HISTORY
For most of their history, the peoples of Libya have been subjected to varying degrees of foreign control. The Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Vandals, and Byzantines ruled all or parts of Libya. Although the Greeks and Romans left impressive ruins at Cyrene, Leptis Magna, and Sabratha, little else remains today to testify to the presence of these ancient cultures.
The Arabs conquered Libya
in the seventh century A.D. In the following centuries, most of
the indigenous peoples adopted Islam and the Arabic language and
culture. The Ottoman Turks conquered the country in the mid-16th
century. Libya remained part of their empire--although at times
virtually autonomous--until Italy invaded in 1911 and, in the
face of years of resistance, made Libya a colony.
In 1934, Italy adopted the
name "Libya" (used by the Greeks for all of North Africa, except
Egypt) as the official name of the colony, which consisted of
the Provinces of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Fezzan. King Idris
I, Emir of Cyrenaica, led Libyan resistance to Italian occupation
between the two World Wars. From 1943 to 1951, Tripolitania and
Cyrenaica were under British administration, while the French
controlled Fezzan. In 1944, Idris returned from exile in Cairo
but declined to resume permanent residence in Cyrenaica until
the removal in 1947 of some aspects of foreign control. Under
the terms of the 1947 peace treaty with the Allies, Italy relinquished
all claims to Libya.
On November 21, 1949, the
UN General Assembly passed a resolution stating that Libya should
become independent before January 1, 1952. King Idris I represented
Libya in the subsequent UN negotiations. When Libya declared its
independence on December 24, 1951, it was the first country to
achieve independence through the United Nations and one of the
first former European possessions in Africa to gain independence.
Libya was proclaimed a constitutional and a hereditary monarchy
under King Idris.
The discovery of significant
oil reserves in 1959 and the subsequent income from petroleum
sales enabled what had been one of the world's poorest countries
to become extremely wealthy, as measured by per capita GDP. Although
oil drastically improved Libya's finances, popular resentment
grew as wealth was increasingly concentrated in the hands of the
elite. This discontent continued to mount with the rise throughout
the Arab world of Nasserism and the idea of Arab unity.
On September 1, 1969, a small
group of military officers led by then 28-year-old army officer
Mu'ammar Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi staged a coup d'etat against King
Idris, who was exiled to Egypt. The new regime, headed by the
Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), abolished the monarchy and
proclaimed the new Libyan Arab Republic. Qadhafi emerged as leader
of the RCC and eventually as de facto chief of state, a political
role he still plays. The Libyan Government asserts that Qadhafi
currently holds no official position, although he is referred
to in government statements and the official press as the "Brother
Leader and Guide of the Revolution."
The new RCC's motto became
"freedom, socialism, and unity." It pledged itself to remedy "backwardness",
take an active role in the Palestinian Arab cause, promote Arab
unity, and encourage domestic policies based on social justice,
nonexploitation, and an equitable distribution of wealth.
An early objective of the
new government was withdrawal of all foreign military installations
from Libya. Following negotiations, British military installations
at Tobruk and nearby El Adem were closed in March 1970, and U.S.
facilities at Wheelus Air Force Base near Tripoli were closed
in June 1970. That July, the Libyan Government ordered the expulsion
of several thousand Italian residents. By 1971, libraries and
cultural centers operated by foreign governments were ordered
closed.
In the 1970s, Libya claimed
leadership of Arab and African revolutionary forces and sought
active roles in international organizations. Late in the 1970s,
Libyan embassies were redesignated as "people's bureaus," as Qadhafi
sought to portray Libyan foreign policy as an expression of the
popular will. The people's bureaus, aided by Libyan religious,
political, educational, and business institutions overseas, exported
Qadhafi's revolutionary philosophy abroad.
Qadhafi's confrontational
foreign policies and use of terrorism, as well as Libya's growing
friendship with the U.S.S.R., led to increased tensions with the
West in the 1980s. Following a terrorist bombing at a discotheque
in West Berlin frequented by American military personnel, in 1986
the U.S. retaliated militarily against targets in Libya, and imposed
broad unilateral economic sanctions.
After Libya was implicated
in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland,
UN sanctions were imposed in 1992. UN Security Council resolutions
(UNSCRs) passed in 1992 and 1993 obliged Libya to fulfill requirements
related to the Pan Am 103 bombing before sanctions could be lifted.
Qadhafi initially refused to comply with these requirements, leading
to Libya's political and economic isolation for most of the 1990s.
In 1999, Libya fulfilled one of the UNSCR requirements by surrendering two Libyans suspected in connection with the bombing for trial before a Scottish court in the Netherlands. One of these suspects, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, was found guilty; the other was acquitted. Al-Megrahi's conviction was upheld on appeal in 2002. In August 2003, Libya fulfilled the remaining UNSCR requirements, including acceptance of responsibility for the actions of its officials and payment of appropriate compensation to the victims' families. UN sanctions were lifted on September 12, 2003. U.S. International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)-based sanctions were lifted September 20, 2004.
On December 19, 2003, Libya publicly announced its intention to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR)-class missile programs. Since that time, it has cooperated with the U.S., the U.K., the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons toward these objectives. Libya has also signed the IAEA Additional Protocol and has become a State Party to the Chemical Weapons Convention. These were important steps toward full diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Libya.
