing military installations in various parts of the country, killing around 100 Libyans, some of whom were civilians. One of the targets had been Gaddafi's home in the [[Bab al-Azizia]] barrack, in which his four-year-old adopted daughter Hanna was killed.<ref name="Vandewalle 37">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 37.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 127–129.</ref> In the immediate aftermath, Gaddafi retreated to the desert to meditate.<ref name="Kawczynski 130">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 130.</ref> Although the U.S. was condemned internationally, Reagan received a popularity boost at home.<ref name="Kawczynski 130"/> The attack also strengthened Gaddafi domestically, who publicly attacked the imperialism of the U.S.<ref name="Bruce St John 196">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 196.</ref> |
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==="Revolution within a Revolution": 1987–1998=== |
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The late 1980s saw a series of liberalising economic reforms within Libya designed to cope with the decline in oil revenues. In May 1987, Gaddafi announced the start of the "Revolution within a Revolution", which began with reforms to industry and agriculture and saw the re-opening of small business.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 194.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 225">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 225.</ref> Restrictions were placed on the activities of the Revolutionary Committees; in March 1988, their role was narrowed by the newly created Ministry for Mass Mobilization and Revolutionary Leadership to restrict their violence and judicial role, while in August 1988 Gaddafi publicly criticised them,<ref name="Vandewalle 29">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 29.</ref><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 194–195, 199–200.</ref> asserting that "they deviated, harmed, tortured" and that "the true revolutionary does not practise repression."<ref name="ham_40_1">{{cite book|last=Ham|first=Anthony|title=Libya|year=2007|publisher=[[Lonely Planet]]|location=Footscray, Victoria|isbn=1-74059-493-2|url=http://books.google.com/?id=lPaNiy3YisIC|edition=2nd ed.|pages=40–1}}</ref> In March, hundreds of political prisoners were freed, with Gaddafi erroneously claiming that there were no further political prisoners in Libya.<ref name="Vandewalle 45">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 45.</ref><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 222.</ref> In June, the Libyan government issued the Great Green Charter on Human Rights in the Era of the Masses, in which 27 articles laid out goals, rights and guarantees to improve the situation of human rights in Libya, restricting the use of the [[death penalty]] and calling for its eventual abolition. Many of the measures suggested in the charter would be implemented the following year, although others remained inactive.<ref name="Vandewalle 45-46">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. pp. 45–46.</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 197–198.</ref> Also in 1989, the Libyan government founded the [[Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights]], to be awarded to figures from the Third World who had struggled against colonialism and imperialism; the first year's winner was South African anti-apartheid activist [[Nelson Mandela]].<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 199.</ref> From 1994 through to 1997, the Libyan government initiated cleansing committees to root out corruption, particularly in the economic sector.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> |
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[[File:Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi in Dimashq, Syria.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Gaddafi with his [[Amazonian Guard]] in [[Damascus]], [[Syria]].]] |
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In the aftermath of the 1986 U.S. attack, the army was purged of perceived disloyal elements,<ref name="Kawczynski 130">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 130.</ref> and in 1988, Gaddafi announced the creation of a popular militia to replace the army and police.<ref name="Vandewalle 38">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 38.</ref><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 200.</ref> In 1987, [[Libya and weapons of mass destruction|Libya began production]] of [[mustard gas]] at a facility in Rabta, although publicly denied it was stockpiling chemical weapons,<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 201–204.</ref> and unsuccessfully attempted to develop nuclear weapons.<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 180–181.</ref> The period also saw a growth in domestic [[Islamism|Islamist]] opposition, formulated into groups like the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] and the [[Libyan Islamic Fighting Group]]. A number of assassination attempts against Gaddafi were foiled, and in turn, 1989 saw the security forces raid mosques believed to be centres of counter-revolutionary preaching.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 221–222.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 166–167, 236.</ref> In October 1993, elements of the army initiated a failed coup in [[Misrata]], while in September 1995, Islamists launched an insurgency in Benghazi, and in July 1996 an anti-Gaddafist football riot broke out in Tripoli.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 223.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 166">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 166.</ref> The Revolutionary Committees experienced a resurgence to combat these Islamists.<ref name="Vandewalle 29">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 29.</ref> |
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In 1989, Gaddafi was overjoyed by the foundation of the [[Arab Maghreb Union]], uniting Libya in an economic pact with Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. Gaddafi saw the Pact as a first step towards the formation of "one invincible Arab nation" and shouted for a state "from Marrakesh to Bahrain", pumping his fists in the air.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 216–218.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 188">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 188.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ozNAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=O1kMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5058,5224658 |title=Maghreb pact fulfils decades-old dream |work=The Glasgow Herald|date=18 February 1989 |accessdate=14 August 2012}}</ref> A decade later, it joined the [[Community of Sahel-Saharan States]].<ref name="Kawczynski 189">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 189.</ref> Meanwhile, Libya stepped up its support for anti-western militants such as the Provisional IRA,<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 197.</ref> and in 1988, [[Pan Am Flight 103]] was blown up over [[Lockerbie]] in Scotland, killing 259 passengers. British police investigations identified two Libyans – [[Abdelbaset al-Megrahi]] and [[Lamin Khalifah Fhimah]] – as the chief suspects, and in November 1991 issued a declaration demanding that Libya hand them over. When Gaddafi refused, citing the [[Montreal Convention]], the [[United Nations]] (UN) imposed Resolution 748 in March 1992, initiating economic sanctions against them which had deep repurcussions for the country's economy.<ref name="Vandewalle 39">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 39.</ref><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 205–207.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 133–140.</ref> The country suffered an estimated $900 million financial loss as a result.<ref name="Vandewalle 42">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 42.</ref> Further problems arose with the west when in January 1989, [[Gulf of Sidra incident (1989)|two Libyan warplanes were shot down by the U.S. off the Libyan coast]].<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 202.</ref> Many African states opposed the UN sanctions, with Mandela criticising them on a visit to Gaddafi in October 1997, when he praised Libya for its work in fighting apartheid and awarded Gaddafi the [[Order of Good Hope]].<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 205–206.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 147">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 147.</ref> They would only be suspended in 1998 when Libya agreed to allow the extradition of the suspects to the [[Scottish Court in the Netherlands]], in a process overseen by Mandela.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 206.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 146–148.</ref> |
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===Pan-Africanism, reconciliation and privatization: 1999–2011=== |
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[[File:Muammar al-Gaddafi-2-30112006.jpg|thumb|left|150px|right|Muammar Gaddafi wearing an insignia showing the image of the African continent.]] |
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As the 20th century came to a close, Gaddafi increasingly rejected Arab nationalism, frustrated by the failure of his Pan-Arab ideals; instead he turned to [[Pan-Africanism]], emphasising Libya's African identity.<ref name="Bruce St John 227">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 227.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 142">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 142.</ref> From 1997 to 2000, Libya initiated cooperative agreements or bilateral aid arrangements with ten African states.<ref name="Bruce St John 229">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 229.</ref> In June 1999, Gaddafi visited South Africa, visiting his friend, Mandela;<ref name="Bruce St John 226">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 226.</ref> the following month he attended the OAU summit in Algiers, calling for greater political and economic integration across the continent and advocating the foundation of a [[United States of Africa]].<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 227–228.</ref> He became one of the founding figureheads of the [[African Union]] (AU), initiated in July 2002 to replace the OAU; at the opening ceremonies, he proclaimed that African states should reject conditional aid from the developed world, a direct contrast to the message of South African President [[Thabo Mbeki]].<ref name="Bruce St John 229">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 229.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 190">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 190.</ref> At the third AU summit, held in Libya in July 2005, he called for a greater level of integration, advocating a single AU passport, a common defense system and a single currency, utilising the slogan: "The United States of Africa is the hope."<ref name="Bruce St John 230">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 230.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 190–191.</ref> In June 2005, Libya joined the [[Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa]] (COMESA),<ref name="Bruce St John 231">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 231.</ref> and in August 2008 Gaddafi was proclaimed "King of Kings" by an assembled committee of traditional African leaders.<ref name="Kawczynski 188">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 188.</ref><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 270–271.</ref> On 1 February 2009, a '[[coronation]] ceremony' in [[Addis Ababa]], Ethiopia, was held to coincide with the 53rd African Union Summit, at which Gaddafi was elected chairman of the African Union for the year.<ref name="Kawczynski 190">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 190.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 272">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 272.</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Malone|first=Barry|title=Gaddafi pushes for union after election to head AU|url=http://uk.reuters.com/article/2009/02/02/idUKL2210323|accessdate=2 September 2011|date=2 February 2009|agency=Reuters|work=Reuters UK}}</ref> |
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[[File:Vladimir Putin and Muammar Gaddafi in Moscow 2 Nov 2008-2.jpeg|thumb|250px|right|During his 2008 visit to [[Russia]], Gaddafi pitched his Bedouin tent in the grounds of the [[Moscow Kremlin]]. Here he is joined by [[Russian Prime Minister]] [[Vladimir Putin]] and French singer [[Mireille Mathieu]].]] |
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The era saw Libya's return to the international arena. In 1999, Libya began secret talks with the British government to normalise relations.<ref name="Vandewalle11 215">[[#Van11|Vandewalle 2011]]. p. 215.</ref> In 2001, Gaddafi condemned the [[September 11 attacks]] on the U.S. by [[al-Qaeda]], expressing sympathy with the victims and calling for Libyan involvement in the [[War on Terror]] against militant Islamism.<ref name="Vandewalle11 220">[[#Van11|Vandewalle 2011]]. p. 220.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 243">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 243.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 176">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 176.</ref> His government continued suppressing domestic Islamism, at the same time as Gaddafi called for the wider application of ''sharia'' law.<ref name="Bruce St John 254">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 254.</ref> Libya also cemented connections with China and North Korea, being visited by Chinese Premier [[Jiang Zemin]] in April 2002.<ref name="Bruce St John 235">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 235.</ref> Influenced by the events of the [[Iraq War]], in December 2003, Libya renounced its possession of [[Weapon of mass destruction|weapons of mass destruction]], decommissioning its chemical and nuclear weapons programs.<ref name="Vandewalle 51">[[#Van08|Vandewalle 2008]]. p. 51.</ref><ref name="Vandewalle11 217">[[#Van11|Vandewalle 2011]]. p. 217.</ref><ref name="Bruce St John 244">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 244.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 162, 184.</ref> Relations with the U.S. improved as a result,<ref name="Bruce St John 245">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 245.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 178–179.</ref> while U.K. Prime Minister [[Tony Blair]] met with Gaddafi in the Libyan desert in March 2004.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 240–241.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 163–164.</ref> The following month, Gaddafi travelled to the headquarters of the [[European Union]] (EU) in [[Brussels]], signifying improved relations between Libya and the EU, the latter ending its remaining sanctions in October.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 237.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 175">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 175.</ref> In October 2010, the EU paid Libya €50 million to stop African migrants passing into Europe; Gaddafi encouraged the move, saying that it was necessary to prevent the creation of a "Black Europe".<ref name="Bruce St John 274">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 274.</ref> |
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Removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2006,<ref name="Kawczynski 176">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 176.</ref> Gaddafi nevertheless continued his anti-western rhetoric, and at the [[Second Africa-South America Summit]] on [[Isla Margarita]], Venezuela in September 2009, joined Venezuelan President [[Hugo Chávez]] in calling for an "anti-imperialist" front across Africa and Latin America. Gaddafi proposed the establishment of a South Atlantic Treaty Organization to rival [[NATO]].<ref>{{registration required|date=November 2011}}{{Cite news |
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|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6851632.ece |title=Gaddafi proposes 'Nato of the South' at South America-Africa summit |date=28 September 2009 |work=The Times|location=UK |author=Hannah Strange |accessdate=29 September 2009 }}</ref> On 23 September 2009, Gaddafi addressed the [[United Nations General Assembly]] in [[New York City|New York]] for the first time, using it to condemn western aggression.<ref name="Bruce St John 276">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 276.</ref><ref name="Ed Pilkington">{{cite news|author=Ed Pilkington|location= New York |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/23/gaddafi-un-speech |title=UN general assembly: 100 minutes in the life of Muammar Gaddafi|work=The Guardian |date= 23 September 2009|accessdate=1 September 2011 }}</ref><ref name="Neil MacFarquhar">{{cite news|author=Neil MacFarquhar|location= New York |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/world/24nations.html |title=Libyan Leader Delivers a Scolding in U.N. Debut|date= 23 September 2009|accessdate=28 June 2012|work=The New York Times}}</ref> In Spring 2010, Gaddafi proclaimed ''jihad'' against [[Switzerland]] after Swiss police accused two of his family members of criminal activity in the country, resulting in the breakdown of bilateral relations.<ref name="Bruce St John 274">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 274.</ref> |
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[[File:Muammar al-Gaddafi-6-30112006.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Muammar Gaddafi at the podium the first Africa-Latin America summit, in 2006, in [[Abuja]] ([[Nigeria]]).]] |
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The Libyan economy witnessed increasing privatization; although rejecting the socialist policies of nationalized industry advocated in ''The Green Book'', government figures asserted that they were forging "people's socialism" rather than capitalism.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 250.</ref> Gaddafi welcomed these reforms, calling for widescale privatization in a March 2003 speech.<ref name="Vandewalle11 224">[[#Van11|Vandewalle 2011]]. p. 224.</ref> In 2003, the oil industry was largely turned over to private corporations,<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 247.</ref> and by 2004, there was $40 billion of direct foreign investment in Libya, a sixfold rise on 2003.<ref name="ReferenceB">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 248.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 180">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 180.</ref> Sectors of the Libyan population reacted against these reforms with public demonstrations,<ref name="ReferenceB"/> and in March 2006, revolutionary hardliners took control of the GPC cabinet; although scaling back the pace of change, they did not halt them.<ref name="Vandewalle11 228">[[#Van11|Vandewalle 2011]]. p. 228.</ref><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 249–250.</ref> In 2010, plans were announced that would have seen half the Libyan economy privatized over the following decade.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 263–264.</ref> While there was no accompanying political liberalization, with Gaddafi retaining predominant control,<ref name="Vandewalle11 231">[[#Van11|Vandewalle 2011]]. p. 231.</ref> in March 2000, the government devolved further powers to the municipal councils.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 257.</ref> Rising numbers of reformist technocrats attained positions in the country's governance; best known was Gaddafi's son and heir apparent [[Saif al-Islam Gaddafi]], who was openly critical of Libya's human rights record. He led a group who proposed the drafting of the new constitution, although it was never adopted, and in October 2009 was appointed to head the PSLC.<ref name="Vandewalle11 225">[[#Van11|Vandewalle 2011]]. p. 225.</ref><ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 249–269.</ref> Involved in encouraging tourism, Saif founded several privately run media channels in 2008, but after criticising the government they were nationalised in 2009.<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 216, 227–228.</ref> |
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==Libyan civil war== |
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{{main|Muammar Gaddafi's response to the Libyan civil war|Libyan civil war}} |
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{{See also|LSE Libya Links|US domestic reactions to the 2011 military intervention in Libya}} |
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===Origins: February–March 2011=== |
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[[File:Protest In Dublin Gaddafi Is A Murderer.jpg|thumb|280px|People protesting against Gaddafi in [[Dublin]], [[Ireland]], March 2011.]] |
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In 2011, anti-government protests broke out in Tunisia and Egypt, marking the start of the [[Arab Spring]].<ref name="Bruce St John 278">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 278.</ref><ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 241–242.</ref> Gaddafi spoke out in favour of Tunisian President [[Zine El Abidine Ben Ali]], announcing that to satisfy his people, he should introduce the ''jammahariyah'' system to Tunisia.<ref name="Bruce St John 278"/> Fearing domestic protest, the Libyan government implemented preventative measures, reducing food prices, purging the army leadership of potential defectors and releasing a number of Islamist prisoners.<ref name="Bruce St John 282-83">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 282–283.</ref> They proved inneffective, and on 17 February 2011, major political protests began in Libya against Gaddafi's government. Many of the reasons for the uprising differed from those of Tunisia and Egypt; unlike those nations, Libya did not have a large Islamist support base or civic movement and was largely religiously homogenous; however, there was much dissatisfaction with the corruption and entrenched systems of patronage that were associated with Gaddafi's regime, and unemployment had reached around 30%.<ref>[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. pp. 279–281.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 231">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 231.</ref> Gaddafi accused the rebels of being "drugged" and linked to al-Qaeda, proclaiming that he would die a [[martyr]] rather than leave Libya.<ref name="Kawczynski 242">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 242.</ref> Proclaiming that the rebels would be "hunted down street by street, house by house and wardrobe by wardrobe",<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 242–243.</ref> the armed forces opened fire on protests in Benghazi, killing hundreds.<ref name="Bruce St John 283">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 283.</ref> Shocked at the heavy handed response, a number of senior politicians resigned or defected to the protester's side.<ref name="Vandewalle11 236"/><ref name="Bruce St John 284">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 284.</ref> |
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The uprising spread quickly through eastern Libya, which had seen less economic investment than the western half.<ref name="Vandewalle11 236">[[#Van11|Vandewalle 2011]]. p. 236.</ref> By the end of February, several cities, including Benghazi, Misrata, al-Bayda and Tobruk, had proclaimed themselves liberated from the Gaddafi regime.<ref name="Bruce St John 284"/> A Benghazi-based organisation calling itself the [[National Transitional Council]] (NTC) appeared that month, to represent the protest movement.<ref name="Bruce St John 286"/><ref name="HRW 16">[[#HRW12|Human Rights Watch 2012]]. p. 16.</ref> Nevertheless, in the early months of the conflict it appeared that the government – with its greater firepower – would be victorious.<ref name="Vandewalle11 236"/> The Gaddafist military relied heavily on the [[Khamis Brigade]] – led by his son [[Khamis Gaddafi]] – as well as on loyal tribal leaders,<ref name="The Jamestown Foundation">{{cite web |url=http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=37551&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=7&cHash=f0b3ef8200af7c3a039bc6f593c6ffc6 |title=Special Commentary: Can African Mercenaries Save the Libyan Regime? | date=23 February 2011 |publisher=The Jamestown Foundation}}</ref> and foreign mercenaries.<ref>{{cite news |
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|url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703498804576157460505874944.html |coauthors=Margaret Coker, Charles Levinson and Tahani Karrar-Lewsley |title=Gadhafi Battles to Hang On |work=The Wall Street Journal |date=22 February 2011 |
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|accessdate=22 February 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1102/25/pmt.01.html|title=Defying Gadhafi's Crackdown; Analysis With Dr. Drew Pinsky; Interview With Kevin Smith |publisher=CNN |accessdate=20 October 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/is-libyas-gaddafi-turning-to-foreign-mercenaries/ | title=Is Gaddafi turning to foreign mercenaries? |date=24 February 2011 |publisher=Trust}}</ref> Both sides disregarded the [[laws of war]], committing human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests, torture, extrajudicial executions and revenge attacks.<ref name="HRW 17-18">[[#HRW12|Human Rights Watch 2012]]. pp. 17–18.</ref> Responding to the bloodshed, on 26 February the [[United Nations Security Council]] passed [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 1970|Resolution 1970]], suspending Libya from the [[UN Human Rights Council]], implementing sanctions and calling for an investigation by the [[International Criminal Court]] (ICC) into the killing of unarmed civilians.<ref name="Vandewalle11 236"/><ref name="Bruce St John 284"/><ref name="HRW 16"/> In March, the Security Council declared a [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973|no fly zone]] to protect the civilian population from aerial bombardment, calling on foreign nations to enforce it; it also specifically prohibited foreign occupation.<ref name="Vandewalle11 236"/><ref name="HRW 16"/> Ignoring this, Qatar sent hundreds of troops to support the dissidents, and along with France and the United Arab Emirates began providing the NTC with weaponry and training.<ref name="HRW 16">[[#HRW12|Human Rights Watch 2012]]. p. 16.</ref> |
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===NATO intervention: March–August 2011=== |
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A week after the implementation of the no-fly zone, [[NATO]] announced that it would enforce it.<ref name="Vandewalle11 236"/><ref name="Bruce St John 284"/> |
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On 30 April the Libyan government claimed that a [[NATO]] airstrike killed [[Saif al-Arab Gaddafi|Gaddafi's sixth son]] and three of his grandsons at his son's home in Tripoli. Government officials said that Gaddafi and his wife were visiting the home when it was struck, but both were unharmed. Gaddafi son's death came one day after the Libyan leader appeared on state television calling for talks with NATO to end the airstrikes which had been hitting Tripoli and other Gaddafi strongholds since the previous month. Gaddafi suggested there was room for negotiation, but he vowed to stay in Libya. Western officials remained divided over whether Gaddafi was a legitimate military target under the [[United Nations Security Council]] resolution that authorized the air campaign. [[U.S. Secretary of Defense]] [[Robert Gates]] said that NATO was "not targeting Gaddafi specifically" but that his command-and-control facilities were legitimate targets—including a facility inside his sprawling Tripoli compound that was hit with airstrikes 25 April.<ref>{{cite news|first1=Simon|last1=Denyer|first2=Leila|last2=Fadel|title=Gaddafi’s youngest son killed in NATO airstrike; Russia condemns attack|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/gaddafi-calls-for-cease-fire-as-nato-strikes-tripoli/2011/04/30/AF1jZsNF_story.html|accessdate=21 January 2012|work=Washington Post|date=30 April 2011|location=Tripoli|agency=Associated Press}}</ref> |
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[[File:Gaddafi's residence - Flickr - Al Jazeera English (4).jpg|thumb|left|300px|Gaddafi's residence in [[Benghazi]] during the civil war that ousted him from power.]] |
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On 27 June, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and his brother-in-law [[Abdullah Senussi]], head of state security for charges, concerning crimes against humanity.<ref name="iccwarrant"/><ref name="Bruce St John 286">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 286.</ref><ref name="Kawczynski 257">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 257.</ref><ref name=FTarrwarr>{{cite web|title=ICC issues arrest warrant for Gaddafi|url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/97974bb4-a0b7-11e0-b14e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1SJXQ0e7A|publisher=Financial Times (FT.com)|accessdate=16 July 2011|author=Matt Steinglass|date=28 June 2011}}</ref><ref name=TGarrwarr>{{cite news|title=War crimes court issues Gaddafi arrest warrant|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/27/muammar-gaddafi-arrest-warrant-hague|work=The Guardian|location=London |accessdate=16 July 2011|coauthors=Ian Black and David Smith|date=27 June 2011}}</ref> Libyan officials rejected the ICC, claiming that it had "no legitimacy whatsoever" and highlighting that "all of its activities are directed at African leaders".<ref name=AP_ICC>{{cite news | title = Judges order arrest of Gadhafi, son for slayings | url = http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/world/2011/06/judges-order-arrest-gadhafi-son-slayings|work=Washington Examiner|agency=Associated Press|accessdate=21 January 2012|first=Mike|last=Corder|date=27 June 2011|location=Benghazi}}</ref> That month, [[Amnesty International]] published their findings, in which they asserted that many of the accusations of mass human rights abuses made against Gaddafist forces lacked credible evidence, and were instead fabrications of the rebel forces which had been readily adopted by the western media.<ref name="AmnestyRape">{{cite news|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/amnesty-questions-claim-that-gaddafi-ordered-rape-as-weapon-of-war-2302037.html|title=Amnesty questions claim that Gaddafi ordered rape as weapon of war|date=24 June 2011|work=The Independent|location=London |accessdate=26 June 2011|first=Patrick|last=Cockburn}}</ref> On 15 July 2011, at a meeting in Istanbul, over 30 governments recognised the NTC as the legitimate government of Libya. Gaddafi responded to the announcement with a speech on Libyan national television, in which he called on supporters to "Trample on those recognitions, trample on them under your feet ... They are worthless".<ref name=INDtncofficialgov/> |
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Now with NATO support in the form of air cover, the rebel militia pushed westward, defeating loyalist armies and securing control of the centre of the country. Gaining the support of [[Amazigh]] ([[Berberism|Berber]]) communities of the [[Nafusa Mountains]], who had long been persecuted as non-Arab speakers under Gaddafi, the NTC armies were able to encircle Gaddafi loyalists in several key areas of western Libya.<ref name="Bruce St John 285">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 285.</ref> In August, the rebels seized both [[Zlitan]] and [[Battle of Tripoli (2011)|Tripoli]], effectively ending the last vestiges of Gaddafist power.<ref name="Bruce St John 286">[[#Bru12|Bruce St John 2012]]. p. 286.</ref> On 25 August, the [[Arab League]] recognised the NTC to be "the legitimate representative of the Libyan state", on which basis Libya would resume its membership of the League.<ref name=taipeitimmes20110826>{{cite web|url=http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2011/08/26/2003511688 |title=Arab League gives its full backing to Libya's rebel council |work=The Taipei Times|date=26 August 2011 |accessdate=1 September 2011}}</ref> |
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===Capture and death: September–October 2011=== |
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{{main|Death of Muammar Gaddafi}} |
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Although all major cities were now under NTC control, a few towns in western Libya – such as Bani Walid, Sebha and Sirte – remained Gaddafist strongholds.<ref name="Bruce St John 286"/> Retreating to the latter after Tripoli's fall,<ref name="HRW 20">[[#HRW12|Human Rights Watch 2012]]. p. 20.</ref> Gaddafi announced his willingness to negotiate for a handover to a transitional government, a suggestion rejected by the NTC, who held out for total victory.<ref name="Bruce St John 286"/> Surrounding himself with trusted confidants and bodyguards,<ref name="HRW 20">[[#HRW12|Human Rights Watch 2012]]. p. 20.</ref> he continually moved residences to escape NTC shelling; with food, water and electricity becoming scarce, Gaddafi devoted his days to reading the Qur'an and praying.<ref name="HRW 21-22">[[#HRW12|Human Rights Watch 2012]]. pp. 21–22.</ref> On the morning of Thursday 20 October, Gaddafi broke out of Sirte's District 2 in a joint civilian-military convoy, hoping to take refuge in the Jarref Valley.<ref name="HRW 23">[[#HRW12|Human Rights Watch 2012]]. p. 23.</ref><ref name="BBC2011">{{cite news |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15390980 |title=Muammar Gaddafi: How he died|publisher=BBC News|date=22 October 2011|accessdate=22 October 2011}}</ref> At around 8.30am, NATO bombers attacked, destroying at least 14 vehicles and killing at least 53.<ref name="BBC2011"/><ref name="HRW 24-25">[[#HRW12|Human Rights Watch 2012]]. pp. 24–25.</ref> The convoy scattered, and Gaddafi and those closest to him fled to a nearby villa, which was shelled by rebel militia from Misrata. Fleeing to a construction site, Gaddafi and his inner consort hid inside drainage pipes while his bodyguards battled the rebels; in the conflict, Gaddafi suffered head injuries from a grenade blast while defence minister [[Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr]] was killed.<ref name="HRW 26-27">[[#HRW12|Human Rights Watch 2012]]. pp. 26–27.</ref><ref name="BBC2011"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://allafrica.com/stories/201110271091.html |title=Gaddafi's Last Stand in Sirte |publisher=allAfrica.com|accessdate=27 October 2011}}</ref> |
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Overwhelming the loyalists, a Misratan militia took Gaddafi prisoner, beating him and stabbing him in the anus with a bayonet, causing serious injuries; the events were filmed on a cell phone, accompanied by cries of "Allahu Akbar!" and "Misrata!". Pulled onto the front of a pick-up truck, he fell off as it drove away. His semi-naked, lifeless body was then placed into an ambulance and taken to Misrata; upon arrival, he was found to be dead.<ref name="HRW 28-29">[[#HRW12|Human Rights Watch 2012]]. pp. 28–29.</ref> Official NTC accounts claimed that Gaddafi was caught in a cross-fire and died from his bullet wounds.<ref name="BBC2011"/> Other eye-witness accounts claimed that rebels had shot Gaddafi to death in the stomach;<ref name="BBC2011"/> a rebel identifying himself as Senad el-Sadik el-Ureybi later claimed responsibility.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4138000,00.html |title=Libyan rebel: I killed Gaddafi – Israel News, Ynetnews |publisher=Ynetnews.com |date=20 June 1995 |accessdate=25 March 2012}}</ref> Gaddafi's son [[Mutassim Gaddafi|Mutassim]], who had also been among the convoy, was also captured, and found dead several hours later, most probably from an extrajudicial execution.<ref name="HRW 32-33">[[#HRW12|Human Rights Watch 2012]]. pp. 32–33.</ref> Around 140 Gaddafi loyalists were rounded up from the convoy; tied up and abused, the corpses of 66 were found at the nearby Mahari Hotel, victims of extrajudicial execution.<ref name="HRW 34-40">[[#HRW12|Human Rights Watch 2012]]. pp. 34–40.</ref> Libya's chief forensic pathologist, Dr. Othman al-Zintani, carried out the autopsies of Gaddafi, his son and Jabr in the days following their death; although initially telling press that Gaddafi had died from a gunshot wound to the head, the autopsy report was not made public.<ref name="HRW 43">[[#HRW12|Human Rights Watch 2012]]. p. 43.</ref> |
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On the afternoon of Gaddafi's death, NTC Prime Minister [[Mahmoud Jibril]] publicly revealed the news.<ref name="BBC2011"/> |
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His corpse was placed in the freezer of a local market alongside the corpses of Yunis Jabr and Mutassim; the bodies were publicly displayed for four days, with Libyans from all over the country coming to view them.<ref>{{cite web|title=Report: Libyan militias executed dozens, possibly including Gadhafi|url=http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/17/report-libyan-militias-executed-dozens-possibly-including-gadhafi/|publisher=CNN|accessdate=18 October 2012}}</ref> In response to international calls, on 24 October Jibril announced that a commission would investigate Gaddafi's death.<ref name="HRW 44">[[#HRW12|Human Rights Watch 2012]]. p. 44.</ref> On 25 October, the NTC announced that Gaddafi had been buried at an unidentified location in the desert; [[Al Aan TV]] showed amateur video footage of the funeral.<ref>{{cite news|last=Mousa|first=Jenan|title=تجهيز جثمان القذافي للدفن في الصحراء الليبية – صور حصرية|url=http://akhbar.alaan.tv/video/alaan-reports/Processing-Gaddafi-body-burial-Libyan-desert/|accessdate=28 October 2011|newspaper=Akhbar Alaan}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Letterman|first=David|title=David Letterman – Qaddafi Funeral Top Ten|url=http://www.cbs.com/late_night/late_show/video/?pid=R5oOkuYNaSsrlwuqJ9a7YItKQ5FmdDyn&vs=Default&play=true|accessdate=28 October 2011|newspaper=CBS}}</ref> |
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==Ideology== |
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{{main|Political ideology of Muammar Gaddafi}} |
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[[File:Muammar al-Gaddafi, 12th AU Summit, 090202-N-0506A-324.jpg|thumb|200px|Muammar Gaddafi attends the 12th African Union Summit in [[Addis Ababa]], [[Ethiopia]], in February 2009.]] |
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During his school days in Sabha, Gaddafi adopted the ideologies of [[Arab nationalism]] and [[Arab socialism]], influenced in particular by [[Nasserism]], the thought of Egyptian revolutionary and president [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]], whom Gaddafi adopted as his hero.<ref name=autogenerated2>{{cite web|url=http://www.mathaba.net/gci/theory/gb3.htm#SOCIAL |title=The Green Book, Third Volume "The Social Basis of the Third World Theory", The Social Basis of the Third World Theory |publisher=Mathabba.net |accessdate=14 February 2010}}</ref> During the early 1970s, he formulated his own particular approach to Arab nationalism and socialism, known as [[Third International Theory]], the principles of which were laid out in the three volumes of ''[[The Green Book (Libya)|The Green Book]]''. |
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Raised within the [[Sunni Islam|Sunni]] branch of [[Islam]], Gaddafi called for the implementation of ''[[sharia]]'' – the Islamic law laid out in the [[Qur'an]] – within Libya.<ref name="Mohamed Eljhami"/> |
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Gaddafi's ideology was largely based on [[Nasserism]], blending [[Arab nationalism]],<ref name=autogenerated2>{{cite web|url=http://www.mathaba.net/gci/theory/gb3.htm#SOCIAL |title=The Green Book, Third Volume "The Social Basis of the Third World Theory", The Social Basis of the Third World Theory |publisher=Mathabba.net |accessdate=14 February 2010}}</ref> aspects of the [[welfare state]], and what Gaddafi termed "popular democracy",<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mathaba.net/gci/theory/gb1.htm#popular |title=The Green Book, First Volume "The Solution of the Problem of Democracy", Popular Conferences and People's Committees. "Popular Conferences are the only means to achieve popular democracy" |publisher=Mathaba.net |accessdate=14 February 2010}}</ref> or more commonly "direct, [[popular democracy]]". He called this system "[[Islamic socialism]]", as he disfavored the [[atheism|atheistic]] quality of communism. While he permitted private control over small companies, the government controlled the larger ones. Welfare, "liberation" (or "emancipation" depending on the translation),<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mathaba.net/gci/theory/gb2.htm#DOMESTIC |title=The Green Book, Second Volume "The Solution of the Economic Problem", Domestic Servants |publisher=Mathaba.net |accessdate=14 February 2010}}</ref> and education<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mathaba.net/gci/theory/gb3.htm#EDUCATE |title=The Green Book, Third Volume "The Social Basis of the Third World Theory", Education |publisher=Mathaba.net |accessdate=14 February 2010}}</ref> were emphasized. He also imposed a system of Islamic morals<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mathaba.net/gci/theory/gb1.htm#law |title=The Green Book, First Volume "The Solution of the Problem of Democracy", The Law of Society |publisher=Mathaba.net |accessdate=14 February 2010}}</ref><ref>Constitutional Declaration of Libya, Article 2. «The Holy Qur'an is the social code in the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, since authority belongs solely to the people, by whom it is exercised through people's congresses, people's committees, trade unions, federations and professional associations (the General People's Congress, the working procedures of which are established by law).»</ref> and outlawed imbibing alcohol and gambling. School holidays were cancelled to allow the teaching of Gaddafi's ideology in the summer of 1973.<ref name="Mohamed Eljhami"/> |
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In 2007, he suggested a [[One-state solution|single-state solution]] to the [[Israeli–Palestinian conflict]], at first saying "This is the fundamental solution, or else the Jews will be annihilated in the future, because the Palestinians have [strategic] depth".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2011/09/20119493450743624.html|title=Gaddafi as orator: A life in quotes|date=20 October 2011|accessdate=10 November 2011|publisher=Al Jazeera}}</ref> In 2009, in a ''New York Times'' commentary, he wrote that a single-state solution would "move beyond old conflicts and look to a unified future based on shared culture and respect."<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/opinion/22qaddafi.html "The One-State Solution"], ''The New York Times'', 22 January 2009.</ref> |
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During Gaddafi's speech to the [[United Nations General Assembly]] on 23 September 2009,<ref>{{cite web | url=http://archive.is/2OfV |title=Gadafi's speech to the UN General Assembly(2009) |accessdate=29 September 2009 }}</ref> he blamed the United Nations for failing to prevent 65 wars<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.un.org/ga/64/generaldebate/LY.shtml |title=General Debate of the 64th Session (2009) – Statement Summary and UN Webcast |accessdate=24 September 2009 }}</ref> and claimed that the [[Security Council]] had too much power and should be abolished.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_6451.shtml |title=Gadhafi: UN Security Council is undemocratic|publisher=Finalcall.com |accessdate=14 February 2010}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/world/24nations.html|title=Libyan Leader Delivers a Scolding in UN Debut |date=23 September 2009 |work=The New York Times| first= Neil | last= MacFarqhuar |accessdate=19 January 2011 }}</ref> He demanded that Europe pay its former colonies $7.77 trillion dollars to pay for past imperialism or face "mass immigration".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9n5JnH9wYU&feature=related |title=Dictator Gaddafi demands 7 trillion dollars from Europe "or face mass immigration". At UN 09-23-09 |publisher=YouTube |accessdate=1 September 2011}}</ref> |
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==Personal and public life== |
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Gaddafi held an [[Doctor honoris causa|honorary degree]] from [[Megatrend University]] in [[Belgrade]], which was conferred upon him by former Yugoslavian president [[Zoran Lilić]].<ref>{{cite news| url=http://standartnews.com/en/article.php?d=2007-03-03&article=3589| publisher=Standart News|language=Bulgarian|title=Impostor Defends Bulgarian Nurses before Gaddafi| date=3 March 2007 |accessdate=6 April 2007}}</ref> |
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On 25 February 2011, [[HM Treasury|Britain's Treasury]] set up a specialised unit to trace Gaddafi's assets in Britain.<ref name=DT>[[Michael Burleigh|Burleigh, Michael]]. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/8348184/Exposed-Gaddafi-Inc..html "Exposed: Gaddafi Inc."], ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', 26 February 2011.</ref> Gaddafi allegedly worked for years with Swiss banks to launder international banking transactions.<ref name=risen>{{cite news |author=[[James Risen|Risen, James]]; [[Eric Lichtblau|Lichtblau, Eric]] | date=9 March 2011 |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/world/africa/10qaddafi.html|title=Hoard of Cash Lets Qaddafi Extend Fight Against Rebels |work=The New York Times |accessdate=10 March 2011}}</ref> In November 2011, ''The Sunday Times'' identified property worth £1 billion in the UK that Gaddafi owned.<ref>{{registration required|date=November 2011}}{{cite news| last= Kerbaj |first= Richard | date= 6 November 2011|title=Gaddafi's £1bn UK Properties|work=The Sunday Times| url= http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/world_news/Middle_East/libya/article815465.ece | accessdate=13 November 2011 }}</ref> Gaddafi had an [[Airbus A340]] [[private jet]], which he bought from [[Al-Waleed bin Talal|Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal]] of [[Saudi Arabia]] for $120 million in 2003.<ref>{{registration required|date=November 2011}}{{cite news | url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6802746.ece|title=Lockerbie bomber’s private jet to freedom courtesy of Gaddafi|work=The Times|location= London |date=20 August 2009| accessdate=29 August 2011|first1= David| last1= Brown |first2= Charlene |last2= Sweeney |first3= Richard| last3= Kerbaj}}</ref> Operated by [[Tripoli]]-based [[Afriqiyah Airways]] and decorated externally in their colours, it was used in 2009 to repatriate [[Lockerbie bomber]] [[Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi]], on his licensed release from prison in Scotland. The plane was captured at Tripoli airport in August 2011 as a result of the Libyan civil war, and found by [[BBC News]] reporter [[John Simpson (journalist)|John Simpson]] to contain various luxuries including a [[jacuzzi]].<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BoT4eBWOuU |title=Inside Gaddafi's Plane | date=27 August 2011 |publisher=YouTube |accessdate=1 September 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8728361/Libya-Gaddafis-private-jet-becomes-leather-lined-lounge-for-rebels.html|title=Libya: Gaddafi's private jet becomes leather-lined lounge for rebels| first= Gordon |last = Rayner|work=The Telegraph|date=29 August 2011|accessdate=29 August 2011|location=London}}</ref> |
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=== Marriages and children === |
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[[File:Mutassim Gadaffi Hilary Clinton.jpg|thumb|Muammar Gaddafi's son Mutassim with [[Hillary Clinton]], Treaty Room, Washington, DC, 21 April 2009.]] |
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Gaddafi's first wife was Fatiha al-Nuri (1969–1970). His second wife was [[Safia Farkash]] (1970–2011),<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2012/sc10541.doc.htm |title=United Nations – SC/10541 |publisher=United Nations |accessdate=25 March 2012}}</ref> née el-Brasai, a former nurse from Obeidat tribe born in [[Bayda, Libya|Bayda]].<ref name=cbcnews>{{Cite news|first=Ryab|last=Charkow|title= Moammar Gadhafi and his family|url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/02/22/f-gadhafi-family.html|work=[[CBC News]]|date=22 February 2011 |accessdate=22 February 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/africa/9906/06/safrica.elex/index.html|title=Mandela hails South Africa election results|publisher=CNN|date=6 June 1999|accessdate=28 February 2011}}</ref> He met her in 1969, following the revolt, when he was hospitalized with appendicitis; the couple remained married until his death. Gaddafi had eight biological children, seven of them sons. |
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* [[Muhammad Gaddafi]] (born 1970), his eldest son, was the only child born to Gaddafi's first wife, and ran the Libyan Olympic Committee.<ref name=cbcnews/> |
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* [[Saif al-Islam Gaddafi]] (born 25 June 1972), his second son, is an architect who was long-rumoured to be Gaddafi's successor. He was a spokesman to the Western world and he has negotiated treaties with Italy and the United States. He was viewed as politically moderate, and in 2006, after criticizing his father's government, he briefly left Libya. |
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* [[Al-Saadi Gaddafi]] (born 25 May 1973), is a professional [[association football|football player]]. Al-Saadi is currently living in Niger.<ref>[http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/08/us-niger-gaddafi-idUSBRE8870DW20120908 Niger denies it has said Gaddafi son can leave]</ref> |
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* [[Mutassim Gaddafi]] (18 December 1974 – 20 October 2011), Gaddafi's fourth son, was a Lieutenant Colonel in the [[Libyan Army (1951–2011)|Libyan Army]]. He later served as Libya's National Security Advisor. He was seen as a possible successor to his father, after Saif al-Islam. Mutassim was killed along with his father during the [[Battle of Sirte (2011)|Battle of Sirte]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-oct-20-2011-2013 |title=Libya – 20 October 2011|work=Al Jazeera|date=20 October 2011 |accessdate=25 March 2012}}</ref> |
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* [[Hannibal Muammar Gaddafi]] (born 20 September 1975),<ref>{{cite web|title=INTERPOL issues global alert following threat identified in UN sanctions resolution targeting Libya's Colonel Al-Qadhafi and others|url=http://www.interpol.int/News-and-media/News-media-releases/2011/PR015|publisher=[[Interpol]]|accessdate=21 October 2011|date=4 March 2011|page=3}}</ref> is a former employee of the General National Maritime Transport Company, a company that specialized in oil exports. |
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* [[Ayesha Gaddafi]] (born 1976), Gaddafi's only biological daughter, is a lawyer who joined the defence teams of executed former Iraqi leader [[Saddam Hussein]] and Iraqi journalist [[Muntadhar al-Zaidi]].<ref name=cbcnews/> She is married to her father's cousin. She fled to neighbouring [[Algeria]] with her mother and two of her brothers, where she gave birth to her fourth child. |
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* [[Saif al-Arab Gaddafi]] (1982 – 30 April 2011) was appointed a military commander in the [[Libyan Army (1951–2011)|Libyan Army]] during the [[Libyan civil war]]. Saif al-Arab and three of Gaddafi's grandchildren were killed by a NATO bombing in April 2011.<ref>"Qaddafi Is Said to Survive NATO Airstrike That Kills Son" ''The New York Times'', 30 April 2011 [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/world/africa/01libya.html]</ref> |
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* [[Khamis Gaddafi]] (27 May 1983), his seventh son, was serving as the commander of the Libyan Army's elite [[Khamis Brigade]]. He was reported captured or killed on several different occasions during the Libyan revolution. |
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He is also said to have adopted two children, Hanna and Milad.<ref>{{cite web|title=Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi v. ''The Daily Telegraph''|date=21 August 2002|url=http://www.libya-watanona.com/news/n21aug2a.htm|accessdate=9 August 2008}}</ref><ref>[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12531442 The Gaddafi family tree], BBC News, 21 February 2011</ref> |
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* Hana Moammar Gadafi<ref>name spelling per English language class certificate shown in reference</ref> (claimed by Gaddafi to be his adopted daughter, but most facts surrounding this claim are disputed) was apparently killed at the age of four, during the retaliatory U.S. [[Bombing of Libya (1986)|bombing raids]] in 1986.<ref>{{cite web|author=Cliff Kincaid — 22 February 2011 |url=http://www.aim.org/aim-column/nbc%E2%80%99s-mitchell-regurgitates-gaddafi-lies/ |title=See Accuracy in Media article here |publisher=Aim.org |date=22 February 2011 |accessdate=25 March 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/09/hana-gaddafi-libyan-leader-daughter-alive-_n_922043.html|title=Hana Gaddafi, Libyan Leader's Presumed Dead Daughter, May Be Still Alive: Reports|work=Huffington Post |accessdate=1 September 2011|first=Curtis|last=Wong|date=9 August 2011}}</ref> She may not have died; the adoption may have been posthumous; or he may have adopted a second daughter and given her the same name after the first one died.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://feb17.info/news/dental-records-for-hana-gaddafi-reopen-mystery-of-libyan-leaders-daughter|title=Dental records for Hana Gaddafi reopen mystery of Libyan leader's daughter|publisher=Feb17.info|date=12 August 2011|accessdate=1 September 2011}}</ref> Following the taking by rebels of the family residence in the [[Bab al-Azizia]] compound in Tripoli, ''The New York Times'' reported evidence (complete with photographs) of Hana's life after her declared death, when she became a doctor and worked in a Tripoli hospital. Her passport was reported as showing a birth date of 11 November 1985, making her six months old at the time of the US raid.<ref>{{cite news|date=27 August 2011|newspaper=The New York Times|title=Enigmatic in Power, Qaddafi Is Elusive at Large|author=Anthony Shadid}}</ref> In August 2011 the ''[[Daily Telegraph]]'' reported on the finding of dental records relating to a Hana Gaddaffi by NLC staff taking over the London embassy. This report, which also cites her 1999 spotting by Chinese officials, cites an unnamed Libyan government spokesman as stating that Gaddafi had adopted a second daughter, and named her Hana in honor of the first one who had been killed in the 1986 raid.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8698804/Dental-records-for-Hana-Gaddafi-reopen-mystery-of-Muammar-Gaddafis-daughter.html|title=Dental Records for Hana Gaddafi reopen mystery of Muammar Gaddafi's daughter|work=The Daily Telegraph |location=London |date=12 August 2011|accessdate=30 August 2011}}</ref> |
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Gaddafi's brother-in-law, [[Abdullah Senussi]], was believed to have headed Libya's military intelligence until the Gaddafi government was overthrown.<ref name=guard>{{cite news|author=Ian Black|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/22/gaddafi-abdullah-senussi-brutal-right-hand-man|title=Gaddafi's confidant is Abdullah Senussi, a brutal right-hand man|work=The Guardian|location=UK|date=22 February 2011|accessdate=22 February 2011}}</ref> |
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He hired several Ukrainian nurses to care for his and his family's health.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/09/03/ukraine.gadhafi.nurse/|title=Gadhafi's Ukrainian nurse talks about life with 'Daddy'|publisher=CNN|date=4 September 2011|date=8 September 2011}}</ref> In 2009, it was revealed that he did not travel without his trusted Ukrainian nurse [[Halyna Kolotnytska]], noted as a "voluptuous blonde".<ref>"[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/07/wikileaks-cables-gaddafi-voluptuous-blonde WikiLeaks cables: Muammar Gaddafi and the 'voluptuous blonde']". ''The Guardian''. 7 December 2010</ref> Kolotnytska's daughter denied the suggestion that the relationship was anything but professional.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.segodnya.ua/news/14200046.html|title=Segognya|date=30 November 2010|publisher=Segodnya|accessdate=28 February 2011}}</ref> Gaddafi also allegedly made sexual advances on female journalists.<ref>{{cite web|author=Cliff Kincaid|url=http://www.aim.org/aim-column/sex-for-gadhafi-interviews/|title=Sex For Gadhafi Interviews?|publisher=Aim |date=16 April 2004|accessdate=1 September 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/opinion/03kristof.html|work=The New York Times|first=Nicholas D.|last=Kristof| title=Here's What We Can Do to Tackle Libya|date=2 March 2011}}</ref> |
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===Public image=== |
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[[File:Jakaya Kikwete and Muammar al-Gaddafi, 12th AU Summit, 090202-N-0506A-678.jpg|thumb|right|200px|[[Jakaya Kikwete]], the president of Tanzania, embraces Gaddafi during the [[African Union]] Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2 February 2009.]] |
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Gaddafi considered himself an intellectual and a philosopher.<ref name="personalprofile">{{cite news|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12488278|title=Profile: Muammar Gaddafi|publisher=BBC|date=27 June 2011 |accessdate=1 September 2011}}</ref> He was known for a flamboyant dress sense, ranging from [[safari suit]]s and sunglasses to more outlandish outfits apparently influenced by [[Liberace]] or Hollywood film characters.<ref>[[BBC]] [[Newsnight]], 21 October 2011.</ref> In 2011, a Brazilian [[plastic surgery|plastic surgeon]] told the [[Associated Press]] that Gaddafi had been his patient in 1995 to avoid appearing old to the Libyan people.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/25/gaddafi-plastic-surgery-_n_840480.html |title=Gaddafi's Plastic Surgery: Brazilian Surgeon Claims He Operated On Dictator |work=Huffington Post|accessdate=1 September 2011 |date=25 March 2011}}</ref> The Libyan postal service, [[General Posts and Telecommunications Company]] (GPTC), has issued numerous stamps, [[souvenir sheets]], [[postal stationery]], booklets, etc. relating to Gaddafi.<ref>[[Scott catalogue]] n.583 – [[Michel catalog]] (block 18)</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.libyan-stamps.com|title=Libyan Stamps online|publisher=Libyan-stamps |accessdate=14 February 2010}}</ref> |
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From early in his rule he acquired a reputation for unpredictability and eccentricity. He once said that HIV was "a peaceful virus, not an aggressive virus" and assured attendees at the [[African Union]] that "if you are [[heterosexuality|straight]] you have nothing to fear from AIDS".<ref name="rulebreaking">{{cite news|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb1402/is_2_25/ai_n29060112/ |title=The rule-breaking conduct of Qaddafi's Libya |date=November 2003 |publisher=Strategic Review for Southern Africa |work=Strategic Review for Southern Africa |first=Deon |last=Geldenhuys}}</ref> He also said that the [[Influenza A virus subtype H1N1|H1N1]] [[influenza]] virus was a biological weapon manufactured by a foreign military, and he assured Africans that the [[tsetse fly]] and [[mosquito]] were "God's armies which will protect us against colonialists". Should these 'enemies' come to Africa, "they will get [[malaria]] and [[African trypanosomiasis|sleeping sickness]]".<ref name="rulebreaking"/> On one occasion, he was reported to have said that the Christian Bible was a "forgery".<ref name=Thome>{{cite web|last=Thome |first=Wolfgang H. |url=http://www.eturbonews.com/1880/gaddafi-causes-a-stir-opens-new-national-mosq |title=Libya Gaddafi causes a stir, opens new national mosque in Uganda |publisher=eTurboNews.com |date=25 March 2008 |accessdate=1 September 2011}}</ref> |
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[[File:Gaddafi feminist.jpg|thumb|left|240px|Gaddafi with his [[Amazonian Guard]].]] |
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Beginning in the 1980s he traveled with his [[Amazonian Guard]], which was all-female, and reportedly was sworn to a life of celibacy (however, Dr. Seham Sergheva claimed in 2011 that some of them were subjected to rape and sexual abuse by Gaddafi, his sons, and senior officials<ref>Suqires, Nick [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8729685/Gaddafi-and-his-sons-raped-female-bodyguards.html Gaddafi and his sons 'raped female bodyguards'] The Telegraph, 29 August 2011. Retrieved 31 August 2011</ref>). |
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Gaddafi made very particular requests when traveling to foreign nations. During his trips to Rome, Paris, Moscow, and New York,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://abcnews.go.com/International/Politics/gaddafis-tent-blocked-stop-work-order/story?id=8649084 |title=Moammar Gadhafi Won't Stay in Bedford Tent After All|publisher=ABC|date=23 September 2009 |accessdate=28 February 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/29/nyregion/29libya.html|title=Qaddafi Cancels Plans to Stay in New Jersey|work=The New York Times|date=29 August 2009|accessdate=28 February 2011|first=Anahad |last=O'Connor}}</ref> he resided in a bulletproof tent, following his Bedouin traditions.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://abcnews.go.com/International/Politics/gaddafis-tent-blocked-stop-work-order/story?id=8649084&page=2 |title=Moammar Gadhafi Won't Stay in Bedford Tent After All|work=ABC News|date=23 September 2009|accessdate=1 September 2011}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.smh.com.au/world/when-in-rome-gaddafi-will-do-as-the-bedouins-20090610-c3ln.html|title=When in Rome, Gaddafi will do as the Bedouins|work=Sydney Morning Herald|date=11 June 2009|accessdate=14 February 2010}}</ref> While in Italy, he paid a modeling agency to find 200 young Italian women for a lecture he gave urging them to convert to Islam.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Europe should convert to Islam: Gaddafi|url= http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Europe-should-convert-to-Islam-Gaddafi/articleshow/6464781.cms|work=The Times of India|location=India|date=31 August 2010|accessdate=30 August 2010|archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20110109180255/http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Europe-should-convert-to-Islam-Gaddafi/articleshow/6464781.cms|archivedate=9 January 2011}}</ref> According to a 2009 document release by WikiLeaks,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/09/09TRIPOLI771.html|title=WikiLeaks|publisher=Wikileaks|accessdate=1 September 2011}}</ref> Gaddafi disliked flying over waters and refused to take airplane trips longer than 8 hours. His inner circle stated that he could only stay on the ground floor of buildings, and that he could not climb more than 35 steps. |
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Numerous sources have characterised Gaddafi as a dictator.<ref>Such as [[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 166.</ref> Gaddafi was noted for giving "lengthy, wandering" speeches.<ref name="Kawczynski 191">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 191.</ref> Gaddafi funded the construction of and supported two mosques in Africa. One is the largest mosque in Uganda, located on [[Kampala Mosque|Kampla Hill]] in the Old Kampala district of Kampala, Uganda.<ref name=Thome/> |
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==Legacy== |
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Gaddafi remained a controversial and divisive figure on the world stage throughout his life and after death. Supporters praised Gaddafi's administration for the creation of an almost classless society through domestic reform. They stress the regime's achievements in combating homelessness and ensuring access to food and safe drinking water. Highlighting that under Gaddafi, all Libyans enjoyed free education to a university level, they point to dramatic rise in literacy rates after the 1969 revolution. Supporters have also praised achievements in medical care, praising the universal free healthcare provided under the Gaddafist administration, with diseases like [[cholera]] and [[typhoid]] being contained and life expectancy raised.<ref name="Kawczynski 196-200">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 196–200.</ref> |
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[[File:Victims of Abu Sleem massacre.JPG|thumb|People at a Benghazi rally looking at the photos of victims of Abu Salim prison massacre (February 2011).]] |
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Critics asserted that under Gaddafi's administration, the Libyan people had lived in a climate of fear,<ref name="Kawczynski 196">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 196.</ref> criticising his government's pervasive surveillance of civilians.<ref name="Kawczynski 208">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 208.</ref> Opponents were critical of Libya's human rights abuses; those arrested often failed to receive a [[fair trial]], and were sometimes subjected to torture or extrajudicial execution, most notably in the [[Abu Salim prison]].<ref name="Kawczynski 210-212">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 210–212.</ref> He was also charged with mismanaging the economy through his experiments with socialism, with critics arguing that Libya's great oil wealth could have been better spent on domestic development.<ref name="Kawczynski 196">[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. p. 196.</ref> His government's treatment of non-Arab Libyans has also come in for criticism, with native Berbers, refugees and foreign workers all facing persecution in Gaddafist Libya.<ref>[[#Kaw11|Kawczynski 2011]]. pp. 202–203, 209.</ref> |
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International reactions to Gaddafi's death were divided. Venezuelan President [[Hugo Chavez]] said Gaddafi will be remembered "as a great fighter, a revolutionary and martyr",<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/news/regions/americas/venezuela/chavez-speaks-out-gaddafi-death |title=Chavez speaks out on Gaddafi death|publisher=GlobalPost|date=20 October 2011|accessdate=26 July 2012}}</ref> while former Cuban President [[Fidel Castro]] commented that in defying the rebels, he would "enter history as one of the great figures of the Arab nations."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.panorama.am/en/politics/2011/04/29/f-kastro/|title=Fidel Castro: If Gaddafi resists he will enter history as one of the great figures of the Arab nations|publisher=Panorama|date=29 April 2011|accessdate=1 September 2011}}</ref> [[Nelson Mandela]] remained a close friend, named his grandson after Gaddafi, was quoted as saying "In the darkest moments of our struggle, when our backs were to the wall, Muammar Gaddafi stood with us."<ref name="bbc_africa">{{cite news|last=Chothia|first=Farouk|title=What does Gaddafi's death mean for Africa?|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15392189|accessdate=29 October 2011|date=21 October 2011|work=BBC News}}</ref> Gaddafi was widely mourned as a hero across Sub-Saharan Africa;<ref name="dailytimes_ng"/><ref>{{cite news|last=Kron|first=Josh|title=Many in Sub-Saharan Africa Mourn Qaddafi's Death|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/world/africa/many-in-sub-saharan-africa-mourn-qaddafis-death.html?_r=1|accessdate=29 June 2012|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=22 October 2011}}</ref> for instance, a vigil was held by Muslims in Sierra Leone.<ref>{{cite news|last=Turay|first=Aruna| title=Sierra Leone Muslims Plan Vigil for Gaddafi|url= http://news.sl/drwebsite/publish/article_200518994.shtml|accessdate=20 May 2012|newspaper=Awareness Times}}</ref> After Gaddafi's death some of his sympathizers remained as militants, being reportedly responsible for the death of one of his captors, Omran Shaaban.<ref>[http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/120927/omran-shaban-man-who-helped-capture-gaddafi-died Gaddafi captor Omran Shaaban killed] retrieved 28 September 2012</ref> |
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During the early 1970s, the Western media typically portrayed Gaddafi in a positive manner as a freedom fighter; a ''[[Readers Digest]]'' article at the time, for example, compared his freedom-fighting ideals to [[Che Guevara]] and noted his popularity among Libyans.<ref name="dailytimes_ng">{{cite news|last=Nwonwu|first=Fred|title=Remembering Gaddafi the hero|url=http://dailytimes.com.ng/blog/remembering-gaddafi-hero|accessdate=29 October 2011|newspaper=[[Daily Times of Nigeria]]|date=27 October 2011}}</ref> This changed in the 1980s, when Gaddafi began being frequently portrayed a dictator and tyrant who was erratic, conceited, and mercurial in nature. During the Reagan administration, the United States regarded him as "public enemy number one"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.npr.org/2011/03/04/134228864/for-reagan-gadhafi-was-a-frustrating-mad-dog |title=For Reagan, Gadhafi Was A Frustrating 'Mad Dog' |publisher=NPR |accessdate=1 September 2011}}</ref> and Reagan famously dubbed him the "mad dog of the Middle East".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://middleeast.atspace.com/article_1786.html|title=The Makeover: Libya's Muammar Qaddafi |publisher=Middleeast|date=19 January 2003|accessdate=1 September 2011}}</ref> |
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==See also== |
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{{Portal|Libya}} |
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{{Portal|Biography|Cold War|Libya|Socialism}} |
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*[[History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi]] |
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*[[Human rights in Libya]] |
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*[[List of longest ruling non-royal national leaders since 1870]] |
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{{-}} |
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==Notes== |
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{{Reflist|group="nb"}} |
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==References== |
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===Footnotes=== |
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{{Reflist|25em}} |
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===Bibliography=== |
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{{refbegin}} |
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*{{cite book| title=Death of a Dictator: Bloody Vengeance in Sirte |publisher=Human Rights Watch |location= |year=2012 |url=http://www.hrw.org/reports/2012/10/16/death-dictator-0 |ref=Hum12}} |
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*{{cite book|author=Bearman, Jonathan |title=Qadhafi's Libya |publisher=Zed Books |location=London |year=1986 |isbn=978-0862324346 |ref=Bru12}} |
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*{{cite book|author=Bruce St. John, Ronald |title=Libya: From Colony to Revolution ''(revised edition)'' |publisher=Oneworld |location=Oxford |year=2012 |isbn=978-1851689194 |ref=Bru12}} |
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*{{Cite book|title=Libyan Sandstorm |first=John K. |last=Cooley |authorlink=John K. Cooley |publisher=Sidgwick & Jackson |location=London |isbn=978-0283989445 |year=1983 |ref=Coo83}} |
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*{{Cite book|title=Qaddafi, Terrorism, and the Origins of the U.S. Attack on Libya |first=Brian Lee |last=Davis |publisher=Praeger |location=New York |isbn=978-0275933024 |year=1990 |ref=Dav90}} |
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*{{Cite book|title=Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution |first=Lindsey |last=Hilsum |publisher=Faber and Faber |location=London |year=2012 |isbn=978-0571288038 |ref=Lin12}} |
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*{{cite book|authorlink=Daniel Kawczynski |last=Kawczynski |first=Daniel |title=[[Seeking Gaddafi|Seeking Gaddafi: Libya, the West and the Arab Spring]] |publisher=Biteback Publishing |location=London |year=2011 |isbn=1-849541-48-0 |ref=Kaw11}} |
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*{{cite book|author=Metz, Helen Chapin|title=Libya|publisher=[[United States Government Printing Office|US GPO]]|year=2004|url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/lytoc.html|isbn=1-4191-3012-9 |ref=harv}} |
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*{{cite book|author=Pargeter, Alice |title=Libya: The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |year=2012 |isbn=978-0300139327 |ref=Par12}} |
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*{{cite book|last=Simons |first=Geoff|authorlink=Geoff Simons|title=Libya and the West: From Independence to Lockerbie|publisher=Centre for Libyan Studies|location=Oxford|year=2003|isbn=1-86064-988-2 |ref=harv}} |
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*{{citation |last=Vandewalle |first=Dirk |contribution=Libya's Revolution in Perspective: 1969–2000 |title=Libya Since 1969: Qadhafi's Revolution Revisited |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2008 |pages=9–53 |isbn=0-230-33750-3 |ref=Van08}} |
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*{{citation |last=Vandewalle |first=Dirk |contribution=From International Reconciliation to Civil War: 2003-2011 |title=Libya Since 1969: Qadhafi's Revolution Revisited ''(revised edition)'' |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2011 |pages=215–239 |isbn=0-230-33750-3 |ref=Van11}} |
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{{refend}} |
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==External links== |
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*{{Worldcat id|lccn-n81-68638}} |
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*[http://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/552527 U.S. Policy Towards Qaddafi] from the [http://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/552494/browse?type=title Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives] |
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*{{Aljazeeratopic|person/muammar-gaddafi}} |
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*{{BBC Online|id=news/world-africa-12688033|title=The Muammar Gaddafi story}} |
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*{{Guardiantopic|world/muammar-gaddafi}} |
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*{{NYTtopic|people/q/muammar_el_qaddafi}} |
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;Articles |
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*[http://en.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-1211/i.html Libya's Last Bedouin], Rudolph Chimelli, ''[[Qantara.de]]'', 2 September 2009 |
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*[http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/32542/gaddafi-the-last-supervillain Gaddafi: The Last Supervillain?], slideshow by ''[[Life magazine]]'' |
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*[http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/17/weekinreview/the-world-qaddafi-plays-quietly-but-he-s-still-in-the-game.html Qadaffi Plays Quietly, But He's Still in the Game, ''The New York Times'', 17 March 1991] |
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{{Authority control|PND=118559060|LCCN=n/81/68638|VIAF=22147434}} |
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{{Persondata |
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| NAME = Gaddafi, Muammar |
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| ALTERNATIVE NAMES = Colonel Gaddafi |
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| SHORT DESCRIPTION = Ruler of Libya from 1969 to 1977 |
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| DATE OF BIRTH = June 1942 |
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| PLACE OF BIRTH = [[Sirte]], [[Italian Libya]] |
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| DATE OF DEATH = 20 October 2011 |
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| PLACE OF DEATH = [[Sirte]], Libya |
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}} |
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Revision as of 18:19, 16 January 2013
Muammar Gaddafi | |
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![]() Gaddafi in 2009 | |
Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution of Libya | |
In office 1 September 1969 – 20 October 2011[nb 1] | |
President | |
Prime Minister | |
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | Position abolished |
Secretary General of the General People's Congress of Libya | |
In office 2 March 1977 – 2 March 1979 | |
Prime Minister | Abdul Ati al-Obeidi |
Preceded by | Himself (Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council) |
Succeeded by | Abdul Ati al-Obeidi |
Prime Minister of Libya | |
In office 16 January 1970 – 16 July 1972 | |
Preceded by | Mahmud Sulayman al-Maghribi |
Succeeded by | Abdessalam Jalloud |
Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council of Libya | |
In office 1 September 1969 – 2 March 1977 | |
Prime Minister | |
Preceded by | Idris (King) |
Succeeded by | Himself (Secretary General of the General People's Congress) |
Chairperson of the African Union | |
In office 2 February 2009 – 31 January 2010 | |
Preceded by | Jakaya Kikwete |
Succeeded by | Bingu wa Mutharika |
Personal details | |
Born | 7 June 1942[nb 2] Qasr Abu Hadi, Libya |
Died | 20 October 2011 Sirte, Libya | (aged 69)
Resting place | Undisclosed |
Political party | Arab Socialist Union (1971–1977) Independent (1977–2011) |
Spouses |
|
Children | Sons
Daughters
|
Alma mater | Benghazi Military University Academy |
Awards | |
Signature | ![]() |
Military service | |
Allegiance | ![]() |
Branch/service | Libyan Army |
Years of service | 1961–2011 |
Rank | Colonel |
Commands | Libyan Armed Forces |
Battles/wars | |
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi[6] (Arabic: معمر محمد أبو منيار القذافي /[invalid input: 'icon']ˈmoʊ.əmɑːr ɡəˈdɑːfi/ ) (c.1942–43 – 20 October 2011), commonly known as Colonel Gaddafi,[nb 3] was a Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He served as the ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011, during which industry and business was nationalized. Politically an Arab nationalist, he formulated his own ideology, Third International Theory, later embracing Pan-Africanism and serving as Chairperson of the African Union from 2009 to 2010.
The son of an impoverished Bedouin goatherd, Gaddafi became involved in Arab nationalist politics while at school in Sabha, subsequently enrolling in the Royal Military Academy, Benghazi. Founding a revolutionary group within the ranks of the Libyan military, in 1969 he seized power from King Idris in a bloodless coup. Becoming leader of the governing Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), he dissolved the monarchy and proclaimed the Libyan Arab Republic. Ruling by decree, he implemented measures to remove foreign imperialist influence from Libya, and strengthened ties to other Arab nationalist governments. Intent on pushing Libya toward socialism, he nationalized the country's oil industry and used the increased revenues to bolster the military, implement social programs and fund revolutionary groups across the world. In 1973 he announced the start of a "Popular Revolution" with the formation of General People's Committees (GPCs), a system of direct democracy, but retained personal control over major decisions. He outlined his Third International Theory that year, publishing these ideas in The Green Book.
In 1977, he dissolved the Republic and created the Jamahiriya, officially adopting a symbolic role within the country's governance structure. He retained power as the leader of the Revolutionary Committees; founded to accompany the GPCs, they implemented revolutionary justice and suppressed opponents. Overseeing unsuccessful border conflicts with Egypt and Chad, Gaddafi's support for foreign militants led to Libya being labelled an "international pariah", with a particularly hostile relationship developing with the United States and United Kingdom. From 1999, Gaddafi encouraged the privatization of the economy, moving to integrate with the rest of Africa and seeking better relations with the West. In 2011, an anti-Gaddafist uprising led by the National Transitional Council (NTC) broke out, resulting in the Libyan civil war. NATO intervened militarily on the side of the NTC, resulting in the government's downfall. Retreating to Sirte, Gaddafi was captured and killed by NTC fighters.
Gaddafi is a controversial and highly divisive world figure, being lauded as a champion of anti-imperialism and both Arab and African nationalism, but critics have accused him of being a dictator and autocrat whose authoritarian administration oversaw multiple human rights abuses and supported international terrorism.
Early life
Childhood: 1942/43–1950
Muammar Gaddafi was born in his family tent near to Qasr Abu Hadi, a rural area outside the town of Sirte in the deserts of western Libya.[13][14] Ethnically an Arab, he came from a small, relatively unimportant tribal group called the Qadhadhfa.[14] His father, Mohammad Abdul Salam bin Hamed bin Mohammad, was known as Abu Meniar, while his mother was named Aisha; they lived off of Abu Meniar's subsistence as a goat and camel herder.[14] Nomadic Bedouin, they were illiterate and kept no birth records; as such, Gaddafi's date of birth is not known with any certainty, and sources have positioned his birth in either 1942 or in the spring of 1943.[13][14] His parents' only surviving son, he had three older sisters.[13][14] Raised in Bedouin culture, Gaddafi's upbringing influenced his personal tastes for the rest of the life; he repeatedly expressed his preference for the desert to the city, retreating there to meditate.[13][14]
At the time of his birth, Libya was occupied by Italy, witnessing the conflict between Italian and British troops as a part of the North African Campaign of World War II; as a result, Gaddafi was aware of the involvement of European colonialists in his country from childhood.[13] According to later claims, Gaddafi's paternal grandfather, Abdessalam Bouminyar, had died fighting the Italian Army in Khoms during the first battle of the Italian invasion of 1911.[15][16] At World War II's end in 1945, British and French forces had taken control of Libya, and although intending on dividing the nation between themselves, the General Assembly of the United Nations declared that the country be granted political independence. In 1951, the UN created the United Kingdom of Libya, a federal state under the leadership of a pro-western monarch, Idris, who banned political parties and established an absolute monarchy.[17][18]
Education and political activism: 1950–1963
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a7/Gamal_Abdel_Nasser_%28c._1960s%29.jpg/170px-Gamal_Abdel_Nasser_%28c._1960s%29.jpg)
Gaddafi's earliest education was provided by a local tribal teacher, comprising largely of the traditional Islamic teachings which influenced him throughout his life.[19] Subsequently moving to nearby Sirte to attend elementary school, he progressed through six grades in four years. Education in Libya was not free, and paying for it strained his impoverished family's resources. During the week he slept in the local mosque, and at weekends walked 20 miles to visit his parents.[20][21] From Sirte, he and his family moved to the market town of Sabha in Fezzan, south-central Libya. Here, his father worked as the caretaker for a local tribal leader while Muammar attended secondary school, something neither parent had done.[20][22] Gaddafi was popular at the school; some friends made there would receive significant jobs in his later administration, most notably his best friend, AbdulSalam Jalloud.[23]
Many teachers at Sabha were Egyptian, and for the first time Gaddafi had access to pan-Arab newspapers and radio broadcasts, most notably the Cairo-based Voice of the Arabs.[20][24] Growing up, Gaddafi witnessed significant events rock the Arab world, including the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, the Suez Crisis of 1956, and the short-lived existence of the United Arab Republic between 1958 and 1961.[20] Gaddafi took an active interest in the political changes being implemented in the Arab Republic of Egypt under the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser of the Arab Socialist Union, who had ascended to power in 1956. An advocate of Arab nationalism, Nasser argued for greater unity within the Arab world, the rejection of Western colonialism, neo-colonialism, and zionism, and a transition from capitalism to socialism. Such ideas inspired Gaddafi, who viewed Nasser as a hero.[20][24][25] Becoming actively involved in politics, Gaddafi helped organize demonstrations and distribute posters criticizing the monarchy.[20][24]
Such activity caught the authorities' attention, who expelled him from the school and ordered his family to leave Sabha.[20][23] Intent on finishing his secondary education, Gaddafi moved to Misrata, where he attended Misrata Secondary School.[23][26] Maintaining his interest in Arab nationalist activism, he refused to join any of the banned political parties then active in the city – including the Arab Nationalist Movement, the Arab Socialist Resurrection (Baath) Party, and the Muslim Brotherhood – claiming he rejected factionalism.[26] He read voraciously, including everything that he could find on the subjects of Nasser and the French Revolution of 1789, as well as the works of Syrian political theorist Michel Aflaq and biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Sun Yat-Sen, and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.[26]
Military training: 1963–1966
Deciding to study History at the University of Libya in Benghazi, Gaddafi soon dropped out to join the military.[27] In 1963 he began training at the Royal Military Academy, Benghazi, alongside several friends from Misrata who shared his political views. The armed forces offered the only good opportunity for upward social mobility for Libyans from underprivileged backgrounds such as himself, and was an obvious instrument of political change, having the potential for ousting Idris' absolute monarchy.[27][28] With a group of loyal cadres, in 1964 Gaddafi founded the Central Committee of the Free Officers Movement, named after the Egyptian group founded in 1949 by Nasser, devoting themselves to the revolutionary cause. Led by Gaddafi, they met clandestinely, offering their salaries into a single fund.[29] Gaddafi traveled around Libya when he could, gathering intelligence and developing connections with those sympathetic to his cause; the government's intelligence services failed to pay much attention, considering him of little threat due to his poor background.[30] Gaddafi graduated in August 1965,[27] becoming commissioned as a communications officer in the Libyan Army's signal corps.[27]
In April 1966, he was assigned to the United Kingdom for further training; over nine months he underwent an English-language course at Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, a Royal Air Corps signal instructors course in Bovington Camp, Dorset, and an infantry signal instructors course at Hythe, Kent.[27][30] Despite later rumours to the contrary, he did not attend the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.[30][31] The director of the Bovington signal course put together a report noting that Gaddafi successfully overcame early problems with learning English, displaying a firm command of voice procedure. Noting that Gaddafi's favourite hobbies were reading and playing football, he thought him an "amusing officer, always cheerful, hard-working, and conscientious."[32] Gaddafi disliked his time in England, claiming British Army officers racially insulted him and finding it difficult adjusting to the country's culture; asserting his Arab identity in London, he walked around Piccadilly wearing traditional Libyan robes. He later related that while he traveled to England believing it more advanced than Libya, he returned home "more confident and proud of our values, ideals and social character."[30][33][34]
Libyan Arab Republic
Coup d'etat: 1969
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The government of King Idris had become increasingly unpopular by the latter part of the 1960s. After the discovery of oil in Libya in 1959, the government had begun to take advantage of this, beginning the commodity's export in 1963, providing a huge boost to the country's economy. In an attempt to make the oil industry as profitable as possible, the government replaced the federal system with a centralized one, causing problems in a country that was deeply divided along regional, ethnic and tribal lines.[35] Within the oil industry, corruption was widespread, with entrenched systems of patronage.[36] Arab nationalism was becoming increasingly popular across Libya, and protests flared up in 1967, following Egypt's defeat in the Six Day War with Israel; being allies with the U.S. and European powers, the Idris administration was seen as favorable to Israel, and therefore anti-Arab. Anti-western riots broke out in Tripoli and Benghazi, while Libyan workers shut down the oil terminals in solidarity with Egypt.[37] By 1969, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency were expecting segments of the Libyan armed forces to institute a coup d'etat, but had no knowledge of Gaddafi's Free Officers Movement, instead monitoring a separate revolutionary group known as the Black Boots, led by Abdul Aziz Shalhi.[38][39]
In mid-1969, King Idris traveled abroad to spend the summer in Turkey and Greece. Gaddafi's Free Officers recognized this as their chance to overthrow the monarchy, initiating a plan that they called "Operation Jerusalem".[40] On 1 September, they occupied airports, police depots, radio stations and government offices in Tripoli and Benghazi.[40] Gaddafi addressed the populace by radio, proclaiming an end to the old regime, "the stench of which has sickened and horrified us all."[40] Idris' nephew, Crown Prince Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida al-Mahdi as-Sanussi, was formally deposed by the revolutionary officers and put under house arrest; having overthrown and abolished the monarchy, Gaddafi proclaimed the foundation of the Libyan Arab Republic.[41] They did not meet any serious resistance, and they wielded little violence against the monarchists.[40] Due to the bloodless nature of the coup, it was initially labelled the "White Revolution", although later became known as the "One September Revolution" after the date on which it occurred.[42] Gaddafi was insistent that the Free Officers' ascent to power represented not just a coup but a revolution, representing the start of a widespread change in the socioeconomic and political nature of Libyan society.[43] He would proclaim that the revolution meant "freedom, socialism, and unity" for Libya, and over the coming years would implement measures to achieve this.[44]
Consolidating leadership: 1969–1973
Setting up a new government, the 12 member central committee of the Free Unionist Officers converted themselves into a Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), who wielded control over the newly proclaimed Libyan Arab Republic.[42][45] Captain Gaddafi promoted himself to the rank of Colonel, and was recognized as both leader of the RCC as well as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, becoming the de facto head of state.[42] Although the RCC was theoretically a collegial body that operated through discussion and consensus building, from the start it was dominated by the opinions and decisions of Gaddafi,[42] although some of the others attempted to constrain what they saw as his excesses.[46] Gaddafi remained the public face of the government, with the identities of the other RCC members only being publicly revealed in the Official Gazette on 10 January 1970.[42][45] All of them were young men, from (typically rural) working and middle-class backgrounds, and none had university degrees; in this way they were all distinct from the wealthy, highly educated conservatives who had previously governed the country.[25][46] The coup completed, the RCC then proceeded with their intentions of consolidating the revolutionary government and modernizing the country.[42] As a result, they began to purge monarchists and members of Idris' Senussi clan from Libya's political world and armed forces; Gaddafi believed that this elite were opposed to the will of the Libyan people and had to be expunged.[47][48][49] They maintained the previous administration's ban on political parties, and ruled by decree.[47][50]
Economic and social reform
With crude oil being the country's primary export, Gaddafi sought to improve the position of the Libyan oil sector. In October 1969, he proclaimed that the current trade terms were unfair, benefiting foreign oil corporations more than the Libyan state, and in December the RCC began successful talks to increase the price at which they sold their country's oil by threatening to reduce production. In 1970, other OPEC states followed suit, leading to a global increase in the price of crude oil.[51][52] The RCC followed this with further talks with the oil companies operating in Libya, known as the Tripoli Agreement, in which they secured income tax, back-payments and better pricing; these measures would bring Libya an estimated $1 billion in additional revenues in its first year.[53][54] Further increasing state control over the oil sector, the RCC began a program of nationalization, starting with the expropriation of British Petroleum's share of the British Petroleum-N.B. Hunt Sahir Field in December 1971. In September 1973, this was followed by the announcement that all foreign oil producers active in the country were to be nationalized under state control. For Gaddafi, this was an important step towards establishing socialism.[53]
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The RCC also attempted to suppress regional and tribal affiliation in the country, instead replacing it with a unified pan-Libyan identity. In doing so, they tried to discredit tribal leaders, tying them to the old colonial regime, and in August 1971 a military court was assembled in Sebha to put many of them on trial for counter-revolutionary activity.[55] Long-standing administrative boundaries were re-drawn, crossing tribal boundaries, while pro-revolutionary modernizers were brought in to replace traditional leaders, but the communities that they served often rejected them for more established figures.[56] Realizing the failures of the modernizers, on 11 June 1971, Gaddafi proclaimed the creation of the Arab Socialist Union (ASU), a mass mobilization vanguard party of which he would be president. The ASU recognized the RCC as its "Supreme Leading Authority", and was designed to further revolutionary enthusiasm throughout the country.[47][57]
The RCC also implemented measures for social reform, adopting Gaddafi's Islamic moral beliefs as a basis. Sharia law was implemented, the consumption of alcohol was banned, night clubs and Christian churches were shut down, traditional Libyan dress was encouraged, Arabic was decreed as the only language permitted in official communications and road signs, and the months of the Gregorian calendar were renamed.[42][48][58] From 1969 to 1973, the government introduced social welfare programs, funded with oil money, which led to house-building projects and improved healthcare; education remained a lesser priority. In doing so, they greatly expanded the public sector, providing employment for thousands.[49][59] These early social programs proved popular within Libya.[59][60] This popularity was in part due to Gaddafi's personal charisma, virility, youth and underdog status, as well as his rhetoric emphasizing his role as the successor to the anti-Italian fighter and national hero Omar Mukhtar.[60][61]
Foreign relations
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On its ascendancy to power, the influence of Nasser's Arab nationalism over the RCC was clearly apparent.[26][45] The new administration was immediately recognized by four neighboring states with Arab nationalist governments: Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Sudan,[40] while Egypt sent experts in various fields to aid the RCC, who were unanimously inexperienced in governance.[40] Gaddafi propounded Pan-Arab ideas, proclaiming the need for a single Arab state stretching across North Africa and the Middle East; in December 1969, Libya founded the Arab Revolutionary Front with Egypt and Sudan as a step towards political unification, and the following year, Syria stated its intention to join.[62][63] After Nasser died in November 1970, his successor, Anwar Sadat, suggested that rather than a unified state, they create a political federation, implemented in April 1971; in doing so, Egypt, Syria and Sudan got large grants of Libyan oil money.[63][64] In February 1972, Gaddafi and Sadat signed an unofficial charter of merger between Libya and Egypt, but it was never implemented as relations broke down the following year. Sadat became increasingly wary of Libya's radical direction, and the September 1973 deadline for implementing the Federation passed by with no action taken, leaving it defunct.[65][66][67]
Straight after the 1969 coup, representatives of the Four Powers – France, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union – were called to meet with members of the RCC.[68] The U.K. and U.S. quickly extended diplomatic recognition to the RCC, hoping to secure the position of their military bases in the country and fearing further instability. Hoping to ingratiate themselves with Gaddafi's administration, in early 1970 the U.S. informed the Libyan regime of at least one planned counter-coup.[40][69] Such attempts to form a working relationship with the RCC failed; Gaddafi was determined to reassert Libyan national sovereignty and expunge foreign colonial and imperialist influences. The new administration insisted that the U.S. and U.K. remove their military bases from Libya, with Gaddafi proclaiming that "the armed forces which rose to express the people's revolution [will not] tolerate living in their shacks while the bases of imperialism exist in Libyan territory." The Western powers complied, with the British leaving in March and the Americans in June 1970.[39][70]
Moving to reduce Italian influence, in October 1970, all Italian-owned assets were expropriated and the 12,000-strong Italian community expelled from Libyay; the day became a national holiday.[71][72][73] Aiming to reduce the power of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the Mediterranean, in 1971 Libya requested that Malta cease to allow NATO to use its land for a military base, in turn offering to provide them with large amounts of foreign aid. Ultimately, the Maltese government continued to allow NATO to use the island for their activity, but only on the condition that they would not use it for launching an attack on any Arab country.[74] Orchestrating a military build-up, Gaddafi's RCC began purchasing weapons from France and the Soviet Union; the commercial relationship with the latter led to an increasingly strained relationship with the U.S., who were then engaged in the Cold War with the Soviets.[75]
Gaddafi was especially critical of the U.S. due to their support for Israel; Gaddafi supported the Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, viewing the 1948 creation of Israel as an oppressive indignity forced on the Arab world by Western colonialists.[76][77][78] In 1970, he initiated a Jihad Fund to finance those battling Israel,[79] and in a 11 June 1972 speech, announced the creation of the First Nasserite Volunteers Centre to train guerrillas in tactics against the Zionist state.[80][81] His relationship with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat of Fatah was strained, with Gaddafi considering him too moderate and calling for more violent action.[81][82] He funded the Black September group who perpetrated the 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli athletes in West Germany; Gaddafi had the militants' bodies flown to Libya for a hero's funeral.[82][83] Using Libya's oil wealth, Gaddafi financially supported other militant groups across the world, including the Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam in the U.S., the Provisional Irish Republican Army in the U.K., ETA in Spain, the Red Brigades in Italy, the Red Army Faction in West Germany, the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua, the Red Army in Japan, the Free Aceh Movement in Indonesia and the Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines. Gaddafi remained indiscriminate in the causes he funded, sometimes switching from supporting one side in a conflict to the other, as in the Eritrean War of Independence. Throughout the rest of the 1970s, these groups received financial support from Libya, which came to be seen as a leader in the Third World's struggle against colonialism and neocolonialism.[80][84]
The "Popular Revolution": 1973–1977
On 16 April 1973, Gaddafi gave a speech in Zuwara proclaiming the start of a "Popular Revolution" in Libya.[60][85][86] He initiated this new beginning with a five-point plan, the first point of which dissolved all existing laws, which were to be replaced by revolutionary enactments. The second point proclaimed that all opponents of the revolution had to be removed, while the third initiated an administrative revolution that Gaddafi proclaimed would remove all traces of bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie from Libya. The fourth point announced that the population must be armed to defend the revolution, while the fifth proclaimed the beginning of a cultural revolution that would expunge Libya of foreign influences.[60][86]
As a part of this Popular Revolution, Gaddafi invited the Libyan people to found General People's Committees across the country, as conduits for raising political consciousness. Although he offered little guidance for how people should go about setting up these councils, Gaddafi exclaimed that they would offer a form of direct political participation for all Libyans that was innately more democratic than a traditional party-based representative system. In doing so, he hoped that the councils would mobilize the people behind the RCC, erode the power of the traditional leaders and the traditional bureaucracy, and allow for the formation of a new revolutionary legal system chosen by the people.[86] The People's Committees led to a high percentage of public involvement in decision making, within the limits permitted by the RCC.[87] They also served as a surveillance system, aiding the security services in locating individuals with views critical of the RCC, leading to the arrest of Ba'athists, Marxists and Islamists.[87][88] The base form of these Revolutionary Committees were the local working groups, who proceeded to send elected representatives to the district level, and from that to the national level – divided between the General People's Congress and the General People's Committee – in a pyramid structure.[89] Above these Committees remained Gaddafi and the RCC, who ultimately remained responsible for all major decisions.[90]
Third Universal Theory and The Green Book
In June 1973, Gaddafi announced the creation of a political ideology that would underpin the new Popular Revolution. Referred to as "Third Universal Theory", it rejected the capitalism of the western world and the atheism of the communist powers, proclaiming that both the United States and the Soviet Union were imperialist.[91] As a part of this theory, Gaddafi praised nationalism as a progressive force and continued to advocate the creation of a pan-Arab state which would lead both the Islamic and Third Worlds against the forces of imperialism.[92] Gaddafi saw Islam as having a key role in this ideology, calling for an Islamic Revival that returned to the origins of the Qur'an, rejecting scholarly interpretations and the Hadith; in doing so he angered many Libyan clerics.[93]
Gaddafi summarized his thought regarding Third Universal Theory in three short volumes published between 1975 and 1979, that were collectively known as The Green Book. The first volume, The Solution of the Problem of Democracy: The Authority of the People, was devoted to the issue of democracy, outlining the flaws of representative systems in favor of direct, participatory democracy in the form of his Revolutionary Committees. The second, The Solution of the Economic Problem, dealt with Gaddafi's beliefs regarding socialism, while the third, The Social Basis of the Third International Theory, explored social issues regarding the family and the tribe. While the first two volumes had expressed views advocating radical reform, the third adopted a socially conservative stance, proclaiming that while men and women were equal, they were biologically designed for different roles in life.[94][95][96] In ensuing years, government supporters would adopt quotes from The Green Book, such as "Representation is Fraud", as revolutionary slogans.[97]
The swift implementation of these radical reforms led to discontent, furthered by widespread opposition to the RCC's decision to spend oil money on foreign causes, and in 1975, there were student demonstrations against Gaddafi's government. The RCC responded with mass arrests, and introduced compulsory national service for young people.[49][98] Dissent also arose from conservative clerics and the Muslim Brotherhood, many of whom began to preach against the government, subsequently being persecuted as anti-revolutionary elements.[99] Two members of the RCC, Bashir Saghir al-Hawaadi and Omar Mehishi, had become particularly concerned with Gaddafi's social experiment, and decided to launch a coup d'etat to overthrow him that year. They failed, and in the aftermath only five of the original twelve RCC members remained in power.[49][98][100] Ultimately, this led to collapse of the RCC, which would be officially abolished in March 1977.[100] Meanwhile, in September 1975 Gaddafi implemented further measures to increase popular mobilization, introducing objectives to try and improve the relationship between the Revolutionary Committees and the ASU.[100] He also began to appoint members of his family and tribe to high positions in the security and armed forces.[94]
Foreign relations
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Following Anwar Sadat's ascension to the Egyptian presidency, Libya's relations with Egypt deteriorated. Sadat was perturbed by Gaddafi's unpredictability and insistence that Egypt required a cultural revolution.[101] In February 1973, Israeli forces shot down Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA) Flight 114, which had strayed from Egyptian airspace into Israeli-held territory during a sandstorm. Gaddafi was infuriated that Egypt had not done more to prevent the incident, and in retaliation planned to destroy the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2, a British ship chartered by American Jews to sail to Haifa for Israel's 25th anniversary. Gaddafi ordered an Egyptian submarine to target the ship, but Sadat discovered and cancelled the order, fearing a military escalation.[102] The Yom Kippur War between an Egyptian-Syrian alliance and Israel also led to the deterioration of relations between the two leaders; Gaddafi was infuriated that he had not been consulted on the war plans, and was angry that Egypt eventually conceded to peace talks with Israel, believing that they should have fought on till victory.[103][104] Sadat and Gaddafi became openly hostile, the latter proclaiming that Sadat had betrayed Nasser's vision and should be overthrown.[104] Relations also deteriorated with Sudan, where Islamist President Gaafar Nimeiry had developed closer links to Egypt and the West; by 1975, Gaddafi was sponsoring merceneries to overthrow Nimeiri, who proclaimed the former to have "a split personality – both parts evil".[105][106]
Gaddafi's break with Egypt and Sudan led him to focus his attention on the rest of Africa. Expanding Libyan influence southward, in late 1972 and early 1973, Libya invaded Chad in order to annex the Aouzou Strip, a desert region suspected of containing underground uranium deposits.[107] One of his primary ambitions was to reduce Israeli influence in the continent, successfully convincing eight states to break off diplomatic relations with Israel in 1973, offering financial incentives to do so.[108][109] Intent on propagating Islam, in 1973 Gaddafi founded the Islamic Call Society, which had begun operations in 132 centers across Africa within a decade.[62] He achieved early success, in 1973 converting Gabonese President Omar Bongo to the faith, which he repeated three years later with Jean-Bédel Bokassa, president of the Central African Republic.[110] Gaddafi sought to develop closer links in the Maghreb area of northwest Africa. In January 1974, Libya and Tunisia announced a political union, forming the Arab Islamic Republic; although advocated by Gaddafi and Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba, the move was deeply unpopular within Tunisia, and soon abandoned.[111][112] Retaliating, Gaddafi sponsored anti-government militants in Tunisia into the 1980s.[112][113] Turning his attention to Algeria, in 1975, Libya signed the Hassi Messaoud defence agreement to counter the threat of Moroccan expansionism, also funding the Polisario Front of Western Sahara in their liberation struggle against Morocco.[112][114]
Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
Foundation: 1977
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On 2 March 1977 the General People's Congress adopted the "Declaration of the Establishment of the People's Authority" at Gaddafi's behest. Dissolving the Libyan Arab Republic, it was replaced by the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Arabic: الجماهيرية العربية الليبية الشعبية الاشتراكية, al-Jamāhīrīyah al-‘Arabīyah al-Lībīyah ash-Sha‘bīyah al-Ishtirākīyah), a "state of the masses" conceptualized by Gaddafi.[115][116] Officially, the Jamahiriya was a direct democracy in which the people ruled themselves through Basic People's Congresses, where all adult Libyans participated and voted on national decisions. In principle, the People's Congresses were Libya's highest authority, with major decisions proposed by government officials or Gaddafi himself requiring the consent of the People's Congresses.[115][117] Gaddafi proclaimed that the People's Congresses provided for Libya's every political need, rendering other political organizations unnecessary; all non-authorized groups, including political parties, professional associations, independent trade unions and women's groups, were banned.[115][118]
With preceding legal institutions abolished, Gaddafi envisioned the Jamahiriya as following the Qur'an for legal guidance, adopting Islamic sharia law; he proclaimed "man-made" laws unnatural and dictatorial, only permitting God's law.[119][120] Within a year he was backtracking, announcing that sharia was innapropriate for the Jamahiriya because it guaranteed the protection of private property, contravening The Green Book's socialism.[121] In July, a border war broke out with Egypt, in which the Egyptians defeated Libya despite their technological inferiority. The conflict lasted a week before both sides agreed to a peace treaty brokered by several Arab states.[112][122][123] That year, Gaddafi was invited to Moscow by the Soviet government in recognition of their increasing commercial relationship.[124]
Revolutionary Committees and furthering socialism: 1978–1980
In December 1978, Gaddafi stepped down as Secretary-General of the General People's Congress (GPC), announcing his wish to focus on revolutionary rather than governmental activities; this was a part of his new emphasis on separating the apparatus of the revolution from the apparatus of government. Adopting the title of "Leader of the Revolution", he continued as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.[125][126][127] Gaddafi continued exerting considerable influence over Libya, with many critics insisting that the structure of Libya's direct democracy gave him "the freedom to manipulate outcomes",[128] comparing him to a demagogue.[129] On 2 March 1979, the GPC announced the separation of government and revolution, the latter being represented by new Revolutionary Committees, who operated in tandem with the People's Committees in schools, universities, unions, the police force and the military. Dominated by revolutionary zealots, the Reolutionary Committees were accountable to the "Leader of the Revolution", whom they met annually, and were coordinated by a Central Coordinating Office for Revolutionary Committees. Publishing their own weekly magazine, The Green March (al-Zahf al-Akhdar), in October 1980 they took control of all press. Responsible for perpetuating revolutionary fervor, they performed ideological surveillance, later adopting a significant security role, making arrests and putting people on trial according to the "law of the revolution" (qanun al-thawra).[126][130][131] With no legal code or safeguards, the administration of revolutionary justice was largely arbitrary and resulted in widespread abuses and the suppression of civil liberties.[121][132]
"If socialism is defined as a redistribution of wealth and resources, a socialist revolution clearly occurred in Libya after 1969 and most especially in the second half of the 1970s. The management of the economy was increasingly socialist in intent and effect with wealth in housing, capital and land significantly redistributed or in the process of redistribution. Private enterprise was virtually eliminated, largely replaced by a centrally controlled economy."
— Libyan Studies scholar Ronald St Bruce.[133]
1978 saw the Libyan government push towards socialism. In March, they published guidelines for housing redistribution, attempting to ensure that every adult Libyan owned their own home and was not "enslaved" to paying rent. Most families were banned from owning more than one house, and houses that had formerly been rented were expropriated by the government and sold to the tenants at a heavily subsidized price.[134][135] In September, Gaddafi called for the People's Committees to eliminate the "bureaucracy of the public sector" and the "dictatorship of the private sector"; the People's Committees seized control of several hundred companies, converting them into workers' cooperatives run by elected representatives.[136] In 1979, the committees began redistribution of land in the Jefara plain, continuing through to 1981.[137] In May 1980, measures to redistribute and equalize wealth were implemented; anyone with over 1000 dinar in their bank account saw that extra money expropriated.[135][137] The following year, the GPC announced that the government would take control of all import, export and distribution functions, with state supermarkets replacing privately owned businesses; this led to a decline in the availability of consumer goods and the development of a thriving black market.[137][138][139]
The Jamahiriya's radical socialist direction and revolutionary justice earned the government many enemies. Many who had seen their wealth and property confiscated turned against the administration, and a number of western-funded opposition groups were founded by exiles; most prominent was the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL), founded in 1981 by Mohammed Magariaf, which orchestrated militant attacks against Libya's government.[140][141] The Revolutionary Committees set up overseas branches to suppress such counter-revolutionary activity, assassinating various dissidents.[142][143] In 1979, the U.S. government placed Libya on their list of state sponsors of terrorism,[144] while at the end of the year a demonstration torched the U.S. embassy in Tripoli.[144][145] The following year, Libyan fighters began intercepting U.S. flighter jets flying over the Mediterranean, signalling the collapse of relations between the two countries.[144] Libyan relations with Lebanon also deteriorated over the 1978 disappearance of Shia imam Musa al-Sadr when on a visit to Libya; the Lebanese accused Gaddafi of having him killed or imprisoned, a charge he denied.[146][147] Relations with Syria improved, as Gaddafi and Syrian President Hafez al-Assad shared an enmity with Israel and Egypt's Sadat. In 1980, they proposed a political union, with Libya paying off Syria's £1 billion debt to the Soviet Union; although pressures led Assad to pull out, they remained allies.[148] Another key ally was Uganda, and in 1979, Gaddafi unsuccessfully sent troops into Uganda to defend the regime of his friend, President Idi Amin, from Tanzanian invaders.[149][150]
"International Pariah": 1981–1986
The early and mid 1980s saw economic trouble for Libya; from 1982 to 1986, the country's annual oil revenues dropped from $21 billion to $5.4 billion.[151][152][153] Focusing on irrigation projects, 1983 saw construction start on the Great Manmade River; although designed to be finished by the end of the decade, it would still be incomplete at the start of the 21st century.[154][155] Military spending increased, while other administrative budgets were cut back.[122] In December 1980, Libya re-invaded Chad at the request of the GUNT government to aid in the civil war; in January 1981, Gaddafi suggested a political merger. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) rejected this, and called for a Libyan withdrawal, which came about in November 1981.[122][156] Many African nations had tired of Libya's policies of interference in foreign affairs; by 1980, nine African states had cut off diplomatic relations with Libya,[149] while in 1982 the OAU cancelled its scheduled conference in Tripoli in order to prevent Gaddafi gaining chairmanship.[157][158] Proposing political unity with Morocco, in August 1984, Gaddafi and Moroccan monarch Hassan II signed the Oujda Treaty, forming the Arab-African Union; such a union was considered surprising due to the strong political differences that existed between the two governments. Relations remained strained, particularly due to the Moroccan regime's friendly relations with the U.S. and Israel; in August 1986, Hassan abolished the union.[159][160]
In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected to the U.S. presidency, and famously declaring Gaddafi to be both an "international pariah" and the "mad dog of the middle east", he pursued a hard line approach to Libya, erroneously considering its government a puppet regime of the Soviet Union.[161][162] In turn, Gaddafi played up his commercial relationship with the Soviets, visiting again in 1981 and threatening to join the Warsaw Pact.[145][163] Beginning U.S. military exercises in the Gulfe of Sirte – an area of sea that Libya claimed as a part of its territorial waters – in August 1981 the U.S. shot down two Libyan Su-22 planes that were monitoring them.[164][165] Closing down the Libyan embassy in Washington D.C., Raegan advised U.S. companies operating in the country to reduce the number of American personnel stationed there.[124][166][167] In March 1982, the U.S. implemented an embargo of Libyan oil,[166][167][168] and in 1986 ordered all U.S. companies to cease operating in the country.[167][169] Relations were also strained with the U.K., particularly after Libyan diplomats were accused of shooting dead Yvonne Fletcher, a British policewoman stationed outside their London embassy, in April 1984.[166][170] In Spring 1986, the U.S. Navy again began performing exercises in the Gulf of Sirte; the Libyan military retaliated, but failed as the U.S. sank several Libyan ships.[171]
After the U.S. accused Libya of orchestrating the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing, in which two American soldiers died, Reagan decided to retaliate militarily.[172] In doing so, he was supported by the U.K. but opposed by other European allies, who highlighted that it would contravene international law.[173] In Operation El Dorado Canyon, orchestrated on 15 April 1986, U.S. military planes launched a series of air-strikes on Libya, bombing military installations in various parts of the country, killing around 100 Libyans, some of whom were civilians. One of the targets had been Gaddafi's home in the Bab al-Azizia barrack, in which his four-year-old adopted daughter Hanna was killed.[166][174] In the immediate aftermath, Gaddafi retreated to the desert to meditate.[175] Although the U.S. was condemned internationally, Reagan received a popularity boost at home.[175] The attack also strengthened Gaddafi domestically, who publicly attacked the imperialism of the U.S.[176]
"Revolution within a Revolution": 1987–1998
The late 1980s saw a series of liberalising economic reforms within Libya designed to cope with the decline in oil revenues. In May 1987, Gaddafi announced the start of the "Revolution within a Revolution", which began with reforms to industry and agriculture and saw the re-opening of small business.[177][178] Restrictions were placed on the activities of the Revolutionary Committees; in March 1988, their role was narrowed by the newly created Ministry for Mass Mobilization and Revolutionary Leadership to restrict their violence and judicial role, while in August 1988 Gaddafi publicly criticised them,[179][180] asserting that "they deviated, harmed, tortured" and that "the true revolutionary does not practise repression."[181] In March, hundreds of political prisoners were freed, with Gaddafi erroneously claiming that there were no further political prisoners in Libya.[182][183] In June, the Libyan government issued the Great Green Charter on Human Rights in the Era of the Masses, in which 27 articles laid out goals, rights and guarantees to improve the situation of human rights in Libya, restricting the use of the death penalty and calling for its eventual abolition. Many of the measures suggested in the charter would be implemented the following year, although others remained inactive.[184][185] Also in 1989, the Libyan government founded the Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights, to be awarded to figures from the Third World who had struggled against colonialism and imperialism; the first year's winner was South African anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela.[186] From 1994 through to 1997, the Libyan government initiated cleansing committees to root out corruption, particularly in the economic sector.[185]
In the aftermath of the 1986 U.S. attack, the army was purged of perceived disloyal elements,[175] and in 1988, Gaddafi announced the creation of a popular militia to replace the army and police.[187][188] In 1987, Libya began production of mustard gas at a facility in Rabta, although publicly denied it was stockpiling chemical weapons,[189] and unsuccessfully attempted to develop nuclear weapons.[190] The period also saw a growth in domestic Islamist opposition, formulated into groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. A number of assassination attempts against Gaddafi were foiled, and in turn, 1989 saw the security forces raid mosques believed to be centres of counter-revolutionary preaching.[191][192] In October 1993, elements of the army initiated a failed coup in Misrata, while in September 1995, Islamists launched an insurgency in Benghazi, and in July 1996 an anti-Gaddafist football riot broke out in Tripoli.[193][194] The Revolutionary Committees experienced a resurgence to combat these Islamists.[179]
In 1989, Gaddafi was overjoyed by the foundation of the Arab Maghreb Union, uniting Libya in an economic pact with Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. Gaddafi saw the Pact as a first step towards the formation of "one invincible Arab nation" and shouted for a state "from Marrakesh to Bahrain", pumping his fists in the air.[195][196][197] A decade later, it joined the Community of Sahel-Saharan States.[198] Meanwhile, Libya stepped up its support for anti-western militants such as the Provisional IRA,[199] and in 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing 259 passengers. British police investigations identified two Libyans – Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah – as the chief suspects, and in November 1991 issued a declaration demanding that Libya hand them over. When Gaddafi refused, citing the Montreal Convention, the United Nations (UN) imposed Resolution 748 in March 1992, initiating economic sanctions against them which had deep repurcussions for the country's economy.[200][201][202] The country suffered an estimated $900 million financial loss as a result.[203] Further problems arose with the west when in January 1989, two Libyan warplanes were shot down by the U.S. off the Libyan coast.[204] Many African states opposed the UN sanctions, with Mandela criticising them on a visit to Gaddafi in October 1997, when he praised Libya for its work in fighting apartheid and awarded Gaddafi the Order of Good Hope.[205][206] They would only be suspended in 1998 when Libya agreed to allow the extradition of the suspects to the Scottish Court in the Netherlands, in a process overseen by Mandela.[207][208]
Pan-Africanism, reconciliation and privatization: 1999–2011
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As the 20th century came to a close, Gaddafi increasingly rejected Arab nationalism, frustrated by the failure of his Pan-Arab ideals; instead he turned to Pan-Africanism, emphasising Libya's African identity.[209][210] From 1997 to 2000, Libya initiated cooperative agreements or bilateral aid arrangements with ten African states.[211] In June 1999, Gaddafi visited South Africa, visiting his friend, Mandela;[212] the following month he attended the OAU summit in Algiers, calling for greater political and economic integration across the continent and advocating the foundation of a United States of Africa.[213] He became one of the founding figureheads of the African Union (AU), initiated in July 2002 to replace the OAU; at the opening ceremonies, he proclaimed that African states should reject conditional aid from the developed world, a direct contrast to the message of South African President Thabo Mbeki.[211][214] At the third AU summit, held in Libya in July 2005, he called for a greater level of integration, advocating a single AU passport, a common defense system and a single currency, utilising the slogan: "The United States of Africa is the hope."[215][216] In June 2005, Libya joined the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA),[217] and in August 2008 Gaddafi was proclaimed "King of Kings" by an assembled committee of traditional African leaders.[196][218] On 1 February 2009, a 'coronation ceremony' in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was held to coincide with the 53rd African Union Summit, at which Gaddafi was elected chairman of the African Union for the year.[214][219][220]
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The era saw Libya's return to the international arena. In 1999, Libya began secret talks with the British government to normalise relations.[221] In 2001, Gaddafi condemned the September 11 attacks on the U.S. by al-Qaeda, expressing sympathy with the victims and calling for Libyan involvement in the War on Terror against militant Islamism.[222][223][224] His government continued suppressing domestic Islamism, at the same time as Gaddafi called for the wider application of sharia law.[225] Libya also cemented connections with China and North Korea, being visited by Chinese Premier Jiang Zemin in April 2002.[226] Influenced by the events of the Iraq War, in December 2003, Libya renounced its possession of weapons of mass destruction, decommissioning its chemical and nuclear weapons programs.[227][228][229][230] Relations with the U.S. improved as a result,[231][232] while U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair met with Gaddafi in the Libyan desert in March 2004.[233][234] The following month, Gaddafi travelled to the headquarters of the European Union (EU) in Brussels, signifying improved relations between Libya and the EU, the latter ending its remaining sanctions in October.[235][236] In October 2010, the EU paid Libya €50 million to stop African migrants passing into Europe; Gaddafi encouraged the move, saying that it was necessary to prevent the creation of a "Black Europe".[237]
Removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2006,[224] Gaddafi nevertheless continued his anti-western rhetoric, and at the Second Africa-South America Summit on Isla Margarita, Venezuela in September 2009, joined Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in calling for an "anti-imperialist" front across Africa and Latin America. Gaddafi proposed the establishment of a South Atlantic Treaty Organization to rival NATO.[238] On 23 September 2009, Gaddafi addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York for the first time, using it to condemn western aggression.[239][240][241] In Spring 2010, Gaddafi proclaimed jihad against Switzerland after Swiss police accused two of his family members of criminal activity in the country, resulting in the breakdown of bilateral relations.[237]
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The Libyan economy witnessed increasing privatization; although rejecting the socialist policies of nationalized industry advocated in The Green Book, government figures asserted that they were forging "people's socialism" rather than capitalism.[242] Gaddafi welcomed these reforms, calling for widescale privatization in a March 2003 speech.[243] In 2003, the oil industry was largely turned over to private corporations,[244] and by 2004, there was $40 billion of direct foreign investment in Libya, a sixfold rise on 2003.[245][246] Sectors of the Libyan population reacted against these reforms with public demonstrations,[245] and in March 2006, revolutionary hardliners took control of the GPC cabinet; although scaling back the pace of change, they did not halt them.[247][248] In 2010, plans were announced that would have seen half the Libyan economy privatized over the following decade.[249] While there was no accompanying political liberalization, with Gaddafi retaining predominant control,[250] in March 2000, the government devolved further powers to the municipal councils.[251] Rising numbers of reformist technocrats attained positions in the country's governance; best known was Gaddafi's son and heir apparent Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who was openly critical of Libya's human rights record. He led a group who proposed the drafting of the new constitution, although it was never adopted, and in October 2009 was appointed to head the PSLC.[252][253] Involved in encouraging tourism, Saif founded several privately run media channels in 2008, but after criticising the government they were nationalised in 2009.[254]
Libyan civil war
Origins: February–March 2011
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In 2011, anti-government protests broke out in Tunisia and Egypt, marking the start of the Arab Spring.[255][256] Gaddafi spoke out in favour of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, announcing that to satisfy his people, he should introduce the jammahariyah system to Tunisia.[255] Fearing domestic protest, the Libyan government implemented preventative measures, reducing food prices, purging the army leadership of potential defectors and releasing a number of Islamist prisoners.[257] They proved inneffective, and on 17 February 2011, major political protests began in Libya against Gaddafi's government. Many of the reasons for the uprising differed from those of Tunisia and Egypt; unlike those nations, Libya did not have a large Islamist support base or civic movement and was largely religiously homogenous; however, there was much dissatisfaction with the corruption and entrenched systems of patronage that were associated with Gaddafi's regime, and unemployment had reached around 30%.[258][259] Gaddafi accused the rebels of being "drugged" and linked to al-Qaeda, proclaiming that he would die a martyr rather than leave Libya.[260] Proclaiming that the rebels would be "hunted down street by street, house by house and wardrobe by wardrobe",[261] the armed forces opened fire on protests in Benghazi, killing hundreds.[262] Shocked at the heavy handed response, a number of senior politicians resigned or defected to the protester's side.[263][264]
The uprising spread quickly through eastern Libya, which had seen less economic investment than the western half.[263] By the end of February, several cities, including Benghazi, Misrata, al-Bayda and Tobruk, had proclaimed themselves liberated from the Gaddafi regime.[264] A Benghazi-based organisation calling itself the National Transitional Council (NTC) appeared that month, to represent the protest movement.[265][266] Nevertheless, in the early months of the conflict it appeared that the government – with its greater firepower – would be victorious.[263] The Gaddafist military relied heavily on the Khamis Brigade – led by his son Khamis Gaddafi – as well as on loyal tribal leaders,[267] and foreign mercenaries.[268][269][270] Both sides disregarded the laws of war, committing human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests, torture, extrajudicial executions and revenge attacks.[271] Responding to the bloodshed, on 26 February the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1970, suspending Libya from the UN Human Rights Council, implementing sanctions and calling for an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into the killing of unarmed civilians.[263][264][266] In March, the Security Council declared a no fly zone to protect the civilian population from aerial bombardment, calling on foreign nations to enforce it; it also specifically prohibited foreign occupation.[263][266] Ignoring this, Qatar sent hundreds of troops to support the dissidents, and along with France and the United Arab Emirates began providing the NTC with weaponry and training.[266]
NATO intervention: March–August 2011
A week after the implementation of the no-fly zone, NATO announced that it would enforce it.[263][264] On 30 April the Libyan government claimed that a NATO airstrike killed Gaddafi's sixth son and three of his grandsons at his son's home in Tripoli. Government officials said that Gaddafi and his wife were visiting the home when it was struck, but both were unharmed. Gaddafi son's death came one day after the Libyan leader appeared on state television calling for talks with NATO to end the airstrikes which had been hitting Tripoli and other Gaddafi strongholds since the previous month. Gaddafi suggested there was room for negotiation, but he vowed to stay in Libya. Western officials remained divided over whether Gaddafi was a legitimate military target under the United Nations Security Council resolution that authorized the air campaign. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that NATO was "not targeting Gaddafi specifically" but that his command-and-control facilities were legitimate targets—including a facility inside his sprawling Tripoli compound that was hit with airstrikes 25 April.[272]
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On 27 June, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and his brother-in-law Abdullah Senussi, head of state security for charges, concerning crimes against humanity.[6][265][273][274][275] Libyan officials rejected the ICC, claiming that it had "no legitimacy whatsoever" and highlighting that "all of its activities are directed at African leaders".[276] That month, Amnesty International published their findings, in which they asserted that many of the accusations of mass human rights abuses made against Gaddafist forces lacked credible evidence, and were instead fabrications of the rebel forces which had been readily adopted by the western media.[277] On 15 July 2011, at a meeting in Istanbul, over 30 governments recognised the NTC as the legitimate government of Libya. Gaddafi responded to the announcement with a speech on Libyan national television, in which he called on supporters to "Trample on those recognitions, trample on them under your feet ... They are worthless".[1]
Now with NATO support in the form of air cover, the rebel militia pushed westward, defeating loyalist armies and securing control of the centre of the country. Gaining the support of Amazigh (Berber) communities of the Nafusa Mountains, who had long been persecuted as non-Arab speakers under Gaddafi, the NTC armies were able to encircle Gaddafi loyalists in several key areas of western Libya.[278] In August, the rebels seized both Zlitan and Tripoli, effectively ending the last vestiges of Gaddafist power.[265] On 25 August, the Arab League recognised the NTC to be "the legitimate representative of the Libyan state", on which basis Libya would resume its membership of the League.[3]
Capture and death: September–October 2011
Although all major cities were now under NTC control, a few towns in western Libya – such as Bani Walid, Sebha and Sirte – remained Gaddafist strongholds.[265] Retreating to the latter after Tripoli's fall,[279] Gaddafi announced his willingness to negotiate for a handover to a transitional government, a suggestion rejected by the NTC, who held out for total victory.[265] Surrounding himself with trusted confidants and bodyguards,[279] he continually moved residences to escape NTC shelling; with food, water and electricity becoming scarce, Gaddafi devoted his days to reading the Qur'an and praying.[280] On the morning of Thursday 20 October, Gaddafi broke out of Sirte's District 2 in a joint civilian-military convoy, hoping to take refuge in the Jarref Valley.[281][282] At around 8.30am, NATO bombers attacked, destroying at least 14 vehicles and killing at least 53.[282][283] The convoy scattered, and Gaddafi and those closest to him fled to a nearby villa, which was shelled by rebel militia from Misrata. Fleeing to a construction site, Gaddafi and his inner consort hid inside drainage pipes while his bodyguards battled the rebels; in the conflict, Gaddafi suffered head injuries from a grenade blast while defence minister Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr was killed.[284][282][285]
Overwhelming the loyalists, a Misratan militia took Gaddafi prisoner, beating him and stabbing him in the anus with a bayonet, causing serious injuries; the events were filmed on a cell phone, accompanied by cries of "Allahu Akbar!" and "Misrata!". Pulled onto the front of a pick-up truck, he fell off as it drove away. His semi-naked, lifeless body was then placed into an ambulance and taken to Misrata; upon arrival, he was found to be dead.[286] Official NTC accounts claimed that Gaddafi was caught in a cross-fire and died from his bullet wounds.[282] Other eye-witness accounts claimed that rebels had shot Gaddafi to death in the stomach;[282] a rebel identifying himself as Senad el-Sadik el-Ureybi later claimed responsibility.[287] Gaddafi's son Mutassim, who had also been among the convoy, was also captured, and found dead several hours later, most probably from an extrajudicial execution.[288] Around 140 Gaddafi loyalists were rounded up from the convoy; tied up and abused, the corpses of 66 were found at the nearby Mahari Hotel, victims of extrajudicial execution.[289] Libya's chief forensic pathologist, Dr. Othman al-Zintani, carried out the autopsies of Gaddafi, his son and Jabr in the days following their death; although initially telling press that Gaddafi had died from a gunshot wound to the head, the autopsy report was not made public.[290]
On the afternoon of Gaddafi's death, NTC Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril publicly revealed the news.[282] His corpse was placed in the freezer of a local market alongside the corpses of Yunis Jabr and Mutassim; the bodies were publicly displayed for four days, with Libyans from all over the country coming to view them.[291] In response to international calls, on 24 October Jibril announced that a commission would investigate Gaddafi's death.[292] On 25 October, the NTC announced that Gaddafi had been buried at an unidentified location in the desert; Al Aan TV showed amateur video footage of the funeral.[293][294]
Ideology
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During his school days in Sabha, Gaddafi adopted the ideologies of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, influenced in particular by Nasserism, the thought of Egyptian revolutionary and president Gamal Abdel Nasser, whom Gaddafi adopted as his hero.[295] During the early 1970s, he formulated his own particular approach to Arab nationalism and socialism, known as Third International Theory, the principles of which were laid out in the three volumes of The Green Book.
Raised within the Sunni branch of Islam, Gaddafi called for the implementation of sharia – the Islamic law laid out in the Qur'an – within Libya.[88]
Gaddafi's ideology was largely based on Nasserism, blending Arab nationalism,[295] aspects of the welfare state, and what Gaddafi termed "popular democracy",[296] or more commonly "direct, popular democracy". He called this system "Islamic socialism", as he disfavored the atheistic quality of communism. While he permitted private control over small companies, the government controlled the larger ones. Welfare, "liberation" (or "emancipation" depending on the translation),[297] and education[298] were emphasized. He also imposed a system of Islamic morals[299][300] and outlawed imbibing alcohol and gambling. School holidays were cancelled to allow the teaching of Gaddafi's ideology in the summer of 1973.[88]
In 2007, he suggested a single-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, at first saying "This is the fundamental solution, or else the Jews will be annihilated in the future, because the Palestinians have [strategic] depth".[301] In 2009, in a New York Times commentary, he wrote that a single-state solution would "move beyond old conflicts and look to a unified future based on shared culture and respect."[302]
During Gaddafi's speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 23 September 2009,[303] he blamed the United Nations for failing to prevent 65 wars[304] and claimed that the Security Council had too much power and should be abolished.[305][306] He demanded that Europe pay its former colonies $7.77 trillion dollars to pay for past imperialism or face "mass immigration".[307]
Personal and public life
Gaddafi held an honorary degree from Megatrend University in Belgrade, which was conferred upon him by former Yugoslavian president Zoran Lilić.[308]
On 25 February 2011, Britain's Treasury set up a specialised unit to trace Gaddafi's assets in Britain.[309] Gaddafi allegedly worked for years with Swiss banks to launder international banking transactions.[310] In November 2011, The Sunday Times identified property worth £1 billion in the UK that Gaddafi owned.[311] Gaddafi had an Airbus A340 private jet, which he bought from Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia for $120 million in 2003.[312] Operated by Tripoli-based Afriqiyah Airways and decorated externally in their colours, it was used in 2009 to repatriate Lockerbie bomber Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, on his licensed release from prison in Scotland. The plane was captured at Tripoli airport in August 2011 as a result of the Libyan civil war, and found by BBC News reporter John Simpson to contain various luxuries including a jacuzzi.[313][314]
Marriages and children
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Mutassim_Gadaffi_Hillary_Clinton.jpg/220px-Mutassim_Gadaffi_Hillary_Clinton.jpg)
Gaddafi's first wife was Fatiha al-Nuri (1969–1970). His second wife was Safia Farkash (1970–2011),[315] née el-Brasai, a former nurse from Obeidat tribe born in Bayda.[316][317] He met her in 1969, following the revolt, when he was hospitalized with appendicitis; the couple remained married until his death. Gaddafi had eight biological children, seven of them sons.
- Muhammad Gaddafi (born 1970), his eldest son, was the only child born to Gaddafi's first wife, and ran the Libyan Olympic Committee.[316]
- Saif al-Islam Gaddafi (born 25 June 1972), his second son, is an architect who was long-rumoured to be Gaddafi's successor. He was a spokesman to the Western world and he has negotiated treaties with Italy and the United States. He was viewed as politically moderate, and in 2006, after criticizing his father's government, he briefly left Libya.
- Al-Saadi Gaddafi (born 25 May 1973), is a professional football player. Al-Saadi is currently living in Niger.[318]
- Mutassim Gaddafi (18 December 1974 – 20 October 2011), Gaddafi's fourth son, was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Libyan Army. He later served as Libya's National Security Advisor. He was seen as a possible successor to his father, after Saif al-Islam. Mutassim was killed along with his father during the Battle of Sirte.[319]
- Hannibal Muammar Gaddafi (born 20 September 1975),[320] is a former employee of the General National Maritime Transport Company, a company that specialized in oil exports.
- Ayesha Gaddafi (born 1976), Gaddafi's only biological daughter, is a lawyer who joined the defence teams of executed former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi.[316] She is married to her father's cousin. She fled to neighbouring Algeria with her mother and two of her brothers, where she gave birth to her fourth child.
- Saif al-Arab Gaddafi (1982 – 30 April 2011) was appointed a military commander in the Libyan Army during the Libyan civil war. Saif al-Arab and three of Gaddafi's grandchildren were killed by a NATO bombing in April 2011.[321]
- Khamis Gaddafi (27 May 1983), his seventh son, was serving as the commander of the Libyan Army's elite Khamis Brigade. He was reported captured or killed on several different occasions during the Libyan revolution.
He is also said to have adopted two children, Hanna and Milad.[322][323]
- Hana Moammar Gadafi[324] (claimed by Gaddafi to be his adopted daughter, but most facts surrounding this claim are disputed) was apparently killed at the age of four, during the retaliatory U.S. bombing raids in 1986.[325][326] She may not have died; the adoption may have been posthumous; or he may have adopted a second daughter and given her the same name after the first one died.[327] Following the taking by rebels of the family residence in the Bab al-Azizia compound in Tripoli, The New York Times reported evidence (complete with photographs) of Hana's life after her declared death, when she became a doctor and worked in a Tripoli hospital. Her passport was reported as showing a birth date of 11 November 1985, making her six months old at the time of the US raid.[328] In August 2011 the Daily Telegraph reported on the finding of dental records relating to a Hana Gaddaffi by NLC staff taking over the London embassy. This report, which also cites her 1999 spotting by Chinese officials, cites an unnamed Libyan government spokesman as stating that Gaddafi had adopted a second daughter, and named her Hana in honor of the first one who had been killed in the 1986 raid.[329]
Gaddafi's brother-in-law, Abdullah Senussi, was believed to have headed Libya's military intelligence until the Gaddafi government was overthrown.[330]
He hired several Ukrainian nurses to care for his and his family's health.[331] In 2009, it was revealed that he did not travel without his trusted Ukrainian nurse Halyna Kolotnytska, noted as a "voluptuous blonde".[332] Kolotnytska's daughter denied the suggestion that the relationship was anything but professional.[333] Gaddafi also allegedly made sexual advances on female journalists.[334][335]
Public image
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Jakaya_Kikwete_and_Muammar_al-Gaddafi%2C_12th_AU_Summit%2C_090202-N-0506A-678.jpg/200px-Jakaya_Kikwete_and_Muammar_al-Gaddafi%2C_12th_AU_Summit%2C_090202-N-0506A-678.jpg)
Gaddafi considered himself an intellectual and a philosopher.[336] He was known for a flamboyant dress sense, ranging from safari suits and sunglasses to more outlandish outfits apparently influenced by Liberace or Hollywood film characters.[337] In 2011, a Brazilian plastic surgeon told the Associated Press that Gaddafi had been his patient in 1995 to avoid appearing old to the Libyan people.[338] The Libyan postal service, General Posts and Telecommunications Company (GPTC), has issued numerous stamps, souvenir sheets, postal stationery, booklets, etc. relating to Gaddafi.[339][340]
From early in his rule he acquired a reputation for unpredictability and eccentricity. He once said that HIV was "a peaceful virus, not an aggressive virus" and assured attendees at the African Union that "if you are straight you have nothing to fear from AIDS".[341] He also said that the H1N1 influenza virus was a biological weapon manufactured by a foreign military, and he assured Africans that the tsetse fly and mosquito were "God's armies which will protect us against colonialists". Should these 'enemies' come to Africa, "they will get malaria and sleeping sickness".[341] On one occasion, he was reported to have said that the Christian Bible was a "forgery".[342]
Beginning in the 1980s he traveled with his Amazonian Guard, which was all-female, and reportedly was sworn to a life of celibacy (however, Dr. Seham Sergheva claimed in 2011 that some of them were subjected to rape and sexual abuse by Gaddafi, his sons, and senior officials[343]).
Gaddafi made very particular requests when traveling to foreign nations. During his trips to Rome, Paris, Moscow, and New York,[344][345] he resided in a bulletproof tent, following his Bedouin traditions.[346][347] While in Italy, he paid a modeling agency to find 200 young Italian women for a lecture he gave urging them to convert to Islam.[348] According to a 2009 document release by WikiLeaks,[349] Gaddafi disliked flying over waters and refused to take airplane trips longer than 8 hours. His inner circle stated that he could only stay on the ground floor of buildings, and that he could not climb more than 35 steps.
Numerous sources have characterised Gaddafi as a dictator.[350] Gaddafi was noted for giving "lengthy, wandering" speeches.[351] Gaddafi funded the construction of and supported two mosques in Africa. One is the largest mosque in Uganda, located on Kampla Hill in the Old Kampala district of Kampala, Uganda.[342]
Legacy
Gaddafi remained a controversial and divisive figure on the world stage throughout his life and after death. Supporters praised Gaddafi's administration for the creation of an almost classless society through domestic reform. They stress the regime's achievements in combating homelessness and ensuring access to food and safe drinking water. Highlighting that under Gaddafi, all Libyans enjoyed free education to a university level, they point to dramatic rise in literacy rates after the 1969 revolution. Supporters have also praised achievements in medical care, praising the universal free healthcare provided under the Gaddafist administration, with diseases like cholera and typhoid being contained and life expectancy raised.[352]
Critics asserted that under Gaddafi's administration, the Libyan people had lived in a climate of fear,[353] criticising his government's pervasive surveillance of civilians.[354] Opponents were critical of Libya's human rights abuses; those arrested often failed to receive a fair trial, and were sometimes subjected to torture or extrajudicial execution, most notably in the Abu Salim prison.[355] He was also charged with mismanaging the economy through his experiments with socialism, with critics arguing that Libya's great oil wealth could have been better spent on domestic development.[353] His government's treatment of non-Arab Libyans has also come in for criticism, with native Berbers, refugees and foreign workers all facing persecution in Gaddafist Libya.[356]
International reactions to Gaddafi's death were divided. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Gaddafi will be remembered "as a great fighter, a revolutionary and martyr",[357] while former Cuban President Fidel Castro commented that in defying the rebels, he would "enter history as one of the great figures of the Arab nations."[358] Nelson Mandela remained a close friend, named his grandson after Gaddafi, was quoted as saying "In the darkest moments of our struggle, when our backs were to the wall, Muammar Gaddafi stood with us."[359] Gaddafi was widely mourned as a hero across Sub-Saharan Africa;[360][361] for instance, a vigil was held by Muslims in Sierra Leone.[362] After Gaddafi's death some of his sympathizers remained as militants, being reportedly responsible for the death of one of his captors, Omran Shaaban.[363]
During the early 1970s, the Western media typically portrayed Gaddafi in a positive manner as a freedom fighter; a Readers Digest article at the time, for example, compared his freedom-fighting ideals to Che Guevara and noted his popularity among Libyans.[360] This changed in the 1980s, when Gaddafi began being frequently portrayed a dictator and tyrant who was erratic, conceited, and mercurial in nature. During the Reagan administration, the United States regarded him as "public enemy number one"[364] and Reagan famously dubbed him the "mad dog of the Middle East".[365]
See also
- History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi
- Human rights in Libya
- List of longest ruling non-royal national leaders since 1870
Notes
- ^ For purposes of this article, 23 August 2011 is considered to be the date that Gaddafi left office. Other dates might have been chosen.
- On 15 July 2011, at a meeting in Istanbul, more than 30 governments, including the United States, withdrew recognition from Gaddafi's government and recognised the National Transitional Council (NTC) as the legitimate government of Libya.[1]
- On 23 August 2011, during the Battle of Tripoli, Gaddafi lost effective political and military control of Tripoli after his compound was captured by rebel forces.[2]
- On 25 August 2011, the Arab League proclaimed the anti-Gaddafi National Transitional Council to be "the legitimate representative of the Libyan state".[3]
- On 20 October 2011, Gaddafi was captured and killed near his hometown of Sirte.[4]
- In a ceremony on 23 October 2011, officials of the interim National Transitional Council declared, "We declare to the whole world that we have liberated our beloved country, with its cities, villages, hill-tops, mountains, deserts and skies."[5]
- ^ Some sources, such as a BBC Obituary Muammar al-Gaddafi, give the date as 7 June. Other sources say 7 June 1942; others say "Spring of 1942" (Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East, 2004) or "September 1942" (Encyclopedia of World Biography, 1998)
- ^ Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various different ways. A 1986 column by The Straight Dope lists 32 spellings known from the U.S. Library of Congress,[7] while ABC and MSNBC identified 112 possible spellings.[8][9] A 2007 interview with Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi confirms that he uses the spelling "Qadhafi",[10] and Muammar's official passport uses the spelling "Al-Gathafi".[11][12]
References
Footnotes
- ^ a b Vela, Justin (16 July 2011). "West prepares to hand rebels Gaddafi's billions". The Independent. London. Retrieved 16 July 2011.
- ^ Staff (23 August 2011). "Libya Live Blog: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 – 16:19". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 23 August 2011.
- ^ a b "Arab League gives its full backing to Libya's rebel council". The Taipei Times. 26 August 2011. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
- ^ "Muammar Gaddafi: How he died". BBC. Retrieved 21 October 2011.
- ^ Saleh, Yasmine (23 October 2011). "UPDATE 4-Libya declares nation liberated after Gaddafi death". Reuters.
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{{cite book}}
:|edition=
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: Invalid|ref=harv
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{{cite book}}
: Invalid|ref=harv
(help) - Vandewalle, Dirk (2008), "Libya's Revolution in Perspective: 1969–2000", Libya Since 1969: Qadhafi's Revolution Revisited, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 9–53, ISBN 0-230-33750-3
- Vandewalle, Dirk (2011), "From International Reconciliation to Civil War: 2003-2011", Libya Since 1969: Qadhafi's Revolution Revisited (revised edition), Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 215–239, ISBN 0-230-33750-3
External links
- Template:Worldcat id
- U.S. Policy Towards Qaddafi from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives
- Muammar Gaddafi collected news and commentary at Al Jazeera English
- The Muammar Gaddafi story at BBC Online
- Muammar Gaddafi collected news and commentary at The Guardian
- Muammar Gaddafi collected news and commentary at The New York Times
- Articles
- Libya's Last Bedouin, Rudolph Chimelli, Qantara.de, 2 September 2009
- Gaddafi: The Last Supervillain?, slideshow by Life magazine
- Qadaffi Plays Quietly, But He's Still in the Game, The New York Times, 17 March 1991
- Use dmy dates from October 2012
- Ill-formatted IPAc-en transclusions
- 1942 births
- 2011 deaths
- Arab nationalist heads of state
- Assassinated heads of government
- Assassinated heads of state
- Attempted assassination survivors
- Chadian–Libyan conflict
- Cold War leaders
- Deaths by firearm in Libya
- Gaddafi family
- Heads of state of Libya
- International opponents of apartheid in South Africa
- Leaders who took power by coup
- Leaders ousted by a coup
- Libyan criminals
- Libyan colonels
- Libyan rebels
- Libyan revolutionaries
- Libyan Sunni Muslims
- Members of the General People's Committee of Libya
- Military dictatorship
- Pan Am Flight 103
- Muammar Gaddafi
- Ousted heads of state
- Pan-Africanism
- People from Sirte
- People indicted for crimes against humanity
- People of the Libyan civil war
- Prime Ministers of Libya
- Grand Crosses of the Order of Good Hope
- Recipients of the Order of the Yugoslav Star
- Article Feedback 5 Additional Articles
- Filmed assassinations
- 20th-century criminals
- 21st-century criminals