A HISTORY OF MODERN LIBYA

Libya is coming in from the cold, but for most of the three decades following Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi's self-styled revolution in 1969, the country was politically isolated and labeled a pariah state by the West. Dirk Vandewalle, who was one of only a handful of western scholars to visit the country during this time, is intimately acquainted with the country. This history ‒ based on original research and interviews with Libya's political elite ‒ offers a lucid and comprehensive account of Libya's past, and corrects some of the misunderstandings about its present. Vandewalle begins in the 1900s with a portrait of Libya's desert terrain, its peoples, and the personalities that shaped its development. He then moves on to the harrowing years of the Italian occupation in the early twentieth century, through the Sanusi monarchy and, thereafter, to the revolution of 1969. The following chapters analyze the economics and politics of Qadhafi's self-styled revolution, with some intriguing insights into the man and his ideology as reflected in The Green Book. The final chapter is devoted to the most recent events that brought Libya back into the international fold and concludes with some likely scenarios for its future. As the first comprehensive history of Libya in over twenty years, this book will be welcomed by scholars and students of North Africa, the Middle East, and by those who are visiting and doing business in the region for the first time.

DIRK VANDEWALLE is Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Libya Since Independence: Oil and State-building (1998), and the editor of Qadhafi's Libya, 1969–1994 (1995).

A HISTORY OF
MODERN LIBYA

DIRK VANDEWALLE

Dartmouth College

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First published 2006

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ISBN-13 978-0-521-85048-3 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-85048-7 hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-61554-9 paperback
ISBN-10 0-521-61554-2 paperback

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Contents

Illustrations

Maps

Preface

This book is the result of almost two decades of observing and writing about Libya. In the process, countless individuals in a number of countries have talked to me and corresponded with me about Libya. Many of them I have acknowledged earlier in my Libya Since Independence. Since then, however, I have incurred additional debts to a number of others who kindly provided additional help and insights since the late 1990s. In no particular order, they include Dr. Saleh Ibrahim and Milad Saad Milad at the Academy of Higher Education in Tripoli; Ms. Salma al-Gaeer of the Academy of Higher Education and the Green Book Center; Youssef Sawani of the Green Book Center; Zahi Mogherbi of Gar Yunis University; Muhammad Siala, Secretary for International Cooperation; Mehdi Emberish, Secretary of Culture; Ahmed Jalala of the Academy of Graduate Studies; Engineer Jadalla al-Talhi, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Jamahiriyya; Abu Zayed Dorda, former Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy; Saif al-Islam al-Qadhafi; Salem al-Maiar and Tony Allan of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London; Ethan Chorin of the United States Liaison Office in Tripoli; Tarik Yousef of Georgetown University; David Mack at the Middle East Institute in Washington; Moncef Djaziri at the University of Geneva; and Saad al-Ghariani of the Academy of Higher Education in Tripoli.

A very special thanks to Rosemary Hollis of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. My gratitude as well to Robert Springborg, and Arnold Luethold who organized two conferences at, respectively, the London Middle East Centre (at the School of Oriental and African Studies), and the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces. Last but not least, my gratitude to Mustafa Ben Halim, Prime Minister of Libya during the monarchy, who agreed to meet in London in order to shed light on the tumultuous developments that took place during his tenure in office. A sabbatical leave from Dartmouth College allowed me to finish the manuscript. Marigold Acland and two anonymous readers for Cambridge University Press provided insightful and thoughtful comments as the manuscript progressed.

Transliterations from the Arabic in this book use the classical Arabic spelling except where any attempt to do so would render names unintelligible to some readers – hence Tripoli rather than Tarabulus. For the transliteration of place names I have relied on Gazetteer No. 41 – Libya (June 1958) published by the United States Board on Geographic Names. The ta marbuta, however, when not in construct state, is rendered a and not ah as in the Gazetteer: Zuwara rather than Zuwarah. Arabic words familiar to a western audience – such as ulama and sharia – are written without diacritical marks. Unless in quotations from original sources – that, for example, render Jaghbub as Giarbub or Giarabub in official Italian documents – I have chosen to adopt the spelling used by the Gazetteer, with the caveat noted above.

The General People's Congress and Committee system (Libya's equivalent of a Parliament and a Cabinet) uses a complex and confusing set of designations for its institutions and for those who represent it. The Secretary of the General People's Committee for Foreign Affairs is simply “the Foreign Minister” or “the Secretary of Foreign Affairs” in this book. The General Secretariat of the People's Bureau for Planning is simply “the Ministry of Planning.”

A final note on sources: the literature on Libya is by now enormous, and of widely varying quality. In order to provide some guidance, and to keep the text manageable and accessible, readers will find in the bibliography and in the endnotes to each chapter references to some of what are, in my estimation, the most important works on Libya's modern history. Most, except for references to newspaper articles and Libyan documents, and excluding a handful of French sources, are in English. A more exhaustive bibliography, as well as references to additional Arabic sources, can be found in my Libya Since Independence and in specialized bibliographies of Libya. Just before going to press, the Centre for Libyan Studies in Oxford graciously provided me with the first three (of a projected eight) volumes of Libya Between The Past and the Present (in Arabic) by Dr. Muhammad Mugharyif [Mohamed Yousef Al-Magariaf]. They provide an extremely valuable overview of Libyan history, and include a collection of historical documents as well as previously unavailable pictures – some of which were provided, courtesy of the Centre for Libyan Studies, for this book. My sincere thanks to Youssef El-Megreisi for making them available.