Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi1 (
; also known simply as
Colonel Gaddafi; born 7 June 1942) has been the de facto leader of
Libya since a coup in 1969.
In power
Military coup d'état
,
Idi Amin and
Anwar al-Sadat in 1971]] On 1 September 1969, a small group of junior military officers led by Gaddafi staged a bloodless coup d'état against
King Idris, while he was in
Turkey for medical treatment. His nephew, the Crown Prince
Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida al-Mahdi as-Sanussi, had been formally deposed by the revolutionary army officers and put under house arrest; they abolished the monarchy and proclaimed the new Libyan Arab Republic. The
Italian population in Libya almost disappeared after Gaddafi ordered the expulsion of Italians in 1970.
Islamic Socialism and pan-Arabism
Gaddafi based his new regime on a blend of
Arab nationalism, This strike followed U.S. interception of
telex messages from Libya's
East Berlin embassy suggesting Libyan government involvement in a bomb explosion on 5 April in
West Berlin's
La Belle discothèque, a nightclub frequented by U.S. servicemen. Among the alleged fatalities of 15 April retaliatory attack by the U.S. was Gaddafi's adopted daughter, Hannah. Libya responded by firing two
Scud missiles at the
U.S. Coast Guard navigation station on the Italian island of
Lampedusa. The missiles landed in the sea, and caused no damage.
In late 1987, a merchant vessel, the MV Eksund, was intercepted. Destined for the IRA, a large consignment of arms and explosives supplied by Libya was recovered from the Eksund. British intelligence believed this was not the first and that Libyan arms shipments had previously reached the IRA. (See Provisional IRA arms importation.)
For most of the 1990s, Libya endured economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation as a result of Gaddafi's refusal to allow the extradition to the United States or Britain of two Libyans accused of planting a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. Through the intercession of South African President Nelson Mandela – who made a high-profile visit to Gaddafi in 1997 – and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Gaddafi agreed in 1999 to a compromise that involved handing over the defendants to the Netherlands for trial under Scottish law.: and by Libya on 2 March, during a visit to Tripoli by Berlusconi. The Democratic Party and Italy of Values opposed the visit, During the summit a handshake between US President Barack Obama and Muammar Gaddafi took place (the first time the Libyan leader has been greeted by a serving US president), then at summit's official dinner offered by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano US and Libyan leaders upset the ceremony and sat by the Italian Prime Minister and G8 host, Silvio Berlusconi. (According to ceremony, Gaddafi should seat three places after Berlusconi). During a two-day visit to Italy in August 2010 Gaddafi upset his hosts by stating that Europe should convert to Islam. It was during a lecture in front of 200 young women whom Gaddafi had paid a modeling agency to attend that he urged the women to convert to Islam and according to one of them said, "Islam should become the religion of all of Europe." Each of the women was given a copy of the Qur'an and allegedly three of them converted on the spot. Gaddafi also said that Christianity was unimportant.
Pan-Africanism
summit in
Addis Ababa]] Gaddafi has also emerged as a controversial African leader. As one of the continent's longest-serving post-colonial heads of state, the Libyan leader enjoys a reputation among many Africans as a maverick statesman. In February 2009, upon being elected chairman of the African Union in Ethiopia, Gaddafi told the assembled African leaders: "I shall continue to insist that our sovereign countries work to achieve the
United States of Africa." Gaddafi is also seen by many Africans as a humanitarian, pouring large amounts of money into sub-Saharan states. Large numbers of Africans have come to Libya to take advantage of the availability of jobs there, despite the weak private sector.
His views on African political and military unification have received a relatively lukewarm response from other African governments. On 29 August 2008, Gaddafi held a public ceremony in Benghazi in which he was self-handed the title "King of Kings of Africa" with over 200 African traditional rulers and kings as part of a grassroots effort to encourage African heads of state and government to join with Gaddafi toward a greater political cohesion; this was followed on 1 February 2009 by a coronation ceremony in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia simultaneous with the 53rd African Union Summit, at which he was elected head of the African Union for the year. His January 2009 forum for African kings, however, was cancelled by the Ugandan government (Uganda was to host the forum), since the invitation of traditional rulers to discussion of political affairs contravened Uganda's current constitution, and according to Ugandan foreign ministry spokesperson James Mugume, would have led to instability.
The title of "King of Kings" was reiterated by Gaddafi at the 2009 Arab League Summit, at which he claimed to be the King of Kings, "leader of the Arab leaders" and "imam of the Muslims" in his criticism of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia prior to storming out of the summit.
Notwithstanding his claims of concern for his African roots, Gaddafi has often expressed an overt contempt for the Berbers, a non-Arab people of North Africa, and for their language, maintaining that the very existence of Berbers in North Africa is a myth created by colonialists. He adopted several measures forbidding the use of Berber, and often attacks this language in official speeches, with statements like: "If your mother transmits you this language, she nourishes you with the milk of the colonialist, she feeds you their poison" (1985).
'NATO of the South'
In September 2009, at a South America-Africa summit on
Isla Margarita in Venezuela, Colonel Gaddafi joined the host,
Hugo Chávez, in calling for an "anti-imperialist" front way across Africa and Latin America. Gaddafi proposed the establishment of a South Atlantic Treaty Organization to rival
NATO, saying: "The world’s powers want to continue to hold on to their power. Now we have to fight to build our own power."
Expulsion of Palestinians
In 1995, Gaddafi expelled some 30,000 Palestinians living in Libya, in response to the peace negotiations that had commenced between Israel and the PLO
UN General Assembly speech
On 23 September 2009, Colonel Gaddafi addressed the 64th session of the
United Nations General Assembly in New York, his first visit to the United States, in part because a Libyan diplomat,
Ali Treki, has just become president of the General Assembly for 2009–10. Gaddafi spoke for one hour and 36 minutes. A translation of the speech courtesy of
Jamahiriya News Agency (JANA) the official Libyan news agency, is available on the internet.
Gaddafi spoke in favor of the preamble to the United Nations Charter, but rejected several provisions of the rest of the Charter; and criticized the United Nations for failing to prevent 65 wars, and invited the General Assembly to investigate the wars that the Security Council had not authorized, and for those responsible to be brought before the International Criminal Court. He also defended the Taliban and Somali Pirates. He also claimed that a foreign military was responsible for the H1N1 outbreak, accused Israel of assassinating John F. Kennedy, and called for a one-state solution for Palestine and Israel, and referred to Barack Obama as "my son".
Following Colonel Gaddafi's speech, in which he criticized the UN Security Council (UNSC) calling it the "Terror Council", Gaddafi failed to attend a special Security Council heads-of-state meeting on 24 September 2009, when a resolution calling for a reduction in the number of nuclear weapons was passed unanimously.
Disappearance of Imam Musa al-Sadr
In August 1978, the Lebanese
Shia leader
Musa al-Sadr and two companions departed for Libya to meet with government officials. They were never heard from again. At the time, Musa al-Sadr founded
Amal Movement, a liberal-Shia Lebanese resistance movement (which later went on to oppose the Israeli invasion of Lebanon). However Amal Movement became powerful much to the annoyance of the
PLO which was based primarily in south Lebanon. Libya has consistently denied responsibility, claiming that al-Sadr and his companions left Libya for Italy. Some others have reported that he remains secretly in jail in Libya. Al-Sadr's disappearance continues to be a major dispute between Lebanon and Libya. Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri claimed that the Libyan regime, and particularly the Libyan leader, were responsible for the disappearance of Imam Musa Sadr, London-based
Asharq Al-Awsat, a Saudi-run pan-Arab daily reported on 27 August 2006.
According to Iranian General Mansour Qadar, the then head of Syrian security, Rifaat al-Assad, told the Iranian ambassador to Syria that Gaddafi was planning to kill al-Sadr. On 27 August 2008, Gaddafi was indicted in Lebanon for al-Sadr's disappearance.
Internal dissent
In October 1993, there was an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Gaddafi by elements of the Libyan army. On 14 July 1996, a football match in Tripoli, organised by his
son, was followed by bloody riots as a protest against Gaddafi.
There are a number of political groups opposed to Gaddafi:
National Conference of the Libyan Opposition National Front for the Salvation of Libya Committee for Libyan National Action in Europe A website, actively seeking his overthrow, was set up in 2006 and lists 343 victims of murder and political assassination. The Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR) – based in
Geneva – petitioned Gaddafi to set up an independent inquiry into the February 2006 unrest in Benghazi in which some 30 Libyans and foreigners were killed.
Fathi Eljahmi was a prominent dissident who has been imprisoned since 2002 for calling for increased democratization in Libya.
Public works projects
Great Manmade River
The Great Manmade River is a network of pipes that supplies 6,500,000 m³ of fresh water per day from beneath the
Sahara Desert, from the
Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System fossil aquifer, to the cities in the north of Libya, including
Tripoli,
Benghazi and
Sirt. The project consists of more than 1,300 wells, most more than 500 m
deep. According to the 2008 edition of
Guinness Book of Records, it is the world's largest irrigation project.
Construction on the first phase started in 1984, and cost about $5 billion. The completed project may total $25 billion.
Muammar al-Gaddafi has described it as the "Eighth Wonder of the World" and presented the project as a gift to the Third World.
Astronomical observatory
The Libyan National Telescope Project, costing nearly 10 million euros, was ordered by Muammar al-Gaddafi, who has a passionate interest in
astronomy. The robotic telescope, which will be two metres in diameter and remote-controlled, will be built by France's REOSC, the optical department of the
SAGEM Group.
It will be housed in an air-conditioned building, with a network of four weather stations deployed at a distance of 10 kilometers around it to warn of impending sandstorms that could damage its fragile optics. A desert site at 2200 meters above sea level near Kufra may be chosen as the location for the observatory, which will be North Africa's largest astronomical observatory.
Personal life and family
He is married to
Safia Farkash . Gaddafi has eight biological children, seven of them sons. He also had two adopted children. His adopted daughter was killed. His adopted son, Milad Abuztaia Al-Gaddafi is also his nephew. Milad is credited with saving Gaddafi's life during the April 1986 bombing of the Gaddafi compound.
His eldest son, Muhammad al-Gaddafi, was born to a wife now in disfavour, but runs the Libyan Olympic Committee. The next eldest son by his second wife is Saif al-Islam Muammar Al-Gaddafi, who was born in 1972 and is an architect. He runs a charity (GIFCA) which has been involved in negotiating freedom for hostages taken by Islamic militants, especially in the Philippines. In 2006, after sharply criticizing his father's regime, Saif Al-Islam briefly left Libya, reportedly to take on a position in banking outside of the country. He returned to Libya soon after, launching an environment-friendly initiative to teach children how they can help clean up parts of Libya. He is involved in compensation negotiations with Italy and the United States. The third eldest, Saadi Gaddafi, is married to the daughter of a military commander. Saadi runs the Libyan Football Federation and signed for various professional teams including Italian Serie A team U.C. Sampdoria, although without appearing in first team games. Gaddafi's fourth son, Mutassim Gaddafi, was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Libyan army. He now serves as Libya's National Security Advisor, in which capacity he oversees the nation's National Security Council. Saif Al-Islam and Moatessem-Billah are both seen as possible successors to their father. The fifth eldest, Hannibal Gaddafi once worked for General National Maritime Transport Company, a company that specializes in Libyan oil exports. He is most notable for being involved in a series of violent incidents throughout Europe. In 2001, Hannibal attacked three Italian policemen with a fire extinguisher; in September 2004, he was briefly detained in Paris after driving a Porsche at 90 mph in the wrong direction and through red lights down the
Champs-Élysées while intoxicated; and in 2005, Hannibal in Paris allegedly beat model and then girlfriend Alin Skaf, who later filed an assault suit against him. He was fined and given a four month suspended prison sentence after this incident. In December 2009 police were called to
Claridges Hotel in London after staff heard a scream from Hannibal's room. Aline Skaf, now his wife, was found to have suffered facial injuries including a broken nose, but charges were not pressed after she maintained she had sustained the injuries in a fall. On 15 July 2008, Hannibal and his wife were held for two days and charged with assaulting two of their staff in
Geneva, Switzerland and then released on bail on 17 July. The government of Libya subsequently put a boycott on Swiss imports, reduced flights between Libya and Switzerland, stopped issuing visas to Swiss citizens, recalled diplomats from
Bern, and forced all Swiss companies such as
ABB and
Nestlé to close offices. General National Maritime Transport Company, which owns a large refinery in Switzerland, also halted oil shipments to Switzerland. Two Swiss businessmen who were in Libya at the time have, ever since, been denied permission to leave the country, and even held hostage for some time. (see
Switzerland-Libya conflict). At the
35th G8 summit in July 2009, Gaddafi called Switzerland a "world mafia" and called for the country to be split between France, Germany and Italy.
Gaddafi's two youngest sons are Saif Al Arab and Khamis, who is a police officer in Libya. Gaddafi's only daughter is Ayesha al-Gaddafi, a lawyer who had joined the defense team of executed former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. She married a cousin of her father in 2006. His adopted daughter, Hanna, was killed in the April 1986 United States bombing of Libya. At a "concert for peace", held on 15 April 2006 in Tripoli to mark the 20th anniversary of the bombing raid, U.S. singer Lionel Richie told the audience: :"Hanna will be honoured tonight because of the fact that you've attached peace to her name."
In January 2002, Gaddafi purchased a 7.5% share of Italian football club Juventus for USD 21 million, through Lafico ("Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company"). This followed a long-standing association with the Italian industrialist Gianni Agnelli and car manufacturer Fiat.
Gaddafi holds an honorary degree from Megatrend University in Belgrade conferred on him by former Yugoslav President Zoran Lilić.
Muammar Gaddafi fears flying over water, prefers staying on the ground floor and almost never travels without his trusted Ukrainian nurse, a “voluptuous blonde,” according to a US document released by WikiLeaks late 2010. Some US embassy contacts have claimed that Gaddafi and the then 38 year-old Galina Kolotnytska have a romantic relationship.
Quotes
"God damn America" – Time magazine, 2 April 1973 "Israel is a colonialist-imperialist phenomenon. There is no such thing as an Israeli people. Before 1948, world geography knew of no state such as Israel. Israel is the result of an invasion, of aggression." "The statements of our Kenyan brother of American nationality, Obama, on Jerusalem ... show that he either ignores international politics and did not study the Middle East conflict or that it [Barack Obama's expression of solidarity with Israel] is a campaign lie. We fear that Obama will feel that, because he is black with an inferiority complex, this will make him behave worse than the whites. This will be a tragedy. We tell him to be proud of himself as a black and feel that all Africa is behind him." "The black people’s struggle has vanquished racism. It was God who created colour. Today Obama, a son of Kenya, a son of Africa, has made it in the United States of America." "It is a response to greedy Western nations, who invade and exploit Somalia’s water resources illegally. It is not a
piracy, it is self defence. It is defending the Somalia children’s food. If they (Western nations) do not want to live with us fairly, it is our planet and they can go to other planet." "I am an international leader, the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam (leader) of Muslims, and my international status does not allow me to descend to a lower level." "There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe – without swords, without guns, without conquests. The 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades." "Any Muslim in any part of the world who works with Switzerland is an apostate – is against Muhammad, God and the Quran," "It should not be called the Security Council. It should be called the terror council." – At UN General Assembly, 23 Sep. 2009
Name
Because of the lack of standardization of
transliterating written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been
transliterated in many different ways into English and other
Latin alphabet languages. Even though the Arabic spelling of a word does not change, the pronunciation may vary in different
varieties of Arabic, which may cause a different
romanization. In
standard Arabic the name
معمر القذافي (
pointed مُـعَـمَّـرُ الـقَـذافـي) is pronounced . Here represents
a pharyngeal sound (ع), not present in English. The is
geminated (doubled), but can be simplified. In spoken
Libyan Arabic the
voiceless uvular plosive (ق) may be replaced with or (or even ; and (ذ) (same as
English "th" in "this") may be replaced with (sometimes geminated) or . Vowel alternates with in spoken Arabic.
Case endings are dropped: → ). Thus, may be pronounced colloquially. The definite article al- (ال) is often omitted. Here, the initial is silent because of the preceding .
In short, if the alternative spellings for each place of his name is shown in brackets:
and the maximum number of combinations is
However, not all are possible, as some alternatives are most probably combined with others, or even impossible with other (for example, simplification of geminated [m:] usually implies simplification of [a:]).
An article published in the London Evening Standard in 2004 lists a total of 37 spellings of his name, while a 1986 column by The Straight Dope quotes a list of 32 spellings known at the Library of Congress. This extensive confusion of naming was used as the subject for a segment of Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update in the early 1980s.
"Muammar Gaddafi" is the spelling used by TIME magazine, BBC News, the majority of the British press and by the English service of Al-Jazeera. The Associated Press, CNN, and Fox News use "Moammar Gadhafi". The Edinburgh Middle East Report uses "Mu'ammar Qaddafi" and the U.S. Department of State uses "Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi". The Xinhua News Agency uses "Muammar Khaddafi" in its English reports.
In 1986, Gaddafi reportedly responded to a Minnesota school's letter in English using the spelling "Moammar El-Gadhafi". The title of the homepage of algathafi.org reads "Welcome to the official site of Muammar Al Gathafi".
The show
In September 2006, at the
ENO in London, the UK-based electronic band
Asian Dub Foundation created and did six performances of a show commissioned by
Channel 4 and based on Gaddafi's story, called "Gaddafi: A Living Myth". The title role was played by
Ramon Tikaram. The book was by
Shan Khan and the direction by
David Freeman. Although critics were generally unflattering in the English-speaking press, coverage in Muslim countries was more positive.
Postage stamps
The
Libyan Posts (
GPTC General Posts and Telecommunications Company) released many postage issues (stamps,
souvenir sheets,
postal stationery, booklets, etc.) including the subject of Muammar al-Gaddafi. The first issue was a souvenir sheet celebrating the
6th Anniversary of the September Revolution in 1975 (ref.
Scott catalogue n.583 –
Michel catalogue block 18).
Bodyguards
Gaddafi is a controversial figure worldwide due to his choice of bodyguards. His 40-member bodyguard contingent, known as the
Amazonian Guard, is entirely female. All women who qualify for duty must be
virgins, and are hand-picked by Gaddafi himself. They are trained in the use of firearms and martial arts at a special academy before entering service.
Books and other Writings
In addition to
The Green Book (1975), Gaddafi has authored other works, including:
Escape to Hell and Other Stories (1998) "The One-State Solution", an op-ed piece which appeared in the New York Times in 2009
See also
Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights HIV trial in Libya List of national leaders
References
External links
Muammar Gaddafi: 40 Years in Power: Libya's Last Bedouin Official personal website Gaddafi: The Last Supervillain? – slideshow by Life magazine Colonel Gaddafi: with friends like these ... by The Daily Telegraph Gaddafi's 40th Anniversary – slideshow by The First Post |- |- |- |- |-
Category:1942 births Category:Arab nationalist heads of state Category:Chadian–Libyan conflict Category:Cold War leaders Category:Conspiracy theorists Category:Current national leaders Category:Heads of state of Libya Category:Leaders who took power by coup Category:Libyan revolutionaries Category:Libyan Sunni Muslims Category:Living people Category:International activists against apartheid in South Africa Category:Attempted assassination survivors Category:Pan-Africanism Category:People from Sirt Category:Place of birth missing (living people) Category:Members of the General People's Committee of Libya Category:Libyan military personnel Category:Prime Ministers of Libya
