GHEDDAFI
Muammar Abu Minyar
al-Qaddafi 1
— pronounced Gaddafi — (Arabic:
معمر
القذافي /muˈʕɑmːɑr
ɑlqɑˈðːɑːfiː/) (born circa
1942 near
Sirte, Libya), has been the leader of Libya
since 1969.
Although Gaddafi holds no public office or title, he is accorded the
honorifics "Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the
Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya"
or "Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution".
Early history
Gaddafi was the youngest
child from a nomadic
Bedouin
peasant family in the desert region of Sirte.
He was given a traditional religious primary education and attended the Sebha
preparatory school in Fezzan
from 1956 to 1961.
Gaddafi and a small group of friends that he met in this school went on to
form the core leadership of a militant revolutionary group that would
eventually seize control of the country. Gaddafi's inspiration was Gamal
Abdel Nasser, president of neighboring Egypt,
who rose to the presidency by appealing to Arab
unity. In 1961,
Gaddafi was expelled from Sebha for his political activism.
Gaddafi went on to attend
the University
of Libya, where he graduated with high grades. He then entered the
Military Academy in Benghazi
in 1963, where
he and a few of his fellow militants organized a secretive group dedicated
to overthrowing the pro-Western Libyan monarchy. After graduating in 1965,
he was sent to Britain
for further training, returning in 1966
as a commissioned officer in the Signal Corps.
Seizing power
On September
1, 1969, a
small group of military officers led by Gaddafi staged a coup
d'état against King
Idris, who was exiled to Egypt. The new regime, headed by the
Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), abolished the monarchy and proclaimed
the new Libyan Arab Republic. Gaddafi emerged as leader of the RCC and
eventually as de facto chief of state, a political role he still plays,
although he may hold no official position. Gaddafi is referred to in
government statements and the official press as the "Brother Leader and
Guide of the Revolution."
Unlike other military
dictators, Gaddafi did not promote himself to the rank of general
upon seizing power, but rather accepted a ceremonial promotion from captain
to colonel and has remained at this rank for the last thirty-five years.
This no doubt appears odd to western militaries, in that a colonel can rule
a country and serve as Commander-in-Chief
of its military, but in Gaddafi's own words Libya's utopian society is
"ruled by the people", so he needs no grandiose title or a supreme
military rank.
Gaddafi's remaining a
colonel, while assuming control over a country, is not a new concept among
dictatorships. Gamal
Abdel Nasser remained a colonel after seizing power in Egypt
while Jerry
Rawlings, dictator of Ghana,
held no military rank higher than Flight
Lieutenant.
Islamic Socialism and
Pan-Arabism
Gaddafi based his new
regime on a blend of Arab
nationalism, aspects of the welfare
state and what Gaddafi termed "direct, popular democracy."
He called this system "Islamic
socialism" and while he permitted private control over small
companies, the government controlled the larger ones. Welfare, "liberation"
and education were emphasized. He also imposed a system of Islamic morals,
outlawing alcohol and gambling. To reinforce the ideals of this
socialist-Islamic state, Gaddafi outlined his political philosophy in his Green
Book, published in 1976. In practice, however, Libya's political
system is thought to be somewhat less idealistic and from time to time
Gaddafi has responded to domestic and external opposition with violence. His
revolutionary committees called for the assassination
of Libyan dissidents living abroad in February 1980,
with Libyan hit squads sent abroad to murder them.
With respect to Libya's
neighbors, Gaddafi followed Abdul
Nasser's ideas of pan-Arabism
and became a fervent advocate of the unity of all Arab states into one Arab
nation. He also supported pan-Islamism,
the notion of a loose union of all Islamic countries and peoples. After
Nasser's death on September
28, 1970,
Gaddafi attempted to take up the mantle of ideological leader of Arab
nationalism. He proclaimed the "Federation of Arab Republics" (Libya,
Egypt and Syria)
in 1972, hoping
to create a pan-Arab state, but the three countries disagreed on the
specific terms of the merger. In 1974
he signed an agreement with Tunisia's
Habib
Bourguiba on a merger between the two countries, but this also failed to
work in practice and ultimately differences between the two countries would
deteriorate into strong animosity.
Gaddafi also became a
strong supporter of the Palestine
Liberation Organization, which ultimately harmed Libya's relations with
Egypt when in 1979 Egypt pursued a peace agreement with Israel.
As Libya's relations with Egypt worsened, Gaddafi sought closer relations
with the Soviet
Union. Libya became the first country outside the Soviet bloc to receive
the supersonic MiG-25
combat fighters, but their relations remained relatively distant. Gaddafi
also sought to increase Libyan influence, especially in states with an Islamic
population, by calling for the creation of a Saharan Islamic state and
supporting anti-government forces in sub-Saharan
Africa.
Notable in his politics has
been the support for liberation movements, in most cases Muslim groups. In
the 1970s and the 1980s this support was sometimes so freely given that even
the most unsympathetic groups could get Libyan support. Often the groups
represented ideologies far away from Gaddafi's own. International opinion
was confused by these policies. Throughout the 1970s, his regime was
implicated in subversion and terrorist activities in both Arab and non-Arab
countries. By the mid-1980s, he was widely regarded in the West as the
principal financier of international terrorism. Reportedly, Gaddafi was a
major financier of the "Black
September Movement" which perpetrated the 1972
Munich Olympics massacre, and is accused by the United
States of being responsible for direct control of the 1986
Berlin discotheque bombing that killed 3 people and wounded more than
200 others, of which a substantial number were U.S. servicemen. He is also
said to have paid "Carlos
the Jackal" to kidnap and then release a number of the Saudi
Arabian and Iranian
oil ministers.
External relations
Tensions between Libya and
the West reached a peak during the Ronald
Reagan administration, which tried to overthrow Gaddafi. In 1984
a British policewoman, PC Yvonne
Fletcher, was shot outside the Libyan Embassy in London,
while policing an anti-Gaddafi demonstration. A burst of machine-gun fire
from within the building was always suspected of killing her, but the Libyan
diplomats asserted their diplomatic immunity and were repatriated. The
incident led to the breaking-off of diplomatic relations between the UK and
Libya for over a decade.
The Reagan administration
saw Libya as an unacceptable player on the international stage because of
its uncompromising stance on Palestinian independence, its support for
revolutionary Iran
in its 1980–1988
war against Saddam
Hussein's Iraq
(see Iran-Iraq
War), and its backing for "liberation movements" in the
developing world. In March 1982
the U.S. declared a ban on the import of Libyan oil
and the export to Libya of US oil industry technology; Europe did not follow
suit.
The U.S. attacked Libyan
patrol boats from January to March 1986
during clashes over access to the Gulf
of Sidra, which Libya claimed as territorial
waters. Later, on April
15, 1986,
Reagan ordered major bombing raids, dubbed Operation
El Dorado Canyon, against Tripoli
and Benghazi
that killed 60 people following U.S. accusations of Libyan involvement in a
bomb explosion in West Berlin's La
Belle discotheque, a nightclub frequented by U.S. servicemen on April
5. Among the fatalities of the April
15 retaliatory attack by the U.S. was the adopted daughter of the Libyan
leader.
Libya's involvement with
and support for terrorism were confirmed in late 1987 when a merchant vessel,
the MV Eksund, was intercepted by the Irish Navy. Destined for the IRA,
a large consignment of arms and explosives supplied by Libya was recovered
from the Eksund. British intelligence believed this was not the first
and that previous Libyan arms shipments had got through to the IRA.
For most of the 1990s,
Libya endured economic
sanctions and diplomatic isolation as a result of Gaddafi's refusal to
allow the extradition
to the United
States or Britain
of two Libyans accused of planting a bomb on Pan
Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie,
Scotland.
Through the intercession of South
African President Nelson
Mandela – who made a high-profile visit to Gaddafi in 1997
– and U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi
Annan, Gaddafi agreed in 1999
to a compromise that involved handing over the defendants to the Netherlands
for trial under Scottish
law. U.N. sanctions were thereupon suspended, but U.S. sanctions against
Libya remained in force.
In August 2003,
two years after Abdelbaset
Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi's conviction, Libya formally accepted
responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing. Gaddafi agreed to pay compensation
of up to $2.7 billion – or up to $10 million each – to the
families of the 270 victims. The same month, Britain and Bulgaria
co-sponsored a U.N. resolution which removed the suspended sanctions. (Bulgaria's
involvement in tabling this motion led to suggestions that there was a link
with the HIV
trial in Libya in which 5 Bulgarian nurses, working at a Benghazi
hospital, were accused of infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV.)[1]Forty
per cent of the compensation was then paid to each family, and a further 40%
followed once U.S. sanctions were removed. Because the U.S. refused to take
Libya off its list of state sponsors of terrorism, Libya retained the last
20% ($540 million) of the $2.7 billion compensation package.
In October 1993
there was an unsuccessful attempt on Gaddafi's life by 2,000 members of the
army; in May 1994
Libyan troops withdrew from Chad
after a territorial dispute that began in 1973,
returning to the original borders; and, in July 1996
bloody riots followed a football
match as a protest against Gaddafi.
A new Gaddafi?
From the mid-1990s, Gaddafi
managed to improve his connections among Middle
Eastern nations and is today considered a much more moderate and
responsible leader in the Arab world than previously. Regarding the Palestinians,
he has begun pushing the concept of a binational single-state solution
– "Isratine"
– a combination of the words Israel
and Palestine.
Simultaneously, Gaddafi has
also emerged as a popular African leader. As one of the continent's
longest-serving, post-colonial heads of state, the Libyan leader enjoys a
reputation among many Africans as an experienced and wise statesman who has
been at the forefront of many struggles over the years. Gaddafi has earned
the praise of Nelson
Mandela and others, and is always a prominent figure in various
pan-African organizations, such as the Organization
of African Unity. He is also seen by many Africans as a humanitarian,
pouring large amounts of money into sub-Saharan states. Large numbers of
Africans have come to Libya to take advantage of the availability of jobs
there. In addition, many economic migrants – primarily from Somalia
and Ghana
– use Libya as a staging-post to reach Italy
and other European
countries.
Gaddafi also appeared to be
attempting to improve his image in the West. Two years prior to the the
terrorist attacks of September
11, 2001,
Libya pledged its commitment to fighting Al-Qaida
and offered to open up its weapons program to international inspection. The
Clinton administration failed to pursue the offer at the time since Libya's
weapons program was not then regarded as a threat. In any case, the matter
of handing over the Lockerbie bombing suspects needed to be resolved first.
Following the attacks of September
11, Gaddafi made one of the first, and firmest, denunciations of the
Al-Qaida bombers by any Muslim leader. Gaddafi also appeared on ABC
for an open interview with George
Stephanopoulos, a move that would have seemed unthinkable less than a
decade ago.
There are many explanations
for the change of Gaddafi's politics. The most obvious is that the once very
rich Libya became much less wealthy as oil prices dropped significantly
during the 1990's. Since then, Gaddafi has tended to need other countries
more than before and hasn't been able to dole out generous foreign aid as he
once did. In this environment, the increasingly stringent sanctions placed
by the UN and US on Libya made it more and more isolated politically and
economically. Another possibility is that strong Western reactions have
forced Gaddafi into changing his politics. It is also possible that realpolitik
changed Gaddafi. His ideals and aims did not materialize: there never was
any Arab
unity, the various armed revolutionary organizations he supported did
not achieve their goals, and the demise of the Soviet
Union left Gaddafi's main symbolic target, the United
States, stronger than ever.
Following the overthrow of Saddam
Hussein by US forces in 2003,
Gaddafi announced that his nation had an active weapons
of mass destruction program, but was willing to allow international
inspectors into his country to observe and dismantle them. US President George
W. Bush and other supporters of the Iraq
War attempted to portray Gaddafi's announcement as a direct consequence
of the Iraq War by claiming that Gaddafi acted out of fear for the future of
his own regime if he continued to keep and conceal his weapons. Italian
Premier Silvio
Berlusconi, a supporter of the Iraq War, was quoted as saying that
Gaddafi had privately phoned him, admitting as much. Many foreign policy
experts, however, contend that Gaddafi's announcement was merely a
continuation of his prior attempts at normalizing relations with the West
and getting the sanctions removed. To support this, they point to the fact
that Libya had already made similar offers starting four years prior to it
finally being accepted.[2][3]International
inspectors turned up several tons of chemical weaponry in Libya, as well as
an active nuclear
weapons program. As the process of destroying these weapons continued,
Libya improved its cooperation with international monitoring regimes to the
extent that, by March 2006,
France was
able to conclude an agreement with Libya to develop a significant nuclear
power program.
In March 2004,
British
prime minister Tony
Blair became one of the first western leaders in decades to visit Libya
and publicly meet Gaddafi. Blair praised Gaddafi's recent acts, and stated
that he hoped Libya could now be a strong ally in the international War
on Terrorism. In the run-up to Blair's visit, the British ambassador in
Tripoli, Anthony Layden, explained Libya's and Gaddafi's political change
thus:
-
"35 years of total
state control of the economy has left them in a situation where they're
simply not generating enough economic activity to give employment to the
young people who are streaming through their successful education
system. I think this dilemma goes to the heart of Colonel Gaddafi's
decision that he needed a radical change of direction."[1]
Personal
Gaddafi has eight children,
seven of them sons. His oldest son, Muhammad
Qaddafi, is by a wife now in disfavor, but runs the Libyan Olympic
Committee. The next eldest Al-Saadi
Qaddafi, runs the Libyan Football Federation, plays for Italian Serie
A team Udinese
Calcio, and produces films. The third eldest, Saif
al-Islam Qaddafi, a painter, runs a charity which has been involved in
negotiating freedom for hostages taken by Islamic
militants, especially in the Philippines.
His only daughter is Ayesha
Qaddafi, a lawyer who has joined the defense team of Saddam
Hussein. All are seen as possible successors. Three more sons, Al
Moatassim, Hannbil, and Khamees, are less prominent. (In September
2004, Hannbil was involved in a police chase in Paris.)
One adopted daughter was killed in the 1986
USAF bombing raid.
In January
2002, Gaddafi purchased a 7.5% share of Italian football club Juventus
for USD 21
million, through Lafico
("Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company"). Though Gaddafi
is an avid football fan, this more importantly continued a longstanding
association with the late Gianni
Agnelli, the primary investor in Fiat.
Gaddafi has also become involved in chess:
in March 2004, FIDE,
the game's world governing body, announced that he would be providing prize
money for the World
Championship, held in June–July 2004 in Tripoli.
In November 2002,
he hosted the Miss
Net World beauty
pageant, a first for Libya and as far as is known, the world's first to
be held on the internet.
