Moammar Al Qadhafi


Moammar Abu Minyar Al Qadhafi (June 1942 - ) has been the ruler of Libya
since January 15, 1970.

Early history

Qadhafi is 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. Qadhafi 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 sieze control of the country of Libya. Qadhafi's inspiration was
Gamal Abdul Nasser, a popular statesman in neighboring Egypt who rose to the
presidency by appealing to Arab unity and condemning the West. In 1961
Qadhafi was expelled from Sebha for his political activism.

He 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.

Rise to power

On September 1 1969, Colonel Qadhafi and his secret corps of Unionist
Officers staged a bloodless, unopposed coup d'Žtat in Tripoli, the capital.
They overthrew King Idris Senussi I, exiling him and taking complete control
of the country. Immediately afterward there was a short power struggle
between Qadhafi and his young officers on one side and older senior officers
and civillians on the other, and Qahafi assumed power in January 1970. He
named the country the Libyan Arab Republic and ruled as president of the
Revolutionary Command Council from 1969 to 1977, then switched to the title
of president of People's General Congress from 1977 to 1979. In 1979 he
renounced all official titles but remained as the ruler of Libya.

Islamic Socialism and Pan Arabism

Qadhafi based his new regime on a blend of Arab nationalism, aspects of the
welfare state and what Qadhafi 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
conservative morals, outlawing alcohol and gambling. To reinforce the ideals
of this socialist state, Qadhafi 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
Qadhafi 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, Qadhafi 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-Arabism, the notion of a loose
union of all Islamic countries and peoples. After Nasser's death on
September 28, 1970, Qadhafi 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 Bourgiba 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.

Qadhafi 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, Qadhafi 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.
Qadhafi 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
Qadhafi's own. Through these politics (or rather lack of politics), Qadhafi
confused the world. 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, Qadhafi is to have been the
financier of the "Black September Movement" which perpetrated the 1972
Munich Olympic massacre, he was responsible for the direct control of the
1986 Berlin discotheque bombing that killed 3 and wounded more than 200
people, of which a substancial number were U.S. Servicemen, and is said to
have paid "Carlos the Jackal" to kidnap and release several of the Saudi
Arabian and Iranian oil ministers when it fit his purposes to do so.

External relations

Tensions between Libya and the United States reached a peak during the
Ronald Reagan administration, which tried to overthrow Qadhafi. In 1986, the
U.S. bombing of Libyan sites in response to terrorism allegedly traced to
Libya killed Qadhafi's adopted infant daughter. From the late 1980s
Qadhafi's politics have changed into a more pragmatic and selective support
of a limited number of groups.

For most of the 1990s, Libya endured economic sanctions and diplomatic
isolation as a result of Qadhafi's refusal to allow the extradition to the
United States or Britain of two Libyans accused of planting a bomb on a Pan
American jet over Lockerbie, Scotland. With the intercession of South
African President Nelson Mandela, who made a high-profile visit to Qadhafi
in 1997, and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Qadhafi agreed in 1999 to a
compromise that involved handing over the defendants to the Netherlands for
trial under Scottish law. U.N.-sponsored sanctions were suspended, but U.S.
sanctions against Libya remained in force.

A new Qadhafi?

In the last ten years, though, Qadhafi has managed to improve his
connections all over the Arab world and is today considered as a moderate
and responsible leader throughout the Arab world. Through his strict line
towards the U.S., he has become one of the most popular leaders among
ordinary people all over the Arab world. So far there have been few
indications of his softening the view upon Israel, and this will probably
not change unless a real solution to the process with Palestine is achieved.

Qadhafi also appears to be struggling to improve his image in the west.
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, Qadhafi offered one of the
first, and firmest denunciations of the Al-Qaida bombers by any Muslim
leader. In 2002 he publicly apologized for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, and
offered to pay compensation to the victims' families. Qadhafi 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 to the change of Qadhafi's politics. The most
obvious is that the once very rich Libya was no longer strong through the
1990s, since oil prices have dropped significantly. Qadhafi needs other
countries more than before, and can't hand out as much as he once could.
Another possibility is that strong Western reactions have forced Qadhafi

into changing his politics. But more important is that Qadhafi has changed
because Realpolitik changed him. His ideals and aims did not materialize:
there never was any Arab unity, the freedom fighters he supported didn't
achieve their goals, and the demise of the Soviet Union left Qadhafi's main
symbolic target, the U.S., stronger than ever.

In October 1993 there was an unsuccessful attempt on Qadhafi'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
Qadhafi.

Quotation

"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." -- 11 September
2001