[508] The Nigerian newspaper Leadership reported that while many Libyans and Africans would mourn Gaddafi, this would be ignored by Western media and that as such it would take 50 years before historians decided whether he was "martyr or villain". [361] Surrounding himself with bodyguards,[363] he continually moved residences to escape NTC shelling, devoting his days to prayer and reading the Qur'an. [78] Many schemes were established to aid entrepreneurs and develop a Libyan bourgeoisie. [428], A very private individual,[382] Gaddafi was given to rumination and solitude and could be reclusive. Private enterprise was virtually eliminated, largely replaced by a centrally controlled economy. UNITED NATIONS (AP) — American security contractor Erik Prince, a close ally of former U.S. President Donald Trump, violated the U.N. arms embargo against Libya … [31] Gaddafi admired the political changes implemented in the Arab Republic of Egypt under his hero, President Gamal Abdel Nasser. [399] In large part due to their support of Israel, Gaddafi despised the United States, considering the country to be imperialist and lambasting it as "the embodiment of evil". [90] 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. At a single blow our gallant army has toppled these idols and has destroyed their images. [194] Gaddafi proclaimed that the People's Congresses provided for Libya's every political need, rendering other political organizations unnecessary; all non-authorized groups, including political parties, professional associations, independent trade unions, and women's groups, were banned. [388] Gaddafi called for the Arab world to regain its dignity and assert a major place on the world stage, blaming Arab backwardness on stagnation resulting from Ottoman rule, European colonialism and imperialism, and corrupt and repressive monarchies. [208] 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). British police investigations identified two Libyans – Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah – as the chief suspects, and in November 1991 issued a declaration demanding that Libya hand them over. Deposed in the 1969 coup d'état. [117] 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. [293] There was speculation that Gaddafi wanted to become the AU's first chair, raising concerns within Africa that this would damage the Union's international standing, particularly with the West. [130] Calling on the Arab states to wage "continuous war" against Israel, in 1970 he initiated a Jihad Fund to finance anti-Israeli militants. [17] Claims have been made that his maternal grandmother was a Jew who converted to Islam. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. entered office on January 20, 2021. His home and office at Azizia was a bunker designed by West German engineers, while the rest of his family lived in a large two-storey building. [99] These early social programs proved popular within Libya. List of Libyan presidents, leaders and heads of state. Who is a president of Libya? [437] He regarded himself as an intellectual;[438] he was a fan of Beethoven and said his favourite novels were Uncle Tom's Cabin, Roots, and The Stranger. [85] In October 1969, he proclaimed the current trade terms unfair, benefiting foreign corporations more than the Libyan state, and threatened to decrease production. The RCC responded with mass arrests and introduced compulsory national service for young people. [358] That month, Amnesty International published their report, finding that while Gaddafi's forces were responsible for numerous war crimes, many other allegations of mass human rights abuses lacked credible evidence and were likely fabrications by rebel forces that had been promoted by Western media. [321] That month he also addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York City for the first time, using it to condemn "Western aggression". [433], Gaddafi has been described as a womanizer. The British left in March and the Americans in June 1970. [105] 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. Nouri Abusahmain, President of Libya (since Aug 4, 2014) Nouri Abusahmain (Arabic : نوري أبو سهمين) is a Libyan politician. [487] Gaddafi's Libya was typically described by Western commentators as a police state,[488] with many U.S. right-wingers believing that Gaddafi was a Marxist-Leninist in a close relationship with the Soviet Union. [249] The Soviets were nevertheless cautious of Gaddafi, seeing him as an unpredictable extremist. [441], He was preoccupied with his own security, regularly changing where he slept and sometimes grounding all other planes in Libya when he was flying. [314] Gaddafi also completed agreements with the Italian government that they would invest in various infrastructure projects as reparations for past Italian colonial policies in Libya. [512] Led by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the Popular Front was allowed to participate in the future general election. [455] His cousin Ahmed Gaddaf al-Dam is Libya's former Special Envoy to Egypt and a leading figure of the Gaddafi regime. [100] Malaria was eradicated, and trachoma and tuberculosis greatly curtailed. [315] Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi gave Libya an official apology in 2006, after which Gaddafi called him the "iron man" for his courage in doing so. An Islamic modernist, he introduced sharia as the basis for the legal system and promoted "Islamic socialism". [256], After the US accused Libya of orchestrating the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing, in which two American soldiers died, Reagan decided to retaliate militarily. [65] Jalloud became Prime Minister,[66] while a civilian Council of Ministers headed by Sulaiman Maghribi was founded to implement RCC policy. [168] 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. [297] In March 2008 in Uganda, Gaddafi gave a speech once again urging Africa to reject foreign aid. [310] In 2003, Libya formally accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paid US$2.7 billion to the families of its victims; the US and UK had made this a condition for terminating the remaining UN sanctions. [27] At school, Gaddafi was bullied for being a Bedouin, but was proud of his identity and encouraged pride in other Bedouin children. [460], A cult of personality devoted to Gaddafi existed in Libya through most of his rule. [199] In July 1977, a border war broke out with Egypt, in which the Egyptians defeated Libya despite their technological inferiority. [154] 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. [38] He read voraciously on the subjects of Nasser and the French Revolution of 1789, as well as the works of the Syrian political theorist Michel Aflaq and biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Sun Yat-sen, and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. [182] 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 by Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1977. [169] Dissent also arose from conservative clerics and the Muslim Brotherhood, who accused Gaddafi of moving towards Marxism and criticized his abolition of private property as being against the Islamic sunnah; these forces were then persecuted as anti-revolutionary,[170] while all privately owned Islamic colleges and universities were shut down. This article lists the heads of state of Libya since the country's independence in 1951. He hoped that the councils would mobilize 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. Himself unharmed, two of Gaddafi's sons were injured, and he claimed that his four-year-old adopted daughter Hanna was killed, although her existence has since been questioned. [446] Starting in the 1980s, he travelled with his all-female Amazonian Guard, who were allegedly sworn to a life of celibacy. [136], Gaddafi financially supported other militant groups across the world, including the Black Panther Party, the Nation of Islam, the Tupamaros, the 19th of April Movement and the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua, the ANC among other liberation movements in the fight against Apartheid in South Africa, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, ETA, Action directe, the Red Brigades, and the Red Army Faction in Europe, and the Armenian Secret Army, the Japanese Red Army, the Free Aceh Movement, and the Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines. [366][368], The Misrata militia took Gaddafi prisoner, causing serious injuries as they tried to apprehend him; the events were filmed on a mobile phone. [229] The following year, Libyan fighters began intercepting US fighter jets flying over the Mediterranean, signalling the collapse of relations between the two countries. The civil war resumed, and so Libya sent troops back in, clashing with French forces who supported the southern Chadian forces. [71], The coup completed, the RCC proceeded with their intentions of consolidating the revolutionary government and modernizing the country. [92], The RCC implemented measures for social reform, adopting sharia as a basis. [365][366] At around 8.30 am, NATO bombers attacked, destroying at least 14 vehicles and killing at least 53 people. “Niger has faced growing insecurity on many of its borders, including Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Libya,” said Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim, senior analyst for the Sahel at the International Crisis Group. "[439] Following his ascension to power, Gaddafi moved into the Bab al-Azizia barracks, a 6-square-kilometre (2.3 sq mi) fortified compound located two miles from the centre of Tripoli. Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi[b] (c. 1942 – 20 October 2011), commonly known as Colonel Gaddafi, was a Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist. [475] Gaddafi claimed that his Jamahiriya was a "concrete utopia", and that he had been appointed by "popular assent",[476] with some Islamic supporters believing that he exhibited barakah. In 1975, their plot was exposed and the pair fled into exile, receiving asylum from Sadat's Egypt. [21], From childhood, Gaddafi was aware of the involvement of European colonial powers in Libya; his nation was occupied by Italy, and during the North African Campaign of the Second World War it witnessed conflict between Italian and British forces. Fleeing to a construction site, Gaddafi and his inner cohort hid inside drainage pipes while his bodyguards battled the rebels; in the conflict, Gaddafi suffered head injuries from a grenade blast while defence minister Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr was killed. [340], Following the start of the Arab Spring in 2011, Gaddafi spoke out in favour of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, then threatened by the Tunisian Revolution. [164] In the aftermath, only five RCC members remained, and power was further concentrated in Gaddafi's hands. [228] Major sources in the Italian media have alleged that the Itavia Flight 870 was shot down during a dogfight involving Libyan, United States, French and Italian Air Force fighters in an assassination attempt by NATO members on an important Libyan politician, perhaps even Gaddafi, who was flying in the same airspace that evening. 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. [110] During the early 1970s, Gaddafi formulated his own particular approach to Arab nationalism and socialism, known as Third International Theory, which The New York Times described as a combination of "utopian socialism, Arab nationalism, and the Third World revolutionary theory that was in vogue at the time". ... “The new president needs to focus on our security at the borders and in our cities,” said Abdou Razak, a resident of Niamey. [208] 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. [495], Gaddafi's government's treatment of non-Arab Libyans came in for criticism from human rights activists, with native Berbers, Italians, Jews, refugees, and foreign workers all facing persecution in Gaddafist Libya. [109], The influence of Nasser's Arab nationalism over the RCC was immediately apparent. [348] Both sides disregarded the laws of war, committing human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests, torture, extrajudicial executions, and revenge attacks. [501], International reactions to Gaddafi's death were divided. 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 subsidized price. [279] Meanwhile, Libya stepped up its support for anti-Western militants such as the Provisional IRA,[280] and in 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing 243 passengers and 16 crew members, plus 11 people on the ground. [34], Gaddafi organized demonstrations and distributed posters criticizing the monarchy. 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 Haifa for Israel's 25th anniversary. These abuses included the repression of dissent, public executions, and the arbitrary detention of hundreds of opponents, some of whom reported being tortured. [158] Meanwhile, in September 1975, Gaddafi implemented further measures to increase popular mobilization, introducing objectives to improve the relationship between the Councils and the ASU. [476] For these critics, Gaddafi was "despotic, cruel, arrogant, vain and stupid,"[485] with Pargeter noting that "for many years, he came to be personified in the international media as a kind of super villain. [465] He was typically late to public events, and would sometimes fail to arrive. [360] In August, the rebels seized Zliten and Tripoli, ending the last vestiges of Gaddafist power. [259] In Operation El Dorado Canyon, orchestrated on 15 April 1986, US military planes launched a series of air-strikes on Libya, bombing military installations in various parts of the country, killing around 100 Libyans, including several civilians. [85] The RCC followed with the Tripoli Agreement of 20 March 1971, 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. Noting that Gaddafi's favourite hobbies were reading and playing football, he thought him an "amusing officer, always cheerful, hard-working, and conscientious". At a UN-sponsored conference in Geneva last week, delegates from Libya’s warring sides picked … Libya: President Tebboune welcomes formation of Government of National Unity - Wednesday, 10 March 2021 19:42. [98] In 1972, a law was passed criminalizing the marriage of any females under the age of sixteen and ensuring that a woman's consent was a necessary prerequisite for a marriage. [205], Libya began to turn towards socialism. [121] 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. [213] In May 1980, measures to redistribute and equalize wealth were implemented; anyone with over 1000 dinar in their bank account saw that extra money expropriated. The Italian ambassador to Libya, Giuseppe Buccino, has held discussions with the Vice President-elect of the Presidential Council (PC), Abdullah Al-Lafi. The Tripoli Post. ", "Many in Sub-Saharan Africa Mourn Qaddafi's Death", "Nigeria: Muammar Gaddafi, 1942–2011 – a Strong Man's Sad End", "On the First Anniversary of Qaddafi's death – Is Libya Better off a Year On? [138] Though many of these groups were labelled "terrorists" by critics of their activities, Gaddafi rejected this characterization, instead considering them to be revolutionaries who were engaged in liberation struggles. [333] Agriculture remained largely untouched by the reforms, with farms remaining cooperatives, the Agricultural Bank of Libya remaining wholly state-owned and state interventionist policies and price controls remaining. [312] As a strategic player in Europe's attempts to stem illegal migration from Africa,[313] in October 2010, the EU paid Libya over €50 million to stop African migrants passing into Europe; Gaddafi encouraged the move, saying that it was necessary to prevent the loss of European cultural identity to a new "Black Europe". [362], Only a few towns in western Libya such as Bani Walid, Sebha, and Sirte remained Gaddafist strongholds. His administration insisted that the US and the UK 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." [55], In mid-1969, Idris travelled abroad to spend the summer in Turkey and Greece. Croatia: President Ivo Josipović said that if it becomes necessary Croatia will honour its NATO membership and participate in the actions in Libya. Libya also cemented connections with China and North Korea, being visited by Chinese President Jiang Zemin in April 2002. [339] Involved in encouraging tourism, Saif founded several privately run media channels in 2008, but after criticizing the government, they were nationalized in 2009. [301] In October 2010, Gaddafi apologized to African leaders for the historical enslavement of Africans by the Arab slave trade. Global AIDS Coordinator and Global Health Diplomacy leads, manages, and oversees the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). 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 criticize Syria's actions. Volkan Bozkir, has “warmly welcomed” the approval of Libya’s interim unity government. Like his deputy, Al-Lafi, he expressed his rejection of the offensive taken by Khalifa Haftar against the government of national accord in tripoli. [490] His administration has also been criticized by political opponents and groups like Amnesty International for the human rights abuses carried out by the country's security services. I wear a certain shirt and suddenly everyone is wearing it. [503] Contrastingly, former Cuban President Fidel Castro commented that in defying the rebels, Gaddafi would "enter history as one of the great figures of the Arab nations",[504] while Venezuela's Hugo Chávez described him as "a great fighter, a revolutionary and a martyr". Unlike Tunisia or Egypt, Libya was largely religiously homogeneous and had no strong Islamist movement, but there was widespread dissatisfaction with the corruption and entrenched systems of patronage, while unemployment had reached around 30 per cent. [352] In March, the Security Council declared a no-fly zone to protect the civilian population from aerial bombardment, calling on foreign nations to enforce it; it also specifically prohibited foreign occupation. [202] In August 1977, he visited Yugoslavia, where he met its leader Josip Broz Tito, with whom he had a much warmer relationship. [391] In keeping with his views regarding Arabs, his political stance was described as nativist. [419] The extent to which Libya became socialist under Gaddafi is disputed. Mohammad Younes Menfi Elected President Menfi is a member of the Libyan National Congress that lead the country following the events of the revolution in 2011. Having taken power, Gaddafi converted Libya into a republic governed by his Revolutionary Command Council. [422] In his view, ideologies like Marxism and Zionism were alien to the Islamic world and were a threat to the ummah, or global Islamic community. The first meeting was hosted by the President of the European Council Charles Michel (see press release here US President Barack Obama has said failing to prepare for the aftermath of the ousting of Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi was the worst mistake of his presidency. Within the compound were also two tennis courts, a football pitch, several gardens, camels and a Bedouin tent in which he entertained guests. [26] Education in Libya was not free, but his father thought it would greatly benefit his son despite the financial strain. Conversely, he was internationally condemned as a dictator whose authoritarian administration violated the human rights of Libyan citizens, persecuted dissidents abroad, and supported international terrorism. Kingdom of Libya (1951–1969) No. [401] He rallied against Jews in many of his speeches, with Blundy and Lycett claiming that his anti-Semitism was "almost Hitlerian". [183], —Libyan Studies scholar Ronald Bruce St. John[203], 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.
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