Libya - The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi

by Alison Pargeter

  We have to be the friends of his friends and the enemies of his enemies … what he wants is a paid revolution and he treats us like paid mercenaries. He never abided by the decisions made at the different Arab summit meetings to give us financial support. He is moody. If you do not satisfy him, you get a kick. He owes us contributions amounting to between $80 million and $90 million.8

  Yet in spite of Qaddafi's oscillating support for these different factions, he remained unswerving in his commitment to the Palestinian cause. He was genuinely horrified by the Camp David Accords of 1978 and the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of the following year, referring to the US-sponsored agreement as a ‘filthy’ and ‘unholy’ alliance.9 Like his pan-Arab dream, his Palestinian policy was fast becoming a tale of disappointment and failure. He was also becoming somewhat of a joke in the Arab world that he loved so much. For all his efforts to appeal to the Arab masses, he was widely viewed across the region as a figure of ridicule, a madman who was as bizarre as his ludicrous ideas.

  As he grew increasingly resentful of his failures in the Arab sphere, Qaddafi cultivated a politics of disdain. He lashed out at his fellow Arab leaders, attacking Arab heads of state, particularly those from the conservative monarchies of the Gulf, scornfully accusing them of doing nothing to support the Palestinian cause. He dismissed the Arab League as a mere talking shop, and, in highly theatrical performances, regularly stormed out of Arab summits, hurling insults at his fellow leaders as he went. This continued until the end of his rule. At a summit in 2003, for example, he insulted Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia by declaring that King Fahd had once told him he was willing to cooperate with the Devil to protect his kingdom. The spat between the two became so bad that Qaddafi was even implicated in a plot to assassinate the crown prince. On another memorable occasion, during an Arab League meeting in Tunis in 2004, the feisty Colonel sat back in his chair and lit up a cigarette, challenging all those present with the smoke that curled contemptuously from his lips.

  Frustrated by his fellow Arabs, Qaddafi hoped to have more success in sub-Saharan Africa, a part of the continent that he viewed as fertile ground for the spread of his revolutionary ideas. Although Africa did not resonate in the way the Arab world did, it was still Qaddafi's backyard, and it offered countless opportunities for the Colonel to extend his influence. Indeed, this was not about securing domestic legitimacy (Libyans felt no attachment to Africa, viewing themselves first and foremost as part of the Arab world). Rather it was about projecting himself and his revolution beyond the ‘gigantic bowl of sand’ that was Libya. For Qaddafi, Africa was a huge arena, where Libyan petro-dollars would go far, and where he could play out his quest for power. As one Tunisian politician, Mahmoud Mestiri, shrewdly observed in 1981, ‘Libya's strength is not her own power but the weakness of others.’10

  So it was that the Colonel took to meddling in African states with gay abandon, intervening wherever he saw fit in order to pursue his own objectives, be they anti-imperialism or the promotion of Islam. There was no overarching strategy: the erratic Qaddafi simply jumped in whenever the opportunity arose, throwing Libya's money around in his bid to garner support and to stamp his mark on the continent.

  One of the first recipients of Libyan largesse was Ugandan President Idi Amin. In 1972, Qaddafi sent the notorious dictator some four hundred Libyan troops to assist him in his conflict with neighbouring Tanzania. Qaddafi's support for the Ugandan dictator was based largely on the fact that Amin was Muslim, and the Colonel hoped that he would become a force for resurgent Islam in East Africa.11 Amin, who was attracted by the Libyan leader's supply of cash, had also agreed to renounce his previously close relationship with Israel. This was not a one-off: as soon as he came to power, Qaddafi started channelling huge amounts of diplomatic energy into encouraging African states to break off relations with the Jewish state, and by 1973 had managed to convince almost thirty African countries to do so.12 Even President Nasser could not have achieved such a triumph.

  Yet Qaddafi's support for the increasingly oppressive Amin did little for Libya's international reputation. Moreover, it ended in disaster; in all his greenness, the young Colonel sent a further 2,500 troops to Amin's rescue in 1978, after Tanzania invaded Uganda. The Libyan troops were no match for the powerful Tanzanian forces, which routed them in a matter of days. One visitor to Kampala described the scene:

  Huge Russian tanks and personnel carriers were sprawled and overturned among the banana groves. The Libyans had manned them … The liberation forces had walked through the groves and plantations, rounded hills, and on foot from each side totally annihilated the large Libyan force … Libyan soldiers trained for desert warfare were not at ease in the rain forests, in the wet season, among peoples in densely populated districts where Swahili, not Arabic, was understood.13

  Qaddafi had completely misread a situation into which he had rushed headlong.

  If Qaddafi's support for Amin raised eyebrows, so, too, did his backing of the infamous leader of the Central African Republic (CAR), Emperor Jean-Bédel Bokassa, whose brutal excesses knew no bounds. Bokassa was desperate for cash – so much so that, after attending the 1 September celebrations in Libya in 1976, he transformed his CAR cabinet into a revolutionary council in imitation of the Libyan system and announced his conversion to Islam. Always on the lookout for compliant friends, this was an opportunity that Qaddafi could not pass up. In October 1976, the Colonel travelled to Bangui, where he presided personally over Bokassa's conversion ceremony – and then handed him $1 million. This ‘gift’ was just the tip of the iceberg; there was plenty more to come. The following day, Qaddafi was invited to speak at a rally at the Omnisports Stadium in the capital. The Colonel was in his element: playing the role of the gracious and wise benefactor, he held forth on the virtues of Islam and denigrated Christianity, which he described as ‘the religion of imperialism’. It was also the religion of more than 80 per cent of the CAR population, but that did not bother the Colonel. He had precisely what he wanted: a stage and a willing audience. It mattered little that he had had to pay for it.

  Bokassa's commitment to Islam did not last long; within three months, the emperor had converted back to Christianity. This provoked no end of amusement among the Arabs and led to the following widely told joke of the time: ‘When he converted to Islam, Bokassa underwent the ritual circumcision. On learning that the emperor was planning to convert back to Christianity, Qaddafi informed him that the punishment for leaving the one true faith was beheading. “What kind of religion is it,” lamented Bokassa, “that has the end of your penis cut off when you join it and your head cut off when you leave it?” ’

  However, even this setback did not stop Qaddafi offering the emperor more money when he returned to Tripoli a few years later, even more desperate than before and with his tail between his legs. On this occasion, though still willing to support him, the Colonel made sure that he humiliated the emperor first, obliging him to wait thirty hours before he deigned to see him, and making him grovel for the cash.14

  On a more serious note, in line with his anti-imperialist ideology, Qaddafi supported a host of African liberation movements that were struggling against colonial or apartheid regimes. These included Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, and a range of movements in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. Support for such movements became enshrined as a matter of principle by the General People's Congress in 1981. Qaddafi even supported John Garang's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) – a Christian force in the south of Sudan – against Muslim Khartoum, although not before he received assurances from Garang that he would not divide the country. While Qaddafi's support for Garang was related to his desire to be seen siding with the oppressed against the oppressor, in typically Qaddafiesque style it was also about revenge. For Qaddafi's relations with Sudanese President Jaffar Numeri had gone from bad to worse, especially after Numeri had sided with Sadat over the Camp David Accords
. And so he wanted to make the Sudanese leader pay. As he once told Jalloud, ‘I won't bring Numeri down, but I will make him bleed, and when that happens, the opposition forces in the north will bring his regime down.’15

  Qaddafi's words were symptomatic of how he came to view the continent: Africa was a place where he could make things happen, where he could impose himself and force the outcomes he desired. Africa was also a realm in which the Colonel felt appreciated. It may have been because of his money, but he was taken seriously by some African leaders at least, as well as by a chunk of the African masses, who appreciated not only his interest in the continent – almost unique among Arab leaders – but also his virulent anti-imperialist stance.

  Yet Libya's African adventurism prompted serious concerns among other of the continent's players. Senegalese President Léopold Senghor, for example, broke off diplomatic ties with Tripoli in July 1980, accusing Qaddafi of creating a mercenary army aimed at destabilizing Chad, Niger, Mali and Senegal. Indeed, the Libyan leader's penchant for backing rebel movements became increasingly irritating to those on the receiving end of his efforts to move the furniture around to suit his own agenda.

  Yet the Leader seemed not to care about the impact of his actions, as he forged vigorously ahead in the service of his revolution. Nowhere was this truer than in Qaddafi's most ill-fated of African adventures – Chad. His meddling in Libya's southern neighbour began in the early 1970s, when the Colonel supported Muslim rebel groups in the north, under the umbrella movement, the Chad National Liberation Front (FROLINAT). This was not a new alliance – even under the monarchy, Libya had backed FROLINAT. However, the injustice of an impoverished Muslim population in the north, marginalized and mistreated by a Christian government in the south, was like a red rag to Qaddafi's bull; all the more so because the Chadian regime had the backing of the French, who had stepped in to help it against the rebels in 1968. Qaddafi was driven, too, by his claims on the mineral and uranium-rich Aozou Strip in the north of the country, which Libya occupied in 1972, allegedly with the secret agreement of Chadian President N'Garta Tombalbaye.16

  The complexities of the Chad affair are beyond the scope of this book. However, as the country descended into a long and bloody civil war, which was to last until 1987 and which saw successive regimes of different hues take over the Chadian capital, Qaddafi did not restrict himself to sitting on the sidelines. The Colonel sent thousands of Libyan troops into Chad to support and fight alongside FROLINAT forces. Such was his commitment to the cause that he was not deterred even when it became apparent that such forces were no match for their French and US-backed rivals. In fact, the Colonel proved to be more militant than the factions he was supporting. In the mid-1980s, FROLINAT leader, Goukouni Oueddi, recognized that he could not triumph over his rivals (who were backed by the French and the Americans) and conceded that the time had come to seek reconciliation. But Qaddafi was having none of it. Having launched himself into the conflict, defeat was not an option for him. With characteristic impulsiveness, on 30 October 1986 the Libyan leader arrested Oueddi, who happened to be in Libya at the time. The Chadian was shot in the stomach in the process.

  Qaddafi's actions prompted Oueddi to join forces with his rivals, and the various Chadian factions then worked together to oust the troublesome Qaddafi from their land. Yet even this was not enough to deter the Libyan leader: despite defeat after defeat, in which the Chadians totally routed the Libyan forces, Qaddafi kept sending thousands of fresh Libyan recruits into the country. It is estimated that between 8,000 and 10,000 Libyan troops were killed, and over 1,500 captured, in the course of the Chad war.17 Many of these young soldiers were conscripts or simply students, some of whom had been press-ganged from outside cinemas and football stadiums, or on street corners, and sent off to fight.18 Most went without any preparation or training, and certainly without any willingness. Yet as far as Qaddafi was concerned, the masses were little more than cannon fodder, and they should be ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the revolution.

  It was only after Chadian forces moved into Libyan territory in September 1987 that Qaddafi finally admitted defeat, although even that did not stop him from continuing to lay claim to the Aozou Strip. The matter was finally resolved in 1994, when the International Court of Justice ruled in Chad's favour, meaning that the entire disastrous military adventure had brought Qaddafi nothing. The senselessness of the whole episode was not lost on the Libyans, most of whom saw the campaign as a futile loss of life in an arena in which they had no interest. It was not lost either on the Libyan army, which was deeply embittered over a reckless campaign that had resulted in the death of so many soldiers. So disillusioned were they that a good number of troops who had been captured by Chadian forces during the conflict defected and joined the Libyan opposition. The army was also dismayed that it had lost an estimated $3 billion worth of military equipment in the misadventure, severely denting its arsenal.19 As a result of the international sanctions that were imposed on Libya in the 1990s, the country was never able to recover and rebuild its armed forces.

  For Qaddafi, the cost of the Chad conflict seemed to matter little. It certainly did not temper his desire to be an operator in Africa. Wherever there was an arena to play in, Qaddafi was keen to play. Yet his African policy continued to be driven by a reckless opportunism, fuelled by an inflated self-image that often seemed to supersede all else. Thus, while Qaddafi may have scored a few triumphs in Africa, or at least found a more appreciative audience there than he did in the Arab world, overall his African strategy was hardly a resounding success.

  Qaddafi versus the West

  If Qaddafi's African and Middle Eastern adventures read like a list of disasters, it was his relations with the West, and with the United States in particular, that really landed the Colonel in hot water. America's relations with the revolutionary regime were never going to be good; Qaddafi's anti-imperialist rhetoric, his insistence on breaking the monarchy's pro-Western orientation, and his early steps to evacuate the US bases were all clear signs that the Colonel was hardly going to be on the best of terms with the major Western power. Moreover, the Americans were troubled by the prospect of another nationalist regime in the region.

  Yet in the first years after the coup, the two sides rubbed along, largely out of a necessity driven by their shared interest in Libya's energy sector. Libya wanted access to US oil technology and expertise, while the Americans wanted Libya's high-quality low-sulphur crude. Thus the two countries fostered a degree of wary mutual tolerance.

  However, this tolerance was to show signs of strain in the early 1970s, after Qaddafi part-nationalized the oil industry and began using oil as a political weapon – Libya took part in the Arab oil embargo, in protest at the US government's support for Israel in the October 1973 war. Libya's virulent stance on the Palestinian question was also a worry. However, it was as the Cold War progressed that the alarm bells really began to ring: Libya's ties to the Soviet Union, and in particular its seemingly unquenchable thirst for Soviet weaponry, were serious cause for concern. The US feared that Qaddafi was about to fall deep into the pockets of the Soviets, thereby realizing one of their worst nightmares: the USSR would be able to secure a base right in the middle of the Mediterranean.

  Such alarm was probably misplaced. Although the new regime in Tripoli rushed to build ties with Moscow and to purchase Russian military equipment, Qaddafi was not about to jump into bed with the Soviets. While he may have had a shared interest in undermining Western interests, he remained deeply ambivalent about his Soviet counterparts. This ambivalence was based partly upon their ‘godless communism’ that was entirely alien to the devout Bedouin. More importantly, Qaddafi was not about to be swallowed up by a bigger power; having toppled the Western-backed monarchy, he was not going to hand his revolution straight over to a different master. The Colonel viewed the USSR as another imperialist state, once quipping that there was no difference between Russian Premier Alexei Kosygin and US Secretary o
f State Henry Kissinger. Libya was not about to become the next Soviet satellite.

  For their part, the Soviets were keen to woo Libya, as they did want a base in the Mediterranean. They were also in need of a loyal ally in the region, especially given the rupture in relations with Egypt that had followed Sadat's expulsion of Soviet military advisors in 1972. Yet right from the start, Qaddafi and his fellow revolutionaries made it clear that they were their own men. While on a weapons-buying mission to Moscow in the early 1970s, Jalloud did not mince his words, telling President Leonid Brezhnev that the Soviets were not doing enough to support the Arabs and the Palestinians. Qaddafi displayed a similar lack of deference when he travelled to Moscow in April 1981 and insisted that he be permitted to pray in the capital's Grand Mosque, which had been closed up for ideological reasons. He also insisted that the call to prayer be broadcast from the minaret, and quibbled when he was asked to lay a wreath at Lenin's mausoleum in return.20 Displaying a similar self-importance, he also objected to vodka being served at an official reception he attended in Moscow four years later, when he complained that he was not being treated with the honour due to the head of the Jamahiriyah.21

  Such assertions were hardly surprising. It was always part of Qaddafi's vision to lead his own camp. In line with his Third Universal Theory, he saw himself as leader of a middle way that would resist imperialist domination from both the capitalist and the communist blocs. His dream was to gather behind him Third World countries that would adopt his Jamahiriyah system, and stand united to take on the big players of the world. It was for this reason that the Colonel took to supporting liberation movements and radical groups, not only in the Middle East and Africa, but the world over. He extended his revolutionary net far and wide.