Muammar al-Gaddafi
:
For the American rapper, see Tragedy Khadafi |
Muammar al-Gaddafi visits Brussels in 2004 (photo courtesy of the EC). |
Colonel Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi1 ( ) (born c.
1942), has been the de facto 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" in government statements and the official press.
[US Department of State's Background Notes, (Nov 2005) "Libya - History", U.S. Dept. of State, Accessed July 14 2006]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 study Law at 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 at
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, returning in 1966 as a commissioned officer in the Signal Corps.
On
September 1 1969, a small group of military officers led by Gaddafi staged a
coup d'état against
King Idris I, while he was in Turkey for medical treatment. His nephew the Crown Prince
Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida al-Mahdi as-Sanussi became King. It became clear that the revolutionary officers who had announced the deposing of Idris did not want to appoint him over the instruments of state as King, because he complained that his power was far less than that which he had been exercising as Crown Prince on Idris's behalf. Before the end of
September 1, King
Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida al-Mahdi as-Sanussi, had been formally deposed by the revolutionary army officers and put under house arrest and they abolished the monarchy and proclaimed the new
Libyan Arab Republic. 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. While at odds with western military ranking for a colonel to rule a country and serve as
Commander-in-Chief of its military, in Gaddafi's own words Libya's utopian society is "ruled by the people", so he needs no more grandiose title or supreme military rank. Also, 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.
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
Munich massacre at the
1972 Summer Olympics, and was accused by the
United States of being responsible for direct control of the
1986 Berlin discotheque bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 200, 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.
Tensions between Libya and the West reached a peak during the
Ronald Reagan administration, which tried to overthrow Gaddafi. 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.
In
1984 British
police constable 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 suspected of killing her, but Libyan diplomats asserted their diplomatic immunity and were repatriated. The incident led to the breaking-off of
diplomatic relations between the
United Kingdom and Libya for over a decade.
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 killing 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. 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.)
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."
On
May 15 2006, the
US State Department announced that it would restore full diplomatic relations with Libya, even after Gaddafi declared Libya's weapons of mass destruction programs. The State Department also stated that Libya would be removed from the list of nations that support terrorism.
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4773617.stm]In October 1993, there was an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Gaddafi by elements of the Libyan army. Eight months later, Libyan troops were withdrawn from Chad thus ending a territorial dispute which dated back to 1973. In July 1996, bloody riots followed a football match as a protest against Gaddafi.
There are a number of political groups opposed to Gaddafi:
*
National Conference of the Libyan Opposition*
National Front for the Salvation of Libya*
Committee for Libyan National Action in EuropeA website, actively seeking his overthrow, was set up in 2006 and lists 343 victims of murder and political assassination.
The Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR) – based in
Geneva – petitioned Gaddafi to set up an independent inquiry into the February 2006 unrest in Benghazi in which some 30 Libyans and foreigners were killed.
Gaddafi has eight children, seven of them sons. His oldest son,
Muhammad Gaddafi, is by a wife now in disfavor, but runs the Libyan Olympic Committee. The next eldest
Al-Saadi Gaddafi, runs the Libyan Football Federation, plays for Italian
Serie A team
Udinese Calcio, and produces films. The third eldest,
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, 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 Gaddafi, a lawyer who has joined the defense team of former Iraqi leader
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.)
Gaddafi's reportedly adopted daughter, Hanna, was killed in the
1986 USAF bombing raid. At a "concert for peace", held on
April 15 2006 in Tripoli to mark the 20th anniversary of the bombing raid, U.S. singer
Lionel Richie told the audience::"Hanna will be honored tonight because of the fact that you've attached peace to her name."
Hanna's status as Gaddafi's adopted daughter remains unresolved. USA Today Foreign Affairs correspondent Barbara Slavin said that "his adopted daughter was not killed. An infant girl was killed. I actually saw her body. She was adopted posthumously by Gaddafi."
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.
Lahore,
Pakistan's primary cricket stadium,
Gaddafi Stadium, is named after him.
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.
Gaddafi's personal
bodyguard, the
Amazonian guard, is composed of beautiful African women who are
martial arts experts and highly-trained in the use of weapons. The Amazonian guard accompanied him on his 2004 visit to
Brussels.
*"Ronald Reagan plays with fire! He sees the world like the theater".
*"I've got two idols in my life â€"
President Lincoln and
Dr. Sun Yat-sen"
[quoted from a newspaper article in "China Times", January 19 2006, page A3]*"Irrespective of the conflict with America, it is a human duty to show sympathy with the American people and be with them at these horrifying and awesome events which are bound to awaken human conscience." —
September 11,
2001*"Man's freedom is lacking if somebody else controls what he needs, for need may result in man's enslavement of man."
*"We have fifty million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe - without swords, without guns, without conquests. The fifty million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades. Europe is in a predicament, and so is America. They should agree to become Islamic in the course of time, or else declare war on the Muslims."
The spelling
Muammar al-Gaddafi in this article is also
Time Magazine's preferred spelling. Gaddafi's name has, however, been
transliterated in a wide variety of ways. For example, an article published in the
London Evening Standard on
March 29 2004 lists a total of 37 spellings; a 1986 column by
The Straight Dope counted 32.
The
Associated Press and affiliates (such as
CNN and
FOX News) use the spelling
Moammar Gadhafi.
Al Jazeera uses
Muammar al-Qadhafi whilst the
U.S. State Department uses
Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi. In 1986, Gaddafi reportedly responded to a
Minnesota school's letter in English using the spelling
Moammar El-Gadhafi.
["Second-Graders Get Letter From Khadafy." The Associated Press May 16 1986: Domestic News.] Though, according to Gaddafi's personal website, he prefers the spelling
Muammar Gadafi, the domain name gives yet another version:
al-Gathafi.
In the 1999 pilot episode of the TV series
The West Wing,
White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (played by
John Spencer) fills out the
New York Times crossword puzzle, for which "17 Across" is "Gaddafi." McGarry claims the answer is spelled incorrectly, and "isn't a seven-letter word for anything."
*
List of dictators*
List of national leaders*
Official web site*
Libyan PM denies responsibility*
Reuters article on Gaddafi's Unified Africa - ''during G8 summit meetings on relieving African debt 4 July 2005 22:08 (UTC)
*
"Meeting Muammar" by Vivienne Walt,
Slate.com,
16 December 2004*
Straight Dope article on the many spellings of Moammar's name*
Libya news and views*
Anti-Gaddafi website*
Gaddafi: A Living Myth - Performance by Asian Dub Foundation in conjuction with ENO
