[412] According to the Gaddafi biographer Jonathan Bearman, in Islamic terms Gaddafi was a modernist rather than a fundamentalist, for he subordinated religion to the political system rather than seeking to Islamicize the state as Islamists sought to do. Having taken power, Gaddafi converted Libya into a republic governed by his Revolutionary Command Council. [344] As he announced that the rebels would be "hunted down street by street, house by house and wardrobe by wardrobe",[345] the army opened fire on protests in Benghazi, killing hundreds. [42], With a group of loyal cadres, in 1964 Gaddafi established the Central Committee of the Free Officers Movement, a revolutionary group named after Nasser's Egyptian predecessor. [452] Gaddafi's second wife was Safia Farkash, née el-Brasai, a former nurse from the Obeidat tribe born in Bayda. [29], Many teachers at Sabha were Egyptian, and for the first time, Gaddafi had access to pan-Arab newspapers and radio broadcasts, especially the Cairo-based Voice of the Arabs. [84], With crude oil as the country's primary export, Gaddafi sought to improve Libya's oil sector. [361] Retreating to Sirte after Tripoli's fall,[363] Gaddafi announced his willingness to negotiate for a handover to a transitional government, a suggestion rejected by the NTC. She was the daughter of General Khalid, a senior figure in King Idris' administration, and was from a middle-class background. Himself unharmed, two of Gaddafi's sons were injured, and he claimed that his four-year-old adopted daughter Hanna was killed, although her existence has since been questioned. [235], The early and mid-1980s saw economic trouble for Libya; from 1982 to 1986, the country's annual oil revenues dropped from $21 billion to $5.4 billion. [254] In Spring 1986, the US Navy again performed exercises in the Gulf of Sirte; the Libyan military retaliated, but failed as the US sank several Libyan ships. He governed Libya as Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then as the "Brotherly Leader" of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011. [475] Gaddafi claimed that his Jamahiriya was a "concrete utopia", and that he had been appointed by "popular assent",[476] with some Islamic supporters believing that he exhibited barakah. [211] With no legal code or safeguards, the administration of revolutionary justice was largely arbitrary and resulted in widespread abuses and the suppression of civil liberties: the "Green Terror". Earlier this month, Libya's rival political groups agreed to form an interim unity government to lead the country to elections this December. As of October 21, 2009 the President of United Nations is Ali Abdussalam Treki of Libya [245] Proposing political unity with Morocco, in August 1984, Gaddafi and Moroccan monarch Hassan II signed the Oujda Treaty, forming the Arab–African Union; such a union was considered surprising due to the strong political differences and longstanding enmity that existed between the two governments. [442][444] Gaddafi was notably confrontational in his approach to foreign powers[445] and generally shunned Western ambassadors and diplomats, believing them to be spies. Symbolic head of state for the handover of power from the GNC. [469] According to Bearman, Gaddafi "evoked the extremes of passion: supreme adoration from his following, bitter contempt from his opponents". Born near Sirte, Italian Libya, to a poor Bedouin family, Gaddafi became an Arab nationalist while at school in Sabha, later enrolling in the Royal Military Academy, Benghazi. [483] Dubbed the "mad dog of the Middle East" by Reagan,[484] Gaddafi became a bogeyman for Western governments,[470] who presented him as the "vicious dictator of an oppressed people". He suggested that Tunisia's people would be satisfied if Ben Ali introduced a Jamahiriyah system there. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. entered office on January 20, 2021. [258] Reagan was supported by the UK but opposed by other European allies, who argued that it would contravene international law. His administration insisted that the US and the UK remove their military bases from Libya, with Gaddafi proclaiming that "the armed forces which rose to express the people's revolution [will not] tolerate living in their shacks while the bases of imperialism exist in Libyan territory." Unlike Tunisia or Egypt, Libya was largely religiously homogeneous and had no strong Islamist movement, but there was widespread dissatisfaction with the corruption and entrenched systems of patronage, while unemployment had reached around 30 per cent. [439] He favoured either a military uniform or traditional Libyan dress, tending to eschew Western-style suits. [67] Libya's administrative capital was moved from al-Beida to Tripoli. I wear a certain shirt and suddenly everyone is wearing it. [131] In June 1972 Gaddafi created the First Nasserite Volunteers Centre to train anti-Israeli guerrillas. [230][231] Libyan relations with Lebanon and Shi'ite communities across the world also deteriorated due to the August 1978 disappearance of imam Musa al-Sadr when visiting Libya; the Lebanese accused Gaddafi of having him killed or imprisoned, a charge he denied. President of the United Nations General Assembly, Amb. Supporters lauded him for his willingness to tackle the unfair economic legacy of foreign domination as well as his support of pan-Africanism and pan-Arabism. [418] Private enterprise was largely eliminated in favour of a centrally controlled economy. [61] They purged monarchists and members of Idris' Senussi clan from Libya's political world and armed forces; Gaddafi believed this elite were opposed to the will of the Libyan people and had to be expunged. [301] In October 2010, Gaddafi apologized to African leaders for the historical enslavement of Africans by the Arab slave trade. [420] Conversely, St. John expressed the view that "if socialism is defined as a redistribution of wealth and resources, a socialist revolution clearly occurred in Libya" under Gaddafi's regime. [127] The commercial relationship with the latter led to an increasingly strained relationship with the US, which was then engaged in the Cold War with the Soviets. Libya’s newly elected interim prime minister has held talks in Cairo with the Egyptian president as part of his efforts to galvanize support from regional powers to … [348] By February's end, eastern cities such as Benghazi, Misrata, al-Bayda, and Tobruk were controlled by rebels,[349] and the Benghazi-based National Transitional Council (NTC) formed to represent them. He believed that the state of Israel should not exist and that any Arab compromise with the Israeli government was a betrayal of the Arab people. Both current and historical presidents of Libya are listed with biographies. [422] In his view, ideologies like Marxism and Zionism were alien to the Islamic world and were a threat to the ummah, or global Islamic community. [342] This proved ineffective, and on 17 February 2011, major protests broke out against Gaddafi's government. [481] He also faced opposition from rival socialists such as Ba'athists and Marxists;[482] during the Civil War, he was criticized by both left-of-centre and right-of-centre governments for overseeing human rights abuses. [426] In this, he sought to replace a capitalist economy with one based on his own romanticized ideas of a traditional, pre-capitalist past. This article lists the heads of state of Libya since the country's independence in 1951. [28] Gaddafi was popular at this school; some friends made there received significant jobs in his later administration, most notably his best friend, Abdul Salam Jalloud. [196], With preceding legal institutions abolished, Gaddafi envisioned the Jamahiriya as following the Qur'an for legal guidance, adopting sharia law; he proclaimed "man-made" laws unnatural and dictatorial, only permitting Allah's law. [284] They would only be suspended in 1998 when Libya agreed to allow the extradition of the suspects to the Scottish Court in the Netherlands, in a process overseen by Mandela. [462] In private, Gaddafi often complained that he disliked this personality cult surrounding him, but that he tolerated it because the people of Libya adored him. [232] Relations with Syria improved, as Gaddafi and Syrian President Hafez al-Assad shared an enmity with Israel and Egypt's Sadat. Strengthening ties to Arab nationalist governments—particularly Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt—he unsuccessfully advocated pan-Arab political union. [462] Quotations from The Green Book appeared on a wide variety of places, from street walls to airports and pens, and were put to pop music for public release.