Gaddafi ruled for how many years. Gaddafi Muammar. Biography. Assassinations and conspiracies

Muammar Mohammed Abdel Salam Hamid Abu Menyar al-Gaddafi (Arabic: معمر القذافي). Born June 7 (June 19), 1940 or September 1942 in Sirte (Misrata, Italian Libya) - died October 20, 2011 in Sirte (Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya). Libyan statesman and military leader, politician and publicist; de facto head of Libya in 1969-2011, Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (1969-1977), Prime Minister and Minister of Defense of Libya (1970-1972), Secretary General of the General People's Congress (1977-1979); Colonel (since 1969), Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Libyan Armed Forces (1969-2011). After Gaddafi refused all posts, he began to be called the Brotherly Leader and Leader of the First September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya or the Brotherly Leader and Leader of the Revolution.

Having overthrown the monarchy, he later formulated the “Third World Theory”, set out in his three-volume work “The Green Book”, establishing a new political regime (or, as some authors believe, a form of government) in Libya - “Jamahiriyya” (Arabic: جماهيرية‎‎) . The Libyan leadership allocated revenues from oil production to social needs, which made it possible by the mid-1970s to implement large-scale programs for the construction of public housing, the development of healthcare and education. On the other hand, Libya during the reign of Gaddafi was repeatedly accused of interfering in the affairs of foreign countries.

In 1977, there was a border military conflict with Egypt, and in the 1980s the country was embroiled in a civil war in Chad. As a supporter of pan-Arabism, Gaddafi made efforts to unite Libya with a number of countries, which ended unsuccessfully. He provided financial and other support to numerous national liberation, revolutionary and terrorist organizations around the world.

High-profile terrorist attacks, for which the Libyan leadership was blamed, became the formal basis for the American bombing of the country in 1986 and the imposition of sanctions in the 1990s.

On June 27, 2011, during the civil war in Libya, the International Criminal Court ordered the arrest of Muammar Gaddafi on charges of murder, illegal arrest and detention. During the civil war, opposition forces, with the military intervention of NATO, gradually established control over the country. Killed on October 20, 2011 during the capture of Sirte by the forces of the Transitional National Council.

The overthrow of Gaddafi, which took place under democratic slogans, marked the beginning of a period of instability and armed struggle for power in Libya, leading to the actual disintegration of the country into a number of independent state entities, the growth of the influence of Islamists and tribalism.

Muammar Gaddafi was born in 1940 or 1942 (June 7 or June 19, either in spring or September) in a tent in Wadi Zharaf south of the city of Sirte into a Bedouin family belonging to the Arabized Berber tribe of al-Gaddafa.

Subsequently, Gaddafi repeatedly emphasized his Bedouin origin: “We, the sons of the desert, placed our tents at a distance of at least twenty kilometers from the coast. In my early childhood I never saw the sea.”

He was the last child and only son in the family. His grandfather was killed in 1911 by an Italian colonist. Recalling his childhood, Gaddafi said: “We Bedouins enjoyed freedom among nature, everything was pristinely pure... There were no barriers between us and the sky.”.

At the age of 9 he went to primary school. Following his father, who was constantly wandering in search of new, more fertile lands, Muammar changed three schools: in Sirte, Sebha and Misrata. The father later recalled: “I didn’t have the money to find a place for my son in Sirte or to entrust him to my friends. He spent the night in the mosque, came 30 kilometers away on weekends to visit us, spent his holidays in the desert, near a tent.”.

In his youth, Muammar Gaddafi was an admirer of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser; participated in anti-Israel protests during the Suez Crisis in 1956.

In 1959, an underground organization was created in Sebkha, one of whose activists was Gaddafi. On October 5, 1961, the organization held a protest demonstration against Syria's secession from the United Arab Republic, which ended with a speech near the ancient wall of the city by the main organizer of the event, Muammar Gaddafi. A few days later he was expelled from Sebha's boarding school. In 1962 he graduated from the Faculty of History of the University of Benghazi.

As a schoolboy, he participated in an underground political organization and conducted anti-colonial demonstrations against Italy. In 1961, Muammar created an underground organization whose goal was to overthrow the monarchy, as in neighboring Egypt. In October of the same year, a youth demonstration in support of the Algerian revolution began in the city of Sebha. It immediately grew into a mass anti-monarchist uprising. The organizer and leader of the demonstration was Gaddafi. For this he was arrested and then expelled from the city. I had to continue my studies in Misrata. There he entered the local lyceum, which he successfully graduated in 1963.

In 1965, Muammar Gaddafi graduated from the military college in Benghazi with the rank of lieutenant and began serving in the signal forces in the Ghar Younes military camp, then in 1966 he underwent retraining in Great Britain and was then promoted to captain. During their internship in Great Britain, lieutenants Gaddafi and Abu Bakr Yunis Jaber stood out among the group of Libyan officers for their strict adherence to Islamic customs, refusing alcohol and pleasure trips. Before the overthrow of the monarchy in Libya in the fall of 1969, he served in the engineering forces.

In 1964, under the leadership of Muammar Gaddafi, on the seashore near the village of Tolmeyta, the 1st congress of the organization was held, called the Free Unionist Socialist Officers (OSUS), which adopted the slogans of the Egyptian revolution of 1952, “Freedom, socialism, unity.” In the underground, OSOYUS began preparing for a coup.

In general terms, the plan for the officers' performance was developed already in January 1969, but the three times scheduled dates for Operation El-Quds (Jerusalem) - March 12 and 24, as well as August 13 - were postponed for various reasons. Early in the morning of September 1, detachments of USSR members led by Captain Gaddafi simultaneously began protests in Benghazi, Tripoli and other cities of the country. They quickly established control over major government and military installations. All entrances to American bases were blocked in advance. King Idris I was undergoing treatment in Turkey at that time.

At 7:00 the famous “Communique No. 1” was broadcast, beginning with Gaddafi’s words: "Citizens of Libya! In response to the deepest aspirations and dreams that filled your hearts. In response to your ceaseless demands for change and spiritual rebirth, your long struggle for the sake of these ideals. Heeding your call for uprising, the army forces loyal to you have taken upon themselves this task and overthrew a reactionary and corrupt regime, the stench of which sickened and shocked us all..."

Captain Gaddafi further said: “Everyone who witnessed the sacred struggle of our hero Omar al-Mukhtar for Libya, Arabism and Islam! All who fought on the side of Ahmed ash-Sherif in the name of bright ideals... All the sons of the desert and our ancient cities, our green fields and beautiful villages - forward!”.

One of the first was the announcement of the creation of the highest body of state power - the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). The monarchy was overthrown. The country received a new name - the Libyan Arab Republic. On September 8, the SRK decided to award the 27-year-old Captain Gaddafi the rank of colonel and appointed him supreme commander of the country's armed forces. He remained in this rank for the rest of his life (until 1979 he was the only colonel in the country).

Muammar Gaddafi became the chairman of the SRC. The SRK included 11 officers who participated in the coup: Abdel Salam Jelloud, Abu Bakr Yunis Jaber, Awwad Hamza, Bashir Hawwadi, Omar Moheishi, Mustafa al-Kharrubi, Muhammad Najm, Khuweildi al-Hmeidi, Abdel Moneim al-Huni, Muhammad Mogharef and Mukhtar Gervi. On October 16, 1969, Gaddafi, speaking at a mass rally, announced five principles of his policy: 1) complete evacuation of foreign bases from Libyan territory, 2) positive neutrality, 3) national unity, 4) Arab unity, 5) prohibition of political parties.

On March 31, 1970, the withdrawal of troops from the British naval base El Adem in the Tobruk area was completed, and on June 11 - from the largest American air force base in the region, Wheelus Field, on the outskirts of Tripoli. The base became known as Okba Ben Nafia after the 7th century Arab commander who conquered Libya. On October 7 of the same year, all 20 thousand Italians were expelled from Libya. This day was declared the “day of vengeance.” In addition, the graves of Italian soldiers were destroyed as revenge for the brutal colonial war waged by Fascist Italy in the 1920s.

In October 2004, after a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Gaddafi promised to change the “day of revenge” to a “day of friendship”, but this was not done. In 2009, during his historic visit to Italy, he met with hundreds of exiled Italians. One of the exiles would later say about this meeting: “Gaddafi told us that he was forced to expel us in order to save our lives, because the Libyan people wanted to kill us. But to save us, he also confiscated all our property."

During 1969-1971, foreign banks and all Italian-owned land property were nationalized. The state also nationalized the property of foreign oil companies; the remaining oil companies were nationalized by 51%.

One of Gaddafi’s first steps after coming to power was the reform of the calendar: the names of the months of the year were changed in it, and chronology began to be based on the year of death of the Prophet Muhammad. In November 1971, the Revolutionary Command Council created a commission to review all Libyan legislation in accordance "with the basic principles of Islamic Sharia." Alcoholic beverages and gambling were prohibited in the country.

On April 15, 1973, during his speech in Zouar, Muammar Gaddafi proclaimed a cultural revolution, which included five points:

repealing all existing laws passed by the previous monarchical regime and replacing them with laws based on Sharia;
repression of communism and conservatism, purging all political oppositionists - those who opposed or resisted the revolution, such as communists, atheists, members of the Muslim Brotherhood, defenders of capitalism and agents of Western propaganda;
the distribution of weapons among the people in such a way that public resistance would protect the revolution;
administrative reform to end excessive bureaucratization, overreach and bribery;
encouraging Islamic thought, rejecting any ideas that do not conform to it, especially ideas imported from other countries and cultures.

According to Gaddafi, the Libyan Cultural Revolution, unlike the Chinese Cultural Revolution, did not introduce anything new, but rather marked a return to Arab and Islamic heritage. Since 1979, Sharia laws have been introduced in the country.

Despite this, as well as the fact that Gaddafi supported various radical political movements at different times, his policies within the country during these years were relatively moderate. The regime was supported by the army, the state apparatus and the rural population, for whom these institutions were virtually the only mechanism for social mobility.

Having come to power, Gaddafi began to generalize his political and socio-economic views into a concept put forward in opposition to the two main world ideologies - Western and socialist. The unique concept of social development put forward by Gaddafi is set out in his main work, the “Green Book,” in which the ideas of Islam are intertwined with the theoretical positions of the Russian anarchists Kropotkin and Bakunin. Jamahiriya (the official name of the political system of Libya) translated from Arabic means “power of the masses.”

On March 2, 1977, at an emergency session of the General People's Congress (GPC) of Libya, held in Sebha, the “Sebha Declaration” was promulgated, proclaiming the establishment of a new form of government - the Jamahiriya (from the Arabic "jamahir" - the masses). The Libyan Republic received its new name - “Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” (SNLAD).

The Revolutionary Command Council and the government were dissolved. Instead, new institutions were created corresponding to the “Jamahiriyya” system. The General People's Congress was declared the supreme body of the legislative branch, and the Supreme People's Committee formed by it instead of the government - the executive branch. Ministries were replaced by people's secretariats, at the head of which bodies of collective leadership - bureaus - were created. Libyan embassies in foreign countries have also been transformed into people's bureaus. There was no head of state in Libya, in accordance with the principle of democracy.

Gaddafi (Secretary General) and four of his closest associates - Major Abdel Salam Ahmed Jelloud, as well as generals Abu Bakr Yunis Jaber, Mustafa al-Kharrubi and Huweildi al-Hmeidi were elected to the general secretariat of the GNC. In October 1978, Gaddafi proclaimed the “separation of the revolution from power.”

Exactly two years later, the five leaders resigned from government positions, ceding them to professional managers. Since then, Gaddafi has been officially called the Leader of the Libyan Revolution, and the entire five leaders are the Revolutionary Leadership. Revolutionary committees appeared in the political structure of Libya, designed to carry out the political line of the revolutionary leadership through the system of people's congresses. Muammar Gaddafi was officially only the leader of the Libyan revolution, although his real influence on the process of making political, economic and military decisions was actually high.

Muammar Gaddafi advocated a democratic solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the creation of a single Arab-Jewish state under the code name “Izratina”.

In the mid-1970s, the orientation of Libya's foreign policy towards the USSR was already obvious, while Egypt was increasingly inclined to cooperate with Western countries and entered into dialogue with Israel. The policies of Egyptian President Sadat caused a negative reaction from Arab countries, including Libya.

In the spring of 1976, Egypt, and then Tunisia and Sudan, accused Libya of organizing and financing their internal opposition circles. In July of the same year, Egypt and Sudan directly accused Libya of supporting an unsuccessful coup attempt against Sudanese President Nimeiry, and already in August the concentration of Egyptian troops on the Libyan border began. Tensions between the two countries increased in April–May 1977 when demonstrators in both countries seized each other's consulates. In June, Gaddafi ordered 225,000 Egyptians working and living in Libya to leave the country by July 1 or face arrest. On July 20 of the same year, Libyan artillery opened fire for the first time on Egyptian border posts in the area of al-Sallum and Halfaya. The next day, Egyptian troops invaded Libya. During four days of fighting, both sides used tanks and aircraft. As a result of the mediation mission of Algeria and the Palestine Liberation Organization, hostilities ceased by July 25.

Almost immediately after coming to power, Muammar Gaddafi, driven by the idea of pan-Arabism, set a course for the unification of Libya with neighboring Arab countries. On December 27, 1969, a meeting took place between Gaddafi, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Sudanese Prime Minister Jafar Nimeiry, which resulted in the signing of the Tripoli Charter, which contained the idea of unifying the three states. On November 8, 1970, the Cairo Declaration was adopted on the creation of the Federation of Arab Republics (FAR) consisting of Egypt, Libya and Sudan. That same year, Gaddafi proposed to Tunisia to unite the two countries, but then-President Habib Bourguiba rejected the proposal.

On June 11, 1972, Gaddafi called on Muslims to fight the US and UK, and also announced his support for black revolutionaries in the United States, revolutionaries in Ireland, and Arabs wishing to join the struggle for the liberation of Palestine. On August 2, at a meeting in Benghazi, the Libyan leader and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat agreed on a phased unification of the two countries, which was planned for September 1, 1973. Showing more enthusiasm than the Egyptian president, Muammar Gaddafi even organized a 40,000-strong march on Cairo the following July to put pressure on Egypt, but the march was stopped 200 miles from the Egyptian capital.

The union between Libya and Egypt never worked out. Further events only led to a deterioration in Egyptian-Libyan relations and later to an armed conflict. With the mediation of Gaddafi, from November 26 to 28, 1972, a meeting of the presidents of North (YAR) and South Yemen (NDY) was held in Tripoli, which ended with the signing of the “Full text of the Agreement on Unity between the two parts of Yemen.” The YAR Advisory Council, at its meeting on December 10, “thanked Gaddafi for the efforts he made in realizing Yemeni unity, which is a step towards full Arab unity.” In January 1974, Tunisia and Libya announced the unification and formation of the Islamic Arab Republic, but a referendum on this matter never took place. While on a visit to Algeria in May-June 1978, Gaddafi made a proposal to unite Libya, Algeria and Tunisia.

In August 1978, at the official invitation of the Libyan leadership, the leader of the Lebanese Shiites and the founder of the Amal movement, Imam Musa al-Sadr, arrived in the country, accompanied by two companions, after which they mysteriously disappeared. On August 27, 2008, Lebanon accused Gaddafi of plotting to kidnap and illegally imprison the spiritual leader of the Lebanese Shiites and demanded the arrest of the Libyan leader. As the judicial investigator noted, by committing this crime, Colonel Gaddafi “contributed to the outbreak of the civil war in Lebanon and the armed conflict between faiths.” Libya has always denied allegations of involvement in the disappearance of the three Lebanese and claims that the imam and his companions left Libya in the direction of Italy.

During the Ugandan-Tanzanian War of 1978-1979, Muammar Gaddafi sent 2,500 Libyan troops to help Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. On December 22, 1979, the United States included Libya on its list of countries that sponsor terrorism. In the early 1980s, the United States accused the Libyan regime of interfering in the internal affairs of at least 45 countries.

On September 1, 1980, after secret negotiations between representatives of Libya and Syria, Colonel Gaddafi invited Damascus to unite so that they could more effectively confront Israel, and on September 10 an agreement was signed to unite Libya and Syria. Libya and Syria were the only Arab countries that supported Iran in the Iran-Iraq War. This led to Saudi Arabia breaking off diplomatic relations with Libya on October 19 of the same year.

After the suppression of a coup attempt in Sudan in July 1976, Khartoum broke off diplomatic relations with the Libyan Jamahiriya, which the presidents of Sudan and Egypt accused of organizing a conspiracy to overthrow Nimeiry. That same month, at the conference of Islamic states in Jeddah, a triple “holy alliance” was concluded between Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Sudan against Libya and Ethiopia. Feeling threatened by the Egypt-Sudan alliance, Gaddafi formed a tripartite alliance between Libya, Ethiopia and South Yemen in August 1981, aimed at countering Western, primarily American, interests in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean.

In November 1982, Gaddafi made a proposal to create a special inter-African body to resolve controversial political issues peacefully, which would avoid military conflicts on the continent.

On August 13, 1983, during his visit to Morocco, Muammar Gaddafi signed the Arab-African Federative Treaty with the Moroccan King Hassan II in the city of Oujda, providing for the creation of a union state of Libya and Morocco as the first step towards the creation of the Greater Arab Maghreb. On August 31, a referendum was held in Morocco, as a result of which the treaty was approved by 99.97% of voters; The Libyan General People's Congress supported it unanimously. Libya had been supporting the Polisario front, which was waging a guerrilla war against Moroccan forces, and the signing of the treaty marked the end of Libyan aid. The alliance began to unravel when Libya signed an alliance with Iran in 1985, and after Gaddafi criticized the Moroccan king for his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, King Hassan II annulled the treaty altogether in August 1986.

The fall of the Nimeiri regime in Sudan at the same time led to an improvement in Sudanese-Libyan relations. Gaddafi ended his support for the Sudan People's Liberation Army and welcomed the new government of General Abdel Rahman Swar al-Daghab.

In 1985, Gaddafi announced the formation of the “National (Regional) Command of the Arab Revolutionary Forces” with the aim of “carrying out armed coups in reactionary Arab countries and achieving Arab unity”, as well as to “destroy US and Israeli embassies, institutions and other facilities in countries pursuing an anti-Libyan policy and supporting the United States.” The following year, during the International People's Congress held in Libya, Colonel Gaddafi was proclaimed commander of a unified all-Arab army and the ideological leader of all liberation movements in the world. Muammar Gaddafi visited the Soviet Union three times - in 1976, 1981 and 1986 and met with L. I. Brezhnev and.

In the 1980s, Gaddafi established training camps in Libya for rebel groups from across West Africa, including the Tuareg.

In 1981, Somalia broke off diplomatic relations with Libya, accusing the Libyan leader of supporting the Somali Democratic Salvation Front and the Somali National Movement.

On September 1, 1984, Muammar Gaddafi announced that he had sent troops and weapons to Nicaragua to help the Sandinista government fight the United States.

In March 1986, when Gaddafi hosted the Congress of the World Center for the Struggle against Imperialism and Zionism, among his guests were representatives of the Irish Republican Army, the Basque separatist group ETA and the leader of the radical American organization "Nation of Islam", African-American Muslim Louis Farrakhan.

In the 1980s, the leader of the Libyan revolution actively supplied weapons to the IRA, considering its activities part of the fight against “British colonialism.”

Libya provided assistance to such national liberation and nationalist movements as the Palestinian organizations PLO, Fatah, PFLP and DFLP, Mali Liberation Front, United Patriotic Front of Egypt, Moro National Liberation Front, Arabistan Liberation Front, Arabian People's Liberation Front, African National Congress, People's Liberation Front Bahrain Liberation Front, SWAPO, FRELIMO, ZAPU-ZANU. Libya was also suspected of supporting the Japanese Red Army.

Gaddafi took a tough stance towards Israel. On March 2, 1970, the Libyan leader appealed to the 35 members of the Organization of African Unity to break off relations with Israel. In October 1973, the third Arab-Israeli war broke out. On October 16, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar unilaterally raised the selling price of their oil by 17% - to $3.65. Three days later, in protest against Israel's support in the Yom Kippur War, Libya declared an embargo on oil supplies to USA. Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries followed suit, initiating an oil embargo against countries that had provided or contributed to support for Israel.

Libya was suspected of mining the Red Sea in 1984, which damaged 18 ships. On April 17 of the same year, an incident received wide resonance when fire was opened on Libyan demonstrators from the building of the Libyan People's Bureau (embassy) in London, resulting in the death of British police officer Yvonne Fletcher and injury to 11 other people. After this, on April 22, Great Britain broke off diplomatic relations with Libya. In a 2009 interview with Sky News, Gaddafi said: “She is not our enemy and we are sorry all the time and [express] our sympathy because she was on duty, she was there to protect the Libyan embassy. But there is a problem that needs to be solved - who did this?

Having come to power, the revolutionary government not only faced opposition to the new regime, but also internal problems within its ranks. On December 7, 1969, the SRC announced that it had thwarted a coup attempt by Lieutenant Colonel Defense Minister Adam Hawwaz and Interior Minister Musa Ahmed. A few months later, on July 24, 1970, Gaddafi announced the discovery of an “imperialist reactionary conspiracy” in Fezzan, in which the king’s adviser Omar Shelhi, ex-prime ministers Abdel Hamid Bakoush and Hussein Mazik were involved, and, as reported, the investigation established “the involvement of the American CIA to deliver weapons for the impending coup."

Political parties and opposition groups were banned under Law No. 71 of 1972. The only legal political party in the country in 1971-1977 was the Arab Socialist Union. On May 31, 1972, a law was promulgated banning worker and student strikes and demonstrations and imposing strict controls on the press. In August 1975, after an unsuccessful coup attempt, one of Colonel Gaddafi's closest associates, the Minister of Planning and Scientific Research, Major Omar Moheishi, fled to Tunisia and then moved to Egypt.

In November 1985, Morocco extradited Omar Moheishi to the Libyan authorities and escorted him to Tripoli, where, according to American journalists citing the CIA, he was dealt with “at the plane’s ramp on the landing strip.” As A.Z. Egorin notes in his work “The Libyan Revolution”, after Moheishi, Huni, Hawvadi, Gervi, Najm and Hamza left the political arena. Of the 12 members of the SRC, Jelloud, Jaber, Kharroubi and Hmeidi remained with Gaddafi.

Since 1980, more than 15 Libyan anti-Gaddafi exiles have been killed in Italy, England, West Germany, Greece and the United States. In October 1981, the Libyan National Salvation Front (NLNF) was formed, led by the former Libyan ambassador to India, Muhammad Yusuf al-Maghariaf, which was based in Sudan until the fall of President Nimeiry's regime in 1985. On May 17, 1984, rockets were fired at Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya residence, and 15 of the 20 attackers were killed in the ensuing firefight. The Libyan National Salvation Front took responsibility for the attack on the residence of the Libyan leader. According to the Libyan National Salvation Front (NLNF), between 1969 and 1994, 343 Libyans who opposed the Gaddafi regime died, of which 312 people died on Libyan territory (84 people died in prisons, 50 people were publicly shot by the verdict of revolutionary tribunals , 148 people died in plane crashes, car accidents and poisoning, 20 people died in armed clashes with regime supporters, four were shot by security agents and six people died because they were denied emergency medical care).

At times, Muammar Gaddafi showed great leniency towards dissidents. On March 3, 1988, he ordered the release of 400 political prisoners from Abu Sadim prison. In the presence of a crowd of thousands, Gaddafi, driving a bulldozer, broke the prison door and shouted to the prisoners: “You are free,” after which a crowd of prisoners rushed into the gap, chanting: “Muammar, born in the desert, made the prisons empty!” The Libyan leader proclaimed this day the Day of Victory, Freedom and the Triumph of Democracy. A few days later, he tore up the “black lists” of persons suspected of dissident activities.

At the time of the revolution, the strength of the armed forces of Libya numbered only 8.5 thousand people, but in the first six months of his reign, Muammar Gaddafi, at the expense of conscripts and by reassigning several hundred people from the paramilitary national security forces, doubled the size of the Libyan army, bringing it to an end 1970s up to 76 thousand people. In 1971, the Ministry of Defense was liquidated, the functions of which were assigned to the Main Military Command.

During his speech on April 15, 1973 in Zuwara, Gaddafi stated: “At a time when all regimes usually fear their people and create an army and police force to protect themselves, unlike them, I will arm the Libyan masses who believe in the al-Fatih revolution.” Serious difficulties were caused by the program he put forward back in 1979 to eliminate the traditional army by replacing it with an “armed people” capable, in the opinion of the Libyan leader, of repelling any external aggression. As part of the implementation of this idea, for almost a decade, measures were proclaimed and taken to attract women to military service, militarize cities and educational institutions, and also create a kind of militia units.

Revolutionary committees were created in the armed forces, taking control of the activities of officers. On August 31, 1988, Colonel Gaddafi announced the “dissolution of the classical army and traditional police” and the formation of “armed people” formations. Developing his concept of an “armed people,” he also announced the dissolution of the security apparatus. By the September 1989 decree, all former military ranks were abolished, and the General Command of the Armed Forces was replaced by the General Provisional Defense Committee. In June 1990, the voluntary Jamahiriya Guard was formed.

Before the overthrow of the monarchy in 1968, 73% of the country's population was illiterate. During the first decade of revolutionary changes in Libya, 220 libraries and reading rooms, 25 centers for the dissemination of knowledge, about 20 national cultural centers and 40 sports clubs were opened. By 1977, the literacy rate had risen overall to 51%. From 1970 to 1980, more than 180 thousand apartments were built in the country, which made it possible to provide modern housing to about 80% of those in need who previously lived in basements, huts or tents. Gaddafi played an important role in the implementation of the grandiose Great Man-Made River project, calling it the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” In August 1984, he laid the foundation stone for the Brega pipe plant and work on the project began at that time. This huge irrigation system made it possible to supply the desert areas and coast of the country with water from the Nubian Aquifer.

The reduction in the flow of petrodollars due to the fall in oil prices in the early 1980s caused some economic difficulties in Libya. Speaking on September 1, 1988 at a mass rally to mark the 19th anniversary of the revolution, the Leader of the Revolution announced large-scale denationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises and even the abolition of organizations responsible for the import and export of consumer goods.

After Muammar Gaddafi came to power, Libya repeatedly made territorial claims to neighboring Chad in the Aouzou Strip, justifying its claims by the fact that the zone is home to a population ethnically close to Libyan Arabs and Berbers. At that time, there was a civil war in Chad between the central government and the Chadian National Liberation Front (FROLINA), which soon split into a number of factions that had the support of the United States, France and Libya. In August 1971, Chadian President Tombalbaye announced that he had thwarted a coup attempt involving recently liberated Chadians who had allegedly received support from Muammar Gaddafi. He severed relations with Libya and invited Gaddafi's opponents to establish bases in Chad, and the Libyan leader responded by recognizing FROLIN and offering an operational base in Tripoli, increasing the amount of supplies to the Chadian rebels. In 1973, Libyan troops, without encountering resistance, captured a section of the border territory of Chad, and in 1975, Libya occupied and subsequently annexed the Aouzou strip with an area of 70 thousand km².

In October 1980, Libya-focused President Goukouni Oueddei turned to Libya for military assistance in the fight against the French-backed forces of Hissène Habré, who at the time also enjoyed Libyan support. Since that time, Libya has taken an active part in the armed conflict. In January 1981, Libya and Chad announced their intention to unite. Oueddei and Gaddafi issued a joint communiqué, saying Chad and Libya agreed to "work towards the realization of complete unity between the two countries." However, the unification of Libya and Chad never took place. Thanks to the intervention of the OAU, Libyan troops left Chad on November 16 of the same year. Upon their return home, Gaddafi announced that his troops had killed more than 3,000 "enemies" while losing 300 of their own; other estimates put Libyan losses significantly higher.

Without Libyan support, Oueddei's forces were unable to stop the advance of Habré's troops, who occupied N'Djamena in June 1982 and overthrew his government. In the summer of 1983, the Libyan army again intervened in the conflict, but Weddey this time led the insurgency against the central government, led by Habré. The subsequent intervention of French and Zairian troops led to the actual division of the country, with the entire territory north of the 16th parallel coming under the control of the Libyan forces. In accordance with the mutual withdrawal agreement from Chad, France withdrew its troops in November 1984, but Libya did not. In 1987, Chadian troops, with the support of France, inflicted a number of defeats on the Libyan army in northern Chad, including in the Aouzou Strip, and also invaded Libyan territory, defeating the Maaten Es Sarra airbase. After some time, the parties signed a truce agreement.

The issue of the territorial ownership of the Aouzou Strip was discussed at a meeting of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which in 1994 ruled in favor of Chad, after which Libya withdrew its troops.

On April 5, 1986, an explosion occurred at the La Belle discotheque in West Berlin, popular among the American military, killing 3 people, including a Turkish girl, and injuring 200 others. They saw a Libyan trace in the organization of the terrorist attack. The basis for this was the intercepted messages from Gaddafi, in which the Libyan leader called on his supporters to inflict maximum damage on the Americans, without paying attention to what target was being attacked - civilian or military, and in one intercepted message, Libyan intelligence informed about the details of the explosion in West Germany disco. The US President called Gaddafi the "mad dog of the Middle East", accusing him of aiding international terrorism. The US President ordered the bombing of the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi. Five targets were planned for the American air strike, of which three were in the Tripoli area (Bab Al-Azizia barracks, the Sidi Bilal combat swimmer training base and the military sector of Tripoli airport) and 2 in the Benghazi area (Al-Jamahariya Barras barracks and the airfield "Benina") On the night of April 15, US aircraft carried out strikes on the intended targets. The bombing killed dozens of people, including Gaddafi's adopted daughter.

After the unification of Germany in 1990, the archives of the state security service of the GDR, the Stasi, were found in the hands of Western intelligence services, in which they discovered a transcript of the radio interception of negotiations between Tripoli and the Libyan Embassy in the GDR, during which an order was given to carry out an action “with as many victims as possible.” .

When President Ronald Reagan died on June 6, 2004, Muammar Gaddafi stated: “I deeply regret that Reagan died without being brought to justice for his horrific crime against Libyan children in 1986.”

In 2001, a German court ruled that Libyan intelligence services were responsible for the Berlin bombing. After the capture of Tripoli by rebel forces in 2011, information appeared that documents and personal photographs were found in the captured Bab al-Aziziya residence, according to which Hannah Gaddafi did not die during the American bombing, but remained alive and even completed English language courses under British Council office in Tripoli.

On December 21, 1988, a Boeing 747 passenger plane was blown up in the skies over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. American airline Pan Am, operating flight No. 103 from London to New York, resulting in the death of 270 people (all passengers of the plane and crew members, as well as people in the area of the disaster). At first, suspicion of organizing the terrorist attack fell on terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as well as on the Iranian authorities, but soon the Attorney General of Scotland, Lord Fraser, formally charged two employees of the Libyan state intelligence services - Abdelbaset al-Mohammed al-Megrahi and al-Amin - with organizing the explosion. Khalifa Fhimahu.

On September 19, 1989, a DC-10 on flight UTA-772 from Brazzaville to Paris was blown up in Niger airspace, killing 170 people. The investigation revealed the involvement of Libyan intelligence officers in this crime.

In 1992, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions against Libya. On December 1, 1993, additional UN sanctions were introduced banning the sale of many types of oil transportation and refining equipment, and Libyan holdings abroad were frozen.

In March 1999, a French court sentenced six Libyans in absentia, including the husband of Gaddafi's wife's sister, deputy head of the secret service Abdallah Senussi, to life imprisonment for a terrorist attack in Niger airspace, and in August the French prosecutor recommended not to accuse Muammar Gaddafi of involvement in the explosion of the French airplane. Libya paid 200 million francs ($31 million) to the relatives of the victims, but, as Gaddafi said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, this does not mean that his country was involved in the explosion. In April of the same year, Libya extradited two Libyan intelligence officers suspected of committing a terrorist attack on Lockerbie. On May 7, 2002, the American administration included Libya in the “axis of evil.”

On August 13, 2003, Libya admitted that its officials were responsible for the bombing of a plane over Lockerbie. Immediately after this, the question arose of lifting all sanctions from Libya and removing it from the black list of “state sponsors of international terrorism.” However, France threatened to use its veto power in the UN Security Council on a resolution to lift sanctions if Libya does not increase the amount of compensation to relatives of the terrorist attack on Niger. On September 1, Colonel Gaddafi announced his decision to pay the victims of the tragedy, emphasizing that he does not consider his country responsible for the terrorist attack: “Our dignity is important to us. We don't care about money. The Lockerbie case is now over and the UTA case is now over. We are opening a new page in our relations with the West."

On February 23, 2011, the former Secretary of the General People's Committee (Minister) of Justice of Libya, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, in an interview with the Swedish tabloid Expressen, stated that he “I have proof that Gadhafi gave the order about Lockerbie").

As a sign of protest against the Oslo agreements between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel, on September 1, 1995, Gaddafi announced the expulsion of 30 thousand Palestinians working in his country. He also called on Arab governments to expel the Palestinians and send them back to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as punishment for Israeli and Palestinian leaders for the agreement. However, already at the beginning of the 21st century, Gaddafi began to come up with the idea of creating a single state in Palestine as a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. In August 2003, he published a “White Paper”, in which he outlined his ideas for resolving the conflict, in particular, the creation of a united Arab-Jewish state “Izratina”. He saw the key prerequisite for peace in the return of Palestinian refugees who fled their homes during the First Arab-Israeli War of 1948-1949.

In 1997, Gaddafi published the book “Long Live the State of the Oppressed!”, and later a collection of parable stories “Village, Village, Earth, Earth and the Suicide of an Astronaut.” In 1998, on his initiative, it was created Community of Coastal and Saharan States (CENSAD) with the aim of strengthening peace, security and stability, as well as achieving global economic and social development in the region. On March 2, 2001, also on his initiative, the African Union was proclaimed, uniting 54 African states. In addition, Gaddafi began to take the initiative to create the United States of Africa. This formulation was first mentioned in 1924 in the poem “Hail, United States of Africa” by African American rights activist Marcus Garvey, and later Kenyan President Kwame Nkrumah adhered to this idea. According to Gaddafi: “It is in the interests of Europe, America, China and Japan that there be such an entity as the United States of Africa. I once fought for national liberation together with Angola, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Algeria, Palestine. Now we can put down the rifle and work for peace and progress. This is my role."

During the years of his reign, many assassination attempts were made on Muammar Gaddafi. The most famous assassination attempts and conspiracies against Colonel Gaddafi include:

In June 1975, during a military parade, an unsuccessful attempt was made to fire at the podium where Muammar Gaddafi was sitting.
In 1981, conspirators from the Libyan Air Force made an unsuccessful attempt to shoot down the plane on which Gaddafi was returning to Tripoli from the USSR.
In December 1981, Colonel Khalifa Qadir shot at Muammar Gaddafi, slightly wounding him in the shoulder.
In November 1985, Gaddafi's relative Colonel Hassan Ishkal, who intended to kill the Libyan leader in Sirte, was executed.
In 1989, during the visit of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad to Libya, Gaddafi was attacked by a fanatic armed with a sword. The attacker was shot dead by security.
In 1996, while Gaddafi's motorcade was passing along a street in the city of Sirte, a car was blown up. The Libyan leader was not injured, but six people died as a result of the assassination attempt. Later, an agent of the British intelligence service MI5, David Shayler, would say that the British secret service MI6 was behind the assassination attempt.
In 1998, near the Libyan-Egyptian border, unknown persons fired at the Libyan leader, but the main bodyguard Aisha covered Muammar Gaddafi with herself and died; seven more guards were injured. Gaddafi himself was slightly wounded in the elbow.

In the 2000s, unrest among the established Libyan elite, the loss of all allies and Gaddafi’s reluctance to enter into open confrontation with the Western world led to some liberalization of the economic and then political life of the country. Foreign companies were allowed into Libya, contracts were signed for the construction of a gas pipeline to Italy (relations between the former colony and the metropolis had previously been extremely strained). In general, Libya, although with a long delay, has followed the path of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak. Changes in economic and political course, accompanied by competent propaganda, allowed Gaddafi to remain in power and avoid the fate of Anwar Sadat or Saddam Hussein.

In June 2003, at a national congress, Muammar Gaddafi announced the country's new course towards “people's capitalism”; at the same time, the privatization of the oil and related industries was announced. On December 19, Libya announced it would renounce all weapons of mass destruction.

On April 23, 2004, the United States announced a partial lifting of anti-Libyan economic sanctions. On July 14 of the same year in Tripoli, Muammar Gaddafi received the title of chess grandmaster for his assistance in organizing the 17th World Chess Championship, held in Africa for the first time in FIDE history.

Libya entered the Guinness Book of Records as the country with the lowest annual inflation rate(in 2001-2005 - 3.1%).

According to INAPRO data for 2008, in terms of the share of GDP ($88.86 billion) per capita, Libya ranks first among the five Arab countries of North Africa - $14.4 thousand.

In August 2008, at a meeting of more than 200 African kings, sultans, emirs, sheikhs and tribal leaders, Muammar Gaddafi was declared the “King of Kings of Africa.” On February 2 of the following year, Muammar Gaddafi was elected chairman of the African Union. As of 2009, the level of education of the population was 86.8% (before the overthrow of the monarchy, in 1968, 73% of the population was illiterate). In his foreign policy, the Libyan leader continued to remain committed to pan-Arabism.

In September 2009, Muammar Gaddafi arrived in the United States for the 64th session of the UN General Assembly. Instead of the prescribed 15 minutes, Gaddafi's speech at the podium of the General Assembly lasted an hour and a half. The translator, doing his job for 75 minutes, at one point could not stand it and shouted into the microphone in Arabic: “I can’t do it anymore,” after which he was replaced by the head of the Arab UN mission. Taking the podium, Gaddafi said: “Even my son Obama said this was a historic meeting.”. In his speech The Libyan leader sharply criticized the UN Security Council, calling it a “council on terrorism”. Holding the UN Charter in his hands, Gaddafi said that, according to this document, military force is used only by decision of the UN with the consent of all member countries of the organization, clarifying that during the existence of the UN “big countries fought 64 wars against small ones” and “the UN nothing did not do anything to prevent these wars." He proposed moving the UN headquarters from the Western Hemisphere to the Eastern Hemisphere - “for example, to Libya.”

Muammar Gaddafi defended the Taliban's right to create an Islamic emirate and even touched upon Somali pirates: "Somali pirates are not pirates. India, Japan, Australia, you are pirates. You fish in the territorial waters of Somalia. And Somalia protects its supplies, food for its children... I saw these pirates, I talked to them".

The leader of the Libyan revolution announced that US President and British Prime Minister Tony Blair personally participated in the execution of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, demanded an investigation into the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and proposed to become US President for life. At the end of his speech, Gaddafi said: “You are already tired. You are all asleep” and left the podium with the words “You gave birth to Hitler, not us. You persecuted the Jews. And you carried out the Holocaust!

In the winter of 2010-2011, a wave of demonstrations and protests began in the Arab world caused by various reasons, but directed mainly against the ruling authorities. On the evening of February 15, relatives of prisoners killed under unclear circumstances in Tripoli's Abu Slim prison in 1996 gathered in Benghazi to demand the release of lawyer and human rights activist Fethi Tarbel. Despite Tarbel's release, demonstrators clashed with security forces.

In the following days, anti-government protests were actively suppressed by forces loyal to the Libyan leader with the support of foreign mercenaries. On February 18, demonstrators took full control of the city of Al-Bayda, with local police siding with the protesters. By February 20, Benghazi came under the control of opponents of the Libyan leadership, after which the unrest spread to the capital. Within a few days of unrest, the eastern part of the country came under the control of protesters, while in the western part Gaddafi remained in power. The main demand of the opposition was the resignation of Colonel Gaddafi.

On February 26, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions banning the supply of weapons and any military materials to Libya, as well as a ban on Gaddafi's international travel and a freeze on his foreign assets. The next day in Benghazi, at a joint emergency meeting of members of local people's councils, the rebels formed the Transitional National Council as the authority of the revolution, which was headed by the country's former justice minister, Mustafa Muhammad Abd al-Jalil. On the same day, in western Libya, the important center of the oil refining industry, the city of Ez-Zawiya, came under the control of Gaddafi’s opponents. Meanwhile, in eastern Libya, armed rebel groups launched an attack on Tripoli, capturing Libyan cities along the way. On March 2, one of the centers of the oil industry of the country, Marsa Brega, came under their control, and two days later the port of Ras Lanuf. On March 5, the rebels entered Bin Jawad, the last city on the way to Sirte, but the very next day they were forced to retreat from the city. By mid-March, government troops launched an offensive against the rebel positions and within a few days regained control of the cities of Ras Lanuf and Marsa el Braga. On March 10, in western Libya, government forces recaptured Ez-Zawiya.

On the night of March 17-18, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1973, which included a ban on Libyan aviation flights, as well as the adoption of any measures to protect the Libyan population, with the exception of ground operations. On the evening of March 19, the armed forces of France and the United States launched Operation Odyssey Dawn to defeat military targets in Libya on the basis of a UN Security Council resolution “to protect civilians.” A number of European and Arab countries joined the operation.

In his speech to the Libyan people, Gaddafi said to the countries of the international coalition: “You are not ready for war, but we are ready. We are happy that this moment has come” and that “You are aggressors, you are animals. All tyrants will sooner or later fall under the pressure of the people.” In his speech, he also announced that the fate of Hitler and Mussolini awaited them. As a result of coalition air raids and missile and bomb attacks on government positions, Gaddafi's supporters had to retreat from their positions. With the support of aviation from the countries of the international coalition, the rebels managed to regain control over Ajdabiya, Marsa el-Brega and Ras Lanuf within a few days, advancing towards Sirte. However, government troops not only stopped the advance of the rebels near Sirte, but also launched a massive offensive, pushing the rebels back 160 kilometers to the east of the country by March 30.

On June 24, Amnesty International conducted a series of investigations into the activities of supporters of Muammar Gadaffi. They said they found evidence that the rebels falsified many of the crimes committed by forces loyal to Gaddafi. However, on June 27, the International Criminal Court in The Hague (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Gaddafi for organizing the killings, detentions and imprisonments committed in the first 12 days of the Libyan uprising.

After the fall of Tripoli, only the cities of Bani Walid and Sirte remained under Gaddafi's control, around which fierce fighting broke out. Repeated attempts by NPC troops to capture Sirte ended in failure. As the head of the internal security service, General Mansour Dao, later said, Muammar Gaddafi left the capital about 12 days before the capture of Tripoli and moved to Sirte: “He was upset, he was angry, sometimes it seemed to us that he was going crazy. Most often he was just sad and angry. He was convinced that the Libyan people still loved him, even after we told him that the capital had fallen."

According to Dao, “Gaddafi was nervous. He could not call anywhere or otherwise contact the outside world. We had very little water and food. It was also difficult with medications.” However, at times Gaddafi made audio messages through the al-Urabiya channel, calling on the people to resist. Speaking about the colonel’s life in besieged Sirte, the former head of the internal security service noted that “Gaddafi spent his time reading, taking notes or making tea. He did not lead the resistance; his sons did. Gaddafi himself did not plan anything. And he didn’t have any plans.” According to him, the Libyan leader “paced back and forth in the small room, making notes on a notepad. We knew this was the end. Gaddafi said: "I am wanted by the International Criminal Court. No country will accept me. I prefer to die at the hands of the Libyans."».

On the morning of October 20, 2011, troops of the National Transitional Council launched another assault on Sirte, as a result of which they managed to take the city. While trying to escape from the besieged city, Muammar Gaddafi was captured by the rebels. NATO issued a communiqué reporting that at approximately 08:30 (0630 GMT) its aircraft struck eleven Gaddafi army military vehicles, part of a large convoy of about 75 vehicles that was moving quickly along a road in the suburbs of Sirte. After an air strike knocked out one of them, “a group of two dozen Gaddafi regime vehicles headed south at high speed, still posing a serious threat. NATO aircraft destroyed or damaged about a dozen of them.”

The rebels managed to capture the wounded Gaddafi, after which he was immediately surrounded by a crowd who began to mock him. People shouting “Allahu Akbar!” They started shooting in the air and pointing machine guns at the colonel. Gaddafi, his face covered in blood, was led to a car, where he was placed on the hood. Video recordings of Gaddafi's last minutes that appeared later refuted the initial official version of the National Transitional Council of Libya. It became clear that he was killed as a result of lynching by the rebels who captured him. In the last minutes of his life, Muammar Gaddafi called on the rebels to come to their senses: “Haram alaikum... Haram alaikum... Shame on you! You don’t know sin?!”.

In addition to Gaddafi, his son Mutazim was also captured, but then, under unclear circumstances, he was killed. One of the participants in the 1969 coup and members of the SRC, the Minister of Defense and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Brigadier General Abu Bakr Younis Jaber, was also killed.

The bodies of Muammar Gaddafi, his son and Abu Bakr Younis Jaber were put on public display in an industrial vegetable refrigerator in a shopping center in Misrata. At dawn on October 25, all three were secretly buried in the Libyan desert. This ended Colonel Gaddafi's 42-year reign and the revolution he ushered in after overthrowing the monarchy in 1969.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International and the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry demanded a thorough investigation into the circumstances of Gaddafi's death.

On January 16, 1970, Muammar Gaddafi became Prime Minister of Libya. How ordinary Libyans lived during the reign of Colonel Gaddafi, and who was behind his overthrow - in our material

Muammar Al Gaddafi called himself a “Bedouin of the Libyan desert” for a reason; he was born in a Bedouin’s tent near the city of Sirte, 30 kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea. This happened in the spring of 1942, but the exact day of his birth is unknown. By this time, the Gaddafi family already had three daughters; When his son was finally born, his father named him Muammar, which translated means “living long.” But the name did not become prophetic for the future leader of Libya. 69 years after the events described, Muammar Gaddafi was killed by rebels.

Muammar Gaddafi - Bedouin of the Libyan desert

Gaddafi's childhood was spent in real poverty; as soon as the boy was ten years old, he was sent to a Muslim educational institution - a madrasah, which was located in the nearby city of Sirte. Later, Muammar entered high school in the city of Sebha, where he was captured by revolutionary ideas, and the Egyptian revolutionary Gamal Abdel Nasser became the inspiration for Gaddafi. However, for such views, the future Libyan leader was expelled from school, but he was still able to continue his education in the city of Misrata. At this time, Muammar decides to become a professional military man in order to gain strength and overthrow the government of King Idris.

True to his ideas, Gaddafi entered the military college in Benghazi in 1963, where he studied during the day and took history courses at the university in the evenings. In 1965, after receiving the rank of lieutenant, Muammar left for the UK, where he attended communications officer courses for six months. Returning home, he created his first underground organization, which was called the Free Unionist Officers. Gaddafi traveled around Libya, establishing contacts with officers who could help him carry out the coup. And four years later, on September 1, 1969, Radio Benghazi, in the voice of Muammar Gaddafi, informed the Arab world that King Idris had been deposed.

"Citizens of Libya! In response to the deepest aspirations and dreams that filled your hearts, in response to your incessant demands for change and spiritual rebirth, your long struggle in the name of these ideals, heeding your call for uprising, the army forces loyal to you have taken upon themselves this task and overthrew a reactionary and corrupt regime, the stench of which sickened and shocked us all,” was how 27-year-old Captain Gaddafi addressed the Libyan people, announcing the overthrow of the monarchy and the proclamation of the Libyan Arab Republic.

At the same time, the highest body of state power was created - the Revolutionary Command Council, and a few days later Muammar received the rank of colonel and was appointed supreme commander of the Libyan armed forces. Having become the head of the country, Gaddafi set about implementing a long-standing idea - complete unity of the Arabs. By December, he created the Tripoli Charter, which declared the union of Egypt, Libya and Syria. However, the real unification of the countries was never completed. On January 16, 1970, Colonel Gaddafi became Prime Minister of Libya. One of his first activities in his new position was the evacuation of foreign military bases from Libyan territory.

In 1975, part of his book was published, which was called the Quran of the 20th century. In the preface to his “Green Book,” Gaddafi wrote: “I, a simple Bedouin who rode a donkey and herded goats barefoot, who lived his life among the same simple people, present to you my small, three-part “Green Book”, similar to the banner of Jesus, the tablets of Moses, and the short sermon of the one who rode the camel. The one I wrote while sitting in the tent that became known to the world after it was attacked by 170 planes, bombed it with the purpose of burning the handwritten draft of my "Green Book" "I lived for years in the desert among its deserted and vast expanses under the open sky, on earth covered with the canopy of heaven."

In his work, the Libyan leader described the problems of the state structure of society. According to him, in the new society, labor for money (wages) should be eliminated, and the means of production, after the introduction of a system of self-government, should be transferred directly into the hands of workers, who become “partners in production.” “The goal of the new socialist system is to create a happy society, happy because of its freedom, which can only be achieved by satisfying the material and spiritual needs of man, provided that no one interferes with the satisfaction of these needs and controls them,” Gaddafi wrote.

The colonel backed up his words with deeds. Within three years, foreign banks and oil companies were nationalized in Libya. On April 15, 1973, Gaddafi proclaimed the Cultural Revolution. He called on the people to take power into their own hands and abolished all existing laws. A legislative system based on the principles of Sharia was introduced in the country. To avoid intertribal conflicts, Muammar granted access to the system of power to people from the elite of all influential Libyan tribes, including Cyrenaica, to which King Idris belonged. Colonel Gaddafi managed to create a very successful political power structure. It consisted of a system of directly elected people's congresses and people's committees. The Libyan leader ensured proportionate distribution of revenues from the nationalized oil industry; created large foreign investment funds that generated profits from oil windfalls through investments in several dozen developed and developing countries of the world.

As a result, Libya has become the country with the highest Human Development Index in Africa: free healthcare and education, increasing life expectancy, financial assistance programs for the purchase of housing. In addition to all this, Gaddafi managed to solve one of the most important problems of the region - providing the main settlements of the country with fresh water. Over $25 billion of budget funds was spent on a system for extracting water from a giant underground freshwater lens under the Sahara and transporting it to areas of consumption through underground pipelines with a total length of about four thousand kilometers. The average salary in Libya in 2010 was approximately $1,050, and more than half of oil revenues went to social needs.

However, an extremely negative aspect of the life of Libyans was the low level of freedom - strict censorship. The study of English and French was prohibited in schools. Citizens were not allowed to have any conversations with foreigners on political topics - violating this rule was punishable by three years in prison. Any dissident movements and the creation of political parties were prohibited.

Arab elite vs. Gaddafi

Having carried out the so-called “socialist revolution of the Jamahiriya,” Muammar Gaddafi turned most of the monarchies of the Persian Gulf against himself. They believed that the Libyan was undermining their authority by setting an example of government for other countries. In Libya itself, too, not everyone liked the colonel’s reforms. Opposition sentiments began to grow in the country. At the same time, the main cause of the civil war in Libya is considered to be the conflict between the tribes of Tripolitania, from which Muammar Gaddafi came, and oil-rich Cyrenaica, from which the deposed King Idris I came. The intra-Libyan opposition was financed from abroad, primarily from Saudi Arabia.

Almost from the moment he came to power in 1969, the colonel dreamed of uniting the disunited Arab states into a single formidable “anti-imperialist” international. The Libyan leader believed that the main obstacle to the unification of the Arabs was the “anti-people” policy of the monarchical Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain. At first, Gaddafi's ideas were met with restraint, and later - openly hostile. Sheikhs, emirs, kings and sultans were horrified by the socialist ideas of the Libyan leader.

Gaddafi tried in every possible way to offend the Arab elite with his behavior. For example, in 1988, he appeared at the Arab summit in Algeria, showing everyone his white gloves. The Libyan leader accompanied the demonstration with the story that he put on gloves in order not to get dirty with blood when greeting his colleagues - servants of imperialism, whose hands are dirty. 20 years later, at a summit in Damascus, he acted less elegantly and simply shouted at the assembled rulers, saying that it was their turn to follow Saddam Hussein. In 2007, at the next summit, the Libyan leader no longer generalized, but addressed each participant personally. In particular, he called the King of Saudi Arabia a lying old man who has one foot in the grave.

By the beginning of 2011, Gaddafi was hated by the heads of all Arab countries, starting with Sudanese al-Bashir, who did not shake hands in the West, and ending with the Qatari emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. It is Qatar that is the first Middle Eastern country to openly oppose Muammar Gaddafi on the side of the West. The Qatari authorities have announced their readiness to become an operator for the sale of Libyan oil, ostensibly in order to help the rebels receive humanitarian aid.

From January to August 2011, foreign military specialists managed to form relatively combat-ready units from the militarily insolvent Libyan rebels that resisted the regular army. In addition, the Libyan leader had enemies overseas.

USA vs. Gaddafi

In 1973, Libya decided to suspend the export of oil and all types of petroleum products to the United States in protest against supporting aggression against neighboring Arab countries. With this, Gaddafi forced the White House to launch an entire anti-Libyan campaign. The United States demanded military intervention in order to pacify the government, which “threatens the global economy.”

By 1980, the American government was already accusing Libya of supporting global terrorism. The situation worsened after the US authorities came to the conclusion that the leadership of the republic was not only politically and economically, but also ideologically moving closer to the USSR and Eastern Europe. Sanctions are urgently introduced against Libya, military aircraft repeatedly violate the republic's airspace, and the fleet conducts exercises near its borders. Over six years, Washington initiated 18 military maneuvers off the Libyan coast.

In 1986, the head of Libya was already personally attacked, which was carried out on the orders of the administration of US President Ronald Reagan. Specially allocated 15 F-111 bombers bombed his residence. The goal of the strictly secret operation was to eliminate Gaddafi, but he was not injured; several members of his family were injured. After this, the United States once again accused the Libyan leader of supporting “international terrorism” and subversive “pro-Sovietism.” However, neither the CIA nor the State Department were able to prove their accusations against Gaddafi.

Two years later, America makes a new attempt to get rid of Colonel Muammar, this time Libya is accused of possible production of chemical weapons, which Gaddafi was going to use for terrorism. In response to this, the Libyan leader offered the US President a dialogue on all controversial issues. American authorities rejected this proposal. Later, the United States shot down two Libyan planes that were on a patrol flight. The UN Security Council, urgently convened by Libya, after several days of meeting, was unable to adopt a resolution condemning the terrorist actions of the White House. This decision was vetoed by three countries - the USA, England and France.

“In 1992, the White House began developing a plan to overthrow the Gaddafi regime,” wrote orientalist Anatoly Yegorin in his book “The Unknown Gaddafi: Brotherly Leader.” In his opinion, the United States wanted to stir up the Libyan opposition and carry out a coup in the country. Apparently, it was possible to implement it at the beginning of 2011, when mass protests began in a number of countries in the Middle East and North Africa. In Libya they led to civil war.

During the 42 years that Muammar Gaddafi was at the head of Libya, more than ten attempts were made on his life - they shot at him, his car, his plane, his guards, his relatives, he was attacked with a sword and explosives, but the colonel managed to remain unharmed for a long time.

Did Gaddafi have a chance to survive?

We asked this question to the president of the Middle East Institute, Evgeniy Satanovsky. “There was no chance to survive,” he said categorically one of the leading Russian experts in the field of Middle East politics. - But the USA has nothing to do with it. In this case, the liquidation of Gaddafi is primarily his relationship with the Arab leaders - the Qatari emir and the Saudi king. The United States was not satisfied with his lynching; he was lynched by militants paid by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. American ships and French aircraft in Libya played the role of “landsknecht” in support of the Arabs. The independent policy of the United States and the European Union towards the Arab world has been largely replaced today by actions that are paid for, organized and lobbied from Arab capitals. The main customers and payers are Doha and Riyadh. And the entire “Arab Spring,” including Obama’s support for it, the games around Gaddafi in Libya, the Syrian civil war, all come from there. It’s just that for quite a long time we have been paying attention to countries that we consider equal to ourselves - America, France, England, Germany, but there everything has changed a long time ago. Therefore, Gaddafi, who was unanimously hated by the entire Arab elite, who insulted them to their faces, considered himself protected by contracts with the Europeans, and by the fact that he had agreed on all conflict issues with President Bush. He made peace with the West. Gaddafi did not take into account the fact that the Westerners would act against him simply on the orders of the Arabs, who hated the Libyan leader fiercely."

Horrifying footage of the torn body of Colonel Gaddafi flew around the planet, and all the media in the world reported about torture and atrocities against the living and even dead Libyan leader. A few hours earlier, around nine in the morning on October 20, 2011, the Libyan leader and his supporters attempted to escape from the besieged Sirte. However, NATO aircraft attacked the vehicles of Gaddafi's army. According to the alliance, the cars contained weapons and posed a threat to the country's civilian population. The NATO military allegedly did not know that there was a colonel in one of the cars. Meanwhile, according to the former head of the internal security service, General Mansour Dao, Gaddafi wanted to break into the neighboring area, but his car was destroyed, the colonel and his entourage left the car and decided to continue on foot, but were once again fired upon from the air. The Libyan leader's personal driver later said that the colonel was wounded in both legs, but he was not scared.

Muammar Gaddafi was killed on October 20, 2011 after the rebels captured the city of Sirte, near which in 1942, in a tent in the desert, a long-awaited son was born to a Bedouin family, who was called “long-living.”

Muammar Gaddafi(Muammar Gaddafi) - Libyan statesman, leader of the Libyan revolution of 1969, head of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. In 1969-1977 Chairman of the Council of the Revolutionary Command. In 1970-1972 he was Prime Minister, in 1977-1979 he was Secretary General of the General People's Congress of Libya. Commanded the Libyan Armed Forces. He took part in the Egyptian-Libyan War.

Muammar Gaddafi was born June 7, 1942, in a Bedouin tent 30 km south of the city of Sirte, in Libya, in a Bedouin family belonging to the Arabized Berber tribe of al-Qaddafa. Father - Muhammad Abu Menyar. Mother - Aisha ben Niran. His grandfather was killed in 1911 by an Italian colonist. At the age of 9, Muammar went to primary school. Following his father, who was constantly wandering in search of new, more fertile lands, Muammar changed three schools: in Sirte, Sebha and Misrata.

Encouraging a woman to do men's work means encroaching on the femininity given to her by nature for the sake of the need to continue life.

In 1959, an underground organization was created in Sebha, one of whose activists was Gaddafi. On October 5, 1961, the organization held a protest demonstration against Syria's secession from the United Arab Republic, which ended with a speech near the ancient wall of the city by the main organizer of the event, Muammar Gaddafi. A few days later he was expelled from Sebha's boarding school.

While still a schoolboy, Gaddafi participated in an underground political organization and held anti-colonial demonstrations against Italy. In 1961, Muammar created an underground organization whose goal was to overthrow the monarchy, as in neighboring Egypt. In October of the same year, a youth demonstration in support of the Algerian revolution began in the city of Sebha. It immediately grew into a mass anti-monarchist uprising. The organizer and leader of the demonstration was Gaddafi. For this he was arrested and then expelled from the city. I had to continue my studies in Misrata. There he entered the local lyceum, which he successfully graduated in 1963.

If there were still Russia in the world, real Russia, a united and great Russia that defended the weak, you would not dare. But it is not there, it is not there, and you triumph. But you forgot one thing: life has a way of unfolding, and a lot can happen in the future.

Served in the Libyan army. In the 1960s, he was an active member of the anti-monarchist movement, the leader of the Free Officers organization, whose ideology became “Islamic socialism.”

In 1965 Muammar Gaddafi He graduated from the military college in Benghazi with the rank of lieutenant, then in 1966 he underwent retraining in Great Britain and was then promoted to captain.

In September 1969, Gaddafi led a military rebellion that overthrew King Idris I. The Revolutionary Command Council, led by Gaddafi, came to power in the country. In 1977, the country received the name Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The former governing bodies (the Revolutionary Command Council and the government) were dissolved and replaced by people's committees.

On January 16, 1970, Muammar Gaddafi became prime minister and minister of defense. One of the first actions of the new leadership of the country headed by Gaddafi was the evacuation of foreign military bases from Libyan territory. He then said: “Either the foreign bases will disappear from our land, in which case the revolution will continue, or, if the bases remain, the revolution will die.” In April, the withdrawal of troops from the British naval base in Tobruk was completed, and in June - from the largest American air force base in the region, Wheelus Field, on the outskirts of Tripoli.

A state is an artificial political, economic, and sometimes military device that is in no way connected with the concept of humanity and has nothing to do with it.

Gaddafi Muammar

On October 7 of the same year, all 20 thousand Italians were expelled from Libya. This day was declared the “day of vengeance.” In addition, the graves of Italian soldiers were dug up as revenge for the brutal colonial war waged by Fascist Italy in the 1920s.

On April 15, 1973, during his speech in Zouar, Muammar Gaddafi proclaimed a cultural revolution, which included five points:

Have you seen the constitutions of countries around the world? They are funny and scandalous. Some people wrote a book and are imposing it on society. And then they easily change it many times according to the needs of the rulers.

Gaddafi Muammar

repealing all existing laws passed by the previous monarchical regime and replacing them with laws based on Sharia;

repression of communism and conservatism, purging all political oppositionists - those who opposed or resisted the revolution, such as communists, atheists, members of the Muslim Brotherhood, defenders of capitalism and agents of Western propaganda;

the distribution of weapons among the people in such a way that public resistance would protect the revolution;

administrative reform to end excessive bureaucratization, overreach and bribery;

encouraging Islamic thought, rejecting any ideas that do not conform to it, especially ideas imported from other countries and cultures.

If there was no electricity, we would watch TV in the dark.

Gaddafi Muammar

In the 1980s, the administration of US President Ronald Reagan accused the regime of Muammar Gaddafi of supporting terrorism (the main accusation was the involvement of Libyan intelligence services in organizing the bombing of an airplane over the Scottish city of Lockerbie). Libya found itself in international isolation. Only after Gaddafi agreed to hand over two suspects in this terrorist attack in the late 1990s did the process of returning the country to the world community begin.

During Muammar's reign, Libya was repeatedly accused of interfering in the affairs of foreign countries. In 1977, there was a border war with Egypt, and in the 1980s the country was drawn into an armed conflict in Chad. As a supporter of pan-Arabism, Gaddafi made efforts to unite Libya with a number of countries, which ended unsuccessfully. He provided support to numerous national liberation, revolutionary and terrorist organizations around the world. High-profile terrorist attacks with a Libyan imprint led to the bombing of the country in 1986 and the imposition of sanctions in the 1990s.

I'm not a dictator who can shut down Facebook. I will simply put everyone who visits this site in jail.

Gaddafi Muammar

Islam in Libya is the state religion, and the influence of the Muslim clergy is limited. Direct democracy has been proclaimed in the country, and revenues from oil sales make it possible to maintain a high standard of living for Libyans. The presence of foreign capital in Libya has been reduced, large and medium-sized enterprises have been nationalized.

The main principle of the state structure of Libya: “Power, wealth and weapons are in the hands of the people” Gaddafi formulated and justified in the three-volume work “Green Book” (1976), which replaces the country’s constitution.

The Gaddafi regime in the 1970s-1990s had much in common with other similar post-colonial regimes in Africa and the Middle East. Rich in natural resources, but poor, backward, tribalist Libya, from which the attributes of Western life were expelled in the first years of Gaddafi's rule, was declared a country with a special path of development. The official ideology was a mixture of extreme ethnic nationalism, rent-seeking planned socialism, state Islam and a military dictatorship of the “left” with Gaddafi at the head, with declared collegiality of management and “democracy”. Despite this, as well as the fact that Gaddafi supported various radical political movements at different times, his policies within the country during these years were relatively moderate. The regime was supported by the army, the state apparatus and the rural population, for whom these institutions were virtually the only mechanism for social mobility.

If human society ever becomes a society without a family, it will be a society of vagabonds and will be like an artificial plant.

Gaddafi Muammar

Muammar Gaddafi maintained close ties with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Both leaders tried to build a socialist society based on Islam, morality and patriotism. However, the deterioration of relations with Egypt after the death of Nasser and the rapprochement of his successor Sadat with the United States and Israel prompted Gaddafi to formulate his own ideology in the early 70s.

On March 2, 1977, at an emergency session of the General People's Congress (GPC) of Libya, held in Sebha, the “Sebha Declaration” was promulgated, proclaiming the establishment of a new form of government - the Jamahiriya (from the Arabic “jamahir” - the masses). The Libyan Republic received its new name - “Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” (SNLAD).

To be honest, I would really like to leave, but it is no longer up to me. If I were king or president, things would be different. But I am a revolutionary.

In 1997, Muammar Gaddafi published the book “Long Live the State of the Oppressed!”, and later a collection of parable stories “Village, Village, Earth, Earth and the Suicide of an Astronaut”

Assassinations and plots against Muammar Gaddafi

During the years of his reign, several assassination attempts were made on Muammar Gaddafi. The most famous assassination attempts and conspiracies against Colonel Gaddafi include:

In June 1975, during a military parade, an unsuccessful attempt was made to fire at the podium where Muammar Gaddafi was sitting.

In 1981, conspirators from the Libyan Air Force made an unsuccessful attempt to shoot down the plane on which Gaddafi was returning to Tripoli from the USSR.

In December 1981, Colonel Khalifa Qadir shot at Muammar Gaddafi, slightly wounding him in the shoulder.

In November 1985, Gaddafi's relative Colonel Hassan Ishkal, who intended to kill the Libyan leader in Sirte, was executed.

In 1989, during the visit of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad to Libya, Gaddafi was attacked by a fanatic armed with a sword. The attacker was shot dead by security.

Countries such as the United States, India, China and the Russian Federation need the Jamahiriya. And they need it immediately.

Gaddafi Muammar

In 1996, while Gaddafi's motorcade was passing along a street in the city of Sirte, a car was blown up. The Libyan leader was not injured, but six people died as a result of the assassination attempt. Later, British intelligence service MI5 agent David Shayler said that the British secret service MI6 was behind the assassination attempt.

In 1998, near the Libyan-Egyptian border, unknown persons fired at the Libyan leader, but the main bodyguard Aisha covered Muammar Gaddafi with herself and died; seven more guards were injured. Gaddafi himself was slightly wounded in the elbow.

In August 2003, Muammar Gaddafi published a “White Paper”, in which he outlined his ideas for resolving the Middle East conflict, in particular, the creation of a united Jewish-Muslim state “Izratina”. The Algathafi website in Hebrew presented Gaddafi's plan and also stated on what principles this state should be created:

Return of Palestinian refugees to their lands

A multinational state organized on the Lebanese model;

Free elections under UN supervision;

I am convinced that the United States is heading towards an abyss. At first, the Americans enjoyed one victory after another. But it can't be like this forever. We Arabs say: “He who laughs first will cry later.”

Gaddafi Muammar

United Jewish-Palestinian Parliament;

Destruction of all weapons in the Middle East.

On July 14, 2004, in Tripoli, Muammar Gaddafi received the title of chess grandmaster for his assistance in organizing the 17th World Chess Championship, held in Africa for the first time in FIDE history.

In August 2008, at a meeting of more than 200 African kings, sultans, emirs, sheikhs and tribal leaders, Muammar Gaddafi was declared the “King of Kings of Africa.”

On February 2, 2009, Muammar Gaddafi was elected chairman of the African Union. In his foreign policy, the Libyan leader continued to remain committed to pan-Arabism. In an interview with Euronews in 2009, Gaddafi said: I really believe that Arab unity will be achieved one way or another. Especially because the Arab world found itself divided between alliances and major powers. Unity has shrunk to the size of a piece of paper and is carried in the wind like a feather. But perhaps the Arabs are already ripe for Arab unity. I will say it differently: I foresee the creation of the Arab-African Union.

In one of his speeches, Gaddafi said: “I will never leave the land of Libya, I will fight to the last drop of blood and die here with my forefathers as a martyr. Gaddafi is not an easy president to leave, he is the leader of the revolution and a Bedouin warrior who brought glory to the Libyans "We Libyans have resisted the US and UK in the past and will not give up now."

Hussein did everything he was asked to do. He was stripped of everything. He could only fight to the last. He had to stand with his back to the wall and fight. What else could the Americans expect from him? For him to take off his clothes and dance naked in front of them?

Gaddafi Muammar

In September 2009, Muammar Gaddafi arrived in the United States for the 64th session of the UN General Assembly. Instead of the prescribed 15 minutes, Gaddafi's speech at the podium of the General Assembly lasted an hour and a half.

The leader of the Libyan revolution announced that US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair personally participated in the execution of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, demanded an investigation into the murders of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and proposed making Barack Obama US president for life. At the end of his speech, Gaddafi said: “You are already tired. You are all asleep” and left the podium with the words “You gave birth to Hitler, not us. You persecuted the Jews. And you carried out the Holocaust!

Muammar Gaddafi is the last representative of a generation of Arab nationalist revolutionaries who came to power as a result of military coups in the 1950s and 1960s.

During the unrest of 2011, in an interview with Rosbalt, Massimiliano Cricco, a professor of the history of international relations and the European political system at the Carla Bo University of Urbino (Italy), expressed the following point of view:

...and into the 1970s, 1980s, and even into the 1990s. Gaddafi did a lot for ordinary Libyans. There was a time when gasoline was free - this is how Gaddafi distributed oil revenues. He implemented a number of large projects aimed at improving people's lives: for example, he solved the problem of fresh water. However, starting in 2000, he concentrated all his attention on the international arena, trying to build relations with major powers, and in a sense forgot about his people.<…>

The world is now united in its attitude towards the Americans. This is not only due to sympathy for the Iraqi people. Americans are simply paying the price for a senseless war based on false accusations.

Gaddafi Muammar

Gaddafi, despite the fact that he himself was a military man and came to power thanks to the army, at some point radically changed the structure of the country, which became his property. Thus, he alienated the military because he turned into an undisputed leader, the “father of the country,” who did not want to tie his destiny to the army or any other structure.<…>

Gaddafi was an example of a self-made man who came to power on his own, through a revolution, overthrowing the monarchical regime, thanks to the support of the people. And suddenly he begins to appoint sons as his successors, and his regime begins to resemble the court of the overthrown King Idris I. From the head of a sovereign people, he turned into the head of a clan.

Muammar Gaddafi's family

On December 25, 1969, Muammar Gaddafi married former schoolteacher and daughter of Libyan officer Fathia Nuri Khaled. From this marriage, which ended in divorce, they had a son, Muhammad.

Gaddafi married for the second time in July 1970 to nurse Safia Farkash, from whom he had six sons: Sayf al-Islam, Saadi, Mutasim Bilal, Hannibal, Seif al-Arab and Khamis and one daughter: Aisha.

A nation whose national spirit is broken is destined to lie in ruins.

Gaddafi Muammar

One of Saadi Gaddafi's sons is a professional football player. He played for the Italian clubs Perugia and Udinese.

Daughter Aisha was part of the defense team for ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. In 2004-2011 she was a UN Goodwill Ambassador; was responsible for combating the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus.

Awards and titles of Muammar Gaddafi

Sofia Medal of Honor (People's Republic of Bulgaria, 1978) - stripped of the award in 2007 in protest against the death sentence of five Bulgarian nurses accused in Libya of infecting 400 local children with HIV;

Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, 1st degree (Ukraine, 2003) - for outstanding personal contribution to the development of Ukrainian-Libyan relations;

The world perceives Arabs as if we are worthless, as if we are sheep.

Gaddafi Muammar

Order of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, 1st degree (Ukraine, 2008) - for outstanding personal contribution to the development of Ukrainian-Libyan relations (at the same time, the law “On State Awards of Ukraine” and the charter of the order provide for the awarding of the Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky exclusively to citizens of Ukraine for special merits in protecting state sovereignty, territorial integrity, strengthening the defense capability and security of Ukraine);

Order of the Liberator on a chain (Venezuela, 2009).

Muammar Gaddafi was killed October 20, 2011 after the capture of Sirte by the forces of the National Transitional Council.

Muammar Gaddafi - quotes

Citizens of Libya! In response to the deepest aspirations and dreams that filled your hearts, in response to your incessant demands for change and spiritual rebirth, your long struggle in the name of these ideals, heeding your call for uprising, the army forces devoted to you took on this task and overthrew the reactionary and a corrupt regime. - Address to the citizens of Libya after the coup of September 1, 1969

Either the foreign bases will disappear from our land, in which case the revolution will continue, or, if the bases remain, the revolution will die.

If death is a man, then one should resist him to the end, and if it is a woman, then one should yield to her at the last moment.

Terrorism is a complete fact and reality. And the most dangerous thing is that the people involved in it consider it justified.

I supported the struggle for national liberation, not terrorist movements. I supported Nelson Mandela and Sam Nujoma, who became President of Namibia. I also supported the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Today these people are received with honor in the White House. But they still consider me a terrorist. I was not wrong when I supported Mandela and the liberation movements. If colonialism returns to these countries, I will again support movements for their liberation.

About the personality, aspirations, achievements and mistakes of Muammar Gaddafi - the great Libyan leader, politician and reformer who dreamed of freedom and happiness for the African continent and its peoples.

THE PATH OF THE REFORMER

“I am a lonely Bedouin who doesn’t even have a birth certificate. I grew up in a world where everything was pure. Everything that surrounded me was untouched by the infections of modern life. The young in our society respected the old. And we knew how to distinguish good from evil"(M. Gaddafi).

A long time ago a man was born in the Libyan desert, in a tent, into a Bedouin family. Whether in 1940, or in 1942, or in 1944, it is not known for sure. And who was interested in another child in a crowded Bedouin family? It is known that this happened nearby, or rather thirty kilometers from the city of Sirte.

He was a long-awaited child, an heir - after three failures ending in the birth of daughters, the boy's father was happy that his family would finally continue. And he named his son Muammar, which means long-lived.

His full name is Muammar bin Mohammed Abu Menyar Abdel Salam bin Hamid al-Gaddafi.

How did they live in those days?

You, who grew up in the blessed USSR, did not know what it was like to live under a king, and taking into account the harsh natural conditions, total poverty and savagery. Plus the country was a colony of Italy. And they didn’t stand on ceremony with the locals here. And what can I tell you, you can only experience it yourself.

But be that as it may, the boy was lucky, the father wanted to educate his son, and at the age of ten he was sent to a madrasah - a Muslim educational and religious institution in Sirte. Later, Muammar entered high school in the city of Sebha, where he was captured by revolutionary ideas, and the Egyptian revolutionary Gamal Abdel Nasser became the inspiration for Gaddafi.

For such outrageous views, the young revolutionary was expelled from school, but he managed to continue his studies in another city of Misrata. The boy dreamed of becoming a military man, he became more secretive and cautious. And soon he realized his dream by entering the military college in Benghazi in 1963, where he studied during the day and attended history courses at the university in the evenings. After training in 1965, having received the rank of lieutenant, he went to Great Britain, which liberated the former Italian colony from oppression. Here he completed courses for signalmen.

Returning home, he created his first underground organization, which was called the Free Unionist Officers. Four years later, his irrepressible energy and many previously hidden talents led to Benghazi radio announcing in Gaddafi’s voice: “ Citizens of Libya! In response to the deepest aspirations and dreams that filled your hearts, in response to your incessant demands for change and spiritual rebirth, your long struggle in the name of these ideals, heeding your call for uprising, the army forces devoted to you took on this task and overthrew the reactionary and a corrupt regime whose stench sickened and shocked us all..."

27-year-old Muammar Gaddafi in September 1969, immediately after the coup that overthrew King Idris.

The main result of this day, September 1, 1969, was the news of the overthrow of King Idris and the peaceful, bloodless transfer of power to the Revolutionary Command Council, which awarded Muammar the rank of colonel and appointed him supreme commander. On January 16, 1970, Colonel Gaddafi became Prime Minister of Libya. He was a romantic and dreamed of uniting many African countries into a single African Union. Or at least Syria, Tunisia, Lebanon, Morocco, Egypt and Libya. Moreover, several times in various combinations these countries could unite and enter into alliances, but then something or, more precisely, someone prevented the unification. Having become the head of the country, Gaddafi set about implementing a long-standing idea that had absorbed him - complete unity of the Arabs.

First of all, he eliminated foreign military bases in the country.

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, head of the Libyan Revolutionary Command Council, addresses the crowd at Benghazi Stadium. The speech is dedicated to the withdrawal of American troops from the territory of Libya. June 25, 1970. (AP)

Within three years, foreign banks and oil companies were nationalized in Libya, and 51% of domestic ones became state-owned.

On April 15, 1973, Gaddafi proclaimed the Cultural Revolution. He called on the people to take power into their own hands and abolished all existing laws.

“Ensuring social justice, high levels of production, elimination of all forms of exploitation and fair distribution of national wealth”- this is our goal, he said!

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi addresses the crowd during a large rally in Tripoli's Martyrs' Square in 1977. The photo was taken on February 9, 1977. In 1977, Gaddafi invented a system called the Jamahiriya, or "state of the masses", in which power is in the hands of thousands of "people's committees".

A legislative system based on the principles of Sharia was introduced in the country!

Islam was declared the official state religion.

One of the main goals of the revolution was proclaimed to build socialism based on "religion, morality and patriotism".
But what is especially interesting is that Muammar managed to give his interpretation to some of the provisions of the Koran, and so correct that at national debates he baffled the religious oppositionists, who could not boast of such a complete and accurate knowledge of the Koran, and answered Gaddafi’s questions on live television. Theologians were compromised in the eyes of the believing population. This gave Gaddafi grounds to subsequently deprive some of them of the right to conduct religious services.
At the same time, Gaddafi specified, “if we limited ourselves to only supporting Muslims, we would set an example of fanaticism and selfishness: True Islam is the one that defends the weak, even if they are not Muslims”.

Regarding women:

“A woman, who by virtue of her nature is characterized by functions different from those of a man, must be placed in different conditions than a man in order to be able to exercise these natural functions.
All societies existing today see a woman only as a commodity. The East views her as an object of purchase and sale, but the West refuses to recognize her as a woman!
Encouraging a woman to do men’s work means encroaching on the femininity given to her by nature for the sake of the need to continue life.”.

The functioning of the political system of the Jamahiriya on the ground and especially in production was hampered both because of the sabotage of the bourgeois strata, and because of the insufficient preparedness of the measures being taken, and the inability of the new administrative apparatus to manage the economy. All this caused discontent and unrest among part of the population. To avoid inter-tribal conflicts, Muammar granted access to the system of power to people from the elite of all influential Libyan tribes, including Cyrenaica, to which King Idris belonged.

Colonel Gaddafi managed to create a very successful political power structure.

It consisted of a system of directly elected people's congresses and people's committees. Gaddafi created a system of proportional distribution of revenues from the nationalized oil industry; invested funds both in his country and abroad, which ultimately brought noticeable profits.

In 1975, he wrote the main work of his life, namely the Green Book, as he himself called it - the 20th century Koran.

Its main ideas:

First. The exercise of power by the masses through popular assemblies, where everyone participates in decision-making and the exercise of power.

Second. Possession by the people of social wealth, which is considered as the property of all members of society.

Third. Transfer of weapons to the people and training in their use in order to end the monopoly on weapons by the army.

Hence the slogan: “Power, wealth and weapons are in the hands of the people!”

“A person’s freedom is incomplete if his needs are controlled by others. The desire to satisfy needs can lead to the enslavement of man by man; exploitation is also generated by needs. Satisfying needs is a real problem, and if the person himself does not manage his needs, a struggle arises.”.

Only under Muammar did the blacks of southern Libya gain human rights.

During the forty years of his reign, the population of Libya tripled. Child mortality decreased by 9 times. Life expectancy in the country increased from 51.5 to 74.5 years.

Gaddafi decided to withdraw Libya from the dollar banking system, and 12 other Arab countries wanted to follow his example.

In May 1978, a law was passed according to which the rental of residential premises was prohibited, and former tenants became the owners of rented apartments and houses. The former owners received compensation. The private property of the big and middle bourgeoisie was liquidated.

“The goal of the new socialist system is to create a happy society, happy because of its freedom, which is feasible only by satisfying the material and spiritual needs of man, provided that no one interferes with the satisfaction of these needs and controls them.”, Gaddafi wrote.

Before the overthrow of the monarchy in 1968, 73% of the country's population was illiterate. During the first decade of revolutionary changes in Libya, 220 libraries and reading rooms, 25 centers for the dissemination of knowledge, about 20 national cultural centers and 40 sports clubs were opened. By 1977, the literacy rate had risen overall to 51%. From 1970 to 1980, more than 180 thousand apartments were built in the country, which made it possible to provide modern housing to about 80% of those in need who previously lived in basements, huts or tents. As a result of Gaddafi's rule, Libya has become the country with the highest Human Development Index in Africa: free healthcare and education, increasing life expectancy, financial assistance programs for housing and also in the case of marriage. Gasoline has become cheaper than a glass of water.

And the water problem was solved by investing more than $25 billion in public funds on a system for extracting water from a giant underground freshwater lens under the Sahara.

About 35 thousand cubic kilometers of artesian water were discovered back in 1953. With the appropriate volume, it is possible, for example, to completely flood the territory of Germany; its area is 357,021 square kilometers, and the depth of such a reservoir will be about 100 meters. Libya has the richest reserves of clean fresh water!

Oil revenues were spent on its transportation to areas of consumption through underground pipelines with a total length of about four thousand kilometers using pipes up to 4 meters in diameter. And a plant was built for the production of pipes, which created new jobs. Gadaffi decided to create heaven on earth and turn Africa into a blooming garden!

Salaries in Libya in 2010 averaged, according to various sources, $1,050–6,000 per month; more than half of oil revenues went to social needs.

Unemployment in the country dropped sharply, most citizens had their own apartments, televisions, and VCRs. Universities and hospitals were built that meet world standards.

Gaddafi ordered to buy expensive cars in South Korea and sell them to the Libyans for a quarter of the price. He announced his decision to redistribute the country's oil revenues, which amount to about $10 billion a year. Half of this amount goes to the needs of the state, the other is distributed among Libyans. (I remind you that the total population of Libya was about 6.5 million people)

As a result, about 600 thousand needy families received from 7 to 10 thousand dollars. According to Gaddafi, this is the implementation in practice of the slogan he put forward “Wealth is in the hands of the people!”, and will help equalize the incomes of poor and wealthy citizens. True, Gaddafi warned that families who received money cannot use it at their own discretion: they can spend it only on the most necessary needs, and not on the purchase of expensive imported consumer goods.

Alas, the Libyans ignored their leader's warning. Contentment and comfort, rapidly growing consumption... Libyans began to relax in public, going with their families for a picnic, to the sea or to the forest. They couldn't afford it before.

Libya was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the country with the lowest annual inflation rate (in 2001–2005 - 3.1%). According to INAPRO data for 2008, Libya ranked first among the Arab countries of North Africa in terms of GDP growth.

In August 2008, at a meeting of more than 200 African kings, sultans, emirs, sheikhs and tribal leaders, Muammar Gaddafi was declared the “King of Kings of Africa.”

But no freedom! And especially democracy! Can you imagine what a terrible cannibal and tyrant this Gaddafi is, he banned the study of English and French! There is brutal censorship all around! You can't talk to foreigners about political topics! Dissidents and the creation of political parties are prohibited!

What can be blamed? Low quality of services, occasional spikes in unemployment, shortages of government-subsidized goods and medicines. Often the reason for this was the smuggling of medicines out of the country for resale; an entire criminal industry, in no way inferior to the mafia, relied on this. True, with the found criminals they did not stand on ceremony, they cut off a hand, and a second time a leg. What else? According to the Libyan National Salvation Front (NLNF), between 1969 and 1994, 343 Libyans who opposed the Gaddafi regime died, of which 312 people died on Libyan territory (84 people died in prisons, 50 people were publicly shot by the verdict of revolutionary tribunals , 148 people died in plane crashes, car accidents and poisoning, 20 people died in armed clashes with regime supporters, four were shot by security agents and six people died because they were denied emergency medical care).

How much how much??? For 25 years?!!!

At times, Muammar Gaddafi showed great leniency towards dissidents. On March 3, 1988, he ordered the release of 400 political prisoners from Abu Sadim prison. In the presence of a crowd of thousands, Gaddafi, driving a bulldozer, broke the prison door and shouted to the prisoners: “You are free,” after which a crowd of prisoners rushed into the resulting gap, they chanted: “Muammar, born in the desert, made the prisons empty!” The Libyan leader proclaimed this day the Day of Victory, Freedom and the Triumph of Democracy. A few days later, he tore up the “black lists” of persons suspected of dissident activities.

ENEMIES OF GADDAFI - ENEMIES OF LIBYA

The arrogant Libyan tirelessly undermined the authority of the Gulf monarchies. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain - this is not a complete list of enemies. Let me remind you, for those who are not in the know, these modest medieval barbarian radical monarchies have colossal monetary and material resources, their tentacles are spread all over the world. And sometimes the question arises, who really rules the world? The USA and vassal Europe or are they just servants at the beck and call of the Arab monarchies?

But it was the sheikhs, emirs, kings and sultans who were horrified by the socialist ideas of the Libyan leader.

It is Qatar that is the first Middle Eastern country to openly oppose Muammar Gaddafi on the side of the West. Qatari authorities have announced their readiness to act as intermediaries in the sale of Libyan oil in order to help terrorists receive humanitarian aid.

There were also problems among neighbors who were seemingly allies. As mentioned above, during his reign, Gaddafi developed numerous projects to unite Libya with Egypt, Syria, Sudan and Tunisia. But they all turned out to be failures; the recent allies desperately quarreled, reaching the point of open armed confrontation. In 1976, Libya and its recent unification partner Egypt even entered into a short-term war: Cairo accused Gaddafi of preparing a military coup in neighboring Egypt, Tunisia and Sudan.

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (left), Libyan President Colonel Muammar Gaddafi (center) and Syrian General Hafez al-Assad during a reception in Damascus in 1971. Photo taken August 18, 1971 (AP)

How do you resolve issues with those you don’t like?

In 1986, the head of Libya was once again personally attacked, which was carried out on the orders of the administration of US President Ronald Reagan.

Five targets were planned for the American air strike, of which three were in the Tripoli area (Bab Al-Azizia barracks, the Sidi Bilal combat swimmer training base and the military sector of Tripoli airport) and 2 in the Benghazi area (Al-Jamahariya Barras barracks and the airfield "Benina") On the night of April 15, US aircraft carried out strikes on the intended targets. Several dozen people were killed during the bombing.

Specially assigned 15 F-11 bombers bombed his residence. They killed more than 50 people, including a 15-month-old girl, Gaddafi's adopted daughter.

“I deeply regret that Reagan died without being brought to justice for his horrific crime against Libyan children in 1986.” - M. Gaddafi about the death of Ronald Reagan.

After this, the United States once again accused the Libyan leader of supporting “international terrorism” and subversive “pro-Sovietism.” However, neither the CIA nor the State Department were able to prove their accusations against Gaddafi.

In the early 1980s, the United States accused the Libyan regime of interfering in the internal affairs of at least 45 countries.

(He did support numerous national liberation and revolutionary organizations around the world. On June 11, 1972, Gaddafi called on Muslims to fight the US and UK, and also announced his support for black revolutionaries in the US, revolutionaries in Ireland and Arabs who wanted to join the fight for the liberation of Palestine.

And during the August coup in Moscow, Muammar Gaddafi expressed support for the actions of the State Emergency Committee).

PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat (right) with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (center) and PLO leader George Habash greet delegates at the Arab Summit on December 4, 1977. ()

On December 21, 1988, in the skies over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, a passenger Boeing 747 of the American airline Pan Am, operating flight No. 103 from London to New York, was blown up, resulting in the death of 270 people (all passengers on the plane and crew members, as well as those in the area disaster people). At first, suspicion of organizing the terrorist attack fell on terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as well as on the Iranian authorities, but soon the Attorney General of Scotland, Lord Fraser, formally charged two employees of the Libyan state intelligence services - Abdelbaset al-Mohammed al-Megrahi and al-Amin - with organizing the explosion. Khalifa Fhimahu...

Here's another version:

“In December 1988, angry military intelligence agents formally protested, exposing CIA complicity in the heroin trade in the Middle East. When teams from both departments were called back to Washington for internal proceedings, they boarded Pan Am Flight 103. Hezbollah's militant wing, led by Ahmed Jibril, his nephew Abu Elias, Abu Talb and Abu Nidal, eliminated both teams to protect their lucrative cartel.

Secret military intelligence documents show that Jibril and Talb were anyway considering blowing up an American plane during the Christmas holidays of 1988. They planned to blow up the American plane as revenge for the USS Vincennes shooting down an Iranian commercial jet. filled with pilgrims returning from Mecca in July 1988. However, a threat from military intelligence to expose their heroin network set their bombing plan in motion. Islamic Jihad's ability to discover actionable intelligence regarding flight schedules would certainly confirm that someone in the CIA was running a double agent, helping Islamic Jihad stay one step ahead of the hostage rescue operation.

This is the dirty truth about Lockerbie. And she’s not at all like the one you were told.”(from Susan Lindauer's book Extreme Bias: The Chilling History of the US Anti-Terrorism Act and the Cover-Up of 9/11 and Iraq)

Do we remember the story of the death of a DC-10 passenger plane flying from Brazzaville (Niger) to Paris? In any case, the French claim that the trail leads to Libya. Perhaps... Or maybe not...

Let's give the floor to Gaddafi: “I supported the struggle for national liberation, not terrorist movements. I supported Nelson Mandela and Sam Nujoma, who became President of Namibia. I also supported the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Today these people are received with honor in the White House. But they still consider me a terrorist. I was not wrong when I supported Mandela and the liberation movements. If colonialism returns to these countries, I will again support movements for their liberation.".

Fidel Castro and Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli, 1977

Then, according to the classical scheme, they accused him of accumulating chemical weapons.

They regularly violated Libyan airspace, conducted military maneuvers near its shores 18 times, and shot down a couple of Libyan patrol fighters in Libyan airspace.

The UN Security Council, urgently convened by Libya, after several days of meeting, was unable to adopt a resolution condemning the terrorist actions of the White House. This decision was vetoed by three countries - the USA, England and France.

LIBYA'S NEW COURSE. CONVERSION WITH THE WEST

On September 1, Colonel Gaddafi announced his decision to pay the victims of the tragedy, emphasizing that he does not consider his country responsible for the attack: “Our dignity is important to us. We don't care about money. The Lockerbie case is now over and the UTA case is now over. We are opening a new page in our relations with the West.".

The West's blackmail succeeded, but Gaddafi made a mistake...

During the 42 years of Muammar's reign, more than a dozen attempts were made on his life, apparently he was not as hated as Fidel Castro, but still, still...

In June 1975, during a military parade, an unsuccessful attempt was made to fire at the podium where Muammar Gaddafi was sitting.

In 1981, conspirators from the Libyan Air Force made an unsuccessful attempt to shoot down the plane on which Gaddafi was returning to Tripoli from the USSR.

In December 1981, Colonel Khalifa Qadir shot at Muammar Gaddafi, slightly wounding him in the shoulder.

In November 1985, Gaddafi's relative Colonel Hassan Ishkal, who intended to kill the Libyan leader in Sirte, was executed. In 1989, during the visit of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad to Libya, Gaddafi was attacked by a fanatic armed with a sword. The attacker was shot dead by security.

In 1996, while Gaddafi's motorcade was passing along a street in the city of Sirte, a car was blown up. The Libyan leader was not injured, but six people died as a result of the assassination attempt. Later, an agent of the British intelligence service MI5, David Shayler, would say that the British secret service MI6 was behind the assassination attempt.

In 1998, near the Libyan-Egyptian border, unknown persons fired at the Libyan leader, but the main bodyguard Aisha covered Muammar Gaddafi and died; seven more guards were injured. Gaddafi himself was slightly wounded in the elbow. (40 female bodyguards guarded Gaddafi).

In general, Libya, although with a long delay, has followed the path of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak. Changes in economic and political course, accompanied by competent propaganda, allowed Gaddafi to remain in power and avoid the fate of Anwar Sadat or Saddam Hussein. In June 2003, at a national congress, Muammar Gaddafi announced the country's new course towards “people's capitalism”; at the same time, the privatization of the oil and related industries was announced. On December 19, Libya announced the renunciation of all types of weapons of mass destruction and began to reduce military spending... After all, the West gave oath assurances: disarm and we will accept you into our friendly family and will be your guarantor of security.

By 2009, Libya concluded the vast majority of contracts not with Russian or Chinese, but with Western companies. If we take the six largest markets for Libyan hydrocarbons, almost 80% of exports went to Western Europe and the United States. Moreover, the oil money earned in the West, like an irredeemable ruble, was returned there - purchased by order of the colonel with shares in large Western companies. Such, for example, as the Italian bank UniCredit, the Austrian construction corporation Weinberger, the British media holding Pearson and the Italian energy giant Eni...

GADDAFI: WHAT WAS HE WAS?

« I forbade hanging my portraits on the streets. But people still continue to post them. And I want to push the people to exercise their own power » (M. Gaddafi).

How did Gaddafi live? Perhaps he basked in luxury day after day, wasting his time on sexual pleasures and gluttony?

The Libyan leader's working day lasted 16–18 hours. After a couple of hours of sleep and several exercises, he was again alert and fresh. Moreover, during the day Gaddafi was engaged not only in the “jamahirization” of Libya, but also in self-education. Evil tongues claimed that his reference book was Uncle Tom's Cabin. And he, meanwhile, knew world history well, loved to quote world classics of literature, including Russians - L. Tolstoy and F. Dostoevsky. On his instructions, at the end of the 70s, the works of famous Russian anarchist theorists M. Bakunin and P. Kropotkin were translated into Arabic. Moreover, with a pencil in his hands, he worked through the collected works of V.I. Lenin and used many ideas when writing the “Green Book”.

In addition to the Green Book, Gaddafi wrote a work entitled “Long Live the State of the Oppressed!”, published in 1997, and a collection of parable stories.

In everyday life, Gaddafi was unpretentious and led the life of an ascetic. At one time I even became interested in vegetarianism. He did not drink coffee, tea or alcoholic beverages, did not smoke, and ate very little, mostly simple food.

He was not a hoarder and his family did not own real estate. Even his father (at the insistence of his son) lived in a Bedouin tent for the rest of his life. However, Gaddafi himself often lived for months in a Bedouin tent.

By the way, he believed that a man should have only one wife! During Gaddafi's reign, a Libyan woman who gave birth to a child received benefits ranging from $5,000 to $8,000 for herself and the baby.

Gaddafi and his wife Safia Farkash on December 2, 1997. Safia- Gaddafi's wife and mother of his seven children. The couple also adopted a boy, Milad, and a girl, Hanna, who died in 1986 at the age of four when the United States bombed the Libyan capital Tripoli. (Dimitri Messinis/AP)

Still, Gaddafi, like any person, had his weaknesses. He loved to dress beautifully and often changed his outfits. Mostly these were national clothes. But his greatest passion is uniforms. He appeared in public either in the uniform of a naval officer, or in the uniform of an Air Force colonel, or in the uniform of the ground forces. At the same time, the equipment was always complemented by dark glasses that completely hid the eyes.

Gaddafi was very pious, regularly performed all Muslim rituals, followed all the commandments of the Koran, which he learned by heart as a child.

Gaddafi at a service after his speech in the city of Benghazi on February 25, 2010. (Abdel Meguid Al-Fergany / AP)

He made a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia and kissed the sacred Black Stone in Mecca. True, he was very unique in his interpretation of Islam, but knowing the Koran by heart, he could authoritatively argue with any expert on religion.

Is all this known to ordinary Libyans? Of course! Gaddafi's hobbies include his passion for horses and hunting, his interest in various types of weapons and special communications equipment.

In this October 10, 1976 photo, President Muammar Gaddafi greets crowds as he rides past on horseback during a ceremony in Ajdabiya, Libya. The celebration in 1976 marks the 6th anniversary of the expulsion of Italians from Libya. (AP)

His one and a half hour speech in 2009 at the UN is widely known...

At the end of his speech, Gaddafi said: “You are already tired. You are all asleep” and left the podium with the words: “You gave birth to Hitler, not us. You persecuted the Jews. And you carried out the Holocaust!

Muammar always spoke extremely openly and sincerely. His speech at a meeting of the League of Arab States, held in 2008 in Damascus, is indicative. “Saddam Hussein has been executed... and we are just watching! Tomorrow it will be the turn of each of us"- alas, these prophetic words were met with laughter from the audience.

LIBYA IS BURNED...

“You are bombing the wall that stopped the flow of African migration to Europe, the wall that stopped al-Qaeda terrorists. That wall was Libya. You are destroying it. You are idiots. For thousands of migrants from Africa, for supporting Al-Qaeda, you will burn in hell. And so it will be” (M. Gaddafi)

In the winter of 2010–2011, a wave of demonstrations and protests began in the Arab world, caused by various reasons, carefully fueled, pushed and directed through social networks against the ruling authorities.

On the evening of February 15, relatives of prisoners allegedly killed under unclear circumstances in Tripoli's Abu Slim prison in 1996 gathered in Benghazi to demand the release of lawyer and human rights activist Fethi Tarbel. Despite Tarbel's release, the "demonstrators" clashed with security forces.

In the following days, anti-government protests were actively suppressed by forces loyal to the Libyan leader; there are allegations that with the support of foreign mercenaries. Although fighters from Chad have always been in special gear. parts of Gaddafi. They tried to restore order and stop the riots of the rebels. On February 18, demonstrators and militants took full control of the city of Al-Bayda, with local police siding with the protesters. By February 20, Benghazi came under the control of opponents of the Libyan leadership, after which the unrest spread to the capital.

Within a few days of unrest, the eastern part of the country came under the control of protesters (and foreign intelligence officers), while in the western part Gaddafi remained in power. The main demand of the opposition was the resignation of Colonel Gaddafi.

The next day in Benghazi, at a joint emergency meeting of members of local people's councils, the terrorists formed the Transitional National Council as the authority of the “revolution,” which was headed by the country’s former justice minister, Mustafa Muhammad Abd al-Jalil.

On the same day, in western Libya, the important center of the oil refining industry, the city of Ez-Zawiya, came under the control of Gaddafi’s opponents. Meanwhile, in eastern Libya, armed terrorist groups, sponsored by neighboring monarchies and the West, began an attack on Tripoli, capturing Libyan cities along the way. On March 2, one of the centers of the oil industry of the country, Marsa Brega, came under their control, and two days later the port of Ras Lanuf.

On March 5, the terrorists entered Bin Jawad, the last city on the way to Sirte, but the very next day they were forced to retreat from the city. By mid-March, government troops recovered from the shock and went on the offensive against the positions of the rebels and interventionists, and within a few days they regained control of the cities of Ras Lanuf and Marsa el-Brega. On March 10, in western Libya, government forces recaptured Ez-Zawiya.

On the night of March 17-18, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1973, which included a ban on Libyan aviation flights, as well as the adoption of any measures to protect the Libyan population, with the exception of ground operations. On the evening of March 19, the armed forces of France and the United States launched Operation Odyssey Dawn to defeat military targets in Libya on the basis of a UN Security Council resolution “to protect civilians.” A number of European and Arab countries officially joined the operation. They proceeded to bomb Libya into the Stone Age. Three young grandchildren of Gaddafi and his son were killed by a NATO airstrike on May 1, 2011. The time has come for the United States to create a wave of chaos in the Arab world and “fish in troubled waters.” The Arab monarchies decided that the time had come to put an end to their troublesome neighbor. But the French president did not need a living creditor.

(“Sarkozy is mentally retarded. It was only thanks to me that he became president. We provided him with the funds that helped him win."- from an interview with M. Gaddafi on France 24 channel dated March 16, 2011).

With the support of aviation from the countries of the international coalition, the terrorists managed to seize control of Ajdabiya, Marsa el-Brega and Ras Lanuf within a few days, advancing towards Sirte. However, government troops not only stopped the advance of terrorists near Sirte, but also launched a massive offensive, pushing the rebels back 160 kilometers to the east of the country by March 30.

On June 24, Amnesty International conducted a series of investigations into the activities of supporters of Muammar Gadaffi. According to them, they found evidence that the "rebels" falsified many data about the crimes of forces loyal to Gaddafi. However, on June 27, the International Criminal Court in The Hague (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Gaddafi for organizing the killings, detentions and imprisonments committed in the first 12 days of the Libyan uprising. What can be said about this “court”, it carries out the orders of its masters.

The French military dropped weapons by parachute for the Amazigh tribe that supported the “rebels” southwest of Tripoli near the cities of Ez-Zintan and Al-Raghoub. But Gaddafi’s counterintelligence learned the time of the next weapons drop and the methods of communication between the French pilots and the Amazigh. The air controllers who were supposed to take the French planes to the drop site were caught. After this, counterintelligence entered into a radio game with the French command and ensured that in July 2011 the French dropped weapons, among other things, anti-personnel mines, directly at the location of a government military unit, where it was filmed by Libyan television operators.

But in spite of everything, when it became impossible to lie, even after that, the official representative of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bernard Valero, with a smart look, calmly stated that “given the mortal threat to which the civilian population of the mountainous regions was exposed,” efforts were made to save them “means of self-defense” are needed, which the French supplied “in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions.” Moreover, any supply of weapons is directly prohibited by UN Security Council Resolution No. 1970.

On August 23, Muhammad Gaddafi, in a telephone conversation with Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, said that the forces loyal to them in Tripoli were opposed not by rebels, but by NATO units and mercenaries. Since August 23, British newspapers have been writing about the participation of the British in the civil war in Libya, namely the Special Air Service (SAS). The Guardian (coordinating rebel attacks), The Daily Telegraph (hunting Gaddafi).

On October 26, the Chief of the General Staff of the Qatari Armed Forces, Hamad bin Ali al-Atiyah in Doha, where a meeting of the chiefs of staff of the armed forces of the states that participated in military operations in Libya took place, officially recognized the participation of hundreds of Qatari military personnel in hostilities on the side of the paramilitary forces of the Transitional National Council (GNC) of Libya, which contradicts the UN mandate issued to the coalition in March 2011.

After several months of fighting, on August 20, “rebel” troops attacked the capital. Fierce fighting between the warring sides took place around the Bab al-Aziziya government complex, which was regularly subjected to NATO airstrikes. By August 23, they managed to break through the gate in the outer perimeter of the complex and establish control over it, but Gaddafi himself was not there.

Feast of the Hyenas

“I will never leave the land of Libya, I will fight to the last drop of blood and die here with my forefathers as a martyr. Gaddafi is not an easy president to leave, he is the leader of the revolution and a Bedouin warrior who brought glory to the Libyans. We - Libyans - have resisted the US and UK in the past and will not give up now."(M. Gaddafi).

V.V. Putin, then Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, publicly condemned UN Resolution No. 1973 on Syria (when voting for which in the UN Security Council Russia abstained from vetoing). He said: “This Security Council resolution is certainly flawed and flawed... It allows everyone to take anything, any action against a sovereign state... And in general, it reminds me of a medieval call for a crusade.” Putin called the US policy of interfering in other people’s conflicts a stable trend in which there is “neither conscience nor logic.”

After this statement by Putin, Muammar Gaddafi publicly addressed Putin personally with a request to somehow prevent the barbaric NATO bombing, the destruction of homes, hospitals, and the killing of civilians from the air:

“Those who called themselves my friends - the leaders of China, Russia, Nigeria, South Africa, Portugal - I ask you: what was UN Resolution 1973 about? Is it allowed to establish a no-fly zone there or is the green light given to destroy Libyans? Libya is being tormented non-stop. Our access to oil has been cut off, ports are being blown up, houses are being bombed, food supplies to the population are being cut off, and halls where negotiations are taking place with representatives of other countries are being bombed. And all this is called a “no-fly zone”. I used to think that a “no-fly zone” is when the planes of both sides don’t fly, but it turns out that it’s when only Libyan planes don’t fly, and yours fly and bomb what they want and where they want.

… I’m not one of those who like to ask; they usually ask me, and I don’t refuse. But now I ask the whole world: please, we need to sit down and talk, publicly and frankly, so that the world can hear our voice too.

I ask, I ask you personally, Vladimir Putin, to become a mediator. You can, I believe in it. We are happy that your words were heard that the bombing must be stopped, but everyone knows: “ Al Qaeda “ despises international laws. I urge you: look who is firing when I declare a truce. Peace is impossible when only one side ceases fire. Libyans have never fought among themselves. What is happening now is a war against Libya, not a civil war. I ask the international community: come, come, do everything to stop the bombing of civilian targets.

Nobody here needs war. The Libyans are my children, the Libyans do not fight with me, and I do not fight with them. Look: we help people who have lost everything they earned through hard work. I ask the leaders of the African Union to visit Ajdabiya and see who is fighting against us there. Why do aliens from Afghanistan, Tunisia, Egypt and other countries pretend to be people of Ajdabiya? Save this city from those who captured it!..”

But Russian President Dmitry Medvedev took a tough position against Gaddafi with the beginning of the conflict in Libya. Moreover, he called the words about the Western crusade unacceptable: “Everything that happens in Libya is connected with the ugly behavior that was carried out by the leadership of Libya.” “Gaddafi has lost his legitimacy... Because for most Western countries, the current leader of the Libyan revolution, who believes that he does not have a single government position, is already a “handshake” person with whom no one will have contact,” concluded Dmitry Anatolyevich.

Medvedev not only publicly condemned the Gaddafi regime for using force against the rebels, but also, agreeing with UN sanctions against Libya, banned the Libyan ruler from entering Russia and flying over its territory.

Following the lead of the West, he even broke or froze contracts concluded with Libya and thereby caused damage to Russian industry by more than $300 billion, in addition, he brought several Russian military factories to the brink of bankruptcy.

And the damage to Russia’s reputation and the loss of confidence in it in the world cannot be calculated in monetary terms.

Defenders of Sirte:

On the morning of October 20, 2011, troops of the National Transitional Council launched another assault on Sirte, as a result of which they managed to take the city.

While trying to escape from the besieged city, Muammar Gaddafi was captured by mercenary terrorists. NATO released a report that at approximately 08:30 its aircraft struck eleven military vehicles of Gaddafi's army, part of a large convoy of approximately 75 vehicles that was moving quickly along a road in the suburbs of Sirte. First, the convoy trying to take the colonel away from Sirte was spotted by French aircraft (there is evidence that they were helicopters) and attacked the vehicles. At least 50 people accompanying Gaddafi were killed. He himself survived, and the guards hid him in the water supply system.

Video recordings of Gaddafi's last minutes that appeared later refuted the initial official version of the National Transitional Council of Libya. It became clear that he was brutally killed as a result of lynching by the rebels who captured him.

In the last minutes of his life, Muammar Gaddafi called on the rebels to come to their senses: “Haram alaikum... Haram alaikum... Shame on you! You don’t know sin?!”

The son of General Abu Bakr Jaber Younis, an ally of Muammar Gaddafi since the September 1 revolution, said that at first Gaddafi was simply beaten and humiliated, but then many began to shout “Don’t kill him quickly, let’s torture him!” Then one of the rebels took out a bayonet and began to poke Gaddafi from behind, while the rest held the Libyan leader by the arms shot in the shoulders. Having tortured Gaddafi's anus, the sadist gave way to the teenagers, who also began to cruelly mock Gaddafi. Other rebels beat the prisoner in the face, poured sand into his wounds and did absolutely monstrous things, which we will not mention. The torture lasted from 9 am to 12 noon, and the line of executioners exceeded a hundred people.

When Gaddafi died, he was dragged by his feet through the streets of Sirte, his hometown, where he fought until his last days. Several people claim that Muammar was shot by one of his men, who was thus saved from further torment. “One of the guards shot him in the chest,” said, for example, Omran Juma Shauan, who participated in the capture. After this, all of Gaddafi's guards were shot. Thus, no one can document this version. At the same time, the rebels massacred the men and women they found in Sirte. The bodies of the dead were dumped in hastily dug graves on the outskirts of the city. According to eyewitnesses, the townspeople were also tortured and raped before their deaths. The details of the massacre of Gaddafi disgusted even those Libyans who welcomed his death.

Meanwhile, relatives of Muammar Gaddafi decided to file a lawsuit at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, considering the murder of the colonel a war crime.

They know the circumstances of the death. French NATO helicopters opened fire on the motorcade in which he was traveling. This motorcade did not pose any threat to the civilian population. It was a liquidation operation planned by NATO, said Gaddafi family lawyer Marcel Secaldi.

US President Barack Obama, meanwhile, spoke out about the situation in Libya. In an interview with NBC, he actually endorsed extrajudicial killings in Libya carried out with NATO support.

You never want to watch a death like his (Gaddafi's), but I think this (video) sends a clear message to dictators around the world that people want to live freely, - Obama said...

The bodies of Muammar Gaddafi, his son and Abu Bakr Younis Jaber (a long-time associate of Muammar, Libya's defense minister) were put on public display in an industrial vegetable refrigerator in a shopping center in Misrata. At dawn on October 25, all three were secretly buried in the Libyan desert.

Gaddafi was lynched by militants paid by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. American ships and French aircraft in Libya are mercenaries in the wings of the Arabs. What is the independent policy of the United States and the European Union? In relations with the Arab world, it has been replaced today by actions that are paid for and organized from Arab capitals. The main customers and payers are Doha and Riyadh. And the whole “Arab Spring”, including Obama’s support for it, the games around Gaddafi in Libya, the Syrian civil war, all come from there.

Look around, for quite a long time we have been paying attention to countries that we consider equal to ourselves - America, France, England, Germany, but everything in the world has long changed. Just recently, this madam smiled sweetly at Gaddafi’s son.

Whose interests does Mrs. Killary (Hillary Clinton) represent?

Think about it. Muammar Gaddafi was killed by American and NATO terrorists and radical Islamist mercenaries on October 20, 2011. Footage of the torn body of Colonel Gaddafi flew around the planet, and all the media in the world reported about torture and atrocities against the living and even dead Libyan leader.

The fate of the children:

Seif al-Arab is killed along with his grandchildren in an American raid.

Khamis died during the war during the storming of Tarhun. Muttazim was martyred along with Gaddafi. Saif al-Islam, “the right hand of his father,” was sentenced to death in prison for a large gangster group. Saadi is a football player who has never been involved in politics, in prison under one of the Libyan governments, he is regularly tortured, videos of torture are posted on the Internet. Hannibal is a brawler who disappeared after being kidnapped in Lebanon. Muhammad is hiding in Oman. Perhaps Aishe, Gaddafi’s charismatic daughter, lives in Oman or Eritrea, calling for a fight against the country’s invaders and traitors.

LIBYA WITHOUT GADDAFI

A few different facts about the country after the martyrdom of Gaddafi.

The civil war that broke out in Libya, which resulted in tribal feuds, has not actually stopped for the sixth year. All attempts to create government bodies were unsuccessful, the economy collapsed. The crisis was replaced by chaos, posing a danger to the entire region, and this was the result of an attempt by Western powers to forcibly change the political structure of the North African country. Gaddafi was declared an outlaw - the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of the “dictator” on charges of murder, illegal arrests and imprisonment.

Gaddafi’s death was not an execution by court verdict - it was a murder, a criminal offense that is unlikely to ever be investigated and solved, believes Oleg Peresypkin, head of the Center for Eurasian Studies at the Institute of Current International Problems of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry, a diplomat who in the second half of 80 -x served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USSR to Libya.

Actually, the Jamahiriya that Gaddafi created is a compromise between the tribes and the centralized state. Everything rested on this compromise. Moreover, more than successfully, from the head of a country located in the “backwater of geography” he managed to reach the international level and, most importantly, lead the people. At the same time, build tough relations with the West and offer African states an idea, by implementing which they could break out of the shackles of poverty and change the fate prepared for them in Washington and major European capitals as post-colonial appendages of the West. One day it was all over. The colonel was too bright and independent a figure to survive in a country that the West or (those who paid for everything that happened) decided to crush it under themselves. Water, oil, gas, independence, prosperity, the United States of Africa, the Golden Dinar - this is just a small list of reasons for which it was necessary to kill Gaddafi and destroy Libya.

The rules of the game changed, and armed mercenary jackals and air strikes by the international coalition were used as trump cards against Muammar Gaddafi.

He became an era for his country and part of the world era that was buried under the rubble of the Twin Towers in New York in 2001.

“According to various sources, about $180 billion of Gaddafi was invested in securities in Western Europe and the United States. Naturally, now all this money has been confiscated - as well as numerous properties.”

It is still not known exactly how many people died - according to “official” Libyan statistics, during the eight months of the war in 2011, the number of victims was at least 5,500 people. The next three years claimed another 4 thousand lives. And over the past two years, after the country again split into opposing camps, another 3,400.

“According to information voiced by the plenipotentiary ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Russia, Mahmoud Reza Sajjadi, 40 thousand residents died under NATO bombing alone.”

According to the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, as of June 26, 2011, 20,000 people were killed or killed on both sides, including civilians. Transitional Government estimate as of October 20, 2011: over 50,000 people killed... State institutions collapsed. The economy was destroyed, oil production fell fourfold, the water supply system - the “Eighth Wonder of the World” - was purposefully destroyed from the air. The country is infested with groups of radical Islamists of the Islamic State, and now American aircraft are again bombing Libyan territory. All UN efforts to restore Libya's unity are only making the situation worse. There are two military-political blocs and three governments in the country. In fact, Libya no longer exists as a single country, no one obeys anyone, everyone is at war with everyone. But previously Gaddafi united and ruled 143 tribes!

The increase in the intensity of US airstrikes against militants in Libya occurred immediately after the announcement by one of the Libyan governments about the upcoming opening of the oil terminals of the Libyan Oil Crescent, which ceased operation in December 2014. And this can hardly be called a coincidence.

Now there are rumors that there will be a Russian military base in Libya.

And in December 2016, a fairly large group of American military personnel left Libya. After which Sirte, where militants had been sitting for a long time and which the Libyans unsuccessfully stormed with the support of the Americans, was liberated.

Who did the “Libyan” army fight in Sirte? Moreover, with the support of 4,000 American special forces.

Wherever American troops arrive, chaos and death immediately settle there. As soon as they leave, life gets better, the enemy is defeated. The main enemy of the free world, which the descendants of European criminal colonialists are shouting about, is the United States itself? And will anything change now, after the arrival of Trump?

I TRIED TO PROTECT PEOPLE FROM COLONIAL DOMINANCE. THE WILL OF MUAMMAR GADDAFI

In the name of Allah, the Gracious Allah

For 40 years now, or more, I don’t remember, I have done everything I could to give people homes, hospitals, schools; when they were hungry, I fed them, even turning Benghazi from a desert into a fertile land. I resisted the attacks of this cowboy Reagan - in trying to kill me, he killed my innocent adopted daughter, a child who had neither father nor mother.

I helped my brothers and sisters from Africa with funds for the African Union, did everything in my power to help people understand the idea of real democracy, where, like in our country, people's committees rule. But this was not enough, they told me, because even those people who had houses with 10 rooms, new clothes and furniture were not happy. In their selfishness, they wanted to get even more and, communicating with the Americans and our other guests, they said that they needed “democracy” and “freedom,” absolutely not understanding that this is the law of the jungle, where everything goes to the biggest and strongest. And yet they were fascinated by these words. They did not understand that in America there is no free medicine, no free hospitals, no free housing, no free education and food, except when people have to beg or stand in a long line for a bowl of soup.

No, no matter what I did, it wasn’t enough for some. Others knew that I was the son of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was the only true Arab and Muslim leader, when he decided that the Suez Canal belonged to the people, he was like Salah al-Din. I tried to follow his path when I decreed that Libya belonged to my people. I tried to protect people from colonial dominance - from those thieves who robbed us.

And here I stand under the blows of the most powerful army in all military history, and my youngest African son Obama is trying to kill me, take away our free housing, medicine, education, food and replace all this with theft in the American style called “capitalism”. All of us in third world countries know what this means. This means that countries are run by corporations, that people are suffering, and therefore I have no other choice.

I must hold my position, and if Allah wills, I will give my life for this path - a path that has enriched our country with fertile land, brought health and food to our people, and even allowed us to help our African and Arab brothers and sisters work with us here, in the Libyan Jamahiriya.

I don’t want to die, but if it is necessary for the sake of saving this country, my people, thousands of my children, then so be it.

Let this testament be my message to the world, evidence that I resisted the attacks of NATO crusaders, resisted cruelty, betrayal, stood up to the onslaught of the West and its colonial ambitions; stood next to my African brothers, my true brothers - Arabs and Muslims, was a beacon while others turned into blazing fortresses.

I lived in a modest house, in a Bedouin tent, and never forgot my youth spent in Sirte; I did not spend our national wealth unwisely, and, like our great Muslim leader Salah ad-Din, who liberated Jerusalem for the sake of Islam, I was content with little.

In the West they call me “crazy”, “crazy”, but they know the truth - and yet they continue to lie. They know that our country is independent and free, that it is not in the grip of colonial rule; that my vision, my path was and remains clear for my people and that I will fight until my last breath for our freedom, may the Almighty help us to remain faithful and free.

Allah Almighty will help us to remain honest and free.

“Even if we do not win immediately, we will give a lesson to future generations that defending your country is an honor, and selling it is the greatest betrayal that history will remember forever, no matter how some try to convince you otherwise” (M. Gaddafi) .

Dictator, tyrant, terrorist, as well as a virtuoso political player, a talented leader and a great Islamic leader. Is it possible to imagine that all these epithets refer to one single person? Despite the obvious inconsistency of these characteristics, we still have one person in mind - Muammar Gaddafi, who was brutally torn to pieces in front of the people more than six years ago. This extraordinary politician is one of the most discussed people of the twenty-first century. His life, ambitious projects and ability to govern the country still evoke strong emotions in the Western and Islamic world. The death of the Libyan leader also raises many questions, which today is assessed completely differently than it was several years ago. In the article we will try to understand why Gaddafi was killed and understand what Libya has achieved after freeing itself from the dictator’s regime.

A little about Gaddafi

Only the lazy would not write about Muammar Gaddafi, because this man aroused incredible admiration for his projects and talents, but at the same time was considered one of the most brutal dictators of his time, keeping the entire country in fear. It has not yet been possible to fully assess his contribution to the development of the state. However, even many of his opponents recognize the fact that Libya under Gaddafi has turned into a prosperous country with high incomes and great prospects. During the forty-two years of his rule over a rather turbulent state, the colonel managed to achieve a kind of fragile balance between all representatives of radical religious movements and groups. It is this fact, along with many other achievements, that supporters of the leader of Libya give him credit for.

But it is impossible not to clarify that ordinary residents of the country paid for this prosperity with the loss of freedom of speech and clear regulation of their lives. Lack of freedom is why Gaddafi was killed, according to many ordinary Libyans. Although politicians and economists give completely different reasons for the death of the colonel. We'll talk about them a little later, but now let's try to understand what the most controversial Libyan leader is from the point of view of historians.

Historical portrait of Colonel Gaddafi

Muammar Gaddafi was born into a Bedouin family. The exact date of his birth is unknown; historians usually call it the fortieth or forty-second year of the last century. The youth of the future ruler of Libya was spent in the sands; he constantly wandered with his father, changing one place of residence to another. Due to poverty, he had to change several schools, because the family did not have money to leave the boy in the care of relatives. However, he later recalled his childhood with great pleasure, characterizing it in one word - “freedom.”

Very early on, Gaddafi became interested in the revolutionary movement. While still a schoolboy, he took an active part in anti-monarchy demonstrations. This led to him being expelled from the city and he had to continue his education elsewhere.

But this did not prevent the future Libyan leader from entering a military college and even graduating from it. As part of a group of young military men, he was sent for an internship to the UK. According to the recollections of his colleagues, Muammar stood out very much among his peers. He strictly observed all Islamic traditions and did not succumb to Western influence. Therefore, it is not surprising that it was he who became a participant in the revolutionary movement that led to the overthrow of the monarchy. At the age of twenty-eight, he took the helm of the country and was able to hold his post for forty-two long years. Many politicians believe that if it were not for the US presence in Libya, the colonel would have continued his work and a new “hot spot” would not have appeared on the world map.

A few words about the colonel's personal life

The Gaddafi family was quite large. It is known that he married twice. From both marriages the colonel had seven sons and a daughter. In addition, he adopted his nephews - a girl and a boy.

At the moment, not many of this family are alive; some of Gaddafi’s children and grandchildren died as a result of bombings and hostilities. Several sons and a daughter fled to Algeria, and other children are in prison.

The fate of Gaddafi's wife Safia Farkash looks quite good against this background. She managed to escape from civil war-torn Libya and is deprived of the right to make official statements or interfere in state politics.

Achievements of Colonel Gaddafi as leader of the country

No one can deny that Libya under Gaddafi has become something special that does not fit into the framework of the Western and Islamic world. Having become the leader of the country, he refused almost all positions, reserving for himself only the post of Commander-in-Chief of the troops. However, the West has more than once called Gaddafi the president of Libya, despite the fact that the colonel himself was closer to the title given to him by the people of the country - “brotherly leader and leader of the revolution.”

Thanks to his leadership talent, Muammar skillfully balanced between Western and socialist countries, transformations and Islamic traditions. Before Gaddafi, not a single leader who stood at the head of the country could do this. Moreover, the colonel’s achievements are worthy of respect even from his ardent opponents.

Over the years of his reign, he managed to build a powerful system of social subsidies for the population, which significantly raised the standard of living of ordinary Libyans. Gaddafi's domestic policies contributed to the fact that the minimum wage in the country fluctuated around one thousand dollars. All citizens of the country received the same amount as a one-time payment every year. Unemployment, of course, occurred in some regions, but the benefit paid by the state was close to the minimum wage.

Gaddafi also took care of increasing the birth rate in the country. For each newborn, the family received a significant amount of money, estimated at several tens of thousands of dollars. They allowed parents to improve their living conditions. Despite this, all loans for large purchases, such as cars or apartments, were interest-free. It was impossible to make money selling real estate in Libya due to the fact that the colonel introduced a ban on real estate services. Another significant advantage of Muammar’s transformations is the absence of utility bills.

Gaddafi paid great attention to solving social problems in the country. He believed that Libya, rich in natural resources, could well become a leader among African countries if it engaged in the education of its population. Therefore, it was free, and especially talented students were sent for internships in foreign educational institutions at the expense of the state.

Medicine was also a free service. Hospitals were built in all corners of Libya where people could go for help. Some pharmacies operated in such a way that some medications were provided free of charge. At the same time, their counterfeiting was punished very severely by law; for such an atrocity the death penalty was imposed.

Analyzing all of the above, it is difficult to understand why Gaddafi was killed. However, what we talked about is just one side of the activities of the Libyan leader. There is another one where he is considered the main sponsor of the terrorist movement and African dictators.

Western discontent

When taking office as leader of Libya, Gaddafi set himself many goals. He managed to implement some of them, but the methods chosen for this aroused fears and dissatisfaction of the Western powers. Especially after the Libyan dictator began supporting disparate terrorist groups with money. The main condition for this sponsorship was activities directed against Europe and Israel.

After some time, Gaddafi managed to create the Arab Legion. This organization was characterized as militant and advocated the Islamization of Western regimes. To achieve this, massive terrorist attacks were carried out, including the famous explosion at a disco in Berlin in the mid-eighties of the last century, as a result of which US forces began bombing the capital of Libya.

Jamahiriya: a new type of political structure of the state

Historians consider Gaddafi’s real phenomenon to be the unification of many warring parties on the territory of one state and the containment of various radical movements. The Libyan leader himself claimed that if he died, a powerful stream of terrorists would pour into Europe and completely fill it. Judging by the current problems of European powers related to migrants, it becomes clear that the colonel was not so far from the truth.

Gaddafi included all his ideas on the structure of the state in the Green Book. We can say that he was the only leader who found his own path, not similar to Western and socialist dogmas. Literally within a few years after coming to power, the colonel managed to reconcile disparate tribes and inspire them with the ideas of building a special Islamic state that would become the leader in its region. This was also facilitated by oil fields, which brought huge income to the country. Gaddafi actively developed this industry, investing the money he received in the Libyan population and urban improvement.

Based on his ideas, Muammar built a completely new political system, which later received the name “Jamahiriyya”. Historians consider it a kind of compromise between a tribal association, where disparate factions and sheikhs play a significant role, and a centralized state with a strong leader at its head.

A distinctive feature of the Jamahiriya can be considered its strict adherence to Islamic traditions. For example, in Libya alcohol was strictly prohibited. At the same time, Gaddafi sought to consolidate his power by persecuting dissent, suppressing private business and gradually taking control of all media.

Naturally, the dictatorship often caused protests among the population, which led to arrests. There were no free places in prisons during the reign of the Libyan colonel. This further separated the government from the people, who, during the flaring uprising against Gaddafi’s rule, did not support him even after interference in the internal affairs of the NATO state.

How was Gaddafi killed?

The death of the Libyan dictator was terrible and caused a lot of controversy among the world community. However, its details are still hidden under a veil of secrecy.

Six years ago, as a result of a civil war supported by many European powers, Muammar Gaddafi was declared an outlaw. He was accused of numerous murders and other atrocities, for which he had to stand trial.

The NATO bloc took an active part in the actions of the rebels, thanks to which in a few months almost all of Libya became under their control. The only point of resistance was Sirte, the city near which the colonel was born. But he too fell under the onslaught of the rebels, while the townspeople did not protect their leader too much. Historians believe that they were so tired of the colonel’s regime that they were ready to accept any outcome of events.

According to the official version, the Libyans burst into Gaddafi's residence on October 20 and shot him dead. Thus fell the forty-year dictatorial regime that so frightened the West. However, footage taken on a mobile phone camera and spread around the world may tell a different story about the death of the Libyan leader. How was Gaddafi really killed? Unfortunately, no one knows this.

The footage, which we do not present to your attention for ethical reasons, shows how the still living leader was literally dragged out into the street by people and torn to pieces. They mocked the already dead body and took pictures with it. At the same time as Muammar, his son was also torn to pieces. Their bodies were put on public display in a supermarket refrigerator.

True Muslims believe that it was not the townspeople who killed the Libyan leader, but criminal groups specially hired for this purpose. They violated all the laws of Islam, thus dealing with the man who gave the country peace and prosperity.

Why was Gaddafi killed?

It seems that the answer to this question lies on the surface, but, in fact, it is quite difficult to find out. Today, almost everyone knows in what year Gaddafi was killed, but the reasons for his terrible death are given differently. Let's try to list them:

Supporting terrorists and establishing a dictatorial regime. This version is official and is adhered to by all Western powers. It is believed that the death of the Libyan leader gave his people freedom and the opportunity to return to the path of democratic development.
Oil monopoly. Some believe that Gaddafi paid with his life because Libya was actively developing its oil fields and trading in black gold. This gave it unlimited opportunities, which by 2011 turned the once poor country into a major player on the political map of the world.
A grandiose irrigation project. Few people discuss this version seriously, but it seems quite viable to many. In the middle of the last century, Gaddafi discovered a huge underground reservoir of water in the country. He began to implement a project to create an irrigation system, which gave impetus to the development of industry. As a result, Africa was supposed to turn into a prosperous continent, absolutely free from Western expansion.

The Libyan leader was never able to implement many of his plans; it was their number and pretentiousness, according to Russian experts, that led to the death of the colonel.

Six years later

How did life change in Libya after Gaddafi? The standard of living of its population and the political situation leave much to be desired, because the civil war continues in the country, and the West does not seek to stop it and help the Libyans return to peaceful life.

Literally immediately after the assassination of Gaddafi, farmland was attacked by locusts. Previously, they actively fought against it, and the colonel allocated huge funds for this, but now the fields where several types of crops were previously grown have fallen into disrepair.

Oil production also decreased, and the fall in oil prices sharply reduced household incomes. Against this background, criminal gangs have become more active, literally tearing the country to pieces.

What will happen to Libya next?

It's not difficult to predict. Russian historians and politicians, as well as some of their foreign colleagues, believe that the country will not soon be able to raise its head after the civil war. This is not beneficial for America and Europe, who are playing their game on this field. And it was the Libyan tyrant and at the same time talented leader Colonel Gaddafi who became the pawn in it, which can always be painlessly sacrificed.