Libya's conflict with Britain: Analysis of a diplomatic rupture

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Notes

1. Africa Contemporary Record 1973–74 (ACR, New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1974), p.B66, and note No.35.

2. For more details on Libya's modern historical background and the British context, see for example, Majid Khadduri, Modern Libya: A Study in Political Development (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1963); John Wright, Libya: A Modern History (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982); J.A. Allan, Libya Since Independence (London: Croom Helm, 1982) and George Joffé, ‘Libya and Europe’, Journal of North African Studies, Vol.6, No.4, Winter 2001, pp.75–92.

3. The expatriate opposition launched that year an especially annoying propaganda attack against the Qadhafi regime, using its two major mouthpieces, Sawt Libya (The Voice of Libya) and al-Inqadh (The Rescue) very effectively. Sawt Libya spearheaded the propaganda campaign of the Libyan National Democratic Movement (or Grouping, as it was sometimes referred to). Its members were mostly businessmen, lawyers, intellectuals and students, but it also claimed to have the backing of some army officers. Al-Inqadh was the voice of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, the most important expatriate opposition group in existence at that time. Sponsored by a hostile Sudan, it was established in 1981 by Muhammad Yusuf al-Muqarayif, formerly a lecturer at Benghazi University and an Ambassador to India.

4. For details on Libya's war in Chad, see for example, Benyamin Neuberger, Involvement, Invasion and Withdrawal: Qadhafi's Libya and Chad, 1969–1981 (Tel Aviv: Shiloach Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1982); René Lemarchand, ‘The Case of Chad’, The Green and the Black: Qadhafi's Policies in Africa (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988), pp.106–24; and John Wright, Libya, Chad and the Central Sahara (London: Hurst, 1989).

5. For the detailed chain of events, see the Observer, 4 Sept. 1983 and New African, London, Oct. 1983.

6. On 2 March 1977, Qadhafi declared the establishment of the ‘People's Power’ system, which included four points: Libya's official name was henceforth to be ‘The Arab Libyan People's Socialist State of the Masses (al-Jamahiriyya al-‘Arabiyya al-Libiyya al-Sha‘biyya al-Ishtirakiyya); the Quran was to be the code of society; direct ‘People's Power’ was to be based on popular democracy; and general military training was to be established, because the country's defence was the duty of all its citizens. This military service became compulsory in 1978, as a result of the accelerated build-up of Libya's armed forces in the wake of the military conflict with Egypt in July 1977.

7. Jamahiriyya International Report, Tripoli, 3 March 1984.

8. The Jamahiriyya Arab News Agency (JANA), 11 March 1984, Daily Report: ME and Africa (DR) and Radio Tripoli, 12 March – British Broadcasting Corporation, Summary of World Broadcasting: the Middle East and Africa (BBC), 14 March 1984.

9. Jamahiriyya International Report, 17 March 1984.

10. Africa Confidential, London, 30 Nov. 1983; Sawt Libya, 30 Nov. 1983; Al-Siyasa, Kuwait, 31 Jan. 1984 and Foreign Report, London, 25 April 1984, respectively.

11. Radio Omdurman (Sudan), 18 April 1984 (DR), quoting the spokesman of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya. The organization gave the men's names but did not state the specific charge against them. Usually, the official charges in such cases were couched in vague terms, such as engaging in ‘anti-revolutionary activity’ or being ‘enemies of the revolution’.

12. Guardian, 29 April 1984.

13. A statement by one of the demonstrators in an interview with the New York Times, 26 April 1984.

14. A statement released by Libya's Foreign Ministry, Radio Tripoli, 17 April – BBC, 18 April 1984.

15. Radio Tripoli, 22 April 1984 (DR).

16. Africa Confidential, 17 July, 4 Sept. 1985.

17. Radio Tripoli, 19 April 1984 (DR).

18. Daily Telegraph, 2 May 1984.

19. Qadhafi quoted by Agence France Presse (AFP), 2 May 1984 (DR).

20. Daily Telegraph, 5 May 1984.

21. JANA, 7 May – BBC, 9 May 1984.

22. AFP, 14 May 1984 (DR).

23. JANA, 8 and 9 May 1984 (DR); al-Zahf al-Akhdar, Tripoli, 14 May 1984; and Jamahiriyya Review, Tripoli, May–June 1984. For details on the 8 May 1984 attack, see Yehudit Ronen, ‘Libya’, in Haim Shaked and Daniel Dishon (eds), Middle East Contemporary Survey (MECS) 1983–84, Vol.VIII, pp.585–7.

24. Guardian, 31 Aug. 1984 and JANA, 31 Aug. – BBC, 3 Sept. 1984, respectively.

25. Radio Tripoli, 17 Feb. – BBC, 27 Feb. 1985.

26. See Washington Post, 3 Nov. 1985 and New York Times, 8 Jan. 1986 and 6 April 1986.

27. For example, al-Zahf al-Akhdar, Tripoli, 20 Oct. 1986. For a discussion of the various aspects of the air attack, see for example Frederick Zilian, Jr., ‘The U.S. Raid on Libya – and NATO’, Orbis, Autumn 1986, pp.499–519 and Yehudit Ronen, ‘Libya’, MECS 1986, Vol.X, 1988, pp.512–13.

28. JANA, 21 April 1986 (DR). For Britain's involvement, see Malcolm Spaven, ‘A Piece of the Action: The Use of US Bases in Britain’; and Jamie Dettmer, ‘Europe or America: The British Context’, in Mad Dogs: The US Raids on Libya, Mary Kaldor and Paul Anderson (eds) (London: Pluto Press, 1986), pp.16–34 and 35–40, respectively.

29. Financial Times, 19 April 1986 and JANA, 18 April 1986 (DR), respectively.

30. International Herald Tribune, Zurich and Paris, 25 April 1986.

31. Tripoli TV, 25 April 1986 (DR).

32. The British expulsion served as a certain reminder of Libya's expulsion of foreign nationals about a year earlier, due officially to Libya's need to deal with its badly damaged economy. But the expulsion carried an explicit political message, in that most of the deportees were nationals of countries with whom Libya was on bad terms, primarily Egypt and Tunisia.

33. For the British announcement, see the Guardian, 3 Oct. 1986; for the Libyan response, Radio Tripoli, 13 Oct. 1986 (DR).

34. Tripoli TV, 17 February – BBC, 19 Feb. 1987.

35. For statements of support, see for example Foreign Minister Ibrahim Bishari, JANA, 9 June 1991 (DR) and Qadhafi's two-part interview, Al-Ahram, Cairo, 6 and 7 Dec. 1991. For the alleged supply of arms, see Al-Sharq al-Awsat, London, 23 March 2001. Paul Anderson in Kaldor and Anderson, Mad Dogs, p.95, referred to a ‘ship loaded with Libyan arms, with Irish republican leader Joe Cahill on board, [which] was seized off the Irish coast’ in 1973. Anderson added that according to some views, ‘the Libyans themselves tipped off the British authorities as a move in their public relations war with Britain.’ In any case, he noted that ‘the extent of Libyan aid to the IRA since 1973 is unknown.’ During the 1970s and 1980s, Libya was believed to support a wide variety of radical movements throughout the world, referred to by Tripoli as liberation movements, including the Islamic Abu Sayaf movement in the Philippines, the Red Brigades in Italy, the Baader-Meinhof group in Germany and others.

36. The Economist, 14 June 1991 and JANA, 8 June 1991 (DR), respectively.

37. The Economist, 28 June 1991.

38. Jerusalem Post, quoting Associated Press (AP), New York, 19 June 1991 and JANA, 8 June 1991 (DR), respectively.

39. Radio Tripoli, 8 January 1992 (DR) and al-Da‘wa al-Islamiyya, Tripoli, 8 April 1992, respectively.

40. JANA, 19 March 1992 (DR) and Middle East Economic Digest, London, 27 March 1992, respectively.

41. In fact, this Resolution was the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 731, of 21 Jan. 1992. This article does not intend to survey the course and details of the Lockerbie dispute, but rather to refer to those aspects relevant to Libya's relations with Britain. For a broader discussion of the Lockerbie quandary, see for example Robert Waller, ‘The Lockerbie Endgame’, Journal of North African Studies, Vol.1, No.1, Summer 1996, pp.73–94; Tim Niblock, ‘Pariah States' & [sic] Sanctions in the Middle East: Iraq, Libya, Sudan (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001). Yehudit Ronen, ‘The Lockerbie Endgame: Qadhafi Slips the Noose’, Middle East Quarterly, Vol.IX, No.1, Winter 2002, pp.53–9; and Geoff Simons, Libya and the West (Oxford: Center for Libyan Studies, 2003), pp.141–64.

42. Independent Television (ITV, London), 23 Aug. 1993 (DR).

43. JANA, 3 Dec. 1993 (DR) and Tripoli TV, 16 Dec. 1993 (DR), respectively.

44. For a detailed analysis of militant Islam in Libya and its armed struggle against the regime, see Yehudit Ronen, ‘Qadhafi and Militant Islamism: Unprecedented Conflict’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.38, No.4, Oct. 2002, pp.1–16. For additional studies dealing with this issue, see for example D. Sammut, ‘Libya and the Islamic Challenge’, World Today, Vol.50, No.10, Oct. 1994, pp.198–200; M.K. Deeb, ‘Militant Islam and its Critics: The Case of Libya’, in J. Ruedy (ed.), Islamism and Secularism in North Africa (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994), pp.187–97.

45. Al-Hayat, London, 8 July 1999.

46. Zawi, Qadhafi's loyal and senior politician, was sacked from his post of Minister of Public Security and Justice in the course of a broader reshuffle of the General People's Committee (that is, the Libyan government) on 1 Oct. 2000. His removal came immediately after the bloody clashes that had erupted between African immigrant workers and Libyans in the town of Zawiyya, west of Tripoli, and in the capital itself. Qadhafi, although not blaming him for the riots, ousted Zawi in order to cool down stormy public sentiment and to curb further damage to Tripoli's African Unity scheme, which the Libyan leader was forcefully promoting at that time. For more details on Qadhafi's African Policy, see Yehudit Ronen, ‘Libya's Diplomatic Success in Africa: the Re-emergence of Qadhafi on the International Stage’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, Vol.13, No.4, Dec. 2002, pp.60–74.

47. The WMD affair, as well as other developments relevant to Libyan–British relations from 1999 onwards, are beyond the scope of this article and are therefore not discussed in detail. For a short explanation, however, see, e.g., Yehudit Ronen, ‘Qadhafi's Christmas Gift: What's Behind Libya's Decision to Renounce WMD?’, Tel Aviv Notes (Tel Aviv University), Mark A. Heller (ed.), 24 Dec. 2003.