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History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

Muammar Gaddafi became the de facto leader of Libya on 1 September 1969 after leading a group of young Libyan Army officers against King Idris I in a bloodless coup d'état. After the king had fled the country, the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) headed by Gaddafi abolished the monarchy and the old constitution and established the Libyan Arab Republic, with the motto "freedom, socialism and unity".[1] The name of Libya was changed several times during Gaddafi's tenure as leader. From 1969 to 1977, the name was the Libyan Arab Republic. In 1977, the name was changed to Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.[2] Jamahiriya was a term coined by Gaddafi,[2] usually translated as "state of the masses". The country was renamed again in 1986 as the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, after the United States bombing that year.

After coming to power, the RCC government initiated a process of directing funds toward providing education, health care and housing for all. Public education in the country became free and primary education compulsory for both sexes. Medical care became available to the public at no cost, but providing housing for all was a task the RCC government was unable to complete.[3] Under Gaddafi, per capita income in the country rose to more than US$11,000 in nominal terms,[4] and to over US$30,000 in PPP terms,[5] the 5th highest in Africa. The increase in prosperity was accompanied by a controversial foreign policy, and increased domestic political repression.[1][6]


During the 1980s and 1990s, Gaddafi, in alliance with the Eastern Bloc and Fidel Castro's Cuba, openly supported rebel movements like Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Polisario Front. Gaddafi's government was either known to be or suspected of participating in or aiding attacks by these and other proxy forces. Additionally, Gaddafi undertook several invasions of neighboring states in Africa, notably Chad in the 1970s and 1980s. All of his actions led to a deterioration of Libya's foreign relations with several countries, mostly Western states,[7] and culminated in the 1986 United States bombing of Libya. Gaddafi defended his government's actions by citing the need to support anti-imperialist and anti-colonial movements around the world. Notably, Gaddafi supported anti-Zionist, pan-Arab, pan-Africanist, Arab and black civil rights movements. Gaddafi's behavior, often erratic, led some outsiders to conclude that he was not mentally sound, a claim disputed by the Libyan authorities and other observers close to Gaddafi. Despite receiving extensive aid and technical assistance from the Soviet Union and its allies, Gaddafi retained close ties to pro-American governments in Western Europe, largely by courting Western oil companies with promises of access to the lucrative Libyan energy sector. After the 9/11 attacks, strained relations between Libya and NATO countries were mostly normalised, and sanctions against the country relaxed, in exchange for nuclear disarmament.


In early 2011, a civil war broke out in the context of the wider Arab Spring. The rebel anti-Gaddafi forces formed a committee named the National Transitional Council in February 2011, to act as an interim authority in the rebel-controlled areas. After killings by government forces[8] in addition to those by the rebel forces,[9] a multinational coalition led by NATO forces intervened in March in support of the rebels.[10][11][12] The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Gaddafi and his entourage in June 2011. Gaddafi's government was overthrown in the wake of the fall of Tripoli to the rebel forces in August, although pockets of resistance held by forces in support of Gaddafi's government held out for another two months, especially in Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, which he declared the new capital of Libya in September.[13] The fall of the last remaining sites in Sirte under pro-Gaddafi control on 20 October 2011, followed by the subsequent killing of Gaddafi, marked the end of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

Libyan Arab Republic
ٱلْجُمْهُورِيَّةُ ٱلْعَرَبِيَّة ٱللِّيْبِيَّة (Arabic)
al-Jumhūriyya al-ʿArabiyya al-Lībiyya
Repubblica Araba Libica (Italian)

1 September 1969

2 March 1977

2,681,900

Libyan Arab Republic (1969–1977) [edit]

Attempted counter-coups[edit]

Following the formation of the Libyan Arab Republic, Gaddafi and his associates insisted that their government would not rest on individual leadership, but rather on collegial decision making.


The first major cabinet change occurred soon after the first challenge to the government. In December 1969, Adam Said Hawwaz, the minister of defense, and Musa Ahmad, the minister of interior, were arrested and accused of planning a coup. In the new cabinet formed after the crisis, Gaddafi, retaining his post as chairman of the RCC, also became prime minister and defense minister.[16]


Major Abdel Salam Jallud, generally regarded as second only to Gaddafi in the RCC, became deputy prime minister and minister of interior.[16] This cabinet totaled thirteen members, of whom five were RCC officers.[16] The government was challenged a second time in July 1970 when Abdullah Abid Sanusi and Ahmed al-Senussi, distant cousins of former King Idris, and members of the Sayf an Nasr clan of Fezzan were accused of plotting to seize power for themselves.[16] After the plot was foiled, a substantial cabinet change occurred, RCC officers for the first time forming a majority among new ministers.[16]

Assertion of Gaddafi's control[edit]

From the start, RCC spokesmen had indicated a serious intent to bring the "defunct regime" to account. In 1971 and 1972, more than 200 former government officials (including seven prime ministers and numerous cabinet ministers), as well as former King Idris and members of the royal family, were brought to the Libyan People's Court to be tried on charges of treason and corruption.


Many, who lived in exile (including Idris), were tried in absentia. Although a large percentage of those charged were acquitted, sentences of up to fifteen years in prison and heavy fines were imposed on others. Five death sentences, all but one of them in absentia, were pronounced; among them, one against Idris. Former Queen Fatima and former Crown Prince Hasan were sentenced to five and three years in prison, respectively.


Meanwhile, Gaddafi and the RCC had disbanded the Senussi order and officially downgraded its historical role in achieving Libya's independence. He also declared regional and tribal issues to be "obstructions" in the path of social advancement and Arab unity, dismissing traditional leaders and drawing administrative boundaries across tribal groupings.


The Free Officers Movement was renamed "Arab Socialist Union" (ASU) in 1971 (modeled after Egypt's Arab Socialist Union), while also becoming the sole legal party in Gaddafi's Libya. It acted as a "vehicle of national expression", purporting to "raise the political consciousness of Libyans" and to "aid the RCC in formulating public policy through debate in open forums".[17] Trade unions were incorporated into the ASU and strikes outlawed. The press, already subject to censorship, was officially conscripted in 1972 as an agent of the revolution. Italians (and what remained of the Jewish community) were expelled from the country, their property confiscated in October 1970.


In 1972, Libya joined the Federation of Arab Republics with Egypt and Syria; the previously-intended union of pan-Arabic states, never coming to fruition, went effectively dormant after 1973.


As months passed, Gaddafi, caught up in his apocalyptic visions of revolutionary Pan-Arabism and Islam (both locked in mortal struggle with what he termed the "encircling, demonic forces of reaction, imperialism, and Zionism"), increasingly devoted attention to international rather than internal affairs. As a result, routine administrative tasks fell to Major Jallud, who became prime minister in place of Gaddafi, in 1972. Two years later, Jallud assumed Gaddafi's remaining administrative and protocol duties to allow Gaddafi to devote his time to revolutionary theorizing. Gaddafi remained commander-in-chief of the armed forces and effective head of state. The foreign press speculated about an eclipse of his authority and personality within the RCC, but Gaddafi soon dispelled such theories by his measures to restructure Libyan society.

Alignment with the Soviet bloc[edit]

After the September coup, U.S. forces proceeded deliberately with the planned withdrawal from Wheelus Air Base under the agreement made with the previous government. The foreign minister, Salah Busir, played an important role in negotiating the British and American military withdrawal from the new republic. The last of the American contingent turned the facility over to the Libyans on 11 June 1970, a date thereafter celebrated in Libya as a national holiday. On 27 March 1970, the British air base in El Adem and the naval base in Tobruk were abandoned.[18]


As relations with the U.S. steadily deteriorated, Gaddafi forged close links with the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries, all the while maintaining Libya's stance as a nonaligned country and opposing the spread of communism in the Arab world. Libya's army—sharply increased from the 6,000-man pre-revolutionary force that had been trained and equipped by the British—was armed with Soviet-built armor and missiles.

Petroleum politics[edit]

The economic base for Libya's revolution has been its oil revenues. However, Libya's petroleum reserves were small compared with those of other major Arab petroleum-producing states. As a consequence, Libya was more ready to ration output in order to conserve its natural wealth and less responsive to moderating its price-rise demands than the other countries. Petroleum was seen both as a means of financing the economic and social development of a woefully underdeveloped country and as a political weapon to brandish in the Arab struggle against Israel.


The increase in production that followed the 1969 revolution was accompanied by Libyan demands for higher petroleum prices, a greater share of revenues, and more control over the development of the country's petroleum industry. Foreign petroleum companies agreed to a price hike of more than three times the going rate (from US$0.90 to US$3.45 per barrel) early in 1971. In December, the Libyan government suddenly nationalized the holdings of British Petroleum in Libya and withdrew funds amounting to approximately US$550 million invested in British banks as a result of a foreign policy dispute. British Petroleum rejected as inadequate a Libyan offer of compensation, and the British treasury banned Libya from participation in the Sterling Area.


In 1973, the Libyan government announced the nationalization of a controlling interest in all other petroleum companies operating in the country. This step gave Libya control of about 60 percent of its domestic oil production by early 1974, a figure that subsequently rose to 70 percent. Total nationalization was out of the question, given the need for foreign expertise and funds in oil exploration, production, and distribution.

Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
(1977–1986)
اَلْجَمَاهِيْرِيَّة ٱلْعَرَبِيَّة ٱللِّيْبِيَّة ٱلشَّعْبِيَّة ٱلْإِشْتِرَاكِيَّة (Arabic)

al-Jamāhīrīyya al-'Arabīyya al-Lībīyya ash-Sha'bīyya al-Ishtirākīyya
Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
(1986–2011)
اَلْجَمَاهِيْرِيَّة ٱلْعَرَبِيَّة ٱللِّيْبِيَّة ٱلشَّعْبِيَّة ٱلْإِشْتِرَاكِيَّة ٱلْعُظْمٰى (Arabic)

al-Jamāhīrīyya al-'Arabīyya al-Lībīyya ash-Sha'bīyya al-Ishtirākīyya al-'Uẓmá

 

 

2 March 1977

15 February 2011

28 August 2011

20 October 2011

1,759,541 km2 (679,363 sq mi) (16th)

6,355,100

2007 estimate

Increase $58.3 billion

Increase $14,364 [29]

Increase 0.750[30]
high

1969–1972

State flag (ratio: 1:2)

State flag (ratio: 1:2)

Coat of arms

Coat of arms

Day of Revenge

Politics of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

Foreign relations of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

Human rights in Libya

The Green Book (Gaddafi)

Gaddafi loyalism

(1988). The Green and the Black: Qadhafi's Policies in Africa. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0253326782.

Lemarchand, René

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4380360.stm

from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives

Qaddafi, Libya, and the United States

– Includes the initial RCC communique and the "Declaration of Peoples Authority".

The Road to people's authority: a collection of historical speeches and documents