Surprise! I found even more facts about Libya under Gaddafi that you probably did not know about ! [View all]

[DetlefK]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Libya_under_Muammar_Gaddafi

As months passed, Gaddafi, caught up in his apocalyptic visions of revolutionary pan-Arabism and Islam locked in mortal struggle with what he termed the encircling, demonic forces of reaction, imperialism, and Zionism, increasingly devoted attention to international rather than internal affairs.

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All legislative and executive authority was vested in the GPC. This body, however, delegated most of its important authority to its general secretary and General Secretariat and to the General People's Committee. Gaddafi, as general secretary of the GPC, remained the primary decision maker, just as he had been when chairman of the RCC.

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Beginning in 1977, "revolutionary committees" were organized and assigned the task of "absolute revolutionary supervision of people's power"; that is, they were to guide the people's committees, "raise the general level of political consciousness and devotion to revolutionary ideals". In reality, the revolutionary committees were used to survey the population and repress any political opposition to Gaddafi's autocratic rule. Reportedly 10% to 20% of Libyans worked in surveillance for these committees, a proportion of informants on par with Ba'athist Iraq or North Korea.[25]

Filled with politically astute zealots, the ubiquitous revolutionary committees in 1979 assumed control of BPC elections. Although they were not official government organs, the revolutionary committees became another mainstay of the domestic political scene. As with the people's committees and other administrative innovations since the revolution, the revolutionary committees fit the pattern of imposing a new element on the existing subnational system of government rather than eliminating or consolidating already existing structures. By the late 1970s, the result was an unnecessarily complex system of overlapping jurisdictions in which cooperation and coordination among different elements were compromised by ill-defined authority and responsibility.

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However, the measures created resentment and opposition among the newly dispossessed. The latter joined those already alienated, some of whom had begun to leave the country. By 1982, perhaps 50,000 to 100,000 Libyans had gone abroad; because many of the emigrants were among the enterprising and better educated Libyans, they represented a significant loss of managerial and technical expertise.

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In 1972, Gaddafi created the Islamic Legion as a tool to unify and Arabize the region. The priority of the Legion was first Chad, and then Sudan. In Darfur, a western province of Sudan, Gaddafi supported the creation of the Arab Gathering (Tajammu al-Arabi), which according to Gérard Prunier was "a militantly racist and pan-Arabist organization which stressed the 'Arab' character of the province."[32] The two organizations shared members and a source of support, and the distinction between them is often ambiguous.

This Islamic Legion was mostly composed of immigrants from poorer Sahelian countries,[33] but also, according to a source, thousands of Pakistanis who had been recruited in 1981 with the false promise of civilian jobs once in Libya.[34] Generally speaking, the Legion's members were immigrants who had gone to Libya with no thought of fighting wars, and had been provided with inadequate military training and had sparse commitment. A French journalist, speaking of the Legion's forces in Chad, observed that they were "foreigners, Arabs or Africans, mercenaries in spite of themselves, wretches who had come to Libya hoping for a civilian job, but found themselves signed up more or less by force to go and fight in an unknown desert."[33]

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However, Gaddafi focused on demanding Pakistan's Prime Minister sell him a nuclear weapon, which surprised many of the Prime Minister's delegation members and journalists.[39] When Prime minister Sharif refused Gaddafi's demand, Gaddafi disrespected him, calling him a "Corrupt politician", a term which insulted and surprised Sharif.[39] The Prime minister cancelled the talks, returned to Pakistan and expelled the Libyan Ambassador from Pakistan.[39]

Thailand reported its citizens had helped build storage facilities for nerve gas.[40] Germany sentenced a businessman, Jurgen Hippenstiel-Imhausen, to five years in prison for involvement in Libyan chemical weapons.[37][41] Inspectors from the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) verified in 2004 that Libya owned a stockpile of 23 metric tons of mustard gas and more than 1,300 metric tons of precursor chemicals.[42]

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On 5 April 1986, Libyan agents bombed "La Belle" nightclub in West Berlin, killing three and injuring 229. Gaddafi's plan was intercepted by several national intelligence agencies and more detailed information was retrieved four years later from Stasi archives. The Libyan agents who had carried out the operation, from the Libyan embassy in East Germany, were prosecuted by the reunited Germany in the 1990s.[43]

In response to the discotheque bombing, joint US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps air-strikes took place against Libya on 15 April 1986 and code-named Operation El Dorado Canyon and known as the 1986 bombing of Libya. Air defenses, three army bases, and two airfields in Tripoli and Benghazi were bombed. The surgical strikes failed to kill Gaddafi but he lost a few dozen military officers. Gaddafi spread propaganda how it had killed his "adopted daughter" and how victims had been all "civilians". Despite the variations of the stories, the campaign was successful, and a large proportion of the Western press reported the government's stories as facts.[44]

Following the 1986 bombing of Libya, Gaddafi intensified his support for anti-American government organizations. He financed Jeff Forts Al-Rukn faction of the Chicago Black P. Stones gang, in their emergence as an indigenous anti-American armed revolutionary movement.[45] Al-Rukn members were arrested in 1986 for preparing strikes on behalf of Libya, including blowing up US government buildings and bringing down an airplane; the Al-Rukn defendants were convicted in 1987 of "offering to commit bombings and assassinations on US soil for Libyan payment."[45] In 1986, Libyan state television announced that Libya was training suicide squads to attack American and European interests. He began financing the IRA again in 1986, to retaliate against the British for harboring American fighter planes.[46]

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Gaddafi was a close supporter of Ugandan President Idi Amin.[48]

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Gaddafi was a strong supporter of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.[57]

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Gaddafi trained and supported Liberian warlord-president Charles Taylor, who was indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the conflict in Sierra Leone.[59] Foday Sankoh, the founder of Revolutionary United Front, was also Gaddafi's graduate. According to Douglas Farah, "The amputation of the arms and legs of men, women, and children as part of a scorched-earth campaign was designed to take over the region's rich diamond fields and was backed by Gaddafi, who routinely reviewed their progress and supplied weapons".[58]

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On 11 June 1972, Gaddafi announced that any Arab wishing to volunteer for Palestinian terrorist groups "can register his name at any Libyan embassy will be given adequate training for combat". He also promised financial support for attacks.[68] On 7 October 1972, Gaddafi praised the Lod Airport massacre, executed by the communist Japanese Red Army, and demanded Palestinian terrorist groups to carry out similar attacks.[68]

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Reportedly, Gaddafi was a major financier of the "Black September Movement" which perpetrated the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics.[2]

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Islamist terrorist group Abu Sayyaf has also been suspected of receiving Libyan funding.[74]

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In April 1984, Libyan refugees in London protested against execution of two dissidents. Communications intercepted by MI5 show that Tripoli ordered its diplomats to direct violence against the demonstrators. Libyan diplomats shot at 11 people and killed British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher. The incident led to the breaking off of diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Libya for over a decade.[78]

After December 1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks, which killed 19 and wounded around 140, Gaddafi indicated that he would continue to support the Red Army Faction, the Red Brigades, and the Irish Republican Army as long as European countries support anti-Gaddafi Libyans.[79] The Foreign Minister of Libya also called the massacres "heroic acts".[80]

In 1986, Libyan state television announced that Libya was training suicide squads to attack American and European interests.[81]

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In 1994, the General People's Congress approved the introduction of "purification laws" to be put into effect, punishing theft by the amputation of limbs, and fornication and adultery by flogging.[88] Under the Libyan constitution, homosexual relations are punishable by up to five years in jail.[89]

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Throughout his long rule, Gaddafi had to defend his position against opposition and coup attempts, emerging both from the military and from the general population. He reacted to these threats on one hand by maintaining a careful balance of power between the forces in the country, and by brutal repression on the other. Gaddafi successfully balanced the various tribes of Libya one against the other by distributing his favours.

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The term "Green Terror" is used to describe campaigns of violence and intimidation against opponents of Gaddafi, particularly in reference to wave of oppression during Libya's cultural revolution, or to the wave of highly publicized hangings of regime opponents that began with the Execution of Al-Sadek Hamed Al-Shuwehdy.

Dissent was illegal under Law 75 of 1973.[25] Reportedly 10 to 20 percent of Libyans worked in surveillance for Gaddafi's Revolutionary Committees[citation needed], a proportion of informants on par with Saddam Hussein's Iraq or Kim Jong Il's North Korea. The surveillance took place in government, in factories, and in the education sector.[25]

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According to the 2009 Freedom of the Press Index, Libya is the most censored country in the Middle East and North Africa.[93]

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Gaddafi employed his network of diplomats and recruits to assassinate dozens of his critics around the world. Amnesty International listed at least twenty-five assassinations between 1980 and 1987.[25][83]

Gaddafi's agents were active in the U.K., where many Libyans had sought asylum. After Libyan diplomats shot at 15 anti-Gaddafi protesters from inside the Libyan embassy's first floor and killed a British policewoman, the U.K. broke off relations with Gaddafi's government as a result of the incident.

Even the U.S. could not protect dissidents from Libya. In 1980, a Libyan agent attempted to assassinate dissident Faisal Zagallai, a doctoral student at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The bullets left Zagallai partially blinded.[95] A defector was kidnapped and executed in 1990 just before he was about to receive U.S. citizenship.[25]

Gaddafi asserted in June 1984 that killings could be carried out even when the dissidents were on pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca. In August 1984, one Libyan plot was thwarted in Mecca.[47]

As of 2004, Libya still provided bounties for heads of critics, including 1 million dollars for Ashur Shamis, a Libyan-British journalist.[96]