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Libya
INTRODUCTION
LIBYA'S INTERNATIONAL PROMINENCE in the mid- and latter l980s
was disproportionate to its geographic size or population. The
domestic and international activities of its revolutionary leader
Muammar al Qadhafi, combined with the financial and economic power
resulting from Libya's discovery and exploitation of its significant
petroleum resources, were primarily responsible for propelling
Libya onto the world stage. By the 1980s, Qadhafi's grip on power
was so strong that press commentaries and academic reports routinely
used his name and that of his government interchangeably. Until
the Libyan Revolution in 1969, few Westerners had any knowledge
of Libya beyond an awareness of it as the site of desert campaigns
in World War II, such as Al Alamein, and the ruins of ancient
Carthage and Tripoli. Early Libyan history was influenced by numerous
foreign conquerors, including the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the
Romans, and, most significantly, the Arabs, who established Islam
in the late seventh and early eighth centuries. The Arab conquest
of North Africa left a lasting mark on the Berber tribes that
inhabited the area. North African Islam under various caliphates
took on a distinctive form that incorporated indigenous religious
practices, such as the veneration of holy men (see The Religious
Life , ch. 2).
Under Ottoman Turkish rule in the nineteenth century, the Sanusi
Islamic religious order became a powerful force with political
overtones, as the Sanusi lodges helped weld together the rival
beduin tribes of Cyrenaica. In the twentieth century, when Italy
sought to conquer Cyrenaica and adjoining Tripolitania, the Sanusi
movement constituted the major source of opposition to colonial
rule. More advanced Italian weaponry prevailed, however, and Italy
gained control of the area following World War I, setting up a
new administrative system joining the two regions, together with
the southern region of Fezzan (see Italian Rule and Arab Resistance
, ch. l).
The Italians improved the infrastructure of the area, creating
roads, railroads, port facilities, and irrigation projects, but
did little to train the inhabitants in administrative, technical,
or agricultural skills. During World War II, a number of Cyrenaicans
determined that the best route for gaining independence would
be to support the Allied side; accordingly, they fought with the
British in the desert war. This action, coupled with Italy's defeat,
led to a brief period of British administration of the former
Italian-controlled area after the war. Thereafter, under United
Nations auspices, King Idris of the Sanusi family proclaimed the
United Kingdom of Libya in 1951.
The new country faced severe economic problems as well as political
difficulties resulting from its lack of national cohesion. Economically,
Libya was handicapped by its largely desert terrain and its sparse
and unskilled population. To gain a major source of revenue as
well as of military assistance, King Idris granted base rights
to Britain and the United States in 1953 and 1954, respectively.
The discovery of oil in commercial quantities by Esso (later Exxon)
in 1959 brought about a substantial increase in national income
as well as growing Western influence. Meanwhile, in 1963, King
Idris sought to change Libya's unwieldy federal system by creating
a unitary state. The latter move encountered obstacles because
the three provinces of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Fezzan had
little in common, and the majority of Libyans did not identify
with the monarchy or have nationalist feelings.
Both the discovery of oil and the rise in Western influence proved
to be divisive elements for the Libyan state. Revenues from the
oil industry benefited relatively few in Libyan society and led
to greater stratification between the small wealthy group and
the large poor one. Furthermore, King Idris's pro-Western constitutional
monarchy had minimal associations with the Arab states. These
two factors contributed to a rising dissatisfaction with the monarchy.
The discontent ultimately led to the seizure of power by the Free
Officers' Movement in 1969 while King Idris was abroad for medical
treatment.
The movement established a Revolutionary Command Council of twelve
members, which formed a new government. Among the members was
Qadhafi, who served both as prime minister and defense minister.
Qadhafi was strongly influenced by the revolutionary ideas of
Egyptian leader Gamal Abdul Nasser and persuaded his officer colleagues
to adopt a program that reflected a number of Nasser's concepts.
The new government proclaimed as its watchwords "Freedom, Socialism,
and Unity." Freedom was to be achieved through a program that
had a populist framework to allow maximum direct citizen participation
at the bottom, through "popular committees," whereas the structure
was controlled at the top by handpicked military officers. Socialism
was pursued through various domestic programs designed to develop
Libya's infrastructure and promote industrialization. Unity entailed
Libya's announced intent to pursue an Arab and Islamic policy
as well as attempts by Qadhafi at various times to achieve union
with several Arab states. In line with its intended populist and
socialist character, in 1977 the official name of the country
was changed to "The Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya."
Qadhafi coined the term jamahiriya to mean "power to the masses,"
his interpretation of freedom. In theory, the power of the masses
was to be exercised by the popular committees established at various
levels and in different segments of the population--in localities,
government ministries, businesses, and universities. In practice,
elections to such committees and the exercise of authority were
"guided" by the General People's Committee, which replaced the
Council of Ministers (see The General People's Congress , ch.
4). Although technically appointed by the General Popular Congress
at its annual meeting, the General People's Committee was in effect
selected by Qadhafi himself. Thus, the power to implement or initiate
measures was strictly limited and popular participation in government
declined during the 1980s, leading Qadhafi to advocate the creation
of a new political party to energize the socialist system.
To develop this political structure in the early period and to
allow himself more time to serve as theoretician for the new Libyan
experiment in revolutionary socialism, Qadhafi resigned in 1974
from any official government post, while remaining de facto head
of state. In this capacity Qadhafi was referred to as "the leader,"
and he produced three slim parts known as The Green Book, setting
forth his program and its justification. These came to assume
a position for the Libyans comparable to that of the "Little red
book" of Chairman Mao Zedong for the Chinese. Qadhafi's pursuit
of socialism as set in The Green Book entailed the development
of Libya's infrastructure in transportation and communications,
utilities, and basic services (see Role of the Government , ch.
3). To accomplish this development, revenues and manpower were
necessary. Substantial domestic revenues resulted from oil production
in the years following the Revolution and transformed Libya from
a leading have-not state into a major oil exporter. Because of
Libya's severe shortage of manpower, particularly skilled labor,
thousands of foreign workers were required. These workers came
mainly from other North African and from sub-Saharan states. When
oil revenues began to decline in the early 1980s, and in view
of the internal security threat the laborers represented, Qadhafi
terminated the services of thousands of them in 1982-83, exacerbating
Libya's relations with neighboring states.
Another part of Qadhafi's socialist scheme was the establishment
of industries and the improvement of agriculture through irrigation
projects. A keystone of the latter was the Great Man- Made River
project, underway in 1987, to bring water from oases in the south
and southeast to the cities on the Mediterranean. The total estimated
cost for the two stages of the 1,900 kilometer-long pipeline was
US$5 billion.
The third element of Libya's program was support for Arab unity.
In pursuit of this goal, Qadhafi capitalized on opportunities
for union with various Arab states. At different times such unification
attempts included unions with Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and
Morocco. These efforts were designed to strengthen Qadhafi's personal
leadership role in as well as Libya's position in African and
Middle Eastern politics, and to act as a counterbalance to neighboring
states perceived as hostile. For example, when Egypt was viewed
as a threat, Qadhafi initiated a 1984 union with Morocco, the
only one of his unions that as of early 1988 had achieved a semblance
of implementation (1984-86).
Qadhafi also saw himself both as a leader of the Nonaligned Movement
and as a key instrument in furthering the spread of Islam, particularly
in sub-Saharan Africa. To these ends he sought unsuccessfully
several times in the early l980s to be elected chairman of the
Organization for African Unity and proposed a Sahelian empire
to include Libya and other African states whose populations contained
significant percentages of Muslims. Qadhafi used Libya's oil revenues
both to spread Islam and to extend Libyan influence in developing
countries, especially in Africa, seeing this two-pronged campaign
as a means of countering colonialism and Western influences (see
Foreign Relations , ch. 4). This policy resulted from Qadhafi's
advocacy in The Green Book of a stance that supported "neither
East nor West," indicating that the Jamahiriya rejected both communism,
with its atheistic ideology, and Western capitalism, with its
association with colonialism and "imperialism." This stance led
to a strong opposition to the Western powers, particularly the
United States, because of the latter's identification with Israel.
Qadhafi's stand against colonialism led him to support dissident
or revolutionary movements, particularly Muslim ones, that were
fighting against established regimes viewed as reactionary, e.g.,
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Moro National
Liberation Front in the Philippines. In so doing, he provided
weapons, funds, and training as deemed appropriate. Qadhafi has
also been charged with training and equipping terrorist groups
of various kinds, including Palestinians and the Irish Republican
Army, who have launched attacks against Westerners, including
Americans (see International Terrorism and Support for Insurgent
Groups , ch. 5). In retaliation for such incidents, specifically
the bombing of a Berlin club in which Americans were killed or
wounded and in which Libya was implicated, the United States launched
air strikes in March 1987 against targets in several Libyan cities.
This retaliation appeared to have served as a deterrent to Libyan
terrorist activity in that as of early 1988 Libyan-sponsored terrorist
incidents had decreased markedly.
Qadhafi's avowed anticommunist stance was pragmatic, however.
Although he refused to grant bases to the Soviet Union, he viewed
the latter as an excellent source of sophisticated weaponry. He
also relied upon the countries of Eastern Europe for military
and technical advisers and especially for assistance in the field
of internal security. He used severe measures, however, in suppressing
domestic communism.
The major source of support for Qadhafi's domestic and foreign
programs has always been the army. Recognizing this, Qadhafi took
pains to see that military salaries and perquisites were generous
and that the armed forces were equipped with the latest military
arms and technology. His purchases of weaponry, particularly from
the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, were of such magnitude that
Libya was unable to deploy all its equipment (see Foreign Military
Assistance , ch. 5). Qadhafi also took precautions against potential
coups directed at him that might originate in the military by
using East European security personnel to protect himself and
by frequently rotating individuals in key military positions.
In 1988 Qadhafi had had one of the longest tenures of office
of any African leader. But, in the course of his rule, opposition
elements within and outside Libya had increased. Internal opposition
resulted partly from Qadhafi's socialist measures, which had confiscated
property belonging to wealthy citizens, partly from his increasingly
authoritarian style of rule, such as his imperious suppression
of opposition among university students, and partly from Qadhafi's
military ventures abroad. In the mid- and latter l980s, Qadhafi's
campaign against internal opposition elements had become increasingly
harsh, leading to the assassination of various individuals in
exile abroad as well as actual or potential dissidents within
Libya. Qadhafi's involvement in the ongoing war with Chad and
his support of rebel forces in Sudan also contributed to reported
rising discontent within the army.
In the realm of external opposition, Qadhafi's relations with
the moderate Arab states, such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the
Persian Gulf states, were strained at best. He was also frequently
at odds with his North African neighbors, whom he had antagonized
by supporting opposition elements or by direct military action.
Despite these sources of domestic and foreign opposition, foreign
observers doubted that Qadhafi would be ousted from his pivotal
position in the Libyan Jamahiriya, short of a successful military
coup.
Data as of 1987
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