What happened to Gaddafi and his Libya? Excerpted from ___Phoenix network
The land is vast and sparsely populated, rich in resources it is difficult to find such a country: an area of 1.76 million square kilometers, equivalent to four Iraq, while the population of more than 6 million people, and the number of people living in the third ring of Beijing is about the same, and 90% of them are gathered in a few cities along the coast, and only the capital city of Tripoli is concentrated in the country's population of 1/3, 50% of the manufacturing industry is the western part of Libya's It is the economic center of western Libya. The other major city is Benghazi in the east, with a population of nearly 1 million, is the economic center of the east, and can control most of the country's oil exports, which are currently under the control of the opposition.
It is fair to say that Libya is now a dueling political entity between the east and the west, with an ill-advised future. Libya is sparsely populated but rich in oil and deep fresh water, and its per capita GDP has long exceeded $10,000, making it a truly rich country. Libya's oil is notorious, when Qaddafi came to power in 1969, daily production had been as high as more than 3.3 million barrels, equivalent to today's daily output of Kuwait, is the world's fourth largest oil producer, but at present Libya's daily oil production is only half of the 40 years ago, the ranking has moved back to the 16th place. Nonetheless, Libya is currently Africa's third-largest oil producer and has the largest reserves in Africa.
Because of the nationalization of the oil industry, Western sanctions and the leaders' interest in multi-directional, only 1/4 of the country's territory has been geologically explored, such as a comprehensive exploration, the reserves will be more. Oil is Libya's greatest wealth, 95% of export revenues, 85% of fiscal revenues and 70% of GDP depends on oil revenues. According to current prices, Libya's oil exports alone can bring in $50 billion a year, more money than it can spend. Adequate oil revenues for Libyan leader Gaddafi to support the world revolution, engage in image projects and create the "eighth wonder of the world" to provide financial support. Gaddafi's miracle was to dig 1,300 kilometer-deep wells, pumping out groundwater from the central region and transporting it through 5,000 kilometers of underground pipelines to coastal cities and agricultural areas to grow wheat in the desert. The reinforced concrete trunk pipeline is 4 meters in diameter and completely domestically produced. I have visited this project and it is indeed spectacular.
The budget for the project was $30 billion more than 20 years ago, and it was done from 1984 until the civil unrest broke out not long ago, when Chinese workers evacuated the site in formation. Someone had advised Gaddafi to cherish the deep fresh water that had accumulated over millions of years, and he said it was fine, he couldn't pump it for thousands of years more. This is Libya in nature, and the people who live on this land are actually blessed because their natural wealth per capita far exceeds that of the densely populated developed and developing countries.
Leader extraordinary, unique system is difficult to find such a country: a 27-year-old communications platoon leader led 12 military schoolmates and hundreds of soldiers under the king to drive away, he became the desert country's "big chief", a pawn is 42 years. This country claims to have no government, and the people's committees at all levels are responsible for all affairs, managing themselves, and the name of the highest leader of the country is also strange: the General Secretary of the General Secretariat of the General People's Committee. This General Secretary is Qaddafi, the platoon leader who staged the coup d'état back then. Gaddafi is undoubtedly a genius.
He was a student leader when he was in high school, not only an articulate and whimsical speaker, but also an inspirational figure who vowed to build a new society. Several of his key followers went on to become national leaders. In an attempt to subdue the restless student, Libya's Minister of Education personally signed an order expelling him and stipulating that he would not be allowed to be accepted in any school in the country. But Gaddafi and a few of his classmates enrolled in a military academy that was not under the authority of the Ministry of Education, and later became a major player. Even in the military school, he was the most restless, often failing in his studies, but he had already begun to form his future team: his elementary school classmates were responsible for spreading revolutionary ideas among the people, while his military school classmates were responsible for setting up a "Free Officers Organization," following the example of Egypt's Nasser, to prepare for the seizure of power by force.
In 1969, the decrepit King Idris was coveted by several coup groups, including the former prime minister and chief of staff, but only the lowest-ranking group, Gaddafi's, succeeded. Because they were young, daring and ruthless. Due to the small size of the Libyan army at that time, only 5,000 people, the highest rank is only a colonel, the British inspector of the military school is also a colonel, after the coup succeeded, Gaddafi does not go against the ancestral system, he only hung a colonel rank. But this colonel later commanded 100,000 troops, hundreds of warplanes and thousands of combat vehicles, not to mention the 42 consecutive years of bizarre rule of this country and call the shots around the world. Born in a desert tent more than 30 kilometers south of the central Libyan coastal city of Syrte, Gaddafi's father was a shepherd who belonged to the ostracized Qadhafa tribe, and at one time herded sheep for the powerful big tribes, which the teenage Gaddafi resented. But after he came to power, regardless of the past, several large tribes in the country to implement a policy of appeasement, all tribes are people involved in the management of the country.
Of course, the core forces of security, intelligence, special forces and the air force are all family members. The coup succeeded, Gaddafi set up the Revolutionary Command Council, the implementation of strict control, he said, "from now on, whoever engages in political party activities, is guilty of treason", dare to demand democracy against the dictatorship of the people, either killed or imprisoned, and the important rebels will also be pursued to kill abroad. He drove out all 30,000 Italian farmers and Jewish merchants and converted the Catholic Church in Tripoli into a mosque, and nightclubs and whatnot were closed down. He came to power on the back of the army, which he managed extremely strictly; most of the old officers were purged, and those who dared to stage a new coup were hanged, both officers and soldiers. Three months after coming to power, he signed a memorandum of unity with Egypt and the Sudan in an attempt to form a power big enough to destroy Israel.
In order to "settle the Arab-Israeli conflict once and for all," he tasked his high school classmate and deputy head of the Revolutionary Committee, Mr. Jalalud, with purchasing an atomic bomb from a major country, saying that one bomb would suffice, and offering $100 million. When they did not sell it, he started to build it himself, until Saddam of Iraq was captured alive, and only then did he completely give up his ambition of possessing nuclear weapons, and ship all the nuclear materials, equipment and drawings to the United States in exchange for the United States no longer saying that he supported terrorism. As he considered elections to be the most unfair, with the rights of the 51 per cent majority trampling on those of the 49 per cent minority, and with parliamentarians representing political parties rather than the people, he established the only political organization in the country, the Revolutionary Unity Front, and the name of the country was eventually given as the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The name of the country was eventually "The Great Libyan Arab People's Socialist Jamahiriya".
The reason why it was not a **** and State but a Jamahiriya was explained by the fact that Libya had entered a popular era in which the people governed the country directly. As for the local governing bodies, there are thousands of people's committees, led by people who are not elected but "chosen". In the event of disagreement, no decision could be made, and in-depth discussions were held until a consensus was reached. He took care of the interests of various tribes, and positions that everyone liked were distributed among the elites of various tribes, and temporary vacancies were created when consultations failed, as happened when an ambassador to a certain country was left vacant for more than a year. Do not think that Qaddafi cold relations with this country, this precisely shows that Libyans are valued and like this country. He has spared no effort to support the Palestinian struggle, whatever the means, such as the Lockerbie air crash (1988).
But once Arafat started the peace process with Rabin, he kicked most of the Palestinians out of Libya, because don't you have your own country now? The Arabs stopped fighting Israel, much to his dismay, and he simply downplayed Libya's Arab overtones in favor of a quest for African unity, and the TV station's credits became the Libyan sun shining brightly all the way to the Cape of Good Hope. He was so eloquent that he could talk endlessly, and there was nothing he didn't understand. His "Green Book" was translated into dozens of languages, and he publicized the "Third World Theory" and the system of people's ownership all over the world.
In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, he spoke for more than an hour in a 15-minute speech until the interpreter had a nervous breakdown and was screaming. Hundreds of examples like this could be cited, and every one of them would not be boring to watch. These days, the world is watching him again, because for the first time in 42 years, Libyans have risen up, and Libya's two neighbors, Tunisia and Egypt, have changed their dynasties, and Gaddafi is the only one who is still making speeches on TV, saying that the whole country loves him, and that those who are against him are either sent by Bin Laden or thugs. Bin Laden sent thugs or ignorant youths on stimulants to oppose him.
Can Gadhafi survive the swarming and continuing chaos? His two ministers and the leaders of several major tribes are already in the central eastern city of Benghazi discussing an interim government, the country has been plunged into division and civil war, and the Security Council has passed a resolution sanctioning him, but he still dares to send planes to bomb the opposition population, the images of broken bodies angered the world, but Tripoli after a period of turmoil began to calm down again.
What is going on? Whether or not Gadhafi is deposed depends on a number of factors, and is not determined solely by whether or not he is a dictator or a madman. During his tenure, he had first distributed 50 percent of oil revenues to households before making the national budget; education and health care were free, and those who couldn't be cured at home were sent to foreign countries for treatment, with the patient paying nothing; a household could have only one set of housing, and the excess went to whomever lived there; exploitation wasn't permitted, and stores were not allowed to have employees, only partners who participated in the share; wherever the state water transfer project benefited, herders there can become farmers, farms, houses and tractors are given away free of charge; Libya's shortage of laborers and strong men attracts refugees from neighboring countries to serve, and as long as they are paid, they are loyal, not to mention their own tribal interest-linked groups.
A more important issue is that, in the reverse card movement, not only can not tolerate the upright national, "Al Qaeda" organization is really eager to try, the Iranian mullahs also issued solidarity, a Libya without Gaddafi, will become another Afghanistan? Because of this, the United States and other major Western countries firmly condemned Qaddafi's bloody suppression of demonstrations and the threat of force at the same time, but also called on Qaddafi to change his position and seek reconciliation. It seems that not only is Gaddafi a traitor to all, but there are those who are throwing in the towel for fear that Gaddafi's total destruction will bring even greater disaster.
There is also news that, according to Libya this way, to restore unity has been much more difficult, it would be better to divide it into three, anyway, the east, center and west to a certain extent was originally a separate government, there is a tradition of partition and cultural basis, not to mention that each region has oil, the economy can be self-supporting. This idea was first proposed by the Americans, I do not know how Obama finally decided.