Libyan Syrian Union

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Libya (green) and Syria (orange), between the capitals Tripoli and Damascus are 2150 kilometers

The state union of Libya with Syria , proposed by Muammar al-Gaddafi in September 1980, was one of the numerous Libyan-Arab unification projects and part of the all-Arab unity striving . The projected union was already considered to have failed in December 1980, but no later than August 1981.

prehistory

Gaddafi and Assad in Tripoli in 1977

As early as April 1971, Libya and Syria had formed a federation of Arab republics with Egypt , but just like the United Political Leadership of Egypt and Syria agreed in 1976, the Egyptian-Libyan-Syrian federation was the same with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat 's trip to Jerusalem in November 1977 finally broken apart. Gaddafi and Syria's President Hafiz al-Assad then dismissed the Federation's Presidential Council by decree on December 5, 1977, and initially relocated the seat of the Federation to Tripoli . There, in December 1977, Gaddafi invited Arab heads of state to form a front of steadfastness against the 1978 Egyptian-Israeli separate peace treaty of Camp David . Another aspect of this front formation staged by Libya was Gaddafi's efforts to obtain military protection from an Egyptian invasion. The brief Egyptian-Libyan border war of July 1977 had already revealed the hopeless inferiority of the small Libyan army compared to the ten times larger forces of Egypt ; In 1980 new fighting loomed on the Libyan-Egyptian border. In addition, in 1980 the USA and France tried to overthrow the Libyan regime. Gaddafi hoped that the other "countries of steadfastness" would send troops to protect his regime if necessary and thus keep Libya's back free during its intervention in the Chad civil war .

After the loss of its military ally Egypt, Syria initially looked for a replacement in Iraq , which had signed a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union. Also under the pressure of the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in April 1978, a Syrian-Iraqi reconciliation was temporarily achieved on October 26, 1978 and even a unification of the two Baathist states was decided. But after Saddam Hussein came to power , Iraq terminated the union in July 1979. A first uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iraqi-Iranian war that began in July 1980 made the military situation in isolated Syria even worse. In hasty siding with Iran , Syria had “lent” numerous Syrian fighter jets to the Iranian Air Force (which had been cut off from supplies and spare parts from the US) , and over 1,000 Syrian tanks had hit the borders with Iraq and Jordan . The Soviet Union then suspended the delivery of further war material until the Syrian debts were settled. So, fearing a two-front war, Syria turned back to Libya.

Organic Union

Libya's revolutionary leader Muammar al-Gaddafi (1977)
Syria's President
Hafiz al-Assad (1977)

On September 1, 1980, on the 11th anniversary of the Libyan revolution, Gaddafi proposed to Assad that Libya and Syria be merged into a single socialist state. Assad agreed to the proposal and a corresponding 13-point agreement was signed on September 10, which provided for an "organic union" or a complete merger of the two states. Within just a month, the leadership of Libya and Syria should meet again to present a concrete plan and to take the first steps. A new government and a "Revolutionary Congress" should be formed and the unification process completed within just one year.

The unified Libyan-Syrian state should also be open to all other "progressive" states that were ready to confront Israel and the regimes allied with the USA, and thus become the core of an all-Arab union . Gaddafi promised that he would fight as a Fida'i (partisan) in Galilee ( Palestine ) should the union fail.

The Libyan revolutionary leader immediately paid off Syrian debts of 1 billion US dollars to the Soviet Union and made another 800 million available to Syria. The role of the Soviet Union behind this diplomacy remained unclear, but after the Union was announced, the Soviet Union signed a friendship treaty with Syria in October 1980.

Instead of a month later, the Libyan and Syrian leaders did not meet again until December. At a Libyan-Syrian summit from December 15 to 17, 1980 in Benghazi , cuts were made to the schedule for unification, with the result that the project had effectively failed. Gaddafi and Assad only decided to set up a Supreme Committee or a commission, which should first work out a common constitutional framework.

Questions such as a common head of state, a common capital and the form of a common government or common state organs remained unanswered. In March 1981, Assad declared that the two governments were still looking for the appropriate formula to achieve the greatest possible popular support for the unification project. While Gaddafi was pushing for full union, Assad only wanted a loose federation. The differences between Syria and Libya made a merger fundamentally difficult. Unlike in 1971, the establishment of the Libyan Jamahiriya was already advanced in 1981. Despite a common “socialist orientation”, this form of government was hardly compatible with the military-bureaucratic official state of Syria, and Assad was not prepared to dissolve the Syrian Baath Party or the National Progressive Front . No progress had been made by the end of the agreed one-year period. During a visit to Damascus in August 1981, Gaddafi therefore blamed bureaucrats, regionalists and divisors for the failure of the association.

criticism

Anwar Sadat scoffed at the "Union of Children"
For Tariq Aziz , the Union was more appearance than reality

Criticism came primarily from Libya and Syria's previous federation partners Egypt and Iraq. While Sadat mocked the planned merger as the "Union of Children" after he had previously insulted Gaddafi and Assad as "dwarfs", Iraq's Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz described the union as "a unit in which appearances outweigh reality". Above all, Aziz questioned the benefits of a Libyan-Syrian union and in 1981 pointed to the low military and geostrategic value of the planned merger. As the wars of 1967 and 1973 taught, in the event of a war against Israel, the weak Syria needed a strong hinterland, which of course could only be Iraq, but not the distant and militarily weaker Libya.

“ The area of ​​Libya plays no role in the Arab-Zionist conflict, only if Libya is used as a strategic depth for Egypt. But Egypt, mind you, has a large area of ​​land and does not need this depth in its fight against the Zionist enemy. This is very different from, for example, Syrian-Iraqi relations. Due to the small population and the low level of [...] the technological development of Libya, it is hardly in a position to establish a military force that can be of decisive importance [...]. "

- Tariq Aziz : The Iraqi-Iranian Conflict, p. 57

Only Libya's rich financial opportunities are useful, but Gaddafi hardly uses them. Aziz also recalled Gaddafi's failed promise to

" [...] either to form a unit with Syria [...] or to go to Galilee as a militant [...] Gaddafi said these beautiful words last September. We are now in February 1981. More than five months have passed after Gaddafi's beautiful words, but Gaddafi has not yet gone to Galilee. "

- Tariq Aziz : The Iraqi-Iranian Conflict, p. 58

aftermath

Given the confrontation between Libya and the US fleet in the Gulf of Sirte in August 1981 told Assad although again its solidarity with Libya, and Gaddafi was negotiating in Syria is still on the Union, but the military was Libya in this conflict and the civil war in Chad as well just like Syria with the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights in December 1981 or the uprising of the Muslim Brothers in Hama and the 1982 Lebanon War .

Nevertheless, on October 3, 1984, a preparatory committee for the Libyan-Syrian Supreme Political Committee (agreed in December 1980) met for the first time , and on May 20, 1985 the Supreme Political Committee finally met for a (first and last) joint session. Some agreements on economic and cultural cooperation were concluded, and on July 7, 1985 a military cooperation agreement was added. At that time, however, Libya was already a member of another union, the Arab-African Federation with Morocco. This federation also ended again in 1986: After Morocco's King Hassan II received the then Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres for (unsuccessful) talks in Morocco on July 22, 1986 , Gaddafi and Assad condemned Assad during a visit by the Syrian President to Tripoli on August 24, 1986 the Moroccan-Israeli meeting sharp. Hassan then resigned the federation by telegram on August 28, 1986, and on August 31 Gaddafi reaffirmed his wish to form a union with Syria instead.

Since then, Syria has not participated in any other unification projects. In contrast to most of the other union projects with Libya's neighboring states, the failure of the Libyan-Syrian project did not lead to a deterioration in relations between Libya and Syria - not even during the Kuwait War of 1990/91, when Syria joined the anti-Iraq coalition, but Libya did took a pro-Iraqi stance.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e f g Robin Leonard Bidwell : Dictionary of Modern Arab History , pp. 251f ("Libyan-Syrian Union") . Routledge, New York 1998
  2. ^ A b c d e f Ronald Bruce St. John: Historical Dictionary of Libya , page 203 ("Libya-Syria Union") . Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham 2014
  3. ↑ Johannes Berger, Friedemann Büttner, Bertold Spuler: Middle East PLOETZ - History of the Arab-Islamic World to Look Up, pp. 78–82. Publishing house Ploetz Freiburg / Würzburg 1987
  4. ↑ Adel Elias, Bernhard Müller-Hülsebusch: Spiegel conversation: "Then I turn off the oil tap." The Libyan head of state Muammar el-Gaddafi on his independent course . In: Der Spiegel . No. 30 , 1980, pp. 92-99 ( online - 21 July 1980 ).
  5. ↑ a b Martin Stäheli: The Syrian Foreign Policy under President Hafez Assad. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, page 172f .
  6. ↑ The time 39/80 of 19 September 1980: A New Union
  7. ↑ a b Munzinger Archive / IH-Zeitarchiv Libya 36/83, page 6
  8. ↑ Gustav Fochler-Hauke (Ed.): Der Fischer Weltalmanach '81 , page 930 (Libya / Syria). Fischer, Frankfurt (Main) 1980
  9. ^ Günter Kettermann: Atlas for the History of Islam , page 165f. Primus Verlag, Darmstadt 2001
  10. ↑ Munzinger Archive / IH-Zeitarchiv Syrien 8/83, page 5
  11. ↑ Gustav Fochler-Hauke (ed.): Der Fischer Weltalmanach '82 , page 187 (Syria). Fischer, Frankfurt (Main) 1981
  12. ↑ Gustav Fochler-Hauke (ed.): Der Fischer Weltalmanach '82 , page 166 (Libya). Fischer, Frankfurt (Main) 1981
  13. ^ Robin Leonard Bidwell : Dictionary of Modern Arab History , p. 363 ("Sadat, Anwar"). Routledge, New York 1998
  14. ^ Tariq Aziz : The Iraqi-Iranian Conflict - Questions and Discussions. Dar Al-Ma'mun, Baghdad April 1981, pp. 56ff.
  15. ^ Munzinger Archive / IH-Zeitarchiv, Syrien 43/85, page 5
  16. ↑ Munzinger Archive / IH-Zeitarchiv, Syrien 53/87, page 7
  17. ^ Munzinger Archive / IH-Zeitarchiv, Libya 20/86, page 10
  18. ↑ The guest of the king is Allah's guest . In: Der Spiegel . No. 31 , 1986, pp. 84-88 ( online - 28 July 1986 ).
  19. ^ Munzinger Archive / IH-Zeitarchiv, Libya 12–13 / 88, Chronicle 1986
  20. ↑ Munzinger-Archiv / IH-Zeitarchiv, Syrien 53/87, page 12