Muammar Mohammed Abu
Minyar Gaddafi
Muammar
Gaddafi was a young Libyan army officer who overthrew King Idris in September
1969. Infused with revolutionary ideas
designed to modernise his nation and work towards a greater union of Arab
peoples, he transformed his country into a new breed socialist state called a Jamahiriya in 1977.
Over the
years, he achieved a great deal, using Libya’s oil revenues to facilitate the
establishment of free health care, housing projects, as well as the
construction of the “Great Man-Made River”.
His rule was
authoritarian in nature. He had no compunction about jailing his political
opponents and even organised assassination squads to take out dissidents living
in exile in parts of Europe.
Under him
Libya was a secular state hostile to the spread of the sort of Islamism that
had begun to lay deep roots in the Arab world after the failure of Gamal Abdel
Nasser’s Pan-Arab dream. After his coming to power, Gaddafi earned a reputation
as an adventurer and even a troublemaker. Early into his reign, he had several
border disputes with his neighbours in Egypt and Chad, and fell out with many
Arab leaders one of whom, Sudan’s Gaafar an-Nimeiry, once described him as “a
split personality -both evil.”
Under him,
Libya became a pariah state among Western countries, because of his support for
radical liberation movements and the incidents such as the shooting of the
British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher and the blame attached to him after the
Lockerbie bombing.
His
frustration at being rebuked by many Arab states, many of who were beholden to
his sworn enemies, the Wahhabist rulers of Saudi Arabia lay perhaps with his
decision to cultivate more substantive links with countries in sub-Saharan
Africa.
He mended
fences with the West and was in the midst of a rapprochement when the Western
powers in the form of NATO facilitated an Islamist-led insurrection in the city
of Benghazi which led to an air campaign designed not only to degrade the
ability of his army to contain the rebellion, but to destroy the country which
because of its relatively high standard of living, had often been referred to as
the “Switzerland of Africa.”
Gaddafi, it
appears was earmarked for destruction because he was the driving force behind a
plan to develop an African currency which would be independent of the imperial
dollar.
The results
of his deposing were far reaching. Libya was transformed into a failed state
with warring tribal groups vying for power. Slave markets sprang up and its
seaports became the staging post for an onslaught of refugees from Africa, the
Middle East and further afield, seeking to reach the shores of Europe. What is
more, the fall of the Libyan army whose armouries were raided led to a transfer
of weapons to the NATO and Gulf-backed Islamist rebels seeking to destroy the
Ba’athist government of Syria. And alongside the developing Syrian tragedy, the
availability of weapons Gaddafi’s military led to an escalation of jihadist
insurgencies in the Maghreb and Lake Chad regions respectively by Al-Qaeda in
the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Boko Haram.
The tragedy
of Libya, with its descent into lawlessness after Gaddafi’s brutal demise at
the hands of Western-backed rebels, is somewhat emblematic of the fate suffered
by countries such as Iraq and Syria, like Libya secular states, whose rulers
were determined by Western governments to be far too independent, as well as
being implacable foes of the State of Israel.
He was a
dictator for sure, but the consequences of his removal from power only served
to worsen the spectrum of conflicts and security spanning a number of regions.
It was in the
final analysis a serious and costly mistake.
© Adeyinka
Makinde (2019).
Very educative
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