20th October 2011 – 1 year after Gaddafi was killed.

 

Whilst there are hundreds with mixed feelings relating to the late Muammar Gaddafi – some who say he was a rapturously benevolent dictator and others arguing that he was the victim of a foul scheme painted by the West – many facts bring a controversial and decisive plot for Pro-Gaddafi fighters, Libya and the Western world as a whole.

For the first of two parts in our “Gaddafi: Friend or Fiend?” series we are going to focus on what the (purportedly) heroic side of the Libyan leader involved. The research for this article has been fantastically intriguing and we want to thank the four Libyans and two Brits, who although wish to stay anonymous at this point in time, have really helped us compile the information featured. You’ve been a great help.

PART I – Gaddafi the Friend

To the supporters, Gaddafi was a brave man. He was a once-poor wanderer who rose up to take over and rebel against a brutal monarch. He fought for the moralities of the poor and the women in Libya as well as campaigning for the rights of the African continent against Western domination. If you were to look through (and substantiate) his contributions without the media’s claims that he was a tyrant then he would be seen as a Mandela figure and he would perhaps have been considered one of the finest leaders within the last century. Imagine that for a moment, does it anger you or do you think it’s plausible?

His supporters tell us that the Gaddafi system was truly democratic and that the power was given to the people instead of the banks and politicians. They also allege that the U.S. considered Libya to be a corrupt third world country and that part of the West’s plan was to discredit his name so that the African and Middle Eastern continents wouldn’t appear to be as powerful and reliable as the West’s.

They say that Gaddafi was quite powerless in contrast to British and American leaders and that he was just a leader by name. Rather than choosing the government and electives in Libya, the people would choose the decisions.

When it came to benefits, every citizen of Libya (including the women) had access to free education, free healthcare as well as the largest unrestricted fresh water pipe system in the world (more on that in the next paragraph). To top it off Gaddafi shared Libya’s satellite television service with Africa as an effort to “free the continent from the extortionate debt that the US & EU were imposing”. Gaddafi had also granted the Libyan people the right to possess weapons such as guns. This, however, backfired on him.

Gaddafi’s international status took a turn for the worse during the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombings in Lockerbie, Scotland. The accused Libyan Airlines security head Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was freed on sympathetic and considerate grounds by the Scottish Government in 2009 following a doctor’s claim that he had terminal prostate cancer and would only live for three more months. In May 2012, 3 years after his release, he died. What dents’ this as interesting is the claims by a former Scottish police chief via signed statements that key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated. Although the media heavily supressed claims, he wasn’t the first person to try and re-open the Lockerbie trial. Earlier assertions by a former CIA agent stated that the agent’s “bosses “wrote the script” to incriminate Libya” for future economic means. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were supposedly masterminding a plan to take advantage of Libya’s oil – which we will dive into further into the article.

(click for full-size)

 

In July of 2011, NATO – who had intervened to protect the innocent civilians of Libya – “accidentally” hit the Libyan water supply pipeline. Oops-a-daisy. In the same week, NATO had carelessly destroyed the factory that produced the pipes, making repairs even more difficult. The fresh water pipe system is known as “The Great Man-made River” and is commonly nicknamed “The Eighth Wonder of the World”, even Gaddafi himself had referred to it as just that when the completion resulted in an architectural commendation rewarding the project with a Guinness World Record. The entire project created education, experience and employment for Libya and surrounding participants. Ironically, NATO severely breached the Geneva Convention treaty – an agreement that NATO accused Libya of breaking – by bombing the water lines

“Geneva Convention, Article 54, paragraph 2: It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.”


According to Nelson Mandela, for Gaddafi was a large contributor to the freedom of South Africans. He claimed that if it wasn’t for Gaddafi’s assistance and aid, South Africa may never have won its freedom from the apartheid. The Anti-Apartheid Movement was largely funded by Gaddafi personally and Nelson Mandela even named his grandson after Gaddafi.

One thing that conspiracy theorists and researchers will often bring up is Libya’s oil resources. This is where the propaganda issue gets a little hazier.

In 2008 Gaddafi announced his proposal to dissolve the country’s existing administrative structure and disburse oil revenue directly to the people. The plan included abolishing all ministries; except those of defence, internal security, and foreign affairs, and departments implementing strategic projects. His reason for this plan was because he believed that the ministries were failing to manage the country’s oil revenues.

Gaddafi claimed he was planning to combat corruption in the state by proposing reforms where oil profits are handed out directly to the country’s five million peoplerather than to government bodies, stating that “as long as money is administered by a government body, there would be theft and corruption.” Gaddafi urged a sweeping reform of the government bureaucracy, suggesting that most of the cabinet system should be dismantled to “free Libyans from red tape” and “protect the state’s budget from corruption.” According to Western diplomats, this move appeared to be aimed at putting pressure on the government to speed up reforms.

Gaddafi claimed that the ministries were failing to manage the country’s oil revenues, and that his “dream during all these years was to give power and wealth directly to the people.”

 
So in quick contrast, Gaddafi wanted to share the oil wealth that he believed had “blessed the country” and “[as part of nature] belonged to everybody in Libya” equally among the Libyan people, as well as establishing a unified Gold Dinar currency across the African Union which would be measured directly in terms of gold.

Considering the large gold reserves in Libya and across Africa, such a move would have brought an end to Western entrepreneurial sanctions in Africa, paving a better future for the continent but if this were to be successful, the dollar-dominated economies that the World Bank relies on would have been severed.

As a mutual party, I don’t want to influence my opinions here as I really have no clue where I stand. In the comments section below, feel free to suggest that what you just read was a ludicrous amount of warmongering hoopla  or do you believe that there is more to this than we have been told?

Look out for Part II which will explore the anti-Gaddafi facts. If you have anything to contribute, then please do as we will be trying to cover as much as possible.