Foreign relations of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

Libya's foreign policies have undergone much fluctuation and change since the state declared its independence from Italy on December 24, 1951. In the Muammar al-Gaddafi era, it has been marked by severe tension with the West (especially the United States, although relations were normalized in the early 21st century) and by Gaddafi's activist policies in the Middle East and Africa, including his financial and military support for numerous paramilitary and rebel groups.

The Libyan Kingdom

As a kingdom, Libya maintained a definitively pro-Western stance, yet was recognized as belonging to the conservative traditionalist bloc in the League of Arab States, of which it became a member in 1953.

The government was in close alliance with the United States and United Kingdom; both countries maintained military base rights in Libya. The U.S. supported the United Nations resolution providing for Libyan independence in 1951 and raised the status of its office at Tripoli from a consulate general to a legation. Libya opened a legation in Washington, D.C., in 1954. Both countries subsequently raised their missions to embassy level. Libya also forged close ties with France, Italy, Greece, and Turkey, and established full diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1955.

Although the government supported Arab causes, including the Moroccan and Algerian independence movements, it took little active part in the Arab-Israeli conflict or the tumultuous inter-Arab politics of the 1950s and early 1960s. The kingdom was noted for its close association with the West, while it steered an essentially conservative course at home.

The Gaddafi Era

Since 1969, Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi has determined Libya's foreign policy. His principal foreign policy goals have been Arab unity, elimination of Israel, advancement of Islam, support for Palestinians, elimination of outside -- particularly Western -- influence in the Middle East and Africa, and support for a range of "revolutionary" causes.

After the 1969 coup, U.S.-Libyan relations became increasingly strained because of Libya's foreign policies supporting international terrorism and subversion against moderate Arab and African governments. Gaddafi closed American and British bases on Libyan territory and partially nationalized all foreign oil and commercial interests in Libya.

1970s

Export controls on military equipment and civil aircraft were imposed during the 1970s.

In 1972, the United States withdrew its ambassador.

Gaddafi played a key role in promoting the use of oil embargoes as a political weapon for challenging the West, hoping that an oil price rise and embargo in 1973 would persuade the West--especially the United States--to end support for Israel. Gaddafi rejected both Soviet communism and Western capitalism and claimed he was charting a middle course for his government.

In October 1978, Gaddafi sent Libyan troops to aid Idi Amin in the Uganda-Tanzania War when Amin tried to annex the northern Tanzanian province of Kagera, and Tanzania counterattacked. Amin lost the battle and later fled to exile in Libya, where he remained for almost a year.

Libya also was one of the main supporters of the Polisario Front in the former Spanish Sahara - a nationalist group dedicated to ending Spanish colonialism in the region. The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) was proclaimed by Polisario on February 28, 1976, and Libya began to recognize the SADR as the legitimate government of Western Sahara starting April 15, 1980. It is still common for Sahrawi students to attend their schooling in Libya.

U.S. embassy staff members were withdrawn from Tripoli after a mob attacked and set fire to the embassy in December 1979. The U.S. government declared Libya a "state sponsor of terrorism" on December 29, 1979.

1980s

In May 1981, the U.S. government closed the Libyan "people's bureau" (embassy) in Washington, D.C. and expelled the Libyan staff in response their conduct generally violating internationally accepted standards of diplomatic behavior.

In August 1981, in the first incident of the Gulf of Sidra, two Libyan jets fired on U.S. aircraft participating in a routine naval exercise over international waters of the Mediterranean Sea claimed by Libya. The U.S. planes returned fire and shot down the attacking Libyan aircraft. On December 11, 1981, the State Department invalidated U.S. passports for travel to Libya (a de facto travel ban) and, for purposes of safety, advised all U.S. citizens in Libya to leave. In March 1982, the U.S. government prohibited imports of Libyan crude oil into the United States and expanded the controls on U.S.-origin goods intended for export to Libya. Licenses were required for all transactions, except food and medicine. In March 1984, U.S. export controls were expanded to prohibit future exports to the Ras al-Enf petrochemical complex. In April 1985, all Export-Import Bank financing was prohibited.

The United States adopted additional economic sanctions against Libya in January 1986, including a total ban on direct import and export trade, commercial contracts, and travel-related activities. In addition, Libyan government assets in the United States were frozen.

Libyan complicity was discovered in the 1986 Berlin discotheque terrorist bombing that killed two American servicemen. The United States responded by launching an aerial bombing attack against targets near Tripoli and Benghazi in April of that year.

In 1988, Libya was found to be in the process of constructing a chemical weapons plant at Rabta, a plant which is now the largest such facility in the Third World. As of January 2002, Libya was constructing another chemical weapons production facility at Tarhunah. Citing Libya's support for terrorism and its past regional aggressions the United States voiced concern over this development. In cooperation with like-minded countries, the United States has since sought to bring a halt to the foreign technical assistance deemed essential to the completion of this facility.

Libya's relationship with the former Soviet Union involved massive Libyan arms purchases from the Soviet bloc and the presence of thousands of east bloc advisers. Libya's use--and heavy loss--of Soviet-supplied weaponry in its war with Chad was a notable breach of an apparent Soviet-Libyan understanding not to use the weapons for activities inconsistent with Soviet objectives. As a result, Soviet-Libyan relations reached a nadir in mid-1987.

In January 1989, there was another encounter over the Gulf of Sidra between U.S. and Libyan aircraft which resulted in the downing of two Libyan jets.

Lockerbie disaster

In 1991 two Libyan intelligence agents were charged with the bombing in December 1988 of Pan Am Flight 103. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah were tried by prosecutors in the U.S. and Scotland. Six other Libyans were put on trial in their absence by a Paris court for the 1989 bombing of UTA Flight 772. They were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The UN Security Council passed a resolution asking Libya to surrender the suspects, cooperate with the Pan Am 103 and UTA 772 investigations, pay compensation to the victims' families and cease all support for terrorism. Libya's refusal to comply led to the approval of UNSC Resolution 748 on March 31 1992, which imposed sanctions designed to bring about Libyan compliance. The UN imposed further sanctions with UNSC Resolution 883, a limited assets freeze and an embargo on selected oil equipment, in November 1993.

The Libyan Government refused to comply until 1999, when it surrendered two Libyans suspected of involvement in the Pan Am 103 bombing for trial, leading to the suspension of UN sanctions. On January 31, 2001, a Scottish court seated in the Netherlands found one of the suspects, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, guilty of murder in connection with the bombing, and acquitted the second suspect, Al-Amin Kalifa Fhima. Megrahi has appealed his conviction; the appeal began on January 23, 2002.

Full lifting of UN sanctions is contingent on Libyan compliance with its remaining UNSCR requirements on Pan Am 103, including acceptance of responsibility for the actions of its officials and payment of appropriate compensation. The United States has continued to call on Libya to comply with its remaining requirements, including acceptance of responsibility for the actions of its officials and payment of appropriate compensation.

1990s

There have been no credible reports of Libyan involvement in terrorism since 1994, and Libya has taken significant steps to mend its international image.

In 1996, the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) was enacted, seeking to penalize non-U.S. companies which invest more than $40 million in Libya's oil and gas sector in any one year. ILSA was renewed in 2001, and the investment cap lowered to $20 million.

After the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, Libya concentrated on expanding diplomatic ties with Third World countries and increasing its commercial links with Europe and East Asia. Following the imposition of United Nations sanctions in 1992, these ties significantly diminished. Following a 1998 Arab League meeting in which fellow Arab states decided not to challenge UN sanctions, Qadhafi announced that he was turning his back on pan-Arab ideas, one of the fundamental tenets of his philosophy.

Instead, Libya pursued closer bilateral ties, particularly with Egypt and Northwest African nations Tunisia and Morocco. It also has sought to develop its relations with Sub-Saharan Africa, leading to Libyan involvement in several internal African disputes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Central African Republic, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. Libya also has sought to expand its influence in Africa through financial assistance, ranging from aid donations to impoverished neighbors such as Niger to oil subsidies to Zimbabwe. Qadhafi has proposed a borderless "United States of Africa" to transform the continent into a single nation-state ruled by a single government. This plan has been moderately well received, although more powerful would-be participants such as Nigeria and South Africa are skeptical.

Libya paid compensation in 1999 for the death of British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher, a move that preceded the reopening of the British Embassy in Tripoli, and paid damages to the families of the victims in the bombing of UTA Flight UT-772.

Détente

In 2003 Libya began to make policy changes with the open intention of pursuing a Western-Libyan détente. The Libyan government announced its decision to abandon its weapons of mass destruction programmes and pay almost 3 billion US dollars in compensation to the families of Pan Am flight 103 as well as UTA flight 772.

Since 2003 the country has restored normal diplomatic ties with the European Union and the United States and has even coined the catchphrase, 'The Libya Model', an example intended to show the world what can be achieved through negotiation rather than force when there is goodwill on both sides.

In early 2004, the US State Department ended its ban on US citizens using their passports for travel to Libya or spending money there. US citizens began legally heading back to Libya (some US travellers went to Libya illegally through third countries during the travel ban) for the first time since 1981.

On May 15, 2006, David Welch, US Assistant Secretary of State announced that the US had decided to, after a 45 day comment period, renew full diplomatic relations with Libya and remove Libya from the US list of countries that foster terrorism. During this announcement, it was also said that the US has the intention of upgrading the US liaison office in Tripoli into an embassy. The US Embassy in Tripoli opened in May. This has been product of a gradual normalization of international relations since Libya accepted responsibility for the Pan Am 103 bombing. Libya's dismantling of its weapons of mass destruction was a major step towards this announcement, and it is seen as an incentive for Iran to do likewise. Relations with Bulgaria has been troublesome after a group of Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor been accused of infecting Libyan children with HIV when they worked at a Libyan hospital, the nurses where sentenced to death in a Libyan court. Since Bulgaria joined EU in 2007 negiotations has started to free the nurses.

Conflict with Chad

• main article: Libya-Chad conflict

Aouzou strip (blue)

Libya long claimed the Aozou Strip, a strip of land in northern Chad rich with uranium deposits, and was also intensely involved in Chad's civil war in the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1973, Libya engaged in military operations in the Aozou Strip to gain access to minerals and to use it as a base of influence in Chadian politics. Libya argued that the territory was inhabited by indigenous people who owed allegiance to the Senoussi Order and subsequently to the Ottoman Empire, and that this title had been inherited by Libya. It also supported its claim with an unratified 1935 treaty between France and Italy, the colonial powers of Chad and Libya, respectively. After consolidating its hold on the strip, Libya annexed it in 1976.

Chadian forces were able to force the Libyans to retreat from the Aozou Strip in 1987. A cease-fire between Chad and Libya held from 1987 to 1988, followed by unsuccessful negotiations over the next several years, leading finally to the 1994 International Court of Justice decision granting Chad sovereignty over the Aozou strip, which ended Libyan occupation.

Border disputes

Libya claims about 19,400 km² in northern Niger and part of southeastern Algeria. In addition, it is involved in a maritime boundary dispute with Tunisia.

International incidents

Benghazi hospital affair

Main article: HIV trial in Libya

In the late 1990s a Benghazi children's hospital was the site of an outbreak of HIV infection that spread to over 400 patients. Libya blamed the outbreak on five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, who were arrested and eventually sentenced to death (eventually overturned and a new trial ordered). The international view is that Libya has used the medics as scapegoats for poor hygiene conditions, and Bulgaria and other countries including the European Union and the United States have repeatedly called on Tripoli to release them. The case remains unresolved, and is the source of increasing tensions with Bulgaria, as well as an obstacle to continuing the process of improved relations with the West - a new trial began May 11, 2006 in Tripoli. On December 6, a study was released showing that some children had been infected before the six arrived in Libya, but it was too late for inclusion as evidence (in any event, the Libyan court had already rejected non-Libyan scientific studies). On December 19, 2006 the six were again convicted and sentenced to death. Their final appeal will be before the Libyan supreme court and possibly the high judicial council.

La Belle disco bombing

On November 13, 2001, a German court found four persons, including a former employee of the Libyan Embassy in East Berlin, guilty in connection with the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing (see above), in which 229 people were injured and two U.S. servicemen were killed. The court also established a connection to the Libyan Government. The German Government has demanded that Libya accept responsibility for the La Belle bombing and pay appropriate compensation.

Support for rebel and paramilitary groups

The government of Libya has also received enormous criticism and trade restrictions for allegedly providing numerous armed rebel groups with weapons, explosives and combat training. The ideologies of some of these organizations have varied greatly, even confusing outsiders at times. However most seem to be Nationalist, with some having a socialist ideology; while others hold a more conservative and fundamentalist Muslim ideology.

Paramilitaries supported by Libya past and present include;

• The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) (describing themselves in Irish as Óglaigh na hÉireann) of Northern Ireland, a group that fought a 29 year long war for a United Ireland. See Provisional IRA arms importation for details. Note that many of the break away Irish Republican groups which oppose the Good Friday Agreement (the Continuity Irish Republican Army and the Real Irish Republican Army) are believed to be in possession of a significant amount of the Libyan ammunition and semtex explosives delivered to the IRA during the 1970s and 1980s.
• The Palestine Liberation Organization of the Israeli occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip received of support from Libya, as well as many other Arab states.
• The Moro National Liberation Front was a rightwing Islamic fundamentalist rebel army which fought in the Philippines against the military dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos
• Umkhonto we Sizwe - Xhosa, for the "spear of the nation" was originally the military wing of the African National Congress (a multi racial, center-left political party) which fought against the white minority led Apartheid regime in South Africa. During the years of MK's underground struggle the group was supported by Libya.
• ETA - Basque Fatherland and Liberty, a leftwing nationalist paramilitary fighting for the independence of the Basques from Spain with ties to the Provisional Irish Republican Army also received training support from Libya in the 1960s and mid-'70s .
• Libya was also was one the main supporters of the Polisario Front in the former Spanish Sahara - a nationalist group dedicated to ending Spanish colonialism in the region, and from 1975, to combatting the Moroccan occupation of what is now known as Western Sahara. The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) was proclaimed by Polisario on February 28, 1976, and Libya began to recognize the SADR as the legitimate government of Western Sahara starting April 15, 1980. While monetary and military Libyan support for the Sahrawi cause dwindled in the mid-1980s, after a rapprochement with Morocco, the enemy of Polisario, some Sahrawi refugee students are still able to apply for higher education in Libya.

Notes

See also

• Iran-Arab Relations (Libya)

External links

• United States Embassy in Tripoli