57. Belhaj went on to head the Tripoli Revolutionary Council after the 2011 uprisings.
58. Interview with Mohamed Tarnish, Head of the Libyan Organization for Human Rights, Tripoli, June 2010.
59. While it may have made a nice scene, this initiative was not all about human rights. On one level, it was about the regime's age-old obsession with security: neutralizing some of its fiercest foes was a way of banging the final nail into the coffin of movements like the LIFG. The initiative served other purposes, too. Despite Qaddafi's having more or less wiped out his Islamist foes at the end of the 1990s, the regime feared a new generation of militants, inspired by Al-Qa'ida, and driven by its culture of martyrdom. Reports were already emerging in the east of the country about small cells of young men so desperate that they had blown themselves up to evade capture by the security services. Then there were the large numbers of young Libyans who had gone to join the jihad in Iraq. Not that the regime had anything against their youth fighting it out against US and British forces, but, with the Afghanistan experience in mind, it feared what havoc those returning from the battlefields might wreak. While arresting those suspected of militancy remained the policy of choice for the regime, it hoped that the revisions and the freed prisoners, who had a strong standing in the eastern regions, would help dissuade the younger generation from violence.
However, the scheme was also a golden opportunity for Saif Al-Islam to show the outside world just how much Libya had changed; aware of the growing interest in de-radicalization in the West, the young Qaddafi went out of his way to court publicity, producing glossy literature about the revisions and inviting Western journalists (from outlets such as CNN) to Libya to make glowing reports on the scheme. The initiative also afforded Saif Al-Islam some popular mileage at home. The young ‘reformer’ held a series of public seminars inside Libya, to which he invited famous popular theologians, including from Saudi Arabia. At these the LIFG leaders were put through the humiliation of having to laud the revisions and pay tribute to the regime for their release.
60. ‘Interview with Abdelmoutleb Al-Houni’, Al-Majalla, 19 July 2011, available at: http://www.majalla.com/arb/2011/07/article1867
61. Interview with Mohamed Belqassim Zwai, Tripoli, 2006.
62. ‘Interview with Dr Yousif Sawani, Part 1’, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, 8 October 2011, available at: http://www.aawsat.com/details.asp?section=4&article=644004&issueno=12002
63. ibid.
64. ibid.
65. ‘Ibn Al-Kaid Libyee yenshur majallat siasiya yetahadith aan hayat [Libyan leader's son to publish political magazine, speaks about his life]’, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, 16 July 2002.
66. ‘Moqabala Hasa: Al-Saadi Qaddafi [Special Interview: Saadi Qaddafi]’, Al-Arabiya Television, 8 March 2011, available at: http://www.alarabiya.net/programs/2011/03/08/140605.html
67. ‘Interview with Dr Yousif Sawani, Part 3’, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, 10 October 2011, available at: http://www.aawsat.com/details.asp?section=4&issueno=12004&article=644297&search=[??163]%20[??163]&state=true
68. ‘Said Saif Al-Islam Muammar Qaddafi: al-Ifraj Aan Al-Meghrahi Munasaba Tariqiya Fi Hayat al-Libeen [Mr Saif Al-Islam Muammar Qaddafi: The release of Al-Meghrahi is a historic occasion for the Libyans]’, Oea, 22 August 2009, available in Arabic at: http://www.oealibya.com/front-page/local-news/5266-2009-08-22-00-46-36
69. Eliza Griswold, ‘The heir’, New Republic, 20 July 2010.
70. ‘Mohamed Zaidan: Kadnahtaj Dictator Akhar [Mohamed Zaidan: We may need another dictator]’, Al-Majalla, 25 August 2011, available at: http://www.majalla.com/arb/2011/08/article3475
71. Alison Pargeter, Reforming Libya: Chimera or reality, Mediterranean Paper Series, October 2010, available at: http://www.iai.it/pdf/mediterraneo/GMF-IAI/Mediterranean-paper_08.pdf
72. ‘Thakara Siasia: Abdelrahman Shalgam [The Political Memoirs: Abdelrahman Shalgam]’, Al-Arabiya Television, 28 October 2011, available at: http://www.alarabiya.net/programs/2011/10/28/174240.html
73. ibid.
74. ‘Ghassan Sherbil interviews Abdelrahman Shalgam, Part 4’, Al-Hayat, 19 July 2011, available at: http://international.daralhayat.com/internationalarticle/289450
75. ibid.
Chapter 8: A New Dawn
1. For example, the Kawarsha project in Hay Al-Fatah in Benghazi, which comprised some eight hundred housing units, was broken into and occupied. In Al-Medina Jadida, near Tajoura, a 10,000-unit project was occupied, despite the fact that the buildings were still under construction and did not have electricity or water supply. A 608-flat project in Badia that was run by Aisha Qaddafi's Watassimu charity was also occupied, as was one of Saif Al-Islam's projects in Derna.
2. Menas Associates, Libya Focus, January 2011.
3. ibid.
4. Video of interview available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNQLbGVOnY8
5. However, Saadi had made time before he was trapped to offer serious financial rewards to members of security brigades in the east, to convince them to remain loyal to the regime. See ‘Suttat Al-Libyea Tusabak Al-Zaman Li Ijhad Ghadhab Al-Khamis Al-Muqabel [The Libyan authorities in a race against time to abort next Thursday's anger]’, Libyan Politician, 14 February 2011 available at: http://lyrcc.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/news-295/
6. The regime also replaced some personnel, such as the highly unpopular dean of Gar Younis University, who was pushed out of his job and replaced by someone chosen by university staff and students. In addition, a number of laptop computers were finally distributed under Saif Al-Islam's ‘one million laptops for one million children’ scheme, and some imams who had been banned from preaching for defying the authorities were reinstated. However these gestures were mere drops in the ocean, and for a population saturated with endless promises of change further talk of reform was the last thing they wanted to hear.
7. ‘Mokabala Hassa: Fathi Terbil [Special interview: Fathi Terbil]’, Al-Arabiya Television, 2 March 2011, available at: http://www.alarabiya.net/programs/2011/03/02/139882.html
8. Quoted in Menas Associates.
9. ‘Libya protests: gunshots, screams and talk of revolution’, Guardian, 20 February 2011, available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/20/libya-gunshots-screams-revolution
10. ibid.
11. ‘Ghassan Sherbil interviews Abdelsalam Jalloud, Part 4’, Al-Hayat, 1 November 2011, available at: http://international.daralhayat.com/internationalarticle/324507
12. Middle East Economic Digest (MEED), Maghreb Quarterly Report, 14 (June 1994).
13. Interview with Noman Bin Othman, London, October 2011.
14. ibid.
15. ‘Interview with Dr Yousif Sawani, Part 3’, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, 10 October 2011, available at: http://www.aawsat.com/details.asp?section=4&issueno=12004&article=644297&search=[??164]%20[??164]&state=true. Saif Al-Islam took a notably different line from that of his father on Tunisia, going so far as to congratulate Sheikh Rashid Ghannouchi, the leader of Tunisia's main Islamist opposition party En-Nahda, which went on to win the first round of elections in October 2011.
16. Jalloud interview, Part 4.
17. ‘Mohamed Rachid WaIlaqatahu Be Saif Al-Islam [Mohamed Rachid and his relations to Saif Al-Islam]’, Al-Jazeera, 13 August 2011, available at: http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7A05CF50-5F88-400A-8777-89055969D077.htm
18. Sawani interview, Part 3.
19. ‘Interview with Abdelmoutleb Al-Houni’, Al-Majalla, 19 July 2011, available at: http://almajalla.net/?p=1867
20. ‘Saif Al-Islam Gadaffi addresses the nation’, Libyan TV, 20 February 2011, available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL6I5hktEs0&feature=related
21. Sawani interview, Part 3.
22. It was also this speech that opened the way for his being wanted by the International Criminal Court, along with his father and Abdullah Sanussi.
23. Interview with Noman Bin Othman, London, October 2011.
24. Menas Associates, Libya Focus, March 2011.
25. Email correspondence wi
th Tripoli resident, November 2011.
26. They included figures such as Fathi Al-Baja, a political science professor at Gar Younis University, known for writing bold and highly critical articles in the semi-independent press, and lawyer Abdelhafed Abdelkader Ghoga, head of the Libyan Bar Association. Fathi Terbil was given responsibility for youth affairs.
27. ‘Libyan rebels hampered by lack of weapons’, Washington Post, 15 July 2011, available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/libyan-rebels-hampered-by-lack-of-weapons/2011/07/14/gIQAHIymFI_story.html
28. ibid.
29. Quoted in Menas Associates, Libya Focus, March 2011.
30. Menas Associates, Libya Focus, April 2011.
31. On 22 May the European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, opened an EU diplomatic office in the Tibesti Hotel in Benghazi.
32. Menas Associates, Libya Focus, June 2011.
33. He also encouraged Libyans to support the independence of Scotland from the UK, as well as the return of the Italian islands of Lampedusa and Pantelleria to Tunisia, and of the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla to Morocco.
34. ‘In his last days, Qaddafi wearied of fugitive's life’, New York Times, 22 October 2011, available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/world/africa/in-his-last-days-qaddafi-wearied-of-fugitives-life.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
35. Khamis had been killed at some point during the conflict, and Saif Al-Arab is believed to have been killed in a NATO airstrike in May 2011.
36. ‘In Bani Walid, Kadhafi loyalists thirst for revenge’, AFP, 31 October 2011, available at: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i5UHw1HgdTKTMEkytkbgA4qRGaVw?docId=CNG.5d524819c48d9e64a04a1dad0fe0e767.5d1
37. ‘In his last days, Qaddafi wearied of fugitive's life’, New York Times, 22 October 2011.
38. ibid.
39. ‘ “I killed Gaddafi”, claims Libyan rebel as most graphic video yet of dictator being beaten emerges’, Daily Mail, 25 October 2011, available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2052816/Gaddafi-death-video-I-shot-killed-says-Libyan-rebel.html
40. ‘Gaddafi website publishes “last will” of Libyan ex-leader’, BBC News Africa, 23 October 2011, available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15420848
41. ‘Gaddafi to be buried in secret desert grave: NTC’, Reuters, 24 October 2011, available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/24/us-libya-idUSTRE79F1FK20111024
Conclusion
1. W. B. Yeats, ‘The Second Coming’.
Bibliography
Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif, Forgotten Voice: Power and agency in colonial and postcolonial Libya, Routledge, Abingdon, 2005
—, The Making of Modern Libya: State formation, colonization and resistance, 1830–1932, State University of New York Press, New York, 1994
Amnesty International, ‘Amnesty International Report 1996 – Libya’, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,AMNESTY,,LBY,3ae6aa0654,0.html
Anderson, Lisa, ‘Nineteenth-century reform in Ottoman Libya’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 16:3 (1984), pp. 325–48
— ‘Qadhafi and his opposition’, Middle East Journal, 40:2 (Spring 1986)
Ashton, J. and I. Ferguson, Cover-up of Convenience: The hidden scandal of Lockerbie, Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh, 2001
Ben Halim, Mustafa Ahmed, Libya: The years of hope, AAS Media Publishers, London, 1995
Besikari, Senussi, ‘Khazkhaza Alqat Ala'am [Privatization of the public sector]’, Iqlam online, November–December 2006, available at: http://www.mafhoum.com/press10/291E14.htm
Bianco, Mirella, Gadafi: Voice from the desert, Longman, New York, 1975
Blundy, David and Andrew Lycett, Qaddafi and the Libyan Revolution, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1987
Boualesha, Faraj, ‘Alla kableen wa jahween [To the tribalists and regionalists]’, undated, available at: http://www.libyanfsl.com/%D9%85%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AA/tabid/59/newsid417/3179/mid/417/language/en-US/Default.aspx
Bowen, Wyn Q., Libya and Nuclear Proliferation: Stepping back from the brink, Adelphi Paper 380, Routledge, London, 2006
Bulugma, Hadi M., Benghazi through the Ages, unidentified publisher, 1972
Burget, Francois and William Dowell, The Islamic Movement in North Africa, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas, Austin, 1983
Carey, Jane P. C. and Andrew G. Carey, ‘Libya: No longer “Arid Nurse of Lions” ’, Political Science Quarterly, 76:1 (March 1961)
Cockerell, Michael, ‘Lieutenant Gaddafi in Swinging London’, Standpoint, January/February 2012, available at: http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/4254
Connor, William N., The English at War, London, Secker & Warburg, 1941
Cooley, John K., Libyan Sandstorm: The complete account of Qaddafi's Sandstorm, Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1983
Davis, Deborah (Linda Berg) with Bill Davis, The Children of God: The inside story by the daughter of the founder, Moses David Berg, Part 1, Chapter 9, 1984, available at: http://www.exfamily.org/art/exmem/debdavis/debdavis09.shtml
Dawood, N.J. (trans.), The Koran, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1968
Al-Deeb, Fathi, Abdul Nasser Wal Thawrat Libya [Abdul Nasser and the Libyan Revolution], Dar Al-Mostaqbel Al-Arabi, Cairo, 1986
Education Division of the Leader's Comrades Forum, Al-Qaddafi and the 4000-Day Journey of Secret Work, unknown publisher, Benghazi, undated
El Fathaly, Omar I. and Monte Palmer, Political Development and Social Change in Libya, Lexington Books, Massachusetts, 1980
European Commission DG Trade, Trade Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) of the EU-Libya Free Trade Agreement. Inception Report, February 2009, available at: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2009/april/tradoc_142928.pdf
Evans-Pritchard, Edward E., The Sanusi of Cyrenaica, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1954
Al-Fadhli, Fathi, A Book of the Chad War … Disaster … Disaster, available in Arabic at: http://www.fathifadhli.com/art81.htm
—, ‘Harkat Masjid Alkasser, 2 [Movement of Alkasser Mosque, 2]’, undated, available at: http://www.libya-nclo.com
Al-Fazzan, Ali, ‘Qaddafi … Wa Alkhiar Shemshoni, 2 [Qaddafi and Samson Choice, 2]’, available at: http://www.libya-watanona.com/adab/aalfazzani/af110310a.htm
First, Ruth, Libya: The elusive revolution, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1974
Gadaffi, Muammar, Escape to Hell and Other Stories, Blake, London, 1999
Herodotus, The Histories, Book Four, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008
Joffe, George, ‘Qadhafi's Islam in local historical perspective’ in Dirk Vandewalle (ed.), Qadhafi's Libya, 1969–1994, St Martin's Press, New York, 1995
Kirkbride, Alec, ‘Libya – which way facing?’, African Affairs, 56:22 (1957), pp. 49–55
Al-Magarief, Mohamed, ‘Al-Qadhafi Wal Lijan Al-Thawria … Al-Asl Wa Sura [Qaddafi and the Revolutionary Committees … Their Origin and their Image]’, Libya Watanona Website, undated, available at http://www.libya-watanona.com/adab/mugariaf/mm210210a.htm
— ‘Inqilab Biqiyadat Mukbur [Coup led by an informant]’, 12 August 2008, available in Arabic at: http://www.libya-watanona.com/adab/mugariaf/mm12088a.htm
— Libya Bayn Al-Madi Wal-Hadir: Safahat min Al-Tarikh Al-Siyasi [Libya Past and Present: Chapters in political history], Part 1, Volume 1, Centre for Libyan Studies, Oxford, 2004
— ‘Safahat min Tariq al-nidham al-inquilabi fi Libya [Pages from the history of the coup regime in Libya]’, Libya Watanona Website, undated, available at: http://www.libya-watanona.com/adab/mugariaf/mm121010a.htm
Mahroug, Moncef, ‘La vie au temps de l'embargo’, Jeune Afrique, 1840 (10–16 April 1996)
Mattes, Hanspeter, ‘The rise and fall of the revolutionary committees’ in Dirk Vandewalle (ed.), Qadhafi's Libya, 1969–1994, St Martin's Press, New York, 1995
Melman, Yossi, The Master Terrorist: The true story behind Abu Nidal, Mama Books, New York, 1986
Mogherbi, M. Z. Itijihad wa tatourat
turkeybat an noghra al-siasiya fi Libya 1969–1999 [The Orientation and Development of the Political Elite in Libya], Gar Younis University, undated
Al-Mukhtar, Bint, ‘Awraq Fatat Libeeya [Journal of a Libyan Girl]’, Libyan Documentation Centre, available at: http://www.libya-watanona.com/news/ldc/ld250510a.htm
Niblock, Tim, ‘Pariah States’ and Sanctions in the Middle East, Lynne Rienner, London, 2001
Pargeter, Alison, ‘Anglo-Libyan relations and the Suez Crisis’, Journal of North African Studies, 5:2 (Summer 2000)
— ‘Libya and the Islamist opposition’ in Dirk Vandewalle, Libya Since 1969: Libya's revolution revisited, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2008
— Reforming Libya: Chimera or Reality, Mediterranean Paper Series, October 2010, available at: http://www.iai.it/pdf/mediterraneo/GMF-IAI/Mediterranean-paper_08.pdf
Peniakoff, Vladimir, Popski's Private Army, Jonathan Cape, London, 1950
Piccioli, Angelo, The Magic Gate of the Sahara, Dar Al-Fergani, Tripoli, undated
Al-Qaddafi, Muammar, Qassat Al-thawra fi libya … Asa'at Al-Ikhira [The Story of the Revolution in Libya … The Last Hours], undated, formerly available in Arabic at: http://www.wata.cc/forums/showthread.php?t=48343 (accessed March 2009)
— The Green Book, World Centre for the Study and Research of the Green Book, Tripoli, 1984
— The Village … The Village … The Earth … The Earth and the Suicide of the Astronaut, Ad-Dar Jamahiriya, Sirte, 1996
St John, Ronald Bruce, Libya and the United States: Two centuries of strife, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2002
— ‘Libya is not Iraq: Preemptive strikes, WMD and diplomacy’, Middle East Journal, 53:3 (Summer 2004), pp. 386–402
Sandford, K. S., Lord Tweedsmuir, W. B. Fisher, H. J. Fleure, L. M. Kiral, St John Cook, A. M. Frood, ‘Problems of Modern Libya: Discussion’, Geographical Journal, 119:2 (June 1953)
Libya - The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi Page 30
