by ROXANA BASPINEIRO
Nine years after the military intervention, led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to overthrow Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi, Libya remains trapped in a spiral of violence involving armed groups, sectarian, ethnic groups and external interference that have led the country into absolute chaos.
On Oct. 20, 2011, amid protests supported by the governments of the United States and the European Union, an armed uprising that plunged the country into a civil war, the Libyan leader was captured and brutally murdered by the rebels.
Being one of the most prosperous countries in the African continent, thanks to its vast oil fields, after the fall of Gaddafi, the North African country was divided between rival governments in the east and west, and among multiple armed groups competing for quotas of power, control of the country and its wealth.
Gaddafi ruled for 42 years, leading Libya to a significant advance in social, political and economic matters that were recognized and admired by many African and Arab nations at the time. Despite his controversial government, Gaddafi came to represent an important figure for anti-imperialist struggles for his position mainly against the U.S. and the policies carried out from Washington on the Middle East.
It is for this reason, his life and death became pivotal events in Libya and key to understand the current situation.
Libya Before Gaddafi
After World War II, Libya was ceded to France and the United Kingdom, and both countries linked it administratively to their colonies in Algeria and Tunisia.
However, the U.K. favored the emergence of a monarchy controlled by Saudi Arabia and endorsed by the U.N., the Senussi dynasty, which ruled the country since its “independence” in 1951 under the monarchy of King Idris I, who kept Libya in total obscurantism while promoting British economic and military interests.
When oil reserves were discovered in 1959, the exploitation of wealth did not translate into benefits for the people. According to political analyst Thierry Meyssan, during the monarchy, the nation was mired in backwardness in education, health, housing, social security, among others.
The low literacy rates were shocking, according to Meyssan, only 250,000 inhabitants of the four million could read and write.
But it was in 1969 that the Senussi dynasty was overthrown by a group of officers led by Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi who proclaimed true independence and removed the dominant foreign forces from the country.
One of Gaddafi’s immediate policies was to share the benefits and wealth to all Libyans.
Libya With Gaddafi
Since Gaddafi took power, oil has been the main resource in the hands of the leader of the newly proclaimed Libyan Arab Republic. The triumph of the 1969 revolution marked a paradigm shift, moving the new government to use its oil income to boost redistributive measures among the population, generating a new model of economic and social development for the country.
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