Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar Gaddafi 1942 –20 October 2011), commonly known asColonel Gaddafi, was a Libyan revolutionary,politician, and political theorist. He governed Libya as Revolutionary Chairman of theLibyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then as the "Brotherly Leader" of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriyafrom 1977 to 2011. He was initially ideologically committed to Arab nationalismand Arab socialism, but he came to rule according to his own Third International Theory.
Gaddafi was born near Sirte to an impoverished Bedouin family. He became an Arab nationalist while at school in Sabha, later enrolling in the Royal Military Academy, Benghazi. Within the military he founded a revolutionary cell which, in a 1969 coup, deposed the Western-backed Senussimonarchy of Idris. Having taken power, Gaddafi converted Libya into a republic governed by his Revolutionary Command Council. Ruling by decree, he ejected bothItalian colonists and Western military bases from Libya while strengthening ties to Arab nationalist governments—particularly Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt—and unsuccessfully advocating Pan-Arab political union. AnIslamic modernist, he introduced sharia as the basis for the legal system and promoted "Islamic socialism". The oil industry was nationalised, with the increasing state revenues used to bolster the military, fund foreign revolutionaries, and implement social programs emphasising house-building, healthcare, and education projects. In 1973, he initiated a "Popular Revolution" with the formation of General People's Committees, purported to be 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, Gaddafi transformed Libya into a new socialist state called the Jamahiriya("state of the masses"). Officially he adopted a symbolic role in governance but remained head of both the military and the Revolutionary Committees responsible for policing and suppressing dissent. During the 1970s and 1980s, Libya's unsuccessful border conflicts with Egypt and Chad, support for foreign militants, and alleged responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing left it increasingly isolated on the international stage. A particularly hostile relationship developed with the United States, United Kingdom, and Israel, resulting in the 1986 U.S. bombing of Libya and United Nations-imposed economic sanctions. From 1999, Gaddafi rejected Arab socialism and encouraged economic privatisation, rapprochement with Western nations, andPan-Africanism; he was Chairperson of theAfrican Union from 2009–10. Amid the 2011Arab Spring, protests against widespread corruption and unemployment broke out in eastern Libya. The situation descended intocivil war, in which NATO intervened militarilyon the side of the anti-Gaddafist National Transitional Council (NTC). The government was overthrown and Gaddafi, who had retreated to Sirte, was captured and killed by NTC militants.
A highly divisive figure, Gaddafi dominated Libya's politics for four decades and was the subject of a pervasive cult of personality. He was decorated with various awards and lauded for his anti-imperialist stance, his support for Arab and then African unity, and for significant improvements that his government brought to the Libyan people's quality of life. Conversely, domestically his social and economic reforms were strongly opposed by Islamic fundamentalists and he was internationally condemned as a dictatorwhose authoritarian administration violated the human rights of Libyan citizens and financed global terrorism.
Early life
Childhood: 1942/43–50
Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar Gaddafi was born in a tent near Qasr Abu Hadi, a rural area outside the town of Sirte in the deserts of Tripolitania, western Libya.His family came from a small, relatively un-influential tribal group called the Qadhadhfa, who were Arabized Berber in heritage.His mother was named Aisha (died 1978), and his father, Mohammad Abdul Salam bin Hamed bin Mohammad, was known as Abu Meniar (died 1985); the latter earned a meager subsistence as a goat and camel herder. Nomadic Bedouins, they were illiterate and kept no birth records. As such, Gaddafi's date of birth is not known with certainty, and sources have set it in 1942 or in the spring of 1943, although his biographers David Blundy and Andrew Lycettnoted that it could have been pre-1940. His parents' only surviving son, he had three older sisters. Gaddafi's upbringing in Bedouin culture influenced his personal tastes for the rest of his life; he preferred the desert over the city and would retreat there to meditate.
From childhood, Gaddafi was aware of the involvement of European colonialists in Libya; his nation was occupied by Italy, and during the North African Campaign of World War II it witnessed conflict between Italian and British troops. According to later claims, Gaddafi's paternal grandfather, Abdessalam Bouminyar, was killed by the Italian Army during the Italian invasion of 1911. At World War II's end in 1945, Libya was occupied by British and French forces. Although Britain and France intended on dividing the nation between their empires, theGeneral Assembly of the United Nations (UN) declared that the country be granted political independence. In 1951, the UN created theUnited Kingdom of Libya, a federal state under the leadership of a pro-Western monarch, Idris, who banned political parties and centralised power in his monarchy.
Education and political activism: 1950–63
Gaddafi's earliest education was of a religious nature, imparted by a local Islamic teacher. Subsequently moving to nearby Sirte to attend elementary school, he progressed through six grades in four years. Education in Libya was not free, but his father thought it would greatly benefit his son despite the financial strain. During the week Gaddafi slept in a mosque, and at weekends walked 20 miles to visit his parents. At school Gaddafi was bullied for being a Bedouin, but was proud of his identity and encouraged pride in other Bedouin children. From Sirte, he and his family moved to the market town of Sabha in Fezzan, south-central Libya, where his father worked as a caretaker for a tribal leader while Muammar attended secondary school, something neither parent had done. Gaddafi was popular at this school; some friends made there received significant jobs in his later administration, most notably his best friend Abdul Salam Jalloud.
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.Growing up, Gaddafi witnessed significant events rock the Arab world, including the1948 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.Gaddafi admired the political changes implemented in the Arab Republic of Egyptunder his hero, President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser argued for Arab nationalism; the rejection of Western colonialism, neo-colonialism, and Zionism; and a transition from capitalism to socialism. Gaddafi was influenced by Nasser's book, Philosophy of the Revolution, which outlined how to initiate a coup.
Gaddafi organised demonstrations and distributed posters criticising the monarchy. In October 1961, he led a demonstration protesting against Syria's secession from the United Arab Republic. During this they broke windows in a local hotel that was accused of serving alcohol. To punish Gaddafi, the authorities expelled him and his family from Sabha. Gaddafi moved to Misrata, there attending Misrata Secondary School.Maintaining his interest in Arab nationalist activism, he refused to join any of the banned political parties active in the city—including the Arab Nationalist Movement, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and the Muslim Brotherhood—claiming that he rejected factionalism. He read voraciously on the subjects of Nasser and the French Revolutionof 1789, as well as the works of Syrian political theorist Michel Aflaq and biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Sun Yat-sen, andMustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Military training: 1963–66
Gaddafi briefly studied History at theUniversity of Libya in Benghazi, before dropping out to join the military. Despite his police record, in 1963 he began training at the Royal Military Academy, Benghazi, alongside several like-minded friends from Misrata. The armed forces offered the only opportunity for upward social mobility for underprivileged Libyans, and Gaddafi recognised it as a potential instrument of political change. Under Idris, Libya's armed forces were trained by the British military; this angered Gaddafi, who viewed the British as imperialists, and accordingly he refused to learn English and was rude to the British officers, ultimately failing his exams.British trainers reported him for insubordination and abusive behaviour, stating their suspicion that he was involved in the assassination of the military academy's commander in 1963. Such reports were ignored and Gaddafi quickly progressed through the course.
With a group of loyal cadres, in 1964 Gaddafi founded the Central Committee of the Free Officers Movement, a revolutionary group named after Nasser's Egyptian predecessor. Led by Gaddafi, they met clandestinely and were organised into a clandestine cell system, offering their salaries into a single fund. Gaddafi travelled around Libya gathering intelligence and developing connections with sympathisers, but the government's intelligence services ignored him, considering him little threat.Graduating in August 1965, Gaddafi became a communications officer in the army's signal corps.
In April 1966, he was assigned to the United Kingdom for further training; over 9 months he underwent an English-language course atBeaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, an Army Air Corps signal instructors course in Bovington Camp, Dorset, and an infantry signal instructors course at Hythe, Kent. Despite later rumours to the contrary, he did not attend the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. The Bovington signal course's director reported that Gaddafi successfully overcame problems 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." Gaddafi disliked 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 aroundPiccadilly wearing traditional Libyan robes.He later related that while he travelled to England believing it more advanced than Libya, he returned home "more confident and proud of our values, ideals and social character."
Libyan Arab Republic
Coup d'etat: 1969
Idris' government was increasingly unpopular by the latter 1960s; it had exacerbated Libya's traditional regional and tribal divisions bycentralising the country's federal system in order to take advantage of the country's oil wealth, while corruption and entrenched systems of patronage were widespread throughout the oil industry. Arab nationalism was increasingly popular, and protests flared up following Egypt's 1967 defeat in the Six-Day War with Israel; allied to the Western powers, Idris' administration was seen as pro-Israeli. Anti-Western riots broke out in Tripoli and Benghazi, while Libyan workers shut down oil terminals in solidarity with Egypt. By 1969, the U.S.Central Intelligence Agency was expecting segments of Libya's armed forces to launch a coup. Although claims have been made that they knew of Gaddafi's Free Officers Movement, they have since claimed ignorance, stating that they were monitoring Abdul Aziz Shalhi's Black Boots revolutionary group.
In mid-1969, Idris travelled abroad to spend the summer in Turkey and Greece. Gaddafi's Free Officers recognised this as their chance to overthrow the monarchy, initiating "Operation Jerusalem". On 1 September, they occupied airports, police depots, radio stations and government offices in Tripoli and Benghazi. Gaddafi took control of the Berka barracks in Benghazi, while Omar Meheisha occupied Tripoli barracks and Jalloud seized the city's anti-aircraft batteries. Khweldi Hameidi was sent to arrest crown prince Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida al-Mahdi as-Sanussi, and force him to relinquish his claim to the throne. They met no serious resistance, and wielded little violence against the monarchists.
Once Gaddafi removed the monarchical government, he announced the foundation of the Libyan Arab Republic. Addressing the populace by radio, he proclaimed an end to the "reactionary and corrupt" regime, "the stench of which has sickened and horrified us all." Due to the coup's bloodless nature, it was initially labelled the "White Revolution", although was later renamed the "One September Revolution" after the date on which it occurred. Gaddafi insisted that the Free Officers' coup represented a revolution, marking the start of widespread change in the socio-economic and political nature of Libya. He proclaimed that the revolution meant "freedom, socialism, and unity", and over the coming years implemented measures to achieve this.
Consolidating leadership: 1969–73
The 12 member central committee of the Free Officers proclaimed themselves theRevolutionary Command Council (RCC), the government of the new republic.Lieutenant Gaddafi became RCC Chairman, and therefore the de facto head of state, also appointing himself to the rank of colonel and becoming commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Jalloud became Prime Minister,while a civilian Council of Ministers headed by Sulaiman Maghribi was founded to implement RCC policy. Libya's administrative capital was moved from al-Beida to Tripoli.
Although theoretically a collegial body operating through consensus building, Gaddafi dominated the RCC, although some of the others attempted to constrain what they saw as his excesses. Gaddafi remained the government's public face, with the identities of the other RCC members only being publicly revealed on 10 January 1970. All young men from (typically rural) working and middle-class backgrounds, none had university degrees; in this way they were distinct from the wealthy, highly educated conservatives who previously governed the country.
The coup completed, the RCC proceeded with their intentions of consolidating the revolutionary government and modernising the country. They purged monarchists and members of Idris' Senussi clan from Libya's political world and armed forces; Gaddafi believed this elite were opposed to the will of the Libyan people and had to be expunged."People's Courts" were founded to try various monarchist politicians and journalists, many of whom were imprisoned, although none executed. Idris was sentenced to execution in absentia.
In May 1970, the Revolutionary Intellectuals Seminar was held to bring intellectuals in line with the revolution, while that year's Legislative Review and Amendment united secular and religious law codes, introducingsharia into the legal system. Ruling by decree, the RCC maintained the monarchy's ban on political parties, in May 1970 bannedtrade unions, and in 1972 outlawed workers' strikes and suspended newspapers. In September 1971, Gaddafi resigned, claiming to be dissatisfied with the pace of reform, but returned to his position within a month. In February 1973, he resigned again, once more returning the following month.
The RCC's early economic policy has been characterised as being state capitalist in orientation. A number of schemes were established to aid entrepreneurs and develop a Libyan bourgeoisie. Seeking to expand the cultivatable acreage in Libya, in September 1969 the government launched a "Green Revolution" to raise agricultural productivity so that Libya could rely less on imported food. All land that had either been expropriated from Italian settlers or which was not in use was expropriated and redistributed. Irrigation systems were established along the northern coastline and around various inland oases. Production costs often outstripped the value of the produce and thus Libyan agricultural production remained in deficit, relying heavily on state subsidies.
With crude oil as the country's primary export, Gaddafi sought to improve Libya's oil sector. In October 1969, he proclaimed the current trade terms unfair, benefiting foreign corporations more than the Libyan state, and by threatening to reduce production, in December Jalloud successfully increased the price of Libyan oil. In 1970, other OPECstates followed suit, leading to a global increase in the price of crude oil. The RCC followed with the Tripoli Agreement, in which they secured income tax, back-payments and better pricing from the oil corporations; these measures brought Libya an estimated $1 billion in additional revenues in its first year.
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, it was announced that all foreign oil producers active in Libya were to see 51% of their operation nationalised. For Gaddafi, this was an important step towards socialism. It proved an economic success; while gross domestic product had been $3.8 billion in 1969, it had risen to $13.7 billion in 1974, and $24.5 billion in 1979. In turn, the Libyans' standard of life greatly improved over the first decade of Gaddafi's administration, and by 1979 the average per-capita income was at $8,170, up from $40 in 1951; this was above the average of many industrialised countries like Italy and the U.K.
The RCC implemented measures for social reform, adopting sharia as a basis. The consumption of alcohol was banned, night clubs and Christian churches were shut down, traditional Libyan dress was encouraged, and Arabic was decreed as the only language permitted in official communications and on road signs. The RCC doubled the minimum wage, introduced statutory price controls, and implemented compulsory rent reductions of between 30 and 40%. Gaddafi also wanted to combat the strict social restrictions that had been imposed on women by the previous regime, establishing the Revolutionary Women's Formation to encourage reform. In 1970, a law was introduced affirming equality of the sexes and insisting on wage parity. In 1971, Gaddafi sponsored the creation of a Libyan General Women's Federation. In 1972, a law was passed criminalising the marriage of any females under the age of sixteen and ensuring that a woman's consent was a necessary prerequisite for a marriage. Gaddafi's regime opened up a wide range of educational and employment opportunities for women, although these primarily benefited a minority in the urban middle-classes.
From 1969 to 1973, it used oil money to fund social welfare programs, which led to house-building projects and improved healthcare and education. House building became a major social priority, designed to eliminate homelessness and to replace the shanty towns created by Libya's growing urbanisation. The health sector was also expanded; by 1978, Libya had 50% more hospitals than it had in 1968, while the number of doctors had grown from 700 to over 3000 in that decade. Malaria was eradicated, and trachoma and tuberculosisgreatly curtailed. Compulsory education was expanded from 6 to 9 years, while adult literacy programs and free university education were introduced. Beida University was founded, while Tripoli University and Benghazi University were expanded. In doing so the government helped to integrate the poorer strata of Libyan society into the education system.Through these measures, the RCC greatly expanded the public sector, providing employment for thousands. These early social programs proved popular within Libya. This popularity was partly due to Gaddafi's personal charisma, youth and underdog status as a Bedouin, as well as his rhetoric emphasising his role as the successor to the anti-Italian fighter Omar Mukhtar.
To combat the country's strong regional and tribal divisions, the RCC promoted the idea of a unified pan-Libyan identity. In doing so, they tried discrediting tribal leaders as agents of the old regime, and in August 1971 a Sabha military court tried many of them for counter-revolutionary activity. Long-standing administrative boundaries were re-drawn, crossing tribal boundaries, while pro-revolutionary modernisers replaced traditional leaders, but the communities they served often rejected them. Realising the failures of the modernisers, Gaddafi created the Arab Socialist Union (ASU) in June 1971, a mass mobilisation vanguard party of which he was president. The ASU recognised the RCC as its "Supreme Leading Authority", and was designed to further revolutionary enthusiasm throughout the country. It remained heavily bureaucratic and failed to mobilise mass support in the way Gaddafi had envisioned.
The influence of Nasser's Arab nationalism over the RCC was immediately apparent.The administration was instantly recognisedby the neighbouring Arab nationalist regimes in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Sudan, with Egypt sending experts to aid the inexperienced RCC. 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 signed the Tripoli Charter alongside Egypt and Sudan. This established the Arab Revolutionary Front, a pan-national union designed as a first step towards the eventual political unification of the three nations. In 1970 Syria declared its intention to join.
Nasser died unexpectedly in November 1970, with Gaddafi playing a prominent role at his funeral. Nasser was succeeded by Anwar Sadat, who suggested that rather than creating a unified state, the Arab states should create a political federation, implemented in April 1971; in doing so, Egypt, Syria and Sudan received large grants of Libyan oil money. In February 1972, Gaddafi and Sadat signed an unofficial charter of merger, but it was never implemented because 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.
After the 1969 coup, representatives of theFour Powers—France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union—were called to meet RCC representatives. The U.K. and the U.S. quickly extended diplomatic recognition, hoping to secure the position of their military bases in Libya and fearing further instability. Hoping to ingratiate themselves with Gaddafi, in 1970 the U.S. informed him of at least one planned counter-coup. Such attempts to form a working relationship with the RCC failed; Gaddafi was determined to reassert national sovereignty and expunge what he described as foreign colonial and imperialist influences. His administration insisted that the U.S. and the 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 British left in March and the Americans left in June 1970.
Moving to reduce Italian influence, in October 1970 all Italian-owned assets were expropriated and the 12,000-strong Italian community was expelled from Libya alongside the smaller community of Libyan Jews. The day became a national holidayknown as "Vengeance Day". Italy complained that this was in contravention of the 1956 Italo-Libyan Treaty, although no U.N.sanctions were forthcoming. Aiming to reduce NATO power in the Mediterranean, in 1971 Libya requested that Malta cease allowing NATO to use its land for a military base, in turn offering Malta foreign aid. Compromising, Malta's government continued allowing NATO to use the island, but only on the condition that NATO would not use it for launching attacks on Arab territory. Over the coming decade, Gaddafi's government developed stronger political and economic links with Dom Mintoff's Maltese administration, and under Libya's urging Malta did not renew the UK's airbases on the island in 1980.Orchestrating a military build-up, the 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., which was then engaged in the Cold Warwith the Soviets.
Gaddafi was especially critical of the U.S. due to its support of Israel, and supported thePalestinians in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, viewing the 1948 creation of the State of Israel as a Western colonial occupation which was forced upon the Arab world. He believed that Palestinian violence against Israeli and Western targets was the justified response of an oppressed people who were fighting against the colonisation of their homeland. Calling on the Arab states to wage "continuous war" against Israel, in 1970 he initiated a Jihad Fund to finance anti-Israeli militants. In June 1972 Gaddafi created the First Nasserite Volunteers Centre to train anti-Israeli guerrillas.
Like Nasser, Gaddafi favoured the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his group, Fatah, over more militant and Marxist Palestinian groups. As the years progressed however, Gaddafi's relationship with Arafat became strained, with Gaddafi considering him too moderate and calling for more violent action. Instead he supported militias like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, theDemocratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, As-Sa'iqa, the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front, and the Abu Nidal Organization. He funded the Black September Organization whose members perpetrated the 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli athletes in West Germany, and had the killed militants' bodies flown to Libya for a hero's funeral.
Gaddafi financially supported other militant groups across the world, including the Black Panther Party, the Nation of Islam, theTupamaros, the 19th of April Movement and the Sandinista National Liberation Front inNicaragua, the ANC among other liberation movements in the fight against Apartheid inSouth Africa, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, ETA, Action directe, the Red Brigades, and the Red Army Faction in Europe, and theArmenian Secret Army, the Japanese Red Army, the Free Aceh Movement, and the Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines. Gaddafi was indiscriminate in the causes which he funded, sometimes switching from supporting one side in a conflict to the other, as in the Eritrean War of Independence.Throughout 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 andneocolonialism. Though many of these groups were labelled "terrorists" by critics of their activities, Gaddafi rejected this characterisation, instead he considered them to be revolutionaries who were engaged in liberation struggles.
The "Popular Revolution": 1973–77
On 16 April 1973, Gaddafi proclaimed the start of a "Popular Revolution" in a speech atZuwarah. He initiated this with a 5-point plan, the first point of which dissolved all existing laws, 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 ofbureaucracy and the bourgeoisie. The fourth point announced that the population must form People's Committees and be armed to defend the revolution, while the fifth proclaimed the beginning of a cultural revolution to expunge Libya of "poisonous" foreign influences. He began to lecture on this new phase of the revolution in Libya, Egypt, and France. As a process, it had many similarities with the Cultural Revolutionimplemented in China.
As part of this Popular Revolution, Gaddafi invited Libya's people to found General People's Committees as conduits for raising political consciousness. Although offering little guidance for how to set up these councils, Gaddafi claimed that they would offer a form of direct political participationthat was more democratic than a traditional party-based representative system. He hoped that the councils would mobilise the people behind the RCC, erode the power of the traditional leaders and the bureaucracy, and allow for a new legal system chosen by the people. Many such committees were established in schools and colleges, where they were responsible for vetting staff, courses, and textbooks to determine if they were compatible with the country's revolutionary ideology.
The People's Committees led to a high percentage of public involvement in decision making, within the limits permitted by the RCC, but exacerbated tribal divisions.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. Operating in a pyramid structure, the base form of these Committees were local working groups, who sent elected representatives to the district level, and from there to the national level, divided between the General People's Congress and theGeneral People's Committee. Above these remained Gaddafi and the RCC, who remained responsible for all major decisions. In crossing regional and tribal identities, the committee system aided national integration and centralisation and tightened Gaddafi's control over the state and administrative apparatus.
Third Universal Theory and The Green Book
In June 1973, Gaddafi created a political ideology as a basis for the Popular Revolution: Third International Theory. This approach regarded both the U.S. and the Soviet Union as imperialist and thus rejected Western capitalism as well as Eastern bloc communism's atheism. In this respect it was similar to the Three Worlds Theorydeveloped by China's political leader Mao Zedong. As part of this theory, Gaddafi praised nationalism as a progressive force and advocated the creation of a pan-Arab state which would lead the Islamic and Third Worlds against imperialism. 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. During 1973 and 1974, his government deepened the legal reliance on sharia, for instance by introducing flogging as punishment for those convicted of adultery or homosexual activity.
Gaddafi summarised Third International Theory in three short volumes published between 1975 and 1979, collectively known as The Green Book. Volume one was devoted to the issue of democracy, outlining the flaws of representative systems in favour of direct, participatory GPCs. The second dealt with Gaddafi's beliefs regarding socialism, while the third explored social issues regarding the family and the tribe. While the first two volumes advocated 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. During the years that followed, Gaddafists adopted quotes from The Green Book, such as "Representation is Fraud", as slogans. Meanwhile, in September 1975, Gaddafi implemented further measures to increase popular mobilisation, introducing objectives to improve the relationship between the Councils and the ASU.
In 1975, Gaddafi's government declared a state monopoly on foreign trade. Its increasingly radical reforms, coupled with the large amount of oil revenue being spent on foreign causes, generated discontent in Libya, particularly among the country's merchant class. In 1974, Libya saw its first civilian attack on Gaddafi's government when a Benghazi army building was bombed. Much of the opposition centred around the RCC member Omar Mehishi, and with fellow RCC member Bashir Saghir al-Hawaadihe began plotting a coup against Gaddafi. In 1975 their plot was exposed and the pair fled into exile, receiving asylum from Sadat's Egypt. In the aftermath only five RCC members remained, and power was further concentrated in Gaddafi's hands. This led to the RCC's official abolition in March 1977.
In September 1975, Gaddafi purged the army, arresting around 200 senior officers, and in October he founded the clandestine Office for the Security of the Revolution. In April 1976, he called upon his supporters in universities to establish "revolutionary student councils" and drive out "reactionary elements". During that year, anti-Gaddafist student demonstrations broke out at the universities of Tripoli and Benghazi, resulting in clashes with both Gaddafist students and police. The RCC responded with mass arrests, and introduced compulsorynational service for young people. In January 1977, two dissenting students and a number of army officers were publicly hanged; Amnesty International condemned it as the first time in Gaddafist Libya that dissenters had been executed for purely political crimes. Dissent also arose from conservative clerics and the Muslim Brotherhood, who accused Gaddafi of moving towards Marxism and criticised his abolition of private property as being against the Islamic sunnah; these forces were then persecuted as anti-revolutionary, while all privately-owned Islamic colleges and universities were shut down.
Foreign relations
Following Anwar Sadat's ascension to the Egyptian presidency, Libya's relations with Egypt deteriorated. Over the coming years, the two slipped into a state of cold war. Sadat was perturbed by Gaddafi's unpredictability and insistence that Egypt required a cultural revolution akin to that being carried out in Libya. In February 1973, Israeli forces shot down Libyan Arab Airlines 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 Haifafor Israel's 25th anniversary. Gaddafi ordered an Egyptian submarine to target the ship, but Sadat cancelled the order, fearing a military escalation.
Gaddafi was later infuriated when Egypt and Syria planned the Yom Kippur War against Israel without consulting him, and was angered when Egypt conceded to peace talks rather than continuing the war. Gaddafi became openly hostile to Egypt's leader, calling for Sadat's overthrow. When Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiry took Sadat's side, Gaddafi also spoke out against him, encouraging the Sudan People's Liberation Army's attempt to overthrow Nimeiry. Relations with Syria also soured over the events in the Lebanese Civil War. Initially, both Libya and Syria had contributed troops to the Arab League's peacekeeping force, although after the Syrian army attacked the Lebanese National Movement, Gaddafi openly accused Syrian President Hafez al-Assad of "national treason"; he was the only Arab leader to criticise Syria's actions.Focusing his attention elsewhere in Africa, in late 1972 and early 1973, Libya invaded Chad to annex the uranium-rich Aouzou Strip.
Intent on propagating Islam, in 1973 Gaddafi founded the Islamic Call Society, which had opened 132 centres across Africa within a decade. In 1973 he converted Gabonese President Omar Bongo, an action which he repeated three years later with Jean-Bédel Bokassa, president of the Central African Republic. Gaddafi was also keen on reducing Israeli influence within Africa, using financial incentives to successfully convince eight African states to break off diplomatic relations with Israel in 1973. A strong relationship was also established between Gaddafi's Libya and Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's Pakistani government, with the two countries exchanging nuclear research and military assistance; this relationship ended after Bhutto was deposed byMuhammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1977.
Gaddafi sought to develop closer links in theMaghreb; in January 1974 Libya and Tunisiaannounced a political union, the Arab Islamic Republic. Although advocated by Gaddafi and Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba, the move was deeply unpopular in Tunisia and it was soon abandoned. Retaliating, Gaddafi sponsored anti-government militants in Tunisia into the 1980s. Turning his attention to Algeria, in 1975 Libya signed the Hassi Messaoud defence allegedly to counter alleged "Moroccan expansionism", also funding the Polisario Front of Western Saharain its independence struggle againstMorocco. Seeking to diversify Libya's economy, Gaddafi's government began purchasing shares in major European corporations like Fiat as well as buying real estate in Malta and Italy, which would become a valuable source of income during the 1980s oil slump.
Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
Foundation: 1977
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" conceptualised by Gaddafi. A new, all-green banner was adopted as the country's flag. Officially, the Jamahiriyawas a direct democracy in which the people ruled themselves through the 187 Basic People's Congresses, where all adult Libyans participated and voted on national decisions. These then sent members to the annual General People's Congress, which was broadcast live on television. In principle, the People's Congresses were Libya's highest authority, with major decisions proposed by government officials or with Gaddafi himself requiring the consent of the People's Congresses.
Although all political control was officially vested in the People's Congresses, in reality Libya's existing political leadership continued to exercise varying degrees of power and influence. Debate remained limited, and major decisions regarding the economy and defence were avoided or dealt with cursorily; the GPC largely remained "a rubber stamp" for Gaddafi's policies. On rare occasions, the GPC opposed Gaddafi's suggestions, sometimes successfully; notably, when Gaddafi called on primary schools to be abolished, believing that home schooling was healthier for children, the GPC rejected the idea. In other instances, Gaddafi pushed through laws without the GPC's support, such as when he desired to allow women into the armed forces. Gaddafi proclaimed that the People's Congresses provided for Libya's every political need, rendering other political organizations unnecessary; all non-authorised groups, including political parties, professional associations, independent trade unions and women's groups, were banned.
With preceding legal institutions abolished, Gaddafi envisioned the Jamahiriya as following the Qur'an for legal guidance, adopting sharia law; he proclaimed "man-made" laws unnatural and dictatorial, only permitting Allah's law. Within a year he was backtracking, announcing that shariawas inappropriate for the Jamahiriya because it guaranteed the protection of private property, contravening The Green Book's socialism. His emphasis on placing his own work on a par with the Qur'an led conservative clerics to accuse him of shirk, furthering their opposition to his regime.In July 1977, a border war broke out with Egypt, in which the Egyptians defeated Libya despite their technological inferiority. The conflict lasted one week before both sides agreed to sign a peace treaty that was brokered by several Arab states. Both Egypt and Sudan had aligned themselves with the U.S., and this pushed Libya into a strategic—although not political—alignment with the Soviet Union. In recognition of the growing commercial relationship between Libya and the Soviets, Gaddafi was invited to visit Moscow in December 1976; there, he entered talks with Leonid Brezhnev. In August 1977 he then visited Yugoslavia, where he met its leader Josip Broz Tito, with whom he had a much warmer relationship.
Revolutionary Committees and furthering socialism: 1978–80
In December 1978, Gaddafi stepped down as Secretary-General of the GPC, announcing his new focus on revolutionary rather than governmental activities; this was part of his new emphasis on separating the apparatus of the revolution from the government. Although no longer in a formal governmental post, he adopted the title of "Leader of the Revolution" and continued as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The historian Dirk Vandewalle stated that despite the Jamahariya's claims to being a direct democracy, Libya remained "an exclusionary political system whose decision-making process" was "restricted to a small cadre of advisors and confidantes" surrounding Gaddafi.
Libya began to turn towards socialism. In March 1978, the government issued guidelines for housing redistribution, attempting to ensure the population that every adult Libyan owned his own home and that nobody was enslaved to paying their rent. Most families were banned from owning more than one house, while former rental properties were expropriated by the state and sold to the tenants at a heavily subsidised price. 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 took control of several hundred companies, converting them intoworker cooperatives run by elected representatives.
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, most of whom were youths, the Revolutionary Committees were led by Mohammad Maghgoub and a Central Coordinating Office based in Tripoli, and met with Gaddafi annually. According to Bearman, the revolutionary committee system became "a key—if not the main—mechanism through which [Gaddafi] exercises political control in Libya". Publishing a weekly magazine The Green March (al-Zahf al-Akhdar), in October 1980 they took control of the press.Responsible for perpetuating revolutionary fervour, 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). 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: the "Green Terror."
In 1979, the committees began the redistribution of land in the Jefara plain, continuing through 1981. In May 1980, measures to redistribute and equalise wealth were implemented; anyone with over 1000dinar in their bank account saw that extra money expropriated. 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.Gaddafi was also frustrated by the slow pace of social reform on women's issues, and in 1979 launched a Revolutionary Women's Formation to replace the more gradualist Libyan General Women's Federation. In 1978 he had established a Women's Military Academy in Tripoli, encouraging all women to enlist for training. The measure was hugely controversial, and voted down by the GPC in February 1983. Gaddafi remained adamant, and when it was again voted down by the GPC in March 1984, he refused to abide by the decision, declaring that "he who opposes the training and emancipation of women is an agent of imperialism, whether he likes it or not."
The Jamahiriya's radical direction earned the government many enemies. Most internal opposition came from Islamic fundamentalists, who were inspired by the events of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. In February 1978, Gaddafi discovered that his head of military intelligence was plotting to kill him, and began to increasingly entrust security to his Qaddadfa tribe. 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. Another, al-Borkan, began killing Libyan diplomats abroad.Following Gaddafi's command to kill these "stray dogs", under Colonel Younis Bilgasim's leadership, the Revolutionary Committees set up overseas branches to suppress counter-revolutionary activity, assassinating various dissidents. Although nearby nations like Syria and Israel also employed hit squads, Gaddafi was unusual in publicly bragging about his administration's use of them; in 1980, he ordered all dissidents to return home or be "liquidated wherever you are."
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SOURCE: Wikipedia
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