Phoenician Tripolitania and the Greek Pentapolis
Main article:
Ancient Libya
A map of the world as it might have been known to
Herodotus showing the area of Libya in north Africa
The
Phoenicians were the first to establish trading posts in Libya, when the merchants of
Tyre (in present-day
Lebanon) developed commercial relations with the
Berber tribes and made treaties with them to ensure their cooperation in the exploitation of raw materials.
[15][16] By the 5th century BCE, the greatest of the Phoenician colonies,
Carthage, had extended its
hegemony across much of North Africa, where a distinctive civilization, known as
Punic, came into being. Punic settlements on the Libyan coast included
Oea (later Tripoli), Libdah (later
Leptis Magna) and
Sabratha. These cities were in an area that was later called
Tripolis, or "Three Cities", from which Libya's modern capital Tripoli takes its name.
In 630 BC, the
Ancient Greeks colonized Eastern Libya and founded the city of
Cyrene.
[17] Within 200 years, four more important Greek cities were established in the area that became known as
Cyrenaica:
Barce (later
Al Marj); Euhesperides (later Berenice, present-day
Benghazi);
Teuchira (later Arsinoe, present-day Tukrah); and
Apollonia (later Susah), the port of Cyrene. Together with Cyrene, they were known as the Pentapolis (Five Cities). Cyrene became one of the greatest intellectual and artistic centers of the Greek world, and was famous for its medical school, learned academies, and architecture. The Greeks of the Pentapolis resisted encroachments by the
Egyptians from the East, as well as by the Carthaginians from the West, but in 525 BCE the Persian army of
Cambyses II overran Cyrenaica, which for the next two centuries remained under Persian or Egyptian rule.
Alexander the Great was greeted by the Greeks when he entered Cyrenaica in 331 BCE, and Eastern Libya again fell under the control of the Greeks, this time as part of the
Ptolemaic Kingdom. Later, a federation of the Pentapolis was formed that was customarily ruled by a king drawn from the Ptolemaic royal house.
Roman Libya
Main article:
Roman Libya
The Arch of
Septimius Severus at
Leptis Magna. Roman emperor Septimus Severus allowed the city to become one of the most prominent in Roman Africa.
The Romans invaded
Tripolitania (the region around Tripoli) in 106 BCE.
Ptolemy Apion, the last Greek ruler, bequeathed Cyrenaica to Rome, which formally annexed the region in 74 BC and joined it to Crete as a Roman province. By 64 BCE,
Julius Caesar's legions had established their occupation, and the
Romans had thus unified all three regions of Libya. As a Roman province, Libya was prosperous, and reached a golden age in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, when the city of
Leptis Magna was at its height. For more than 400 years, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were wealthy Roman provinces and part of a cosmopolitan state whose citizens shared a common language, legal system, and Roman identity. Roman ruins like those of Leptis Magna, extant in present-day Libya, attest to the vitality of the region, where populous cities and even smaller towns enjoyed the amenities of urban life—the forum, markets, public entertainments, and baths—found in every corner of the Roman Empire. Merchants and artisans from many parts of the Roman world established themselves in North Africa, but the character of the cities of Tripolitania remained decidedly Punic and, in Cyrenaica, Greek. Tripolitania was a major exporter of olive oil, as well as a centre for the gold and slaves conveyed to the coast by the Garamentes, while Cyrenaica remained an important source of wines, drugs, and horses. The bulk of the population in the countryside consisted of Berber farmers, who in the west were thoroughly "romanized" in language and customs.
[18] Until the tenth century the
African Romance remained in use in some Tripolitanian areas , mainly near the Tunisian border.
[19]
The decline of the Roman Empire saw the classical cities fall into ruin, a process hastened by the
Vandals' destructive sweep though North Africa in the 5th century. The region's prosperity had shrunk under Vandal domination, and the old Roman political and social order, disrupted by the Vandals, could not be restored. In outlying areas neglected by the Vandals, the inhabitants had sought the protection of tribal chieftains and, having grown accustomed to their autonomy, resisted reassimilation into the imperial system. When the
Byzantines took over in the 6th century, efforts were made to strengthen the old cities, but it was only a last gasp before they collapsed into disuse. Cyrenaica, which had remained an outpost of the Byzantine Empire during the Vandal period, also took on the characteristics of an armed camp. Unpopular Byzantine governors imposed burdensome taxation to meet military costs, while the towns and public services—including the water system—were left to decay. Byzantine rule in Africa did prolong the Roman ideal of imperial unity there for another century and a half however, and prevented the ascendancy of the Berber nomads in the coastal region. By the beginning of the 7th century, Byzantine control over the region was weak, Berber rebellions were becoming more frequent, and there was little to oppose Muslim invasion.
Arab Islamic rule 642–1551
The Atiq Mosque in Awjila is the oldest mosque in the Sahara.
Tenuous Byzantine control over Libya was restricted to a few poorly defended coastal strongholds, and as such, the
Arab horsemen who first crossed into the Pentapolis of Cyrenaica in September 642 CE encountered little resistance. Under the command of
Amr ibn al-A'as, the armies of Islam conquered Cyrenaica, and renamed the Pentapolis, Barqa. By 647, an army of 40,000
Arabs, led by
‘Abdu’llah ibn Sa‘ad, the foster-brother of Caliph
Uthman, penetrated deep into Western Libya and took Tripoli from the Byzantines in 643. From Barqa, the
Fezzan (Libya's Southern region) was conquered by
Uqba ibn Nafi in 663 and Berber resistance was overcome. During the following centuries Libya came under the rule of several Islamic dynasties, under various levels of autonomy from Ummayad, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates of the time. Arab rule was easily imposed in the coastal farming areas and on the towns, which prospered again under Arab patronage. Townsmen valued the security that permitted them to practice their commerce and trade in peace, while the punicized farmers recognized their affinity with the Semitic Arabs to whom they looked to protect their lands. In Cyrenaica,
Monophysite adherents of the
Coptic Church had welcomed the Muslim Arabs as liberators from Byzantine oppression. The Berber tribes of the hinterland accepted Islam, however they resisted Arab political rule.
During fhe Hafsid Era, a higher common culture called Moorish was shared between the Maghrib and Muslim Spain. Its influence spread as far as Tripolitania, where Hafsid patronage had encouraged a flowering Arab creativity and scholarship.
For the next several decades, Libya was under the purview of the
Ummayad Caliph of Damascus until the
Abbasids overthrew the Ummayads in 750, and Libya came under the rule of Baghdad. When Caliph
Harun al-Rashid appointed
Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab as his governor of
Ifriqiya in 800, Libya enjoyed considerable local autonomy under the
Aghlabid dynasty. The Aghlabids were amongst the most attentive Islamic rulers of Libya; they brought about a measure of order to the region, and restored Roman irrigation systems, which brought prosperity to the area from the agricultural surplus. By the end of the 9th century, the Shiite
Fatimids controlled Western Libya from their capital in
Mahdia, before they ruled the entire region from their new capital of
Cairo in 972 and appointed
Buluggin ibn Ziri as governor. During Fatimid rule, Tripoli thrived on the trade in slaves and gold brought from the Sudan and on the sale of wool, leather, and salt shipped from its docks to Italy in exchange for wood and iron goods. Ibn Ziri's Berber
Zirid Dynasty ultimately broke away from the Shiite Fatimids, and recognised the Sunni Abbasids of Baghdad as rightful Caliphs. In retaliation, the Fatimids brought about the migration of as many as 200,000 families from two Bedouin tribes, the
Banu Sulaym and
Banu Hilal to North Africa—this act completely altered the fabric of Libyan cities, and cemented the cultural and linguistic Arabisation of the region.
Ibn Khaldun noted that the lands ravaged by Banu Hilal invaders had become completely arid desert.
[20]
After the subsequent social unrest during Zirid rule, the coast of Libya was weakened and invaded by the Normans of Sicily. It was not until 1174 that the
Ayyubid Sharaf al-Din Qaraqush reconquered Tripoli from European rule with an army of Turks and Bedouins. Afterwards, a viceroy from the
Almohads, Muhammad ibn Abu Hafs, ruled Libya from 1207 to 1221 before the later establishment of a
Hafsid dynasty independent from the Almohads. The Hafsids ruled Tripolitania for nearly 300 years, and established significant trade with the city-states of Europe. Hafsid rulers also encouraged art, literature, architecture and scholarship.
Ahmad Zarruq was one of the most famous Islamic scholars to settle in Libya, and did so during this time. By the 16th century however, the Hafsids became increasingly caught up in the power struggle between Spain and the Ottoman Empire. After a successful invasion of Tripoli by
Habsburg Spain in 1510, and its handover to the
Knights of St. John, the Ottomans finally took control of Libya in 1551.
Ottoman regency 1551–1911
The
Siege of Tripoli in 1551 allowed the Ottomans to capture the city from the Knights of St. John.
After a successful invasion by the
Habsburgs of Spain in the early 16th century,
Charles V entrusted its defense to the Knights of St. John in Malta. Lured by the piracy that spread through the
Maghreb coastline, adventurers such as
Barbarossa and his successors consolidated Ottoman control in the central Maghreb. The
Ottoman Turks conquered Tripoli in 1551 under the command of
Turgut Reis. In the next year Turgut was named the
Bey of Tripoli and later
Pasha of Tripoli in 1556. As Pasha, he adorned and built up Tripoli making it one of the most impressive cities along the North African coast.
[21] By 1565, administrative authority as regent in Tripoli was vested in a
pasha appointed directly by the
sultan in
Constantinople. In the 1580s, the rulers of
Fezzan gave their allegiance to the sultan, and although Ottoman authority was absent in
Cyrenaica, a
bey was stationed in Benghazi late in the next century to act as agent of the government in Tripoli.
In time, real power came to rest with the pasha’s corp of
janissaries, a self-governing military guild, and in time the pasha’s role was reduced to that of ceremonial head of state. Mutinies and coups were frequent, and in 1611 the
deys staged a coup against the pasha, and Dey Sulayman Safar was appointed as head of government. For the next hundred years, a series of deys effectively ruled Tripolitania some for only a few weeks, and at various times the dey was also pasha-regent. The regency governed by the dey was autonomous in internal affairs and, although dependent on the sultan for fresh recruits to the corps of janissaries, his government was left to pursue a virtually independent foreign policy as well.
An elevation of the city of Ottoman Tripoli in 1675
Tripoli was the only city of size in Ottoman Libya (then known as Tripolitania
Eyalet) at the end of the 17th century and had a population of about 30,000. The bulk of its residents were
Moors, as city dwelling Arabs were then known. Several hundred Turks and renegades formed a governing elite, a large portion of which were
kouloughlis (lit. sons of servants—offspring of Turkish soldiers and Arab women); they identified with local interests and were respected by locals. Jews and
Moriscos were active as merchants and craftsmen and a small number of European traders also frequented the city. European
slaves and large numbers of enslaved blacks transported from Sudan were also a feature of everyday life in Tripoli. In 1551, Turgut Reis enslaved almost the entire population of the Maltese island of
Gozo, some 6,300 people, sending them to Libya.
[22] The most pronounced slavery activity involved the enslavement of black Africans who were brought via
trans-Saharan trade routes. Even though the
slave trade was officially abolished in Tripoli in 1853, in practice it continued until the 1890s.
[23]
Lacking direction from the Ottoman government, Tripoli lapsed into a period of military anarchy during which coup followed coup and few deys survived in office more than a year. One such coup was by
Ahmed Pasha Karamanli. The
Karamanlis ruled from 1711 until 1835 mainly in Tripolitania, but had influence in Cyrenaica and Fezzan as well by the mid 18th century. Ahmed was a janissary and popular cavalry officer. He murdered the Ottoman governor of Tripolitania and seized the throne in 1711. After persuading the Ottomans to recognize him as governor, Ahmed established himself as pasha and made his post hereditary. Though Tripolitania continued to pay nominal tribute to the Ottoman
padishah, it otherwise acted as an independent kingdom. Ahmed greatly expanded his city's economy, particularly through the employment of
corsairs on crucial
Mediterranean shipping routes; nations that wished to protect their ships from the corsairs were forced to pay tribute to the pasha. Ahmad's successors proved to be less capable than himself, however, the region's delicate balance of power allowed the Karamanli to survive several dynastic crises without invasion. In 1793,
Turkish officer Ali Benghul deposed Hamet Karamanli and briefly restored Tripolitania to Ottoman rule. However, Hamet's brother
Yusuf (r. 1795–1832) reestablished Tripolitania's independence.
In the early 19th century war broke out between the United States and Tripolitania, and a series of battles ensued in what became to be known as the
Barbary Wars. By 1819, the various treaties of the
Napoleonic Wars had forced the Barbary states to give up piracy almost entirely, and Tripolitania's economy began to crumble. As Yusuf weakened, factions sprung up around his three sons; though Yusuf abdicated in 1832 in favor of his son Ali II, civil war soon resulted. Ottoman Sultan
Mahmud II sent in troops ostensibly to restore order, but instead deposed and exiled Ali II, marking the end of both the Karamanli dynasty and an independent Tripolitania.
The second period of direct Ottoman rule saw administrative changes, and what seemed as greater order in the governance of the three provinces of Libya. In general however, 19th century Ottoman rule was characterised by corruption, revolt and repression. The region of Libya in particular became a backwater province in a decaying empire that had been dubbed the "
sick man of Europe". It would not be long before the
Scramble for Africa and European colonial interests set their eyes on the marginal Turkish provinces of Libya. Reunification came about through the unlikely route of an invasion (
Italo-Turkish War, 1911–1912) and occupation starting from 1911 when
Italy simultaneously turned the three regions into colonies.
[24]
Italian colony and World War II 1911–1951
Main article:
Italian Libya
Omar Mukhtar was the leader of Libyan resistance in Cyrenaica against the Italian colonization.
From 1912 to 1927, the territory of Libya was known as
Italian North Africa. From 1927 to 1934, the territory was split into two colonies,
Italian Cyrenaica and
Italian Tripolitania, run by Italian governors. Some 150,000 Italians settled in Libya, constituting roughly 20% of the total population.
[25]
In 1934, Italy adopted the name "Libya" (used by the Greeks for all of
North Africa, except Egypt) as the official name of the colony (made up of the three provinces of
Cyrenaica,
Tripolitania and
Fezzan).
King Idris I, Emir of Cyrenaica, led Libyan resistance to Italian occupation between the two world wars.
Ilan Pappé estimates that between 1928 and 1932 the Italian military "killed half the Bedouin population (directly or through starvation in camps)."
[26] Italian historian Gentile wrote that this amount is excessive, and only a few thousands died, mainly of disease and starvation.
From 1943 to 1951, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were under British administration, while the French controlled Fezzan. In 1944, Idris returned from exile in
Cairo but declined to resume permanent residence in Cyrenaica until the removal of some aspects of foreign control in 1947. Under the terms of the
1947 peace treaty with the
Allies, Italy relinquished all claims to Libya.
[27]
Independence and the Kingdom of Libya 1951–1969
King Idris I announced Libya's independence on the 24th of December 1951, and became King until the 1969 coup that overthrew his government.
On November 21, 1949, the
UN General Assembly passed a resolution stating that Libya should become independent before January 1, 1952. Idris represented Libya in the subsequent UN negotiations. On December 24, 1951, Libya declared its independence as the
United Kingdom of Libya, a constitutional and hereditary
monarchy under King
Idris, Libya's first and only monarch.
1951 also saw the enactment of the
Libyan Constitution. The Libyan National Assembly drafted the Constitution and passed a resolution accepting it in a meeting held in the city of Benghazi on Sunday, 6th Muharram,
Hegiras 1371: October 7th 1951.
Mohamed Abulas’ad El-Alem, President of the National Assembly and the two Vice-Presidents of the National Assembly,
Omar Faiek Shennib and
Abu Baker Ahmed Abu Baker executed and submitted the Constitution to
King Idris folowing which it was published in the Official Gazette of Libya.
The enactment of the
Libyan Constitution was significant in that it was the first piece of legislation to formally entrench the rights of Libyan citizens following the post-war creation of the Libyan nation state. Following on from the intense UN debates during which Idris had argued that the creation of a single Libyan state would be of benefit to the regions of Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica, the Libyan government was keen to formulate a constitution which contained many of the entrenched rights common to European and North American nation states. Thus, not creating a secular state - Article 5 proclaims Islam the religion of the State - the Libyan Constitution did formally set out rights such as equality before the law as well as equal civil and political rights, equal opportunities, and an equal responsibility for public duties and obligations, "without distinction of religion, belief, race, language, wealth, kinship or political or social opinions" (Article 11).
The discovery of significant
oil reserves in 1959 and the subsequent income from
petroleum sales enabled one of the world's poorest nations to establish an extremely wealthy state. Although oil drastically improved the Libyan government's finances, resentment among some factions began to build over the increased concentration of the nation's wealth in the hands of King Idris. This discontent mounted with the rise of
Nasserism and
Arab nationalism throughout North Africa and the
Middle East, so while the continued presence of Americans, Italians and British in Libya aided in the increased levels of wealth and tourism following WWII, it was seen by some as a threat.
During this period, Britain was involved in extensive engineering projects in Libya and was also the country's biggest supplier of arms. The United States also maintained the large
Wheelus Air Base in Libya.
Libya under Gaddafi
On 1 September 1969, a small group of military officers led by then 27-year-old army officer
Muammar al-Gaddafi staged a
coup d'état against King Idris, launching the Libyan Revolution.
[28] At the time, Idris was in Turkey for medical treatment. His nephew, Crown Prince
Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida al-Mahdi as-Sanussi, was exercising regal powers at the time as King Idris had sent a signed document indicating his intent to step down as King on 2 September 1969. It was clear however that the revolutionary officers, who had announced the deposition of King Idris, did not want to appoint Crown Prince Hassan over the instruments of state as King, so the Crown Prince never attained that position.
Gaddafi was at the time only a captain and his co-conspirators were all junior officers. Nevertheless the small group seized Libyan military headquarters (due to the sympathies of the stationed men) and the radio broadcasting station with 48 rounds of revolver ammunition.
[29] Before the end of the day, Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida had been formally deposed by the revolutionary army officers and put under house arrest. In the meanwhile the revolutionary officers abolished the monarchy and proclaimed the new Libyan Arab Republic. Gaddafi was, and is to this day, referred to as the "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution" in government statements and the official Libyan press.
[30]
Following the coup led by the Libyan army on 1 September 1969 and Idris' subsequent abdication, the Libyan Constitution ceased to have any significance.
In 1977, Libya officially became the the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya. Later that same year, Gaddafi ordered an artillery strike on
Egypt in retaliation against Egyptian
President Anwar El-Sadat's intent to sign a
peace treaty with
Israel. Sadat's forces triumphed easily in a four-day border war that came to be known as the
Libyan-Egyptian War, leaving over 400 Libyans dead and much of Gaddafi's armored divisions in ruins. The following year, the
Chadian–Libyan conflict began in earnest when Gaddafi's long-held support of rebel forces in northern
Chad escalated into a Libyan military invasion of its southern neighbor.
The United States
launched a series of airstrikes against Libya in 1986 to avenge a
deadly bombing in West Berlin attributed to Libyan state-sponsored terrorism. This incident prompted Gaddafi to disavow state-sponsored terrorism against the
West.
Gaddafi assumed the title of King of Kings of Africa in 2008 as part of his efforts to advocate for a
United States of Africa.
[31] By the early 2010s, in addition to attempting to assume a leadership role in the
African Union, Libya was also viewed as having formed closer ties with
Italy, one of its former colonial rulers, than any other country in the
European Union.
[32]
2011 uprising
After popular movements overturned the rulers of
Tunisia and
Egypt, its immediate neighbours to the west and east, Libya experienced a full-scale revolt beginning in February 2011.
[35][36] By 20 February, the unrest had spread to Tripoli. In the early hours of 21 February 2011,
Saif al-Islam Muammar Al-Gaddafi, oldest son of
Muammar al-Gaddafi, spoke on Libyan television of his fears that the country would fragment and be replaced by "15 Islamic fundamentalist emirates" if the uprising engulfed the entire state. He warned that the country's economic wealth and recent prosperity was at risk, admitted that "mistakes had been made" in quelling recent protests and announced that a constitutional convention would begin on 23 February. Shortly after this speech, the Libyan Ambassador to India announced on BBC Radio 5 live that he had resigned in protest at the "massacre" of protesters.
Gaddafi appeared on Libyan state TV to deny rumours, stating "I want to show that I'm in Tripoli and not in Venezuela. Do not believe the channels belonging to stray dogs".
[37] Two Libyan Air Force colonels flew their F-1 Mirage jets to
Malta and defected after refusing orders to bomb protesters.
[38][39]
As of late February 2011, much of Libya has tipped out of Gaddafi's control, falling under the aegis of a disparate and informal coalition of protesters. Eastern Libya, centered around the
second city and vital port of
Benghazi, is said to be firmly in control of the opposition. The rebels are organizing themselves into a functioning government.
[40] However, in several public appearances, Gaddafi has threatened to destroy the protest movement, and
Al Jazeera and other agencies have reported his government is arming pro-Gaddafi militiamen to kill protesters and defectors against the regime in Tripoli.
[41] Organs of the
United Nations, including
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon[42] and the
United Nations Human Rights Council, have condemned the crackdown as violating international law, with the latter body expelling Libya outright in an unprecedented action urged by Libya's own delegation to the UN.
[43] The
United States imposed economic
sanctions against Libya,
[44] followed shortly by
Australia[45] and the
United Nations Security Council, which also voted to refer Gaddafi and other government officials to the
International Criminal Court for investigation.
[46][47]
On 26 February 2011, a
rival government was established under the stewardship of
Mustafa Mohamed Abud Al Jeleil, Gaddafi's former justice minister, to administrate the areas of Libya under rebel control. This marked the first serious effort to organize the broad-based opposition to the Gaddafi regime. While the government is presently based in Benghazi, it claims Tripoli as its capital.
[48]
Geography
Libya extends over 1,759,540 square kilometres (679,362
sq mi), making it the
17th largest nation in the world by size. Libya is somewhat smaller than
Indonesia in land area, and roughly the size of the US state of
Alaska. It is bound to the north by the
Mediterranean Sea, the west by
Tunisia and
Algeria, the southwest by
Niger, the south by
Chad and
Sudan and to the east by
Egypt. Libya lies between latitudes
19° and
34°N, and longitudes
9° and
26°E.
At 1,770 kilometres (1,100 mi), Libya's coastline is the longest of any African country bordering the Mediterranean.
[49][50] The portion of the Mediterranean Sea north of Libya is often called the
Libyan Sea. The climate is mostly dry and desertlike in nature. However, the northern regions enjoy a milder
Mediterranean climate.
Natural hazards come in the form of hot, dry, dust-laden
sirocco (known in Libya as the
gibli). This is a southern wind blowing from one to four days in spring and autumn. There are also
dust storms and
sandstorms.
Oases can also be found scattered throughout Libya, the most important of which are
Ghadames and
Kufra.
Libyan Desert
Libya is a predominantly desert country. Up to 90% of the land area is covered in desert.
The
Libyan Desert, which covers much of Libya, is one of the most arid places on earth.
[28] In places, decades may pass without
rain, and even in the
highlands rainfall seldom happens, once every 5–10 years. At Uweinat, as of 2006 the last recorded
rainfall was in September 1998.
[51] There is a large
depression, the
Qattara Depression, just to the south of the northernmost scarp, with Siwa oasis at its western extremity. The depression continues in a shallower form west, to the oases of Jaghbub and Jalo.
Likewise, the temperature in the Libyan desert can be extreme; on September 13, 1922 the town of
Al 'Aziziyah, which is located Southwest of
Tripoli, recorded an air temperature of 57.8
°C (136.0
°F), generally accepted as the highest recorded naturally occurring air temperature reached on Earth.
[52]
There are a few scattered uninhabited small
oases, usually linked to the major depressions, where water can be found by digging to a few feet in depth. In the west there is a widely dispersed group of oases in unconnected shallow depressions, the Kufra group, consisting of Tazerbo, Rebianae and Kufra.
[51] Aside from the scarps, the general flatness is only interrupted by a series of
plateaus and massifs near the centre of the Libyan Desert, around the convergence of the Egyptian-Sudanese-Libyan borders.
Slightly further to the south are the
massifs of Arkenu, Uweinat and Kissu. These
granite mountains are ancient, having formed long before the sandstones surrounding them. Arkenu and Western Uweinat are ring complexes very similar to those in the
Aïr Mountains. Eastern Uweinat (the highest point in the Libyan Desert) is a raised sandstone plateau adjacent to the granite part further west.
[51] The plain to the north of Uweinat is dotted with eroded volcanic features. With the discovery of oil in the 1950s also came the discovery of a massive
aquifer underneath much of the country. The water in this aquifer pre-dates the last ice ages and the Sahara desert itself.
[53] The country is also home to the
Arkenu craters, double impact craters found in the desert.
Politics
There are two branches of government in Libya. The "revolutionary sector" comprises Revolutionary Leader Gaddafi, the Revolutionary Committees and the remaining members of the 12-person Revolutionary Command Council, which was established in 1969.
[54] The historical revolutionary leadership is not elected and cannot be voted out of office; they are in power by virtue of their involvement in the revolution.
The second sector, the
Jamahiriya sector, comprises Basic People's Congresses in each of the 1,500 urban wards, 32 Sha'biyat People's Congresses for the regions, and the National
General People's Congress. These legislative bodies are represented by corresponding
executive bodies (Local People's Committees, Sha'biyat People's Committees and the National General People's Committee/Cabinet).
Every four years, the membership of the Basic People's Congresses elects their own leaders and the
secretaries for the People's Committees, sometimes after many debates and a critical vote. The leadership of the Local People's Congress represents the local congress at the People's Congress of the next level. The members of the National General People's Congress elect the members of the National General People's Committee (the
Cabinet) at their annual meeting.
The government controls both state-run and semi-autonomous media. In cases involving a violation of "certain taboos", the private press, like
The Tripoli Post, has been censored,
[55] although articles that are critical of policies have been requested and intentionally published by the revolutionary leadership itself as a means of initiating reforms.
Political parties were banned by the 1972 Prohibition of Party Politics Act Number 71.
[56] According to the Association Act of 1971, the establishment of non-governmental organisations (
NGOs) is allowed. However, because they are required to conform to the goals of the revolution, their numbers are small in comparison with those in neighbouring countries.
Trade unions do not exist,
[57] but numerous professional associations are integrated into the state structure as a third pillar, along with the People's Congresses and Committees. These associations do not have the right to strike. Professional associations send delegates to the General People's Congress, where they have a representative mandate.
Foreign relations
King Idris with U.S. vice-president Richard Nixon (March 1957). Libya sought cordial relations with the West.
Gadaffi and Tito; Gadaffi espoused Socialism and Pan-Arabism for some time
Libya's foreign policies have fluctuated since 1951. As a Kingdom, Libya maintained a definitively pro-Western stance, yet was recognized as belonging to the conservative traditionalist bloc in the
League of Arab States (the present-day
Arab League), of which it became a member in 1953.
[58] The government was in close alliance with the
United Kingdom and
United States; both countries maintained military base rights in Libya. Libya also forged close ties with
France,
Italy,
Greece, and established full diplomatic relations with the
Soviet Union in 1955.
Although the government supported Arab causes, including the Moroccan and Algerian independence movements, it took little active part in the
Arab-Israeli dispute or the tumultuous inter-Arab politics of the 1950s and early 1960s. The Kingdom was noted for its close association with the West, while it steered an essentially conservative course at home.
[59]
After the 1969
coup,
Muammar al-Gaddafi closed American and British bases and partly
nationalized foreign oil and commercial interests in Libya. He also played a key role in promoting oil
embargoes as a political weapon for challenging the West, hoping that an oil price rise and embargo in 1973 would persuade the West, especially the United States, to end support for Israel. Gaddafi rejected both
communism and
capitalism and claimed he was charting a middle course for his government.
[60]
In the 1980s, Libya increasingly distanced itself from the United States, based on the principle of non-alignment and the adoption of a middle path between
capitalism and
communism referred to as "
the Third Theory".
[61] The animosity was deepened due to Gaddafi’s support for groups like the
Palestine Liberation Organization, which were considered terrorist organizations by the United States Government, and his flirtation with the Soviet Union.
Alexander Haig, the
United States Secretary of State, considered Libya “a Soviet satellite” and a “Soviet-run terrorist training network". When Libya intervened in Chad in 1980 it was perceived by the American authorities as the Soviet Union’s attempt to spread control in Africa. In addition to this, Gaddafi’s opposition to Israel, a United States ally and considered by them to be the only democratic state in the region, were enough reasons to have Libya considered an American enemy. Consequently,
Ronald Reagan's administration began its campaign of assisting Libya’s neighbors to be able to respond militarily to any Libyan attempt to invade them. Tunisia was given some fifty-four M60 tanks plus $15 million in military credits, while other countries like Egypt and Sudan were given an increase in military credits and training, with a commitment of support in the event of Libyan threats. These strategies aimed at isolating Libya and pressuring it to reconsider its policies towards the United States.
[62]
The first confrontation with the United States was when Gaddafi had declared two hundred miles of the
Gulf of Sidra to be restricted of any international usage; having defied such declaration Libyan air force fired a missile at a US
Boeing EC-135 flight. The attack did not cause any damages to the aircraft, and
Jimmy Carter, the U.S. President at the time, did not respond militarily. Allegedly, Gaddafi had secretly ordered the burning down of the US embassy in Tripoli as his fight against the United States. In response U.S. President
Ronald Reagan had the "Libyan People's Bureau" closed, and oil imports banned from North African States. Reagan also contested the restricted area defined by Gaddafi based on a 1958 convention that stated that countries were allowed to claim twenty four miles of width from their coasts.
[63] On August 19, 1981
[64] the navy was sent close to Libya's coast which resulted in the
Gulf of Sidra incident, in which two of the SU-22 fighters supplied to Libya by the Soviet Union were shot down.
[65] Following this, Libya was implicated in committing mass acts of state-sponsored terrorism. When CIA allegedly intercepted two messages implying Libyan complicity in the
Berlin discothèque terrorist bombing that killed two American servicemen, the United States mounted a counterstrike launch—the
aerial bombing attack—against targets near Tripoli and
Benghazi in April 1986.
[66] The attack, Operation
El Dorado Canyon, was not sanctioned by France and Spain, who refused to allow US F-111 bombers to fly over their territories, and resulted in the death of several civilians, including
Gaddafi's fifteen-month old adopted daughter.
[67][68]
In 1991, two Libyan
intelligence agents were indicted by prosecutors in the United States and United Kingdom for their involvement in the December 1988 bombing of
Pan Am Flight 103. Six other Libyans were put on trial in absentia for the 1989 bombing of
UTA Flight 772 over
Chad and
Niger. The
UN Security Council demanded that Libya surrender the suspects, cooperate with the Pan Am 103 and UTA 772 investigations, pay compensation to the victims' families, and cease all support for terrorism. Libya's refusal to comply led to the approval of
Security Council Resolution 748 on March 31, 1992, imposing sanctions on the state designed to bring about Libyan compliance. Continued Libyan defiance led to further sanctions by the UN against Libya in November 1993.
[69]
In 1999, less than a decade after the sanctions were put in place, Libya began to make dramatic policy changes in regard to the
Western world, including turning over the Lockerbie suspects for trial. This diplomatic breakthrough followed years of negotiation, including a visit by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to Libya in December 1998, and personal appeals by Nelson Mandela. Eventually UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook persuaded the Americans to accept a trial of the suspects in the Netherlands under Scottish law, with the UN Security Council agreeing to suspend sanctions as soon as the suspects arrived in the Netherlands for trial.
[28]
Gaddafi condemned the
September 11 attacks on the United States as an act of terrorism and urged Libyans to donate blood for the victims. However, the United States was still not willing to remove the sanctions on Libya. Following the
invasion of Iraq and the fall of
Saddam Hussein in 2003, the Libyan government announced its decision to abandon its
weapons of mass destruction programmes and pay almost 3 billion US dollars in compensation to the families of Pan Am Flight 103 and UTA Flight 772.
[70][71] The decision was welcomed by many western nations and was seen as an important step toward Libya rejoining the international community.
[72] Since 2003 the country has made efforts to normalize its ties with the
European Union and the United States and has even coined the catchphrase, 'The Libya Model', an example intended to show the world what can be achieved through negotiation, rather than force, when there is goodwill on both sides. By 2004
George W. Bush had lifted the economic sanctions and official relations resumed with the United States. Libya opened a liaison office in
Washington, and the United States opened an office in
Tripoli. In January 2004, Congressman
Tom Lantos led the first official Congressional delegation visit to Libya.
[73]
The release, in 2007, of
five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, who had been held since 1999, charged with conspiring to deliberately infect over 400 children with HIV, was seen as marking a new stage in Libyan-Western relations.
On May 15, 2006 the
United States Department of State announced it would fully restore diplomatic relations if Libya dismantled its weapons programmes. The State Department also removed Libya, after 27 years, from its list of states sponsoring terrorism. The prominent role that Libya plays in Africa, and the assistance it could provide to the United States in its war on terror, were among the other considerations taken into account.
[74] In August 2008 a motion was introduced in the 110th Congress known as S 3370 or the “Libyan Claims Resolution Act” to exempt Libya from the section 1083 clause of the
National Defense Authorization Act. The motion passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate by unanimous consent, and was signed into law by George W. Bush on 4 August. After Libya paid a final portion of $1.8 billion global settlement fund for American victims it became formally exempted from section 1083. Following that Libyan families received $300 million for casualties suffered in the 1986 airstrikes led by the United States. In November, the United States Senate confirmed Gene Cretz as the first ambassador to Libya in over 35 years. The final step in the process of rebuilding relations between the two countries came in January 2009 when Ali Suleiman Aujali presented his letters of credentials to George W. Bush as Ambassador Extraordinaire and
Plenipotentiary of Libya to the United States, and Gene Cretz presented his letter of credentials before the General People’s Congress; currently both are serving as Ambassadors to their respective countries.
[75]
On October 16, 2007, Libya was elected to serve on the
United Nations Security Council for two years starting January in 2008.
[76] In February 2009,
Gaddafi was selected to be chairman of the
African Union for one year.
In 2009 the United Kingdom and Libya signed a prisoner-exchange agreement and then Libya requested the transfer of the convicted Lockerbie bomber, who finally returned home in August 2009.
[77]
As of October 25, 2009,
Canadian visa requests were being denied and Canadian travellers were told they were not welcome in Libya, in an apparent reprisal for Canada's near tongue-lashing
[vague] of Gaddafi.
[78] Libyan-Swiss relations strongly suffered after the arrest of
Hannibal Gadhafi for beating up his domestic servants in
Geneva in 2008. In response, Gaddafi removed all his money held in Swiss banks and asked the United Nations to vote to abolish
Switzerland as a sovereign nation.
[79]
Cooperation with Italy
On August 30, 2008, Gaddafi and
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi signed a historic cooperation treaty in
Benghazi.
[80][81][82] Under its terms, Italy will pay $5 billion to Libya as compensation for its former
military occupation. In exchange, Libya will take measures to combat
illegal immigration coming from its shores and boost investments in Italian companies.
[81][83] The treaty was ratified by Italy on February 6, 2009,
[80] and by Libya on March 2, during a visit to
Tripoli by Berlusconi.
[81][84] In June Gaddafi made his first visit to
Rome, where he met Prime Minister Berlusconi,
President Giorgio Napolitano,
Senate President Renato Schifani, and
Chamber President Gianfranco Fini, among others.
[81] The
Democratic Party and
Italy of Values opposed the visit,
[85][86] and many protests were staged throughout Italy by human rights organizations and the
Italian Radicals.
[87] Gaddafi also took part in the
35th G8 summit in
L'Aquila in July 2009 as
Chairman of the African Union.
[81] Since 2008, Italy is Libya's principal commercial partner. Numerous commercial agreements have been signed in the oil, infrastructural and financial sectors between both countries.
Human rights
According to the
US Department of State’s annual
human rights report for 2007, Libya’s
authoritarian regime continued to have a poor record in the area of human rights.
[88] Some of the numerous and serious abuses on the part of the government include poor prison conditions, arbitrary arrest and prisoners held incommunicado, and
political prisoners held for many years without charge or trial. The judiciary is controlled by the government, and there is no right to a fair public trial. Libyans do not have the right to change their government.
Freedom of speech,
press,
assembly,
association, and
religion are restricted. Independent human rights organizations are prohibited. Ethnic and tribal minorities suffer discrimination, and the state continues to restrict the
labor rights of foreign jobs.
In 2005
Freedom House rated both
political rights and
civil liberties in Libya as "7" (1 representing the most free and 7 the least free rating), and gave it the freedom rating of "Not Free".
[89]
Libya's human rights record was put in the spotlight in February 2011 due to the government's violent response to pro democracy protestors that killed hundreds of demonstrators.
Administrative divisions
Historically the area of Libya was considered three provinces (or states),
Tripolitania in the northwest,
Barka (Cyrenaica) in the east, and
Fezzan in the southwest. It was the conquest by Italy in the
Italo-Turkish War that united them in a single political unit. Under the Italians Libya, in 1934, was divided into four provinces and one territory (in the south): Tripoli, Misurata, Benghazi,
Al Bayda, and the Territory of the Libyan Sahara.
[90]
After independence, Libya was divided into three governorates (
muhafazat)
[91] and then in 1963 into ten governorates.
[92][93] The governorates were legally abolished in February 1975, and nine "control bureaus" were set up to deal directly with the nine areas, respectively: education, health, housing, social services, labor, agricultural services, communications, financial services, and economy, each under their own ministry.
[94] However, the courts and some other agencies continued to operate as if the governorate structure were still in place.
[94] In 1983 Libya was split into forty-six districts (
baladiyat), then in 1987 into twenty-five.
[95][96][97] In 1995, Libya was divided into thirteen districts (
shabiyah),
[98] in 1998 into twenty-six districts, and in 2001 into thirty-two districts.
[99] These were then further rearranged into twenty-two districts in 2007:
