We are the People!

Freedom, Unity and Socialism.

The bloodless coup of 1969 followed a similar pattern as the Egyptian Revolution in 1952, when the last remnants of British power were overhauled by the Free Officers, Muammar al-Gaddafi was one of a coterie of military officials. In power the Colonel sought to model the regime on the pan-Arab and secular nationalist set up in Egypt, Gaddafi railed against the European colonial powers, America and Israel. Before his death in 1970 General Nasser said "I rather like Gaddafi. He reminds me of myself when I was that age." The Gaddafi regime forced out the British and American military bases and quickly moved to expel Westerners. At the same time the regime sought to craft a welfare system to provide universal health-care, education and affordable housing which fed into an anti-imperialist platform. The regime began to fund groups like the PLO, the ANC and the IRA. Gaddafi later described the system he was building as Islamic socialism, it might be more accurately described as Islamic Maoism. The country began to resemble an African Cuba.

The exact nature of links between the regime with the US and Britain were ambiguous in the early days, though a young Muammar al-Gaddafi had been on a military training course in Britain in 1966. With one British official stating "We thought he was a bit left-wing, but not too bad, and that we could deal with him." There have even been suggestions that the US backed the coup. The former Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Bakoush claimed "The Americans had contacts with Gaddafi through the embassy in Tripoli. They encouraged him to take over. There were dozens of CIA operatives in Libya at that time and they knew what was going on. The Americans were frightened of the senior officers and the intelligentsia in Libya because they thought that these people were independent and could not be run as puppets." We should keep in mind that Bakoush refused to give any names that might corroborate this theory. The rise of a new regime in Libya might have been interpreted as a chance to avoid a violent insurrection which might lead the country into the tentacles of the Soviet Union.

It is certain that there was serious concern about the reforms initiated under Gaddafi and the threat Libya would pose as a model for independence. The end of the monarchy and the construction of a welfare state might have "bought off" socialism for the time being, but what happens when other countries look to Libya as an example. This was the threat posed by the rise of General Nasser in Egypt and the desperation of the British to crush Arab nationalism. So in 1971 the CIA and MI6 put together a plot to bring down Gaddafi as part of an all-out-invasion of Libya, which would culminate in the release of political prisoners and the restoration of the monarchy. Ultimately, the plot fell apart because the CIA decided that the Gaddafi regime posed a sufficient bulwark to Communism in North Africa. Although the Gaddafi regime was opposed to the state of Israel and what it deemed Western imperialism, the  same regime stood in opposition to Soviet influence in the region. This was enough for the Americans, the British just had to shut up and grit their teeth.

Cracks began to emerge in the regime as a schism opened up between a serious commitment to socio-economic development and the interventionist foreign policy. In 1975 came an attempt to overthrow Gaddafi, which was crushed when the CIA notified him of the plot and the opposition were either exiled or imprisoned. After this Gaddafi began to undermine all aspects of Libyan society which might pose a threat to him in the long-term future, e.g. the military and the trade unions. The security apparatus became much more powerful. The sanctions later imposed by the UN and the US only furthered this process to the extent that corruption became endemic within Libya. By 2010 Gaddafi had seen to it that only 1.2% of GDP was spent on the Libyan military. The weapons and military equipment were either old models from the Soviet Union or had been recently imported from Britain and the US. The regime experienced a degree of immunity because of the government's reliance on oil revenue, as well as on the Soviet Union for political support in the world as relations with the US "waned" after the first 10 years in power.

As a result of the power struggle the country underwent a series of significant changes as the regime became increasingly centred around Colonel Gaddafi. The old Arab nationalist flag was tossed aside along with the title of Libyan Arab Republic as Gaddafi brought out his Green Book. Gaddafi called it a "cultural revolution", though he might have pursued such changes as relations with Egypt soured in a bid to distinguish his regime from that of Sadat. Officially Libya became the most democratic country on earth, a direct democracy maintained through a string of committees - a "practical form" as Gaddafi put it - where the authority of the people comes first and foremost. In reality the Libyan state was comprised of committees which took orders from Gaddafi who fell back on an astonishing security apparatus to police society. A network of informants and spies was established throughout Libyan society. It was a system of bureaucracy he built to insulate and maintain his own power. When asked where the people fit into this system the Colonel gave the perfect Stalinist reply "We are the people. The Free Officers are the sons of poor families, they are the embodiment of the people."

This is the similar method of rule practiced in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge, though Gaddafi was far less brutal than Pol Pot it remains an adequate comparison. The Khmer Rouge took the negation of the past to the furthest limit, but failed to create a new collectivity. The old order was just replaced with a primitive regime of egalitarian control and ruthless exploitation. The Free Officers broke apart the old remnants of colonialism and the monarchy only to fail at the construction of an egalitarian society. Instead the regime provided a vent to the rage of the victims of colonialism as it built an apparatus of repression, rather than build on the accomplishments made early on and eliminate poverty totally. Similarly, Gaddafi reigned in distance from power as the Libyan state was officially a form of direct democracy just as the Khmer Rouge refused to admit it was in power for a few years after it had seized the country. To inquire into the structure of state-power was considered a crime and the leaders were simply referred to as "Brother No.1", "Brother No.2" etc. while the ruling party was simply known as "Angka", which means "organisation". In the same way Gaddafi represented an authoritarian distance from power.

The Autumn of the Colonel.

Escape to Hell.

There is no sign of the Colonel, with his family safely in Algeria, after Tripoli was seized by Berber rebels from the West and not from the East which has since led to the National Transitional Council taking seat in Tripoli. The Berbers had been suppressed under Gaddafi and in the end the Berbers sought revenge against the regime. The disparate militias which comprise the rebels will no doubt hold onto territory and barter for political power. The rumours of his whereabouts continue, some say the Colonel is hauled up in a flat in Tripoli, the labyrinthine tunnels under Libyan soil, somewhere in Algeria, the Libyan desert or in his hometown of Sirte. There is talk at NATO of putting a bounty out on Gaddafi, probably around the size of that put on Osama bin Laden. Days ago NATO thought that there were around 8,000 pro-Gaddafi troops hiding in South Tripoli, waiting to engage the militias in urban warfare. It is difficult to say what will happen next, but we shouldn't rule out the possibility of a guerrilla war. NATO would prefer to see him liquidated while the National Council claim to want to see a trial as do the leaders behind the intervention.

Since the intervention began there have been some 8,000 bombing raids in which NATO has dropped 30,000 bombs, almost 200 bombs a day for 6 months and NATO has suffered no casualties whilst an estimated 60,000 Libyans have been killed. NATO even bombed the irrigation system which supplies northern Libya with the majority of its water, though there are reports that the Gaddafi loyalists have cut-off the water supply. The fact that Tripoli is reliant on imported water has not been raised much in the mainstream media. A city of 2 million requires a ready-source of drinkable water, it is difficult to assess where this is on the priority of the National Council let alone the Western powers behind them. There has been much more coverage of the release of Libyan assets and speculation about the next moves made by the still-at-large Colonel. There has been very little coverage of the exemption of Libyan banks from economic sanctions. There is plenty of praise for David Cameron in his role in the intervention, little mention of the way the British and the Americans crushed an attempt to indict Gaddafi for war crimes in March.

Now there are ominous signs of war crimes and racist violence in the wake of the regime's collapse. It should be kept in mind it was Gaddafi who put together death squads comprised of thugs imported from Chad, Niger and even Serbia. So the rebels have reasonable grounds to suspect migrants, but that certainly does not justify killing people on mass in such a fashion. All the while Libya is a major route for people looking to pass through to the coast and travel to the European mainland in search of a better life. The new regime has a promise to uphold to the EU regarding a strict blockade to illegal immigration from Africa to Europe. The Italians will be eager to sink any boats coming their way and Italian fishermen are essentially allowed to kill anyone who climbs aboard their boats. The days when Gaddafi once sent an Egyptian submarine to sink the QEII as it sailed in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Israel. An order which was only countered when Sadat intervened and had the sub return to the base in Alexandria. Consequently, Sadat described Gaddafi as "100% sick in the head and possessed by the devil."

Colonel Gaddafi may still have the support of around 54 clans of the Warfalla tribe, the largest tribe in the country, which played a key role in the expulsion of Italian colonists after being neutral when the Italians first seized the country. No doubt the tipping point was the genocide committed by the Italians in which over 500,000 Libyans died between 1911 and 1941, at least 65,000 died in concentration camps in the Sirte desert. The grievances were never acknowledged, let alone resolved, as the country was seized by a intensely conservative monarchy with links to the old imperial powers. The monarchy soon gave the US and UK military bases in Libya. The discovery of oil in 1960 transformed Libya into one of the richest countries in Africa, which enabled programmes of modernisation and unification of society. These programmes were restricted by the conservative attitudes of the monarchy. Incidentally, the rebel flag of Benghazi is the old monarchy flag which is also a Senoussi flag and that might hint at a specific tribal affiliation of the TNC. It was Gaddafi who overthrew King Idris in 1969 and seized the state apparatus.