What happened to the children of Muammar Gaddafi. Gaddafi Muammar. Biography What is Gaddafi's name?

Muammar Gaddafi has ruled Libya for more than 40 years. He is now cracking down on the opposition while anti-government protesters continue to demand his resignation.

Muammar Gaddafi has ruled Libya for more than 40 years. He is now cracking down on the opposition while anti-government protesters continue to demand his resignation.

This 1970 photo shows Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi in uniform. He has ruled the country since he came to power in a bloodless coup in 1969.

COLONEL GADDAFI - THE FURIOUS SON OF A BEDOUIN

The name of Muammar Gaddafi did not leave the pages of Libyan newspapers and magazines. It was an integral part of feature films and theatrical productions.

When foreign journalists asked the Bedouin colonel how he felt about the actual deification of his person, he modestly replied:

- What can I do?! My people insist on this...

The Libyan leader was disingenuous. He loved to show off, and was constantly concerned about how he looked from the outside. When the Yugoslavs made a short film about him, it took an hour and a half just to choose the most successful shooting angle.

Muammar Gaddafi, head of the Libyan revolutionary command, addresses the crowd at the stadium in Benghaj, Libya, 1970. The appeal is timed to coincide with the withdrawal of US troops from Libya.

FROM THE TENT TO THE TOP OF POWER

His full name is Muammar bin Muhammad Abu Menyar Abdel Salam bin Hamid al-Gaddafi. The exact date of birth continues to remain a mystery. Many of his biographers claim that the ex-leader of Libya was born in 1940. Gaddafi himself wrote everywhere that he was born in the spring of 1942 in a Bedouin tent 30 kilometers south of the city of Sirte.

His father, a native of the al-Qaddafa tribe, wandered from place to place, herding camels and goats. The mother and three older daughters took care of the housework.

But the son of a simple Bedouin claims (and, of course, the media repeats him) that he is a descendant of the ancient noble Bedouin tribes that came from Iraq. However, should we be surprised?! Especially after several years ago he declared himself “the messiah of the Arab world, the successor of the work of the Prophet Muhammad, Jesus, and Moses.”

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (left), Moammar Gaddafi (center) and Syrian General Hafez Assad during a meeting in Damascus, 1971.

Remembering his childhood and youth, he once admitted...

- I grew up in a clean environment, not infected with the infections of modern life. I became aware of the conditions in which my people lived and the suffering they endured under the yoke of colonialism. Young people in our society respected old people, we knew how to distinguish good from evil.

When Muammar was nine years old, his parents sent him to primary school. He graduated from it four years later and entered the secondary school, which was located in the city of Sebha. During his school years, he fell in love with books about heroes who sacrificed themselves in the name of freedom. Who knows, maybe it was these books that prompted Gaddafi to create an underground youth organization while still in school.

It must be said that the years of study of the future colonel coincided with the period of the birth of the opposition movement in Libya. At the same time, dissatisfaction with the royal regime began to mature among the urban and rural poor, the middle classes, and students. Groups opposing the royal regime began to appear in the largest cities and provincial centers. One of them was led by Muammar Gaddafi in 1956-1961.

At the beginning of October 1961, a youth demonstration in support of the Algerian revolution began in the city of Sebha. It immediately grew into a mass anti-monarchist uprising. The organizer and leader of the demonstration was Gaddafi. For this he was arrested and then expelled from the city. I had to continue my studies in Misrata. There he entered the local lyceum, which he successfully graduated in 1963.

“Upon Gaddafi’s arrival in Misurata,” one of his associates, Muhammad Khalil, later said, “we decided to continue what we started in Sebha.” That is, to attract a large number of like-minded people to your side, to find among young people those who believed in Arab unity, in the principles of freedom, in the need for radical changes in the country.

Libyan President Moammar Gaddafi greets the crowd while riding on horseback during a ceremony in Ajdabiya, Libya. The celebration in 1976 marks the 6th anniversary of the expulsion of Italians from Libya.

In 1963, at a meeting of three underground groups from Sebha, Tripoli, and Misrata, it was decided to create a single illegal organization, including two sections - military and civilian. Members of the first group, led by Muammar Gaddafi, left for Benghazi to attend a military college. Participants in the second entered various higher education institutions.

From the first days of his studies, Gaddafi established himself as the most exemplary cadet. No one in the college could suspect him as an enemy of the regime. He never betrayed himself either by word or deed. Therefore, the case opened against him back in Sebkha was never supplemented with anything. And his evening visits to history lectures at the University of Benghazi were perceived as quirks...

In 1964, the first congress of the organization took place near the small village of Telmeita, a few tens of kilometers from Benghazi. At Gaddafi’s suggestion, its motto was the slogan put forward by the Egyptian revolution of 1952: “Freedom, socialism, unity!” The group of young, revolutionary-minded military men began to be called the “Organization of Free Officers of Unionist Socialists” (OSUSUS). At the congress, a code of conduct was developed and a Central Committee was elected. Its members, “in the name of implementing revolutionary ideas,” were forbidden to play cards, drink wine, visit places of entertainment, and were ordered to strictly observe all religious rituals. The Central Committee was instructed to conduct targeted preparations for the uprising.

Committee members met monthly at first. Then, for purposes of secrecy, it was divided into groups that acted autonomously. Only Gaddafi knew the composition of the groups and their tasks.

Of course, the Free Officers had neither experience in political work nor a specific program of social transformation, not to mention strong ideological convictions. Nevertheless, they set themselves clearly formulated goals: the overthrow of the monarchical regime, the eradication of centuries-old backwardness, liberation from the military-political and economic domination of imperialism, the achievement of genuine national independence, the establishment of social justice of the broad masses, the struggle for Arab unity, for ensuring legal rights of the Arab people of Palestine.

Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi addresses the crowd during a rally in Tripoli Square.

After OSYUS members graduated from military college, communication between underground groups became more complicated. Yesterday's cadets were sent to the troops for further service. Gaddafi remained the leader and coordinator of the underground, who began serving in the signal forces in the Ghar Younes military camp, four kilometers from Benghazi. He received information about the activities of groups, about the situation in the troops, from him - instructions on illegal work, determination of places of appearances and meetings. In fact, already in 1966, the stage of direct preparation for a military coup began.

The influence of underground officers grew not only in the ground forces, but also in other branches of the armed forces. The situation with work among the intelligentsia, bureaucrats and in the business world was worse. A significant part of the local bourgeoisie, not to mention the feudal and high bureaucratic circles, were quite happy with the royal regime.

The June War of 1967 became a kind of catalyst for the revolution. The defeat of the Arabs in this war, which caused a spontaneous surge of patriotic sentiments and nationalist emotions throughout the Arab world, had a wide public response in Libya. Discontent was also brewing in the army. The patriotic feelings of military personnel, especially officers, were hurt by the fact that the monarchical government did not allow the army to take part in repelling Israeli aggression.

However, with general dissatisfaction with the royal regime and the majority of the officer corps moving into opposition, there were other movements in the army that expressed the interests of various social forces. Including feudal circles. The most right-wing of them was led by Colonel Abdel Aziz Shelhi, brother of the king's adviser. In 1969, he was appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff and Chairman of the Royal Army Reorganization Committee. The latter position, as it turned out later, was invented as a screen to cover the preparation of a military coup.

The leaders of the Free Officers decided to seize the initiative. By that time, they already had enough of their supporters not only in the army, but also among the civilian population to decide on a preemptive action. The course was set to overthrow the royal regime with the help of a military counter-coup. A detailed plan for an armed military action was developed. This took into account not only domestic political factors, as Gaddafi later wrote, but also the foreign military presence in Libya.

PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat (right), its leader George Habash (left) and Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi (center) greet delegates at the Arab League summit.

The armed uprising planned before September 1969 to overthrow the royal regime was canceled several times. Gaddafi and his associates believed that hasty actions carried too much risk and unpredictable consequences.

In the summer of 1969, another campaign of officer transfers began in the army. It also affected Gaddafi, who received an order to immediately go to Tripoli for further service. These movements required making necessary adjustments to the plans of the “free officers.” The tension has reached its climax...

In the second half of August, it became known that King Idris was going abroad for treatment. Rumors spread in the army that Colonel Shelhi had decided to send a large group of officers for training abroad. Among them were many members of the underground organization, including Gaddafi.

Incoming information indicated that Colonel Shelhi, together with his supporters - a group of senior officers - intended to seize power on September 15 and proclaim a republic with a parliamentary form of government.

To implement the long-developed plan for the uprising, Gaddafi found it necessary to urgently leave Tripoli and return to Benghazi, where the general headquarters was located and the main military institutions were located.

In the early morning of September 1, 1969, detachments of members of the USSR under the leadership of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), created in preparation for the uprising, consisting of 12 officers led by Gaddafi, simultaneously began performances in Benghazi, Tripoli and other cities of the country. They quickly established control over major government and military installations. All entrances to American bases were blocked in advance.

September 1, 1987
Gaddafi inspects Libyan troops during the 18th anniversary of the Libyan revolution in Tripoli.

On the same day, Gaddafi, speaking on the radio, announced the overthrow of the monarchy in the country.

“The revolution,” he declared, “will be guided by the principles of freedom, unity, social justice and equality of all citizens.”

At the same time, it was announced that temporarily the supreme power would be exercised by the SRK. However, its quantitative and named composition was not announced for a long time. No one also knew who headed this highest authority.

Only two weeks after the revolutionary coup, 27-year-old Muammar Gaddafi was declared the leader of the revolution and chairman of the SRC. At the same time, it was announced that he had been awarded the rank of colonel (during the days of the coup he was captain of the signal troops).

He still wears the epaulets of a colonel, although in fact he is the commander-in-chief. He gives out general ranks very reluctantly, because he is convinced that this is “not the most important thing for a revolutionary army.”

For several weeks, while the new regime was strengthening and the names of its leaders were not announced, diplomats, journalists accredited in Libya, as well as representatives of foreign business and military circles, put forward a variety of versions and guesses (one more fantastic than the other) regarding the “real patrons” of the organizers of the revolutionary coup. They called the Russians, the CIA, the Nasserists...

It is necessary to emphasize here that Washington and its allies saw Gaddafi and his associates as provincial officers who had neither a serious long-term program, nor a broad social base within the country, nor political authority in the Arab world. The United States and Britain intended to use these transitory factors, along with their military and economic presence in Libya, to put pressure on the young, inexperienced Libyan leaders. It was on this basis that they hoped to later find a “common language” with them.

But these calculations turned out to be untenable.

Gaddafi asks journalists to take their seats at a press conference in Tripoli. He called on more than 100 foreign journalists to condemn the US invasion of the Persian Gulf.

The anti-imperialist orientation of the Libyan revolution manifested itself quite clearly already in the first months of the existence of the new regime.

On October 7, 1969, at the 24th session of the UN General Assembly, the Permanent Representative of Libya announced the Libyans' intention to eliminate all foreign bases on their soil. Following this, the Libyan leadership informed the ambassadors of the United States and England about the termination of the relevant agreements. Almost simultaneously, an attack began on the position of foreign capital in the country's economy.

The first results and immediate tasks of the Libyan revolution were enshrined in the Interim Constitutional Declaration promulgated on December 11, 1969. Islam was declared the official state religion. One of the main goals of the revolution was proclaimed to be the construction of socialism based on “religion, morality and patriotism.” Gaddafi and his associates intended to achieve this by “ensuring social justice, a high level of production, eliminating all forms of exploitation and fair distribution of national wealth.”

The Revolutionary Command Council was endowed with the functions of the main link in the political organization of society with the right to appoint a cabinet of ministers, declare war and conclude treaties, and issue decrees that had the force of law that concerned the main aspects of the internal life and foreign policy of the state. Chairman of the RRC Gaddafi was appointed head of the Libyan Arab Republic.

October 4, 1995
Gaddafi waves to Palestinian workers expelled from Libya during his visit to a camp on the border with Egypt. Gaddafi forced police to evict Palestinian workers and their families in response to an agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

FATHER OF JAMAHIRIYAH

The ideology and political structure of Libya were determined by the unique concept of social development put forward by Gaddafi and formulated in his Green Book, the first part of which was published in early 1976. It was called “Solving the Problem of Democracy (Power of the People).” The book was immediately declared (by Gaddafi’s obedient propaganda apparatus) “the main ideological document” of the state.

The colonel himself believed that his work represented “the final theoretical solution to human problems.” Back in 1986, he told me...

- I want the Green Book to become the Gospel of modern humanity.

According to Gaddafi's plans, the socialist society of Jamahiriya (translated from Arabic as “democracy”) should be based on three principles.

First. The exercise of power by the masses through popular assemblies, where everyone participates in decision-making and the exercise of power.

Second. Possession by the people of social wealth, which is considered as the property of all members of society.

Third. Transfer of weapons to the people and training in their use in order to end the monopoly on weapons by the army.

Hence the slogan: “Power, wealth and weapons are in the hands of the people!”

I would like to remind you that the beginning of the period of “people's revolution” is usually associated with the keynote speech of the Libyan leader, which he delivered in Zuwara in May 1973. In it, he first put forward the idea of ​​​​transferring full power to the people.

“All other systems of government,” he said, “are undemocratic.” Only people's congresses and people's committees represent the final result of the struggle for democracy.

These were not just words. At the end of 1975, elections of people's committees were held, and the governing bodies of the people's congresses were formed. In January 1976, the General People's Congress (GPC) was created. The republican stage of Libya's development has entered its completion stage. It began to develop into a fundamentally new “Jamahiriyya”, which changed not only the nature of power in the country, but also its philosophy, socio-political and economic development.

Gaddafi with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at Cairo airport. Recent anti-government demonstrations in the Middle East have ousted Mubarak from his post, causing Gaddafi to worry.

In March 1977, at an emergency session of the GNC, held in Sebkha, a Declaration was adopted, which proclaimed the new name of the country “Socialist People's Libyan Jamahiriya” (SNLAD), that its legislation was based on the Koran, and its political system on direct democracy. The Revolutionary Command Council and the government were dissolved. Instead, new institutions were created corresponding to the “Jamahiriyya” system. The General People's Congress was declared the supreme body of the legislative branch, and the Supreme People's Committee formed by it instead of the government - the executive branch. Ministries were replaced by people's secretariats, at the head of which bodies of collective leadership - bureaus - were created. Libyan embassies in foreign countries have also been transformed into people's bureaus.

In accordance with the populist principle of direct democracy, the role of the country's leader was formally taken outside the framework of the political system. By the way, back in 1974, Gaddafi was relieved of “political, protocol and administrative duties” in order to devote himself entirely to “ideological and theoretical work in organizing the masses.” However, until 1977 he remained head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. With the proclamation of the Jamahiriya, he was formally no longer able to perform any government functions. After all, the “Jamahiriyya” system officially denied the state as a form of political organization. From now on, Gaddafi was declared only the leader of the Libyan revolution. And this supposedly determined his true role in the country’s political system.

However, the real ideological and guiding influence of not only Gaddafi, but also other former members of the SRC on the further development and functioning of the new system of power has increased even more.

Explaining the essence of the changes that had taken place in the political system of Libya, Gaddafi in March 1977, at a mass rally in Tripoli, pointed out the ever-present danger to the gains of the Libyan revolution. In this regard, he called for its protection to be carried out by the entire “armed people.” However, the proclaimed goal of “replacing the army with an armed people” turned out to be impossible in practice.

The Sabha Declaration of 1977 actually replaced the previous constitution of 1969, although it itself was not of a constitutional nature, since the Green Book generally denied the role of the constitution as the fundamental law of society.

Gaddafi, along with US Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan (left), attend the opening of a new hospital in Tripoli.

“The true law of society is custom or religion,” says Gaddafi and always clarifies: “Religion includes custom, and custom is an expression of the natural life of peoples.” Laws that are not based on religion and custom are deliberately created by man against man. And because of this, they are unlawful, since they are not based on a natural source - custom and religion.

The political and legislative design of the “Jamahiriyya” system created only the superstructure of a new building on the old foundation. The economic structure remained fundamentally the same as that which existed before the proclamation of the Jamahiriya. The Libyan leadership realized this quite clearly and made active preparations for an offensive on the economic front. The introduction of “Jamahiriyya” principles in this area was carried out through a long process of complex experiments, accompanied by an equally long series of trials and errors.

In September 1977, Gaddafi put forward the principle of “self-government in the economy” as the basis for the development of economic life. In accordance with this principle, the transition of enterprises to the collective management of those who work there was envisaged. The slogan “Partners, not employees,” which he subsequently proclaimed, found theoretical justification in the second part of the “Green Book” and began to be implemented in a number of manufacturing enterprises in November of the same year.

In development of the same populist idea, Gaddafi put forward a new slogan: “Housing is the property of its inhabitant.” That is, the person living in the house is the owner, and not its tenant. In May 1978, a law was passed according to which the rental of residential premises was prohibited, and former tenants became the owners of rented apartments and houses.

Carrying out the slogan “Partners, not employees,” workers and employees, under the leadership of people’s committees, seized enterprises and institutions in the field of not only production, but also trade, as well as various service services. The former owners received, along with compensation, the opportunity to participate in the management of these enterprises, but on the basis of “equal partnership with producers.” This campaign of “people's conquest,” as it was called in Libya, became a unique form of liquidation of the private property of the big and middle bourgeoisie.

The functioning of the political system of the Jamahiriya on the ground and especially in production was hampered both because of the sabotage of the bourgeois strata, and because of the insufficient preparedness of the measures being taken, and the inability of the new administrative apparatus to manage the economy. All this caused discontent and unrest among part of the population. Some of the Muslim clergy also opposed the political and economic innovations of the Libyan leadership. She accused Gaddafi of "deviating from the provisions of the Koran."

In response, the authorities took serious measures aimed at limiting the influence of the clergy. Gaddafi gave the opposition-minded “guardians of the purity of Islam” a public exam on their knowledge of the Koran on television. The theologians were unable to answer the questions of the leader of the Libyan revolution, and were compromised in the eyes of the believing population. This gave Gaddafi grounds to subsequently deprive some of them of the right to conduct religious services.

In March 1979, Gaddafi put forward a new idea - “separation of the revolution from power.” The Revolutionary Leadership of the SNLAD was formed, which began to rely on a network of revolutionary and popular committees. According to Gaddafi, the creation of new committees was supposed to involve as many citizens as possible in the functioning of the “Jamahiriyya” system on the ground. The populist principle of direct democracy has thus acquired an all-encompassing scope.

September 1, 1996
Gaddafi is surrounded by guests during celebrations of the 27th anniversary of the coup that brought him to power in 1969.

Formally, the Revolutionary leadership of the SNLAD did not participate in government. In fact, it began to play an even more important role in the political system of the Libyan Jamahiriya. Each member of the Revolutionary leadership had a specific range of responsibilities. For example, Gaddafi, while retaining the post of supreme commander of the armed forces, was also the general secretary of the General People's Congress.

Not finding specific recipes for transforming society in the so-called “Islamic socialism,” Gaddafi constantly amended his theory. If before the Green Book Islam was considered one of the ideological sources of the official ideology, then in the third part of this book, published in the summer of 1979, the “truth of the third world theory” was no longer measured by the postulates of Islam. On the contrary, the “truth” of Islamic provisions themselves began to be assessed from the point of view of their compliance with this theory itself. The driving force of history was declared to be national and social struggle. At the same time, Gaddafi clarified, “if we limited ourselves to only supporting Muslims, we would show an example of fanaticism and selfishness: True Islam is the one that defends the weak, even if they are not Muslims.”

In subsequent explanations and comments to the Green Book, many of its provisions were subject to significant adjustments. But this book still remains, as it were, the fundamental catechism of the official ideology in Libya.

The transformation of Libyan society into a modern political system, called the Jamahiriya, is accompanied by many zigzags and is proceeding more slowly than Gaddafi would like. But the system he created undoubtedly awakened the Libyan people to political activity. However, as he was forced to admit, “the participation of the people in governing the country was not complete.”

Therefore, at the GNC session held on November 18, 1992 in the city of Sirte, it was decided to create a new political structure in Libya. It envisioned the country's transition to the highest level of democracy - the exemplary Jamahiriya. We are talking about creating, instead of primary people's assemblies, one and a half thousand communes, which are self-governing mini-states within the state, possessing full power in their district, including the distribution of budget funds.

The need to reorganize the previous political system, as Gaddafi explained, was explained, first of all, by the fact that it “could not provide genuine democracy due to the complexity of the structure, which created a gap between the masses and the leadership, and suffered from excessive centralization.”

In general, the Socialist People's Arab Jamahiriya continues its course towards building a new “Islamic socialist society”, where the dominant slogan is “Power, wealth and weapons are in the hands of the people!”

Arab winter - exactly a year ago, Libyan President Gaddafi died at the hands of rebels. The result of one year according to the new chronology - from the death of the colonel - in the report of the new Libyan leader Mohammed Magharif: the country failed to create either an army subordinate to the government, or a police force, or a court.

After a week of fighting, the city of Bani Walid, which until now remained faithful to the ideas of the late Gaddafi, was captured. It was revenge for the fact that the Warfalla tribe kidnapped the colonel's killer - from the Tuareg tribe. The new government even stated that one of Gaddafi's sons, Khamis, was killed in the battle. This is the fourth official announcement of his death.

During this year, only one subject appeared in the country, subordinate to the government, but its own, local one. This is the Libyan Jamaat of Al-Qaeda, not far from Benghazi, where the Libyan spring began. The result of this spring is the execution of the colonel, filmed by his executioners. A reprisal in the spirit of the Middle Ages, when convicts were impaled. Only instead of a stake, Gaddafi got a bayonet.

Whether he was killed by rebels or French intelligence agents has been debated all year. Western human rights activists have been conducting their investigation into the death of Gaddafi all year. Their conclusions absolutely refute the official version that the colonel died in battle, with a weapon in his hands.

On the eve of the anniversary of Gaddafi's assassination, the international organization Human Rights Watch published a 50-page report on the investigation into the circumstances of the death of the leader of the Jamahiriya. The data given in the report completely contradicts the official version of the death of the colonel, who allegedly died from wounds received in a shootout. Human rights activists insist: the already helpless Gaddafi was tortured and killed, as well as several dozen people accompanying him, among whom was his son Mutassim.

“In addition to Gaddafi and his son, at least 66 people were killed in a convoy of 50 cars trying to escape from Sirte. They were captured, put against a concrete wall, interrogated, beaten and humiliated, and then shot outside a hotel "Mahari in Sirte - many were shot in the back of the head," says Human Rights Watch emergency director Peter Bouckaert.

According to human rights activists, they released the report only after the new Libyan authorities did not react in any way to their demand to open an investigation into those who gave orders for the execution of unarmed people. Meanwhile, there is no answer to the question of who killed Gaddafi himself. There is also no answer to what the unprecedented cruelty and rage that accompanied the entire eight-month epic of his removal from power was connected with.

“They actually killed Gaddafi, and turned about 11 large Libyan settlements, as I already mentioned in my articles, into Libyan Stalingrads. Now Libya is the same desert as it was or remained after Rommel left. That is, another Rommel of today day - NATO soldiers, under noble pretexts, turned the virtually flourishing Libya that Gaddafi made into ruins,” says Anatoly Yegorin, deputy director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In fact, no matter what is discussed today as possible reasons for the total and systematic destruction of everything connected with the name of the leader of the Jamahiriya, against the backdrop of his terrible death, everything seems unconvincing. Neither Libyan oil, nor the project of an alternative to the dollar, the gold dinar, nor the geopolitical ambitions of the colonel on the African continent. Over the 8 years that have passed since the lifting of international sanctions against Libya, Gaddafi has repeatedly demonstrated to the West his ability to negotiate.

Vladimir Chamov, the Russian ambassador to Tripoli, unexpectedly recalled to Moscow at the height of the events in Libya, recalling his last meeting with Gaddafi, suddenly formulated something that neither political scientists nor conspiracy theorists could.

“I saw him many times, heard him many times, and with all his extravagance, and with all his originality and with all his antics, he was a unique person. And it’s a shame that this fate ended like this, that the star fell like that and was so brutally torn to pieces. This is really a shame, because we understand that the value of our society, even internationally, is diversity. I think that this was the last romantic in the Arab world," says former Russian Ambassador to Libya Vladimir Chamov .

In the modern world, a person who is ready to give his life for his beliefs must be killed. One can argue about what the colonel’s convictions were, but no one can now doubt his readiness to defend them to the end. And the point is not which of the world leaders Gaddafi recklessly gave money to, the point is that he knew the value of all of them. And this cannot be forgiven. Meanwhile, against the backdrop of people responsible for hundreds of thousands of victims around the world and handing out Nobel Peace Prizes to each other, the image of a wounded old man torn to pieces by a crowd remains dangerous today, a year after his death.

Quite recently, shortly before yesterday’s anniversary of the murder of Muammar Gaddafi, a video appeared on the Internet telling that, 2 months after the murder of the colonel, another authoritative international human rights organization, Amnesty International, conducted a survey on its website: who, in the opinion of site visitors, became a person of 2011, that is, if we take into account the specifics of Amnesty International, he became a victim of the most brutal and excessive violence. The murdered Colonel Gaddafi became the undisputed leader. On December 31, the voting results were removed from the site - American human rights activists did not expect that even Western Internet users, who cannot be suspected of sympathizing with Muammar Gaddafi, were so shocked by the medieval savagery of how the 70-year-old colonel met his death.

According to official data, Muammar bin Mohammed Abu Menyar Abdel Salam bin Hamid al-Gaddafi was born on September 13, 1942. However, the exact date is not reliably known, and many researchers are inclined to believe that he was born in 1940. Gaddafi himself liked to say that he was born in a Bedouin tent 30 kilometers from the city of Sirte. His father, a native of the al-Qaddafa tribe, was a shepherd and wandered from place to place. The mother and three older daughters ran the household. However, there was also a version that Muammar was a descendant of ancient Bedouin tribes that came from Iraq.

ON THIS TOPIC

There is also a more exotic version, according to which Gaddafi was a Jew. There are rumors that the former leader of the Jamahiriya was the son of pilot Albert Preziosi from the French Normandie-Niemen air regiment. It is known that in 1941 the pilot spent some time in the Libyan desert, where his plane crashed. There, according to legend, he met with a Palestinian Jewish woman, a nurse, who gave birth to his son Muammar.Albert Preziosi died in 1943. It is worth noting that no documentary evidence of this version of Gaddafi’s birth has yet been discovered.

After finishing school, Gaddafi entered the Libyan University in Benghazi in 1959. Having completed his studies as a lawyer, the future colonel entered the Military Academy. In 1965, he was sent to the active army. Gaddafi was then sent to study in the UK, where he studied armored vehicles. By the way, information about Gaddafi’s education is very contradictory. So, they say that he allegedly graduated from the Libyan military school before studying in Britain. There are also versions that he studied history at the Libyan University or only attended an evening course of lectures there.

While still a student, Gaddafi created a secret organization called Free Unionist Socialist Officers, which aimed to seize power.

In 1969, Gaddafi was appointed adjutant of the Signal Corps and led one of the plots. On September 1, a group of rebels under the command of Captain Gaddafi captured a number of sites in Tripoli, including a radio station through which they announced the overthrow of King Idris I, declaring Libya a republic. From this moment on, Gaddafi effectively rules the country. After the revolution, Gaddafi was given the rank of colonel, which he retained even after he was promoted to general.

Gaddafi began to impose a new order in Libya with an iron fist. He established a regime based on people's committees and assemblies, and later proclaimed a people's republic, in which he banned all political organizations except his own. Having established the country's governance system, Gaddafi resigned as president in 1979, declaring his intention to work to “continue the revolution.” And by the end of the 1980s, he completely abandoned all official posts and began to be called a revolutionary leader, however, all government of the country remained in his hands.

Gaddafi was a practicing Muslim. After coming to power, he carried out a calendar reform, starting the calendar from the year of the death of the Prophet Muhammad. In addition, prohibition was introduced in Libya, gambling was banned, theaters were closed, Western music was banned, and Sharia law was in effect. In everyday life, Gaddafi was outwardly unpretentious and led an ascetic lifestyle. A faithful companion of his trips to other countries was the Bedouin tent, which he pitched in the center of the world's capitals. The colonel was married twice. He left his first wife after the coup, leaving himself a son. The second wife was a nurse from a military hospital. From this marriage Gaddafi had seven children.

It is known that Muammar Gaddafi survived a number of assassination attempts. Thus, in 1975, during a military parade, an attempt was made to fire at the podium where the Libyan leader was sitting. That same year, the military unsuccessfully attempted a coup, and in 1996 they tried to blow up his car. But the perpetrators mixed up the vehicles, and as a result, several people from Gaddafi’s guard were killed, who himself was not injured. It’s interesting that when he first came to power, he drove a modest Volkswagen without security, and went shopping to a regular store. But several assassination attempts forced him to radically change his lifestyle and reduce direct contacts with the people to a minimum.

Gaddafi was known as a great lover of women. When he gave interviews, he preferred to talk to female journalists. He has repeatedly stated that “a man should be content with only one wife,” although Islam allows up to four. Other hobbies of the former leader of the Jamahiriya include a passion for horses, hunting, and weapons. Gaddafi loved to dress beautifully, often changing his outfits (most of them were national clothes and military uniforms). It is noteworthy that the colonel’s military uniforms were always different: he wore a naval uniform, an air force officer’s uniform, and a ground uniform. An indispensable attribute were dark glasses that hid his eyes.

The former leader of Libya has been accused of terrorist activities more than once. In particular, he is credited with four attempts on the life of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and an attempt to sink a British transport ship with several hundred Jews. In 1981, the United States accused Libya, led by Gadaffi, of preparing an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. He was also suspected of involvement in several terrorist attacks: two explosions in London, mining the Red Sea, and organizing the shelling of people near the Libyan embassy in the British capital. In addition, the Libyans were suspected of involvement in the hijacking of the passenger ship Achille Lauro and the explosion at a disco in West Berlin.

All this led to American aircraft striking targets in Libya that could be used to train terrorists. The raids killed 101 Libyans, including Gaddafi's adopted daughter, and wounded his wife and two sons. The response to this action was the explosion of a passenger Boeing 747 flying from London to New York over the Scottish city of Lockerbie. This happened on December 21, 1988. The attack killed 270 people. After a three-year investigation, two main suspects were identified - they turned out to be members of the Libyan intelligence services. It was only in 2002 that Gaddafi admitted his country’s guilt for the Lockerbie attack and promised compensation to the relatives of the victims.

At the same time, many Libyans remember the period of Gaddafi's rule with warmth. It is known that he spent most of the petrodollars on the needs of the people. For example, there was practically no unemployment in the country, most citizens had their own separate housing, universities were functioning, and hospitals met international standards. The income received from the sale of oil (about 10 billion dollars a year) was distributed for the needs of the state and among the citizens of the country (each of 600 thousand families received 7-10 thousand dollars a year). True, the families that received the money could not dispose of it at their own discretion, but had the right to buy only the most necessary goods.

Interesting fact: Libya ranked first among Arab countries in the number of satellite dishes per capita.

Muammar Gaddafi often surprised everyone with his extravagant antics. He loved to travel on a grand scale. On his trips he was always accompanied by a detachment of armed female bodyguards, in which, as they say, only virgins were taken. On some tours, the Libyan leader took camels with him, whose milk he liked to drink even when visiting other countries. In the mid-2000s, he proclaimed Libya as the birthplace of Coca-Cola and demanded royalties for the use of the brand, claiming that all the components of the drink were originally supplied from Africa. In addition, the colonel stated that William Shakespeare was an Arab emigrant whose real name was Sheikh Zubair.

Despite the odiousness, many world leaders communicated and met with the Libyan leader. However, everything changed dramatically when the Arab Spring swept across the Middle East. In the wake of political protests in a number of countries, troops from Western countries decided to support the opposition in Libya. As a result, Gaddafi's regime fell and he himself was killed. And at first he was subjected to cruel abuse. Footage circulated around the world showing the bleeding Libyan leader being led through a crowd. At this moment they poke him with everything that was in the hands of the people around him - sticks, knives, weapons. They say that they not only beat him, but even poured sand and other monstrous things into his wounds. The torture continued for approximately three hours until the colonel died.

And even after that, they did not stop mocking Gaddafi: his corpse was dragged by his feet through the streets of Sirte, the colonel’s hometown, in which he fought to the last. The details of the massacre of Gaddafi disgusted even those Libyans who welcomed his capture and death. Before burial, Gaddafi's body was kept in a refrigerator for several days so that everyone could look at it. Only when the corpse began to decompose was it interred in a secret place.

On January 16, 1970, Muammar Gaddafi became Prime Minister of Libya. How ordinary Libyans lived during the reign of Colonel Gaddafi, and who was behind his overthrow - in our material

Muammar Al Gaddafi called himself a “Bedouin of the Libyan desert” for a reason; he was born in a Bedouin’s tent near the city of Sirte, 30 kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea. This happened in the spring of 1942, but the exact day of his birth is unknown. By this time, the Gaddafi family already had three daughters; When his son was finally born, his father named him Muammar, which translated means “living long.” But the name did not become prophetic for the future leader of Libya. 69 years after the events described, Muammar Gaddafi was killed by rebels.

Muammar Gaddafi - Bedouin of the Libyan desert

Gaddafi's childhood was spent in real poverty; as soon as the boy was ten years old, he was sent to a Muslim educational institution - a madrasah, which was located in the nearby city of Sirte. Later, Muammar entered high school in the city of Sebha, where he was captured by revolutionary ideas, and the Egyptian revolutionary Gamal Abdel Nasser became the inspiration for Gaddafi. However, for such views, the future Libyan leader was expelled from school, but he was still able to continue his education in the city of Misrata. At this time, Muammar decides to become a professional military man in order to gain strength and overthrow the government of King Idris.

True to his ideas, Gaddafi entered the military college in Benghazi in 1963, where he studied during the day and took history courses at the university in the evenings. In 1965, after receiving the rank of lieutenant, Muammar left for the UK, where he attended communications officer courses for six months. Returning home, he created his first underground organization, which was called the Free Unionist Officers. Gaddafi traveled around Libya, establishing contacts with officers who could help him carry out the coup. And four years later, on September 1, 1969, Radio Benghazi, in the voice of Muammar Gaddafi, informed the Arab world that King Idris had been deposed.

"Citizens of Libya! In response to the deepest aspirations and dreams that filled your hearts, in response to your incessant demands for change and spiritual rebirth, your long struggle in the name of these ideals, heeding your call for uprising, the army forces loyal to you have taken upon themselves this task and overthrew a reactionary and corrupt regime, the stench of which sickened and shocked us all,” was how 27-year-old Captain Gaddafi addressed the Libyan people, announcing the overthrow of the monarchy and the proclamation of the Libyan Arab Republic.

At the same time, the highest body of state power was created - the Revolutionary Command Council, and a few days later Muammar received the rank of colonel and was appointed supreme commander of the Libyan armed forces. Having become the head of the country, Gaddafi set about implementing a long-standing idea - complete unity of the Arabs. By December, he created the Tripoli Charter, which declared the union of Egypt, Libya and Syria. However, the real unification of the countries was never completed. On January 16, 1970, Colonel Gaddafi became Prime Minister of Libya. One of his first activities in his new position was the evacuation of foreign military bases from Libyan territory.

In 1975, part of his book was published, which was called the Quran of the 20th century. In the preface to his “Green Book,” Gaddafi wrote: “I, a simple Bedouin who rode a donkey and herded goats barefoot, who lived his life among the same simple people, present to you my small, three-part “Green Book”, similar to the banner of Jesus, the tablets of Moses, and the short sermon of the one who rode the camel. The one I wrote while sitting in the tent that became known to the world after it was attacked by 170 planes, bombed it with the purpose of burning the handwritten draft of my "Green Book" "I lived for years in the desert among its deserted and vast expanses under the open sky, on earth covered with the canopy of heaven."

In his work, the Libyan leader described the problems of the state structure of society. According to him, in the new society, labor for money (wages) should be eliminated, and the means of production, after the introduction of a system of self-government, should be transferred directly into the hands of workers, who become “partners in production.” “The goal of the new socialist system is to create a happy society, happy because of its freedom, which can only be achieved by satisfying the material and spiritual needs of man, provided that no one interferes with the satisfaction of these needs and controls them,” Gaddafi wrote.

The colonel backed up his words with deeds. Within three years, foreign banks and oil companies were nationalized in Libya. On April 15, 1973, Gaddafi proclaimed the Cultural Revolution. He called on the people to take power into their own hands and abolished all existing laws. A legislative system based on the principles of Sharia was introduced in the country. To avoid intertribal conflicts, Muammar granted access to the system of power to people from the elite of all influential Libyan tribes, including Cyrenaica, to which King Idris belonged. Colonel Gaddafi managed to create a very successful political power structure. It consisted of a system of directly elected people's congresses and people's committees. The Libyan leader ensured proportionate distribution of revenues from the nationalized oil industry; created large foreign investment funds that generated profits from oil windfalls through investments in several dozen developed and developing countries of the world.

As a result, Libya has become the country with the highest Human Development Index in Africa: free healthcare and education, increasing life expectancy, financial assistance programs for the purchase of housing. In addition to all this, Gaddafi managed to solve one of the most important problems of the region - providing the main settlements of the country with fresh water. Over $25 billion of budget funds was spent on a system for extracting water from a giant underground freshwater lens under the Sahara and transporting it to areas of consumption through underground pipelines with a total length of about four thousand kilometers. The average salary in Libya in 2010 was approximately $1,050, and more than half of oil revenues went to social needs.

However, an extremely negative aspect of the life of Libyans was the low level of freedom - strict censorship. The study of English and French was prohibited in schools. Citizens were not allowed to have any conversations with foreigners on political topics - violating this rule was punishable by three years in prison. Any dissident movements and the creation of political parties were prohibited.

Arab elite vs. Gaddafi

Having carried out the so-called “socialist revolution of the Jamahiriya,” Muammar Gaddafi turned most of the monarchies of the Persian Gulf against himself. They believed that the Libyan was undermining their authority by setting an example of government for other countries. In Libya itself, too, not everyone liked the colonel’s reforms. Opposition sentiments began to grow in the country. At the same time, the main cause of the civil war in Libya is considered to be the conflict between the tribes of Tripolitania, from which Muammar Gaddafi came, and oil-rich Cyrenaica, from which the deposed King Idris I came. The intra-Libyan opposition was financed from abroad, primarily from Saudi Arabia.

Almost from the moment he came to power in 1969, the colonel dreamed of uniting the disunited Arab states into a single formidable “anti-imperialist” international. The Libyan leader believed that the main obstacle to the unification of the Arabs was the “anti-people” policy of the monarchical Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain. At first, Gaddafi's ideas were met with restraint, and later - openly hostile. Sheikhs, emirs, kings and sultans were horrified by the socialist ideas of the Libyan leader.

Gaddafi tried in every possible way to offend the Arab elite with his behavior. For example, in 1988, he appeared at the Arab summit in Algeria, showing everyone his white gloves. The Libyan leader accompanied the demonstration with the story that he put on gloves in order not to get dirty with blood when greeting his colleagues - servants of imperialism, whose hands are dirty. 20 years later, at a summit in Damascus, he acted less elegantly and simply shouted at the assembled rulers, saying that it was their turn to follow Saddam Hussein. In 2007, at the next summit, the Libyan leader no longer generalized, but addressed each participant personally. In particular, he called the King of Saudi Arabia a lying old man who has one foot in the grave.

By the beginning of 2011, Gaddafi was hated by the heads of all Arab countries, starting with Sudanese al-Bashir, who did not shake hands in the West, and ending with the Qatari emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. It is Qatar that is the first Middle Eastern country to openly oppose Muammar Gaddafi on the side of the West. The Qatari authorities have announced their readiness to become an operator for the sale of Libyan oil, ostensibly in order to help the rebels receive humanitarian aid.

From January to August 2011, foreign military specialists managed to form relatively combat-ready units from the militarily insolvent Libyan rebels that resisted the regular army. In addition, the Libyan leader had enemies overseas.

USA vs. Gaddafi

In 1973, Libya decided to suspend the export of oil and all types of petroleum products to the United States in protest against supporting aggression against neighboring Arab countries. With this, Gaddafi forced the White House to launch an entire anti-Libyan campaign. The United States demanded military intervention in order to pacify the government, which “threatens the global economy.”

By 1980, the American government was already accusing Libya of supporting global terrorism. The situation worsened after the US authorities came to the conclusion that the leadership of the republic was not only politically and economically, but also ideologically moving closer to the USSR and Eastern Europe. Sanctions are urgently introduced against Libya, military aircraft repeatedly violate the republic's airspace, and the fleet conducts exercises near its borders. Over six years, Washington initiated 18 military maneuvers off the Libyan coast.

In 1986, the head of Libya was already personally attacked, which was carried out on the orders of the administration of US President Ronald Reagan. Specially allocated 15 F-111 bombers bombed his residence. The goal of the strictly secret operation was to eliminate Gaddafi, but he was not injured; several members of his family were injured. After this, the United States once again accused the Libyan leader of supporting “international terrorism” and subversive “pro-Sovietism.” However, neither the CIA nor the State Department were able to prove their accusations against Gaddafi.

Two years later, America makes a new attempt to get rid of Colonel Muammar, this time Libya is accused of possible production of chemical weapons, which Gaddafi was going to use for terrorism. In response to this, the Libyan leader offered the US President a dialogue on all controversial issues. American authorities rejected this proposal. Later, the United States shot down two Libyan planes that were on a patrol flight. The UN Security Council, urgently convened by Libya, after several days of meeting, was unable to adopt a resolution condemning the terrorist actions of the White House. This decision was vetoed by three countries - the USA, England and France.

“In 1992, the White House began developing a plan to overthrow the Gaddafi regime,” wrote orientalist Anatoly Yegorin in his book “The Unknown Gaddafi: Brotherly Leader.” In his opinion, the United States wanted to stir up the Libyan opposition and carry out a coup in the country. Apparently, it was possible to implement it at the beginning of 2011, when mass protests began in a number of countries in the Middle East and North Africa. In Libya they led to civil war.

During the 42 years that Muammar Gaddafi was at the head of Libya, more than ten attempts were made on his life - they shot at him, his car, his plane, his guards, his relatives, he was attacked with a sword and explosives, but the colonel managed to remain unharmed for a long time.

Did Gaddafi have a chance to survive?

We asked this question to the president of the Middle East Institute, Evgeniy Satanovsky. “There was no chance to survive,” he said categorically one of the leading Russian experts in the field of Middle East politics. - But the USA has nothing to do with it. In this case, the liquidation of Gaddafi is primarily his relationship with the Arab leaders - the Qatari emir and the Saudi king. The United States was not satisfied with his lynching; he was lynched by militants paid by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. American ships and French aircraft in Libya played the role of "landsknecht" in support of the Arabs. The independent policy of the United States and the European Union towards the Arab world has been largely replaced today by actions that are paid for, organized and lobbied from Arab capitals. The main customers and payers are Doha and Riyadh. And the entire “Arab Spring,” including Obama’s support for it, the games around Gaddafi in Libya, the Syrian civil war, all come from there. It’s just that for quite a long time we have been paying attention to countries that we consider equal to ourselves - America, France, England, Germany, but there everything has changed a long time ago. Therefore, Gaddafi, who was unanimously hated by the entire Arab elite, who insulted them to their faces, considered himself protected by contracts with the Europeans, and by the fact that he had agreed on all conflict issues with President Bush. He made peace with the West. Gaddafi did not take into account the fact that the Westerners would act against him simply on the orders of the Arabs, who hated the Libyan leader fiercely."

Horrifying footage of the torn body of Colonel Gaddafi flew around the planet, and all the media in the world reported about torture and atrocities against the living and even dead Libyan leader. A few hours earlier, around nine in the morning on October 20, 2011, the Libyan leader and his supporters attempted to escape from the besieged Sirte. However, NATO aircraft attacked the vehicles of Gaddafi's army. According to the alliance, the cars contained weapons and posed a threat to the country's civilian population. The NATO military allegedly did not know that there was a colonel in one of the cars. Meanwhile, according to the former head of the internal security service, General Mansour Dao, Gaddafi wanted to break into the neighboring area, but his car was destroyed, the colonel and his entourage left the car and decided to continue on foot, but were once again fired upon from the air. The Libyan leader's personal driver later said that the colonel was wounded in both legs, but he was not scared.

Muammar Gaddafi was killed on October 20, 2011 after the rebels captured the city of Sirte, near which in 1942, in a tent in the desert, a long-awaited son was born to a Bedouin family, who was called “long-living.”

According to official data, Muammar bin Mohammed Abu Menyar Abdel Salam bin Hamid al-Gaddafi was born on September 13, 1942. However, the exact date is not reliably known, and many researchers are inclined to believe that he was born in 1940. Gaddafi himself liked to say that he was born in a Bedouin tent 30 kilometers from the city of Sirte. His father, a native of the al-Qaddafa tribe, was a shepherd and wandered from place to place. The mother and three older daughters ran the household. However, there was also a version that Muammar was a descendant of ancient Bedouin tribes that came from Iraq.

ON THIS TOPIC

There is also a more exotic version, according to which Gaddafi was a Jew. There are rumors that the former leader of the Jamahiriya was the son of pilot Albert Preziosi from the French Normandie-Niemen air regiment. It is known that in 1941 the pilot spent some time in the Libyan desert, where his plane crashed. There, according to legend, he met with a Palestinian Jewish woman, a nurse, who gave birth to his son Muammar.Albert Preziosi died in 1943. It is worth noting that no documentary evidence of this version of Gaddafi’s birth has yet been discovered.

After finishing school, Gaddafi entered the Libyan University in Benghazi in 1959. Having completed his studies as a lawyer, the future colonel entered the Military Academy. In 1965, he was sent to the active army. Gaddafi was then sent to study in the UK, where he studied armored vehicles. By the way, information about Gaddafi’s education is very contradictory. So, they say that he allegedly graduated from the Libyan military school before studying in Britain. There are also versions that he studied history at the Libyan University or only attended an evening course of lectures there.

While still a student, Gaddafi created a secret organization called Free Unionist Socialist Officers, which aimed to seize power.

In 1969, Gaddafi was appointed adjutant of the Signal Corps and led one of the plots. On September 1, a group of rebels under the command of Captain Gaddafi captured a number of sites in Tripoli, including a radio station through which they announced the overthrow of King Idris I, declaring Libya a republic. From this moment on, Gaddafi effectively rules the country. After the revolution, Gaddafi was given the rank of colonel, which he retained even after he was promoted to general.

Gaddafi began to impose a new order in Libya with an iron fist. He established a regime based on people's committees and assemblies, and later proclaimed a people's republic, in which he banned all political organizations except his own. Having established the country's governance system, Gaddafi resigned as president in 1979, declaring his intention to work to “continue the revolution.” And by the end of the 1980s, he completely abandoned all official posts and began to be called a revolutionary leader, however, all government of the country remained in his hands.

Gaddafi was a practicing Muslim. After coming to power, he carried out a calendar reform, starting the calendar from the year of the death of the Prophet Muhammad. In addition, prohibition was introduced in Libya, gambling was banned, theaters were closed, Western music was banned, and Sharia law was in effect. In everyday life, Gaddafi was outwardly unpretentious and led an ascetic lifestyle. A faithful companion of his trips to other countries was the Bedouin tent, which he pitched in the center of the world's capitals. The colonel was married twice. He left his first wife after the coup, leaving himself a son. The second wife was a nurse from a military hospital. From this marriage Gaddafi had seven children.

It is known that Muammar Gaddafi survived a number of assassination attempts. Thus, in 1975, during a military parade, an attempt was made to fire at the podium where the Libyan leader was sitting. That same year, the military unsuccessfully attempted a coup, and in 1996 they tried to blow up his car. But the perpetrators mixed up the vehicles, and as a result, several people from Gaddafi’s guard were killed, who himself was not injured. It’s interesting that when he first came to power, he drove a modest Volkswagen without security, and went shopping to a regular store. But several assassination attempts forced him to radically change his lifestyle and reduce direct contacts with the people to a minimum.

Gaddafi was known as a great lover of women. When he gave interviews, he preferred to talk to female journalists. He has repeatedly stated that “a man should be content with only one wife,” although Islam allows up to four. Other hobbies of the former leader of the Jamahiriya include a passion for horses, hunting, and weapons. Gaddafi loved to dress beautifully, often changing his outfits (most of them were national clothes and military uniforms). It is noteworthy that the colonel’s military uniforms were always different: he wore a naval uniform, an air force officer’s uniform, and a ground uniform. An indispensable attribute were dark glasses that hid his eyes.

The former leader of Libya has been accused of terrorist activities more than once. In particular, he is credited with four attempts on the life of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and an attempt to sink a British transport ship with several hundred Jews. In 1981, the United States accused Libya, led by Gadaffi, of preparing an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. He was also suspected of involvement in several terrorist attacks: two explosions in London, mining the Red Sea, and organizing the shelling of people near the Libyan embassy in the British capital. In addition, the Libyans were suspected of involvement in the hijacking of the passenger ship Achille Lauro and the explosion at a disco in West Berlin.

All this led to American aircraft striking targets in Libya that could be used to train terrorists. The raids killed 101 Libyans, including Gaddafi's adopted daughter, and wounded his wife and two sons. The response to this action was the explosion of a passenger Boeing 747 flying from London to New York over the Scottish city of Lockerbie. This happened on December 21, 1988. The attack killed 270 people. After a three-year investigation, two main suspects were identified - they turned out to be members of the Libyan intelligence services. It was only in 2002 that Gaddafi admitted his country’s guilt for the Lockerbie attack and promised compensation to the relatives of the victims.

At the same time, many Libyans remember the period of Gaddafi's rule with warmth. It is known that he spent most of the petrodollars on the needs of the people. For example, there was practically no unemployment in the country, most citizens had their own separate housing, universities were functioning, and hospitals met international standards. The income received from the sale of oil (about 10 billion dollars a year) was distributed for the needs of the state and among the citizens of the country (each of 600 thousand families received 7-10 thousand dollars a year). True, the families that received the money could not dispose of it at their own discretion, but had the right to buy only the most necessary goods.

Interesting fact: Libya ranked first among Arab countries in the number of satellite dishes per capita.

Muammar Gaddafi often surprised everyone with his extravagant antics. He loved to travel on a grand scale. On his trips he was always accompanied by a detachment of armed female bodyguards, in which, as they say, only virgins were taken. On some tours, the Libyan leader took camels with him, whose milk he liked to drink even when visiting other countries. In the mid-2000s, he proclaimed Libya as the birthplace of Coca-Cola and demanded royalties for the use of the brand, claiming that all the components of the drink were originally supplied from Africa. In addition, the colonel stated that William Shakespeare was an Arab emigrant whose real name was Sheikh Zubair.

Despite the odiousness, many world leaders communicated and met with the Libyan leader. However, everything changed dramatically when the Arab Spring swept across the Middle East. In the wake of political protests in a number of countries, troops from Western countries decided to support the opposition in Libya. As a result, Gaddafi's regime fell and he himself was killed. And at first he was subjected to cruel abuse. Footage circulated around the world showing the bleeding Libyan leader being led through a crowd. At this moment they poke him with everything that was in the hands of the people around him - sticks, knives, weapons. They say that they not only beat him, but even poured sand and other monstrous things into his wounds. The torture continued for approximately three hours until the colonel died.

And even after that, they did not stop mocking Gaddafi: his corpse was dragged by his feet through the streets of Sirte, the colonel’s hometown, in which he fought to the last. The details of the massacre of Gaddafi disgusted even those Libyans who welcomed his capture and death. Before burial, Gaddafi's body was kept in a refrigerator for several days so that everyone could look at it. Only when the corpse began to decompose was it interred in a secret place.