Gaddafi: The mad dog of Libya        (Part One)              

This is the first of a series of articles about an evil dictator.

Muammar Gaddafi was born in 1942 in a small tent near Qasr Abu Hadi, a rural area outside the town of Sirte in the deserts of western Libya. His family came from a small, relatively un-influential tribal group called the Qadhadhfa, who were Arabized Berber in heritage. His father, Mohammad Abdul Salam bin Hamed bin Mohammad, was known as Abu Meniar who earned a meager subsistence as a goat and camel herder. He died in 1985, and his mother was named Aisha and she died seven years earlier. Gaddafi was his parents' only surviving son however he had three older sisters. Later, Gaddafi named himself Gaddafi after his tribal group called Qadhadhfa.

Many world leaders came from humble beginnings and Gaddafi was no exception. Fortunately, not all of them become evil dictators whose sanity borders on weirdness such as this particular man. Of course, he couldn’t have become Libya’s leader if he wasn’t an intelligent man.  

                 

Gaddafi's earliest education was of a religious nature, imparted by a local Islamic teacher.Subsequently moving to nearby Sirte to attend elementary school, he progressed through six grades in four years. Education in Libya was not free, but his father thought it would greatly benefit his son despite the financial strain. During the week Gaddafi slept in a mosque, and at weekends walked 20 miles to visit his parents. Bullied for being a Bedouin, he was proud of his identity and encouraged pride in other Bedouin children. From Sirte, he and his family moved to the market town of Sabha inFezzan, south-central Libya, where his father worked as a caretaker for a tribal leader while Muammar attended secondary school, something neither parent had done. Gaddafi was popular at school; some of his friends in school later received significant jobs when Gaddafi came to power. Most notably Gaddafi's earliest education was of a religious nature, imparted by a local Islamic teacher. Subsequently moving to nearby Sirte to attend elementary school, he progressed through six grades in four years. Education in Libya was not free, but his father thought it would greatly benefit his son despite the financial strain.

During the week Gaddafi slept in a mosque, and at weekends walked 20 miles to visit his parents. Bullied for being a Bedouin, he was proud of his identity and encouraged pride in other Bedouin children. From Sirte, he and his family moved to the market town of Sabha in Fezzan, south-central Libya, where his father worked as a caretaker for a tribal leader while Gaddafi attended secondary school, something neither parent had done. Gaddafi was popular at school; some friends he made there received significant jobs when he came to power, most notably his best friend was Abdul Salam Jalloud who Prime Minister of Libya from July 16, 1972 to  March 2, 1977.

Growing up, Gaddafi witnessed significant events rock the Arab world, including the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, the Suez Crisis of 1956, and the short-lived existence of the United Arab Republic between 1958 and 1961. Gaddafi admired the political changes implemented in the Arab Republic of Egypt under his hero, President Gamal Abdel Nasser.^]Nasser argued for Arab nationalism and the rejection of Western colonialism, neo-colonialism and zionism; and a transition from capitalism to socialism. Nasser's book, Philosophy of the Revolution, was a key influence on Gaddafi that outlined how to initiate a coup.  It has been described as the inspiration and blueprint of Gaddafi’s revolution bin Libya.

Gaddafi organized demonstrations and distributed posters criticizing the monarchy. In October 1961, at age 35, he led a demonstration protesting Syria's secession from the United Arab Republic. During this demonstration, they broke windows of a local hotel accused of serving alcohol. Catching the Libya authorities’ attention, they expelled his family from Sabha. Gaddafi moved then to Misrata, where he then attended the Misrata Secondary School. Maintaining his interest in Arab nationalist activism, he refused to join any of the banned political parties active in the city including the Arab Nationalist Movement, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party or the Muslim Brotherhood; claiming he rejected factionalism.

  

Briefly studying history at the University of Libya in Benghazi, Gaddafi dropped out to join the military. Despite his police record, in 1963 he began training at the Royal Military Academy in Benghazi, alongside several like-minded friends from Misrata. The armed forces offered the only opportunity for upward social mobility for underprivileged Libyans, and Gaddafi recognized it as a potential means of bringing about political change.

Libya's armed forces were trained by the British military, which angered Gaddafi, who viewed the British as imperialists. He refused to learn English, was rude to the British officers, and failed his exams. British trainers reported him for insubordination and abusive behaviour, stating their suspicion that he was involved in the assassination of the military academy's commander in 1963. Such reports were ignored and Gaddafi quickly progressed through the courses. Had they kicked him out of armed forces then, he wouldn’t have succeeded in later becoming the weird dictator of Libya he had become.

In 1964, Gaddafi along with a group of loyal cadres, founded the Central Committee of the Free Officers Movement, a revolutionary group named after Nasser's Egyptian predecessor. Led by Gaddafi, they met clandestinely and were organized into a clandestine cell system, offering their salaries into a single fund. Gaddafi travelled around Libya gathering intelligence and developing connections with sympathizers, but the government's intelligence services ignored him, considering him as a minor threat. That assumption was a huge mistake.

Graduating in August 1965, Gaddafi became a communications officer in the army's signal corps. In April 1966, he was sent to the United Kingdom for further training and over nine months, he underwent an English-language course at  Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, an  Army Air Corps signal instructors course in Bovington Camp, Dorset, and an infantry signal instructors course at Hythe, Kent. Despite later rumours to the contrary, he did not attend the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst where officers were trained.

  

The Bovington signal course's director reported that Gaddafi successfully overcame problems learning English, displaying a firm command of his voice. Gaddafi's favourite hobbies were reading and playing football. Many thought of him as an “amusing officer, always cheerful, hard-working, and conscientious.” 

Nevertheless, Gaddafi disliked England, claiming British Army officers had racially insulted him and finding it difficult adjusting to the country's culture; asserting his Arab identity in London, he walked around Piccadilly wearing traditional Libyan robes. He later said that while he travelled to England believing it more advanced than Libya, he returned home more confident and proud of Libyan’s values, ideals and social character.  

King Idris’ Libyan government was increasingly unpopular by the latter 1960s; it had centralized Libya's federal system to take advantage of the country's oil wealth, exacerbating traditional regional and tribal divisions. Corruption and entrenched systems of patronage were widespread throughout the oil industry. Arab nationalism was increasingly popular, and protests flared up following Egypt's 1967 defeat in the Six-Day War with Israel; allied to the western powers, Idris’ administration was seen as pro-Israeli.

Anti-western riots broke out in Tripoli and Benghazi, while Libyan workers shut down oil terminals that had been in solidarity with Egypt. By 1969, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was expecting segments of Libya's armed forces to launch a coup. Although claims have been made that they knew of Gaddafi's Free Officers Movement, they have since claimed ignorance, stating that they were monitoring Abdul Aziz Shalhi's Black Boots revolutionary group instead.

In mid-1969, Idris travelled abroad to spend the summer in Turkey and Greece. Gaddafi's Free Officers recognized this as their chance to overthrow the monarchy, initiating "Operation Jerusalem". On 1 September, they occupied airports, police depots, radio stations and government offices in Tripoli and Benghazi. Gaddafi took control of the Berka barracks in Benghazi, while Omar Meheisha occupied Tripoli barracks and Jalloud seized the city's anti-aircraft batteries. Khweldi Hameidi was sent to arrest crown prince Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida al-Mahdi as-Sanussi, and force him to relinquish his claim to the throne. They met no serious resistance, and wielded little violence against the monarchists.

Having abolished the monarchy, Gaddafi proclaimed the foundation of the Libyan Arab Republic. Addressing the populace by radio, he proclaimed an end to the “reactionary and corrupt” regime; the stench of which has sickened and horrified us all.” Due to the coup's bloodless nature, it was initially labelled the “White Revolution”, although it was later renamed the “One September Revolution” after the date on which it occurred. Gaddafi insisted that the Free Officers' coup represented a revolution, marking the start of widespread change in the socio-economic and political nature of Libya. He proclaimed that the revolution meant “freedom, socialism, and unity”, and over the coming years implemented measures to achieve this.

Unfortunately, his promises to the people of Libya didn’t materialize. They were going to suffer from the agonies of hell with him as their leader.

Part Two will describe how this man terrorized the people of Libya and supported terrorism around the world.