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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Libya
Index
The group of junior officers who seized power in 1969 wanted to
introduce a radical form of Arab and Islamic socialism. The
Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) of Qadhafi and eleven other
officers assumed formal responsibility for drawing up general
policies. The initial civilian cabinet was frustrated by the RCC's
insistence on reviewing all of its decisions. After its
resignation, a new cabinet in January 1970 had Qadhafi as prime
minister, Major Abdul Salam Jallud as deputy prime minister, and
other RCC members in key ministerial positions.
Although the RCC always spoke with one voice and Qadhafi and
his associates generally succeeded in instilling a spirit of unity
and discipline among the military, there was internal dissent.
Differences came into the open in 1975 because of disagreement over
the priority being given to armament purchases over domestic social
needs in the use of oil revenues. As a result, the minister of
planning was dismissed, and others left their posts. By late 1975,
only five of the original twelve members were still serving on the
RCC.
Officially phased out in 1977, the RCC was succeeded by the
General Secretariat of the General People's Congress (GPC). At
first this new policy-setting body was little more than the RCC
under a new name. In the reorganization of 1979, however, when
Qadhafi relinquished his position as secretary general, Jallud was
replaced by a civilian as deputy secretary general and the other
three military members of the General Secretariat were likewise
replaced by civilians. They continued to serve as senior policy
advisers to Qadhafi, although their public role was curtailed. In
1987, the most senior positions of the military hierarchy were held
by members of the original RCC. Qadhafi retained the title of
supreme commander of the armed forces. General Abu Bakr Yunis Jabir
was commander in chief of the armed forces. Major Khuwayldi al
Hamidi was chief of the general staff and headed the People's
Militia or People's Army (formerly the Popular Resistance Force.)
Colonel (formerly General) Mustafa al Kharrubi was inspector
general of the armed forces and commandant of the navy and air
force. Major Jallud held no military position, but he headed the
revolutionary committees and was acknowledged to be Qadhafi's
second in command.
In the course of the post-coup reorganization of the military
into a single unified command, the RCC retired or fired--for
political reasons--the entire leadership of generals and colonels
along with a number of officers of lesser rank identified with the
Idris regime. Qadhafi and the other RCC members maintained that the
former military leaders had been involved extensively in various
forms of corruption, particularly in arms-procurement contracts. In
addition, the former high command had been largely in agreement
with the monarchy's position on such issues as the continued
presence of British and United States military bases on Libyan
territory and the country's rather limited involvement in the ArabIsraeli disputes.
The former military leadership was also believed to have
tolerated and in many instances to have profited personally from a
recruitment and promotion system that awarded high posts to
individual tribal leaders and members of influential families.
Senior officers were chosen not on the basis of military qualities
or experience, but rather because of personal loyalty or political
favors provided to King Idris or in recognition of their political
and religious conservatism. These factors, which had brought the
senior officers their initial commissions and subsequent
promotions, caused much of the low morale among junior officers and
contributed to the eventual overthrow of the monarchy.
Unlike the former military leaders, many of whom were from the
middle and upper classes, and by virtue of their social status
could just as easily have chosen higher education or the
bureaucracy as routes to advancement, most of the RCC officers were
from the lower strata of society. For them, the most logical source
of upward mobility under the monarchy had been the military. Of the
original RCC members, most of whom were in their mid-twenties at
the time of the 1969 uprising, approximately half were from tribal
or peasant backgrounds. They reflected the country's three
traditional geographic divisions, with roughly one-third coming
from each of the major regions--Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and
Fezzan.
In political outlook, the military leadership that rose to
power after 1969 has been described as both soldier-revolutionary
and ardent pan-Arabist. In published interviews, the senior
officers, particularly Qadhafi, recalled that their identification
with the goal of regional Arab unity and the adoption of a more
militant posture toward Israel dated from their secondary school
years, when their hero was Egypt's President Gamal Abdul Nasser.
The new military leaders frequently emphasized their passionate
commitment to the moral tenets of Islam and to their own concept of
Islamic socialism. Qadhafi and the other senior military figures
became the dominant influence group in the country, representing
both the modernizing and the traditional aspects of national life.
On the one hand, they have been committed to modernization,
reflected in their acquiring technical military equipment and
sophisticated weaponry and training personnel to operate and
maintain it. Commitment to modernization also was demonstrated by
their continuing emphasis on improving the literacy rate and on the
development of technical skills and training. On the other hand,
many of the top officers, including Qadhafi, have remained proud of
their desert backgrounds, their religious convictions, their social
relationships, and their traditional belief in the overall primacy
of Arab and Islamic attitudes and values. One important exception
to emphasis on traditional values has been Qadhafi's desire for a
role for women in the armed forces, a proposal that was rejected by
the normally obedient GPC.
Data as of 1987
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