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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Libya
Index
Appearance of revolutionary committees in late 1977 marked a
further evolution of the political system. In response to Qadhafi's
promptings, revolutionary committees sprang up in offices, schools,
businesses, and in the armed forces. Carefully selected, they were
estimated at 3,000 to 4,000 members in 1985. These supposedly
spontaneous groups, made up of zealous, mostly youthful individuals
with modest education, functioned as the watchdogs of the regime
and guides for the people's committees and popular congresses. As
such, their role was to raise popular awareness, to prevent
deviation from officially sanctioned ideology, and to combat
tribalism, regionalism, self-doubt, apathy, reactionaries, foreign
ideologies, and counterrevolutionaries. The formation of the
revolutionary committees was a consequence of Qadhafi's impatience
with the progress of the revolution, his obsession with achieving
direct popular democracy, and his antipathy toward bureaucracy.
The introduction of the revolutionary committees added still
another layer to the political system, thus increasing its
complexity. The revolutionary committees sent delegates to the GPC.
Under Qadhafi's direct command and with his backing, they became so
powerful that they frequently intimidated other GPC delegates.
Reports of their heavy-handedness and extremism abound. In the
1980s, the "corruption trials" in revolutionary courts in which a
defendant had no legal counsel and no right of appeal were widely
criticized both at home and abroad
(see Law and the Judiciary
, this
ch.). The infamous "hit squads," composed of elements of the
revolutionary committees, pursued Qadhafi's opponents overseas,
assassinating a number of them. Violent clashes occurred between
revolutionary committees and the officially recognized or
legitimate people's groups and the armed forces. It became clear by
the mid-1980s that the revolutionary committees had frequently
stifled freedom of expression. Regardless of Qadhafi's intentions,
they had clearly "undermined any meaningful popular participation
in the political process," as Lillian Craig Harris, an authority on
Libya, observed.
Data as of 1987
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