THE GADDAFI PERIOD.

The Revolutionary Command Council

Libya under Gaddafi experienced socio-economic and political changes and transitions. Gaddafi rose to power when in September 1969 a group of some 70 army officers carried out a coup against King Idris I, who was the ruler of Libya. The coup was dubbed as the Free Unionist Officers Movement, which eventually led to the old rulers and governing bodies being ousted and the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), taking full control. Initially there were speculations about who had launched the coup, but after Gaddafi was announced as the Commander in Chief of the army of Libya by the RCC, it became clear that the action was taken under Gaddafi’s command¹.

Within a few days of establishing power, the RCC embarked on initiating significant shifts and changes in economic and political relations nationally as well as internationally, with the foreign powers. Libya’s relations with the foreign powers, especially the USA, Britain and other european nations remained hostile throughout much of Gaddafi’s period, but he somehow managed to navigate and formed good ties with the Soviets and other African and Arab nations².

The Gaddafi Cabinet’s initial and more urgent challenges included the formation of new structures after the old constitution was dismantled. There was no significant popular resistance among the people of Libya to the new regime, but Gaddafi thought it necessary to mitigate all political crises and challenges that the representatives of the old regime could possibly pose. Therefore, the consolidation of administrative power and persecution of former government representatives went hand in hand.

Gaddafi believed that representative democracy as a model of government was inadequate and he thus formed a Jamahariya that Gaddafi claimed was a system of government and supreme form of democracy, in which the people themselves were the president. In Jamahiriya, Gaddafi argued, the masses possessed more power than they could have under representative or western democracy³. The system he introduced was inherently contradictory, as the way he himself rose to the power was questioned by many.

Libya had significant reserves of crude oil and the discovery of oil changed the socio economic landscape of Libya. Before Gaddafi, Libya had less control on the oil industry as most of the companies involved in oil exploration activities were foreign and it was understandable because Libya lacked the necessary skills, but a few years after Gaddafi took control of the government of Libya, his administration nationalized the oil Industry which had a marked impact on Libya’s economy and development⁴.

Gaddafi’s rule spanning over 40 years was marked by a number of controversies, which he caused nationally and internationally. Given the nature of these controversies, he never became able to forge sustainable political alliances, either with Arab nations or European. Failing to devise an effective foreign policy among many other things, his rule eventually met a tragic end in 2011 with the advent of Arab spring.

Arab Spring In Libya

The Arab spring, a wave of violent protests and pro-democracy demonstrations initially started in Tunisia in early 2011 and quickly spread through North Africa and much of the Middle East. The situation in Tunisia led to the ousting of the president, but as the protests and riots began to spread beyond Tunisia, they turned increasingly turbulent⁵.

In Libya, the families of victims of the 1996 Abu Salim Prison Massacre, planned a protest under the leadership of the lawyer, Fathi Terbil, who was representing the 1200 victims of the massacre in court. The protest was claimed as a 'Day of Rage’ across Libya⁶. The Libyan government in order to stop the protest arrested Terbil, but it turned out to be a wrong move as large numbers of people expressing solidarity with Terbil took to the streets, and due to the violence used against them by Gaddafi's forces, protests soon spread across all main cities and towns of Libya⁷.

Initially these protests and riots were against the arrest of Terbil and the violence against the people who held solidarity protests, but as soon as the protests began to spread leading to mass arrests of the protestors, the demand for a change of regime emerged. To suppress this demand and the protests, Gaddafi’s government resorted to more arrests and violence. At this point the situation was out of control. The rebel forces became much stronger, with the Libyan government inflicting even greater violence on the protestors. Protests and riots quickly turned into a civil war that eventually led to the lynching and death of Gaddafi on the 20th October 2011, in his hometown of Sirte⁸.