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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Libya
Index
The military has been among the most representative
institutions in the country, drawing its membership from all strata
of society. The integration of the different forces, organized
before 1969 under separate commands, and the disarming of the
Cyrenaican tribes were generally regarded as significant first
steps toward establishing national unity. According to some
authorities, these steps will eventually breakdown tribal,
regional, and parochial tendencies.
Until the early 1980s, service pay, special commissaries, and
related benefits placed the average soldier in a privileged
position relative to the population as a whole. Military leaders
nevertheless sought to avoid the public display of material
ostentation with which many officers under the earlier monarchy had
been associated. Most of the senior officers were noted for their
austere, almost puritanical, personal habits. For more than a
decade after the coup, the rank of colonel, which Qadhafi assumed
after taking power, acted as a ceiling on grade level. Although the
rank of general was subsequently adopted by some service chiefs, it
was announced in mid-1986 that the rank of colonel would again be
the highest in the armed forces. Observers noted, for example, that
Kharrubi was being referred to as colonel instead of general. The
ranks of many other officers may also have been reduced, in some
cases as a result of dissatisfaction with their responses to the
American raid a few months earlier.
In his public conduct, Qadhafi was the archetype of the ascetic
behavior that characterized senior Libyan officers in the early
days of the revolution. He cultivated an image of incorruptibility
and of simple personal habits, promoting the idea that military
service was a patriotic obligation for which little material reward
should be expected.
In general, the morale of the military was high as a result of
Qadhafi's extravagant modernization program, which was accompanied
by new weapons systems, opportunities for training abroad for
younger officers, and major construction projects. Moreover,
experience gained in operations in Chad enabled the military to
address some of the deficiencies revealed in the clashes with Egypt
and in Uganda.
In spite of the historical importance of the military in the
overthrow of the monarchy and its participation in the government
during the first decade under Qadhafi, underlying tensions between
civil and military authorities became visible during the early
1980s. Although there was little discernible dissension among the
most senior military figures, whose fortunes were closely linked
with Qadhafi, there reportedly was disgruntlement among more junior
officers, who rejected the adventurist policies that had needlessly
provoked the hostility of Libya's Arab neighbors. The economic
austerity arising from the drop in oil revenues and Qadhafi's
bizarre economic theories contributed to the disaffection. As a
result of budget stringencies, military pay was often two or three
months in arrears, commissary stocks were little better than the
meager supplies in government-run shops, and military construction
projects were scaled back sharply.
On numerous occasions, Qadhafi declared that ultimately the
traditional military establishment should "wither away," to be
replaced by an armed citizenry. This eventually conformed with the
Third Universal Theory in that the populace would then be directly
involved in assuring their own security
(see Political Ideology
, ch. 4). Accordingly, all members of society must be prepared to
function as soldiers. Although Qadhafi seemed to treat the
disappearance of the professional military more as a theoretical
goal than an imminent reality, his remarks added to the
deteriorating morale of the officer corps.
Qadhafi and knowledgeable observers recognized that only the
army represented a separate source of power that could threaten to
overturn the existing regime. A government journal warned in 1982
that "armies believe the power to bear arms is by proxy for the
masses and they thus create dictatorial classes which monopolize
the weapons and crush the masses with them." This was followed by
an extraordinary campaign unleashed against the military in 1983.
The ideological weekly of the revolutionary committees, Al Zahf
al Akhdar, branded officers as reactionaries, guilty of
corruption, smuggling, and smoking hashish. These fascists "must be
immediately removed," said the editor, because they "mock the
people and get drunk with the bourgeoisie." Although these views
could not have been published without official sanction, Qadhafi
refrained from associating himself fully with them. He said the
army was not corrupt and that the officers with a bourgeois
orientation were only remnants from the traditional royal army.
Although Al Zahf al Akhdar moderated its charges
following Qadhafi's intervention, its campaign, focusing on the
luxurious cars, dwellings, and working quarters of the officers,
was resumed in 1984. Assuming that Qadhafi could muzzle these
denunciations of the military if he chose, he may have failed to do
so because of suspicions of military disloyalty and a desire to
deflate the prestige of the military establishment as a potential
competing political force. Thus, in spite of his dependence on the
armed forces to execute his wide-ranging ambitions, Qadhafi may
feel constrained to seek some balance by giving freer rein to the
Revolutionary Committees and by strengthening the People's Militia.
The revolutionary committees introduced into workplaces and
communities were not at first extended to the military
(see The Revolutionary Committees
, ch. 4). When they were later imposed,
there were complaints that they were controlled by officers with
insufficient revolutionary zeal. After the early 1980s, however, a
paramilitary wing of the Revolutionary Committees, the
Revolutionary Guards, became entrenched within the armed forces.
They served as a parallel channel of control, a means of
ideological indoctrination in the barracks, and an apparatus for
monitoring suspicious behavior. The Revolutionary Guards reportedly
held the keys to ammunition stockpiles at the main military bases,
doling it out in small quantities as needed by the regular forces.
The influence of the Revolutionary Guards increased after a
coup attempt in May 1985
(see State of Internal Security
, this
ch.). The Guards, assisted by the Revolutionary Committees, set up
roadblocks and arrested thousands of individuals suspected of being
implicated. The Revolutionary Guards were believed to be no more
that 1,000 to 2,000 strong, but they were outfitted with light
tanks, armored cars and personnel carriers, multiple rocket
launchers, and SA-8 antiaircraft missiles. Most had been recruited
from Qadhafi's own tribal group in the Surt region.
The estimates published by ACDA give a figure of US$1.8 billion
in arms purchases in 1984. Accordingly, if the ACDA figure of
US$5.2 billion in total defense expenditures in 1984 is accepted,
true defense costs exclusive of new weapons acquisitions would
still be about US$3.4 billion or several times the officially
acknowledged rate of spending. This would include such items as pay
and benefits, military construction, fuel, maintenance, and the
cost of the Chadian campaign.
Data as of 1987
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