East and, after Suez, British and French imperial-
ism was on the retreat. These transformations
affected the students and junior officers of Libya,
who were drawn to socialist ideas and to a revival
of Muslim values, at the same time as they felt
increasing antipathy towards Western, especially
American, military and commercial domination.
In September 1969, a 29-year-old officer, Major
Muammar Gaddafi, overthrew the regime of King
Idris. He had long planned the coup as a neces-
sary step to freeing Libya from foreign exploita-
tion and raising the Arab peoples to live their lives
according to the teachings of the Koran. All the
peoples of Libya, those of the oases as well as
those of the towns, should share in Libya’s pros-
perity. Gaddafi expounded his ideology in his
Green Book. His ‘Third Universal Theory’
rejected the Western ideologies of capitalism and
communism, as well as the concept of the ‘state’.
The masses should rule through local people’s
committees, and life should be conducted accord-
ing to Muslim law. In practice Gaddafi was the
supreme ruler, though fellow officers in the
General People’s Committee may from time to
time have exerted some influence on policy.
In developing Libya economically, Gaddafi was
shrewd. In 1971 he led the oil-rich states in a pol-
icy of forcing the Western consumers to pay vastly
more for the oil they had hitherto obtained so
cheaply. The riches this bestowed on Libya were
used for agricultural development and industrial
diversification. They also enabled Gaddafi to cre-
ate an Arab welfare state. Thus the oil income
brought considerable benefit to the people.
Gaddafi’s relations with the rest of the world
were warped by an uncompromising revolutionary
zeal. Foreign bases were closed down and the
Western military presence expelled. In the 1970s
and 1980s Gaddafi intervened in the ethnic civil
war in Chad, backing the northerners against the
southerners and occupying part of northern Chad.
The government in the south was saved only by
French intervention. But Gaddafi’s notoriety
in the West mainly derived from his support for
terrorist groups, ranging from factions of the
Palestine Liberation Organisation to the IRA. A
terrorist attack on a Berlin nightclub which left
American servicemen dead was followed in April
1986 by an American attempt to silence Gaddafi
for good by bombing his living quarters and mili-
tary targets. They missed Gaddafi but caused civil-
ian casualties. The intended ‘surgical’ air strikes,
using British bases, were widely condemned, but
Gaddafi’s support for terrorism became less overt.
Since the 1990s Gaddafi has moderated his
radical rhetoric. After many years he delivered to
international justice the perpetrators of the down-
ing over Scotland of Pan Am flight 103. Gaddafi is
well aware the way the wind is blowing; the
enmity of the US and the West can do great harm
to the country dependent on exporting oil. In
2003 Gaddafi accepted responsibility for the
downing of flight 103 and was ready to pay com-
pensation. Negotiations to lift international sanc-
tions were now initiated by the US and Britain.
Supporting terror did not pay. Gaddafi in the new
millennium has turned more to Africa, posturing
as Africa’s elder statesman, a champion of African
unity. The revolutionary fervour subdued, the
megalomania of earlier years was replaced by a
more realistic appraisal of the world. Gaddafi gave
up attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruc-
tion in 2004 and sanctions were lifted. The West
is now reviving her oil industry.
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