What Happened To Libya After Gaddafi Will HAUNT jj

By 2011, Muammar Gaddafi had ruled the huge North African country of Libya with an iron fist. That October, the Libyan dictator was found hiding in a drain pipe near his hometown of Sirte and beaten to death. The killing was captured on video for the world to see, to know that the hated dictatorship was over.

 For over 40 years, Gaddafi had crushed dissent, stolen much of the nation’s oil wealth, and created a personality cult [music] that became truly bizarre and included a cohort of well-trained [music] female bodyguards, a collection of big cats, and the habit of traveling to foreign countries with his personal and very luxurious nomadic Arab tent.

 As a matter of fact, in September 2009, a future US president and New York City real estate mogul invited the dictator to set up his large tent, along with those of his retinue, to avoid a diplomatic squabble when the sanctioned dictator arrived in New York City for a meeting of the United Nations.

 The New Bedford Town Council rejected Trump’s offer due to zoning laws, and Trump bragged for years about how he cheated Gaddafi out of millions. Sacha Baron Cohen’s depiction of a Middle Eastern ruler was a serious spoof on Gaddafi’s strange habits, including the tent complex, women guards, and leopards. Though he was often mocked internationally for his unusual habits and incredibly long, sometimes nonsensical speeches at the UN, Gaddafi was no clown.

 He was incredibly intelligent, [music] quite shrewd, as well as being a torturer and mass murderer. People who criticized or the regime, even in the smallest, most trivial way, could find themselves in prison, being tortured for weeks or months because an undercover secret policeman or woman overheard what they said. [music] Generations of Libyans grew up under the brother leader’s brutal rule.

 Many convinced, after years [music] of fear, that Gaddafi would stay in power until he died in one of his many palatial residences [music] or tents. Then, the Arab Spring happens. In 2011, protest movements began in Tunisia and spread into many countries in North Africa and the Middle [music] East. As the movement spread into neighboring and much stronger Egypt, Libyans too began to flow into the streets, calling for change.

 When Gaddafi turned his nose up at them and literally [music] insulted them, the Libyan people sort of unconsciously and rapidly [music] changed their mind. Gaddafi, who had been feared but hated for years, had to go, as in forever. Anti-Gaddafi groups overran [music] police and army bases, took weapons, and formed militias.

 For months, Gaddafi’s government and the militias [music] fought in the streets. Gaddafi began to talk about murdering everyone associated with the rebellions, including their families. That prompted UN intervention and the use of NATO fighters in support of the militias. On October 20th, 2011, [music] Gaddafi attempted to flee his hometown of Sirte in a convoy that was struck [music] from the air.

 He escaped into a concrete drainage pipe beneath a highway, but it was [music] only a temporary refuge. Rebel fighters discovered him hiding there. Videos recorded on mobile phones showed an aging dictator surrounded by an enraged [music] crowd. He was dragged, beaten, humiliated, and ultimately killed before he could ever [music] stand trial.

 Not only did most of the West, but the people in many Middle Eastern countries [music] rejoiced in Gaddafi’s death. He was erratic, brought unwanted attention to the region, and many people believed that his [music] death just might usher in an age of freedom to the Middle East and North Africa. Most of all, on October 21st, one day after Gaddafi’s death, [music] many Libyans thought a new golden age might just have arrived.

It looked that way for a few months, and then the militias began [music] forming. Gaddafi ruled through fear. No opposition was tolerated. There was no independent media unless you counted the underground press. In 1996, prisoners at the soon-to-be infamous Abu Salim prison rioted. Gaddafi ordered troops in, and 1,200 prisoners [music] were slaughtered.

And though Gaddafi was a murderous tyrant, his citizens enjoyed a higher standard of living than they ever had before, though it was mainly due to oil wealth. To be fair, while Gaddafi took a share of every oil sale, Libya benefited from the oil [music] money. Roads, schools, and hospitals were built, and housing and infrastructure projects were built.

 Women enjoyed more opportunities than they had ever had before, but all of this came with a price, political freedom. In the next few [music] years, many in Libya wouldn’t miss Gaddafi, but they would miss the order his regime brought. Because within two to three years of the colonel’s death, Libya would literally [music] be torn apart by civil war and anarchy.

One of the hard lessons of the 20th century is that what follows an authoritarian government is just as important as what [music] came before. Most times, unfortunately, regime change brings social collapse and violence. This was especially true in Libya, where all government institutions were intertwined with Gaddafi himself for over 40 years.

 While he was alive, things functioned well enough. There was food, water, basic education, and a chance for upward mobility. But, because of Gaddafi’s personalized rule, and he had specific rules for so many aspects of so many professions, it boggles the mind. Their entire existence and their smooth running was dependent on one man and the network around him.

 Once the system built by Gaddafi was overthrown, there was nothing to replace it. And within 2 years or so, the country had almost completely fallen apart. In the fight against Gaddafi, there was no unified rebel alliance, government, or force. In the American and Russian revolutions, for example, [music] the revolutionaries had planned for what came after, at least to [music] a degree.

 Like, at least knowing what type of government they wanted. In Libya, a huge but sparsely populated nation the size of Alaska, [music] and with a limited number of roads and a huge amount of sand, militias with much different agendas united to overthrow Gaddafi’s regime. When the war was over, each of them had their own ideas about what Libya should look like in the future. Some groups were democratic.

Others were Muslim fundamentalist. Some groups were run and manned by former army. Some groups were made up of citizens who just wanted some peace and running water. Within each of these groups, there were conservative, liberal, and militant branches. For a brief time, the people of Libya had been united, but with the problem of Gaddafi solved, they found dozens of other problems.

 Most of them one another. Instead of giving up their weapons after the war against [music] Gaddafi had ended, the militias kept them, believing they had a right to shape [music] the future of their country. Without weapons, that was highly unlikely, for mistrust was present during the fighting against Gaddafi.

 Some groups were against any central government at all, believing that locals could [music] best govern themselves. The problem was that in the over 40 years of the colonel’s rule, amazing amounts of weapons and ammunition of all kinds had flooded into the country. In the ’60s, [music] ’70s, and ’80s, the Soviet Union had sent Gaddafi warplanes >> [music] >> and the aircraft weapons of all kinds, artillery, armored vehicles, and millions of rounds of weapons.

 In July 1977, Egyptian President Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed a treaty [music] which would begin the normalization of relations between the two formerly bitter enemies. This was resented by Gaddafi, anti-Israel to the core, and he actually planned an invasion of his much more powerful neighbor.

Those weapons were never used, [music] and when Gaddafi was killed, those weapons went into the hands of the militias, as did the millions of rounds of ammunition, all without any kind of central control. [music] Entire cities became dominated by local armed groups. Sometimes even smaller cities had more than one or even more than two armed groups.

 Roads [music] and tolls were controlled by checkpoints and expensive, especially if there were women or girls in the vehicle. Kidnappings were commonplace. Assault and rape increased [music] exponentially. Assassinations were a regular thing. Courts, where they [music] existed, struggled to function in any meaningful way. There was no meaningful rule of law except what warlords or militias decided, and that could change [music] from day to day.

 By 2014, most of Libya was at war with each other. What’s more, the country became divided, literally. In the east was one administration [music] and in the west another. And within each territory, what passed for a government was often reliant on unpredictable alliances within [music] it. Making things more complicated and more lethal was the support that all sides began to receive from other countries.

Each wanting to either influence Libya itself or prevent other nations [music] from doing so. And of course, there was the oil. Egypt, the UAE, Turkey, Qatar, Russia, as well as groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, all attempted to control or influence events in Libya. All of them supplied weapons and some provided manpower.

 Libya is one of the places that the Russian Wagner Group appeared. With the involvement of so many outside actors, [music] things in Libya rapidly got out of hand. In the three years since the death of Gaddafi, Libya hadn’t become stable, [music] free, or independent. It had become a battle zone, and the civilians [music] of the country were the ones who had to pay the heaviest price.

Aside from the fighting, Libya and ordinary Libyans [music] watched as their hospitals, power plants, bridges, roads, and more were destroyed. Power outages were common. Businesses simply vanished, and no foreign investment [music] or meaningful humanitarian aid was getting into the country. By 2014, ISIS, [music] the Islamic State, had taken over large swaths of Syria and northern Iraq, and was setting [music] their sights on Libya, where the vacuum of power and the desperation of the people meant that ISIS recruiting

and numbers in the country [music] increased daily. Parts of Libya fell firmly into ISIS hands, and when they did, the same type of brutal and horrific crimes the group had committed in other parts of the Middle East started to become commonplace. And of course, ISIS members caught as much of their reign of terror on video in order to terrorize Libyans and the rest of the world.

On February 15th, 2015, 21 Coptic Christians, members of one of the oldest Christian sects in the world, were led onto a Libyan beach, hands bound behind their backs. Each man was escorted by an ISIS member. [music] Then, they were made to kneel in a row, and each was beheaded at the exact same time. Luckily for Libya, the killing of the Coptic Christians was the event that woke up the world.

 Even the more traditional fundamentalist movements were alarmed and shocked by ISIS, and combined with an international air coalition, put an end to ISIS in Libya by the end of the year. But, despite acting in relative concert with each other against ISIS, Libyan militias, which had grown into armies, could not defeat one another, and the war and the suffering went on.

Perhaps the worst and longest-lasting situation, and one that still continues to a degree today, is that of human smuggling. Between the breakdown in government function, a civil war, and the incredibly harsh climate of the country, many Libyans chose to leave. But even under Gaddafi, there were comparatively few roads, and there were incredible distances over some of the worst terrain and temperatures on Earth.

The year was 2015, when Libyans and millions of other people, mostly from Syria and Iraq, decided to risk everything and flee their homeland by making it across the Mediterranean to Europe somehow. And of course, for every refugee, there seemed to be someone ready to profit off of their misery, and civilians didn’t have guns to fight back.

Human beings of all ages became commodities, each one with a price. Sometimes they were simply kidnapped and held for ransom. In a truly horrific twist, kidnappers would often call the relatives of the people they were holding, and made to listen, or even watch on cell phones, as their relatives and friends were beaten, tortured by electrocution and other methods, and sometimes raped in front of their eyes and ears.

The screams continued until money was paid. [music] Sometimes people were released, sometimes they were held for more money, sometimes they were just shot after payment. People whose families didn’t, couldn’t, or wouldn’t pay were sent to camps for forced labor, traded to other groups for money, >> [music] >> and as you can imagine, were the victims of sexual violence.

 Immediately after the death of Gaddafi, Libyans spent days celebrating in the streets, believing the nightmare of his regime was over. Instead, a shorter but perhaps more vicious Libya followed in his place. Civil war, ISIS, rival governments, human trafficking, and more. And what’s worse, today, 15 years after Gaddafi’s death, human rights organizations and governments report arbitrary arrest, >> [music] >> torture, disappearances, and the widespread abuse of migrants in detention centers.

Today, many Libyans who remember Gaddafi’s rule say they would not choose to relive it. Yet, they also believe their country was [music] more stable before it fell apart. Today, it seems a long time before any Libyan without [music] a gun will enjoy any sort of prosperity or freedom.