“This mad dog of the middle east has a goal of world revolution in the favor of Muslim fundamentalism,” says president Ronald Reagan while addressing Colonel Gaddafi.
Muammar Gaddafi, the revolutionist who brought several revolution in Libya, the dictator who was responsible for the killing of 1200 prisoners, the leader who became the chairman of African Union, the terrorist who was responsible for Lockerbie bombing killing 243 innocent passengers, the chief who visualized the future of Libyan people, the colonel who was killed by the Libyan people.
To explain Libya, we need to scrutinize the life of Gaddafi. It all started when Libya discovered oil in 1959, from one of the poorest country in the world to becoming one of the richest in Africa.
At that time most of the Arab nations were living on the ideology of Pan Arabism presented by Egypt's leader Gamal Abdel Naseer.
Muammar Gaddafi followed the footsteps of such leader from a very young age. He first came into notice on 1st Sept 1969, speaking against the American troops on the ground in Libya. This 27-year-old officer started a revolution among the youngsters of Libya favoring anti-western, anti-imperialist wave. Till date, it’s one of the most famous revolutions in the history of Libya. It brought the nationalist sentiments together from all over the Arab nations, especially Palestine and empowered the going to be Colonel, Muammar Gaddafi.
There are no doubts about the achievements attained by Gaddafi in the initial years of his rule. Better standard of living, infrastructures were built, oil companies were nationalized, better medical facilities. Something which civilians always desired for, Gaddafi allocated facilities.
As the years passed, Gaddafi became more powerful and famous. He restricted the involvement of other officials in the regime. As a result, many intellectuals started voicing their opinion in public.
In 1973, a number of intellectuals were arrested for dissenting from Gaddafi. Anyone who doesn’t share the same opinion as he does is either arrested or hanged. While he was over empowering his people and diminishing the individuality of his colleagues in the regime, Gaddafi was sidelined by the other Arab leaders. The new president of Egypt Anwar Sadat betrayed Gaddafi and his ideology of pan Arab-ism by signing a peace treaty with Israel on the recommendation of America in 1979.
When Gaddafi lost support from other Arab leaders in his vision to throw out America from Arab nations, he stirred towards the extremist group for support. Gaddafi was accused of sponsoring some of the most vicious terrorist organisations of that time.
He was held responsible for airport attacks in Rome and Vienna which killed around 20 civilians.
As a result, US executed the Operation El Dorado Canyon. The US bombed Libya on 15 Aug 1986 in an attempt to kill Gaddafi. In the operation, many innocent civilians lost their lives, including small kids and babies. Criticism came from all over the world against America for executing such an operation.
In 1988, again Gaddafi was held accountable for a horrific terrorist attack at Pan AM flight 103 known as Lockerbie bombing killing all the 243 passengers. Although the evidence of Libya’s involvement in carrying out the Lockerbie bombings was very less from conclusive, still in 1992 US along with France placed severe economic sanctions on Libya for its alleged involvement
The sanctions affected the Libyan civilians severely, they lost jobs, prices hiked, the standard of living decreased. Having a Libyan passport was seeing as an allegation, the western once again became the rivals of Libyan civilians and fighting them was their leader Muammar Gaddafi.
While Gaddafi was being highly regarded by his civilians, there were some divisions of the regime who started dissenting from the colonel. At that time a group named Libyan Islamic fighting group started by a Mujahideen attacked Gaddafi to overthrow the leader and imply an Islamic law in Libya. As a result, Gaddafi's army crushed the rebellious group. The attack was planned by some officials from his own regime, on the basis of suspicion, Gaddafi arrested ample of officials without trial in the Abu Salem prison in Tripoli.
In June 1996, inmates of the Abu Salem prison started revolting against the regime for denying them access to law and order. During the revolt, 1200 prisoners were shot dead by the guards after the orders from Gaddafi. This incident is still remembered as one of the ugliest massacres in the Gaddafi era.
The Libyan people condemned the orders from the colonel, people started participating in Anti Gaddafi movements in higher proportion.
Gaddafi paid little or no attention towards these movements as his main concern was to fight western forces and redeem the sanctions. His vision was to overthrow American bases from all the Arab nations at any cost.
The US invades Iraq
After the 9/11, the US declared war on terrorism. Their first prey was the president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. After the US invaded Iraq, Gaddafi was taken back by surprise and shock with inflicting fear of similar course of action against him.
Instantly, Gaddafi came on talking terms with the US and participated in the community of nations. Gaddafi became an ally of US supporting the war on terrorism. Back home in Libya, he ordered the release of some officials from Abu Salem prison. Which lifted off all the sanction against Libya.
Gaddafi was becoming a friend of the west, it was evident when Britain Prime minister Tony Blair visited Libya in 2004 for the deal of desert. French president Nicolas Sarkozy also visited Tripoli(capital of Libya).
In 2009, Gaddafi was elected as the chairman of African Union. Where he voiced his vision of pan African unity through a unifying African army and single African currency.
While he was representing Libya in the international forum, he failed to represent its people. Libyan people were still down and hurt by the effect of sanctions and agitated by the Abu Salem massacre. By now ample of anti-Gaddafi groups had been established, which Gaddafi didn’t paid attention towards.
1000 km away from Libya, an incident took place which staggered the whole middle east. The incident brought the wave of democracy in Arab countries, the wave started from Tunisia, in Tunisia, it started, "The Arab spring".
The aftermath of Arab spring and its impact on Libya will be unfolded
in part 2 called “Lust for Libya”.
Stay tuned
Cheers !!!
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