The foreign relations of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi (1969–2011) underwent much fluctuation and change. They were marked by severe tension with the West (especially the United States, although relations were normalised in the early 21st century prior to the 2011 civil war) and by other national policies in the Middle East and Africa, including the Libyan government's financial and military support for numerous paramilitary and rebel groups.
Timeline
Beginning in 1969, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi determined Libya's foreign policy. His principal foreign policy goals were Arab unity, elimination of Israel, advancement of Islam, support for Palestinians, elimination of outside influence in the Middle East and Africa, and support for a range of "revolutionary" causes.
After the 1969 coup d'état, U.S.-Libyan relations became increasingly strained.
Gaddafi closed American and British bases on Libyan territory and partially nationalized all foreign oil and commercial interests in Libya.
1970s Export controls on military equipment and civil aircraft were imposed during the 1970s.
On 11 June 1972, Gaddafi announced that any Arab wishing to volunteer for Palestinian armed groups "can register his name at any Libyan embassy will be given adequate training for combat". He also promised financial support for attacks.Washington Post 12 June 1972The New York Times 12 June 1972 In response, the United States withdrew its ambassador.
Gaddafi played a key role in promoting the use of oil embargoes as a political weapon for challenging the West, hoping that an oil price rise and embargo in 1973 would persuade the West—especially the United States—to end support for Israel. Gaddafi rejected both Soviet communism and Western capitalism because he believed that communism was a violation against religion and capitalism was a violation against humanity.The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, (2001–2005), "Qaddafi, Muammar al-", Bartleby Books. Retrieved 19 July 2006.
In 1973 the Irish Naval Service intercepted the vessel Claudia in Irish territorial waters, which carried Soviet arms from Libya to the Provisional IRA.RTÉ Documentary: The NavyBowyer Bell, p. 398.
In 1974, the Libyan Embassy in Rome provided financial assistance to assist the escape of Mario Tuti, a member of the neo-fascist Ordine Nero, following the Italicus Express bombing.
During the mid-1970s, Gaddafi supported the unsuccessful attempts for an Argentinian nuclear weapons program, in the hope of acquiring advanced military technology for Libya.
In 1976, he sheltered José López Rega, the leader of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance death squad, following the 1976 Argentine coup d'état.
In 1976 after a series of terror attacks by the Provisional IRA, Gaddafi announced that "the bombs which are convulsing Britain and breaking its spirit are the bombs of Libyan people. We have sent them to the Irish revolutionaries so that the British will pay the price for their past deeds".
Together with Fidel Castro and other Communist leaders, Gaddafi supported Soviet protege Mengistu Haile Mariam, the military ruler of Ethiopia, who was later convicted for a genocide that killed hundreds of thousands.
Gaddafi funded many national liberation, communist and Maoist groups, including but not limited to; the Palestine Liberation Organization, the African National Congress, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Black Panther Party, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, the New People's Army of the Philippines, the FRETILIN, the Polisario Front, the Red Brigades, the Sandinista National Liberation Front, the Tupamaros and the Red Army Faction.Blundy & Lycett 1987, pp. 78–81, 150, 185; Kawczynski 2011, pp. 34–35, 40–53; St. John 2012, p. 151.
In October 1978, Gaddafi sent Libyan troops to aid Idi Amin in the Uganda–Tanzania War when Amin tried to annex the northern Tanzanian province of Kagera, and Tanzania counterattacked. Amin lost the battle and later fled to exile in Libya, where he remained for almost a year.
Libya also was one of the main supporters of the Polisario Front in the former Spanish Sahara – a nationalist group dedicated to ending Spanish colonialism in the region. The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) was proclaimed by Polisario on 28 February 1976, and Libya began to recognize the SADR as the legitimate government of Western Sahara starting 15 April 1980. It is still common for Sahrawi students to attend their schooling in Libya.
Gaddafi also aided Jean-Bédel Bokassa, the self-proclaimed Emperor of the short-lived Central African Empire, until the latter struck an agreement with French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing by which the French would fund his coronation in exchange for severing ties with Gaddafi.Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine:
U.S. embassy staff members were withdrawn from Tripoli after a mob attacked and set fire to the embassy in December 1979. The U.S. government declared Libya a "state sponsor of terrorism" on 29 December 1979.
1980s In May 1981, the U.S. government closed the Libyan "people's bureau" (embassy) in Washington, D.C. and expelled the Libyan staff in response to their conduct generally violating internationally accepted standards of diplomatic behavior.
In August 1981, in the first incident of the Gulf of Sidra, two Libyan jets fired on U.S. aircraft participating in a routine naval exercise over international waters of the Mediterranean Sea claimed by Libya. The U.S. planes returned fire and shot down the attacking Libyan aircraft. On 11 December 1981, the State Department invalidated U.S. passports for travel to Libya (a de facto travel ban) and, for purposes of safety, advised all U.S. citizens in Libya to leave. In March 1982, the U.S. government prohibited imports of Libyan crude oil into the United States and expanded the controls on U.S.-origin goods intended for export to Libya. Licenses were required for all transactions, except food and medicine. In March 1984, U.S. export controls were expanded to prohibit future exports to the Ra's Lanuf petrochemical complex. In April 1985, all Export-Import Bank financing was prohibited.
In October 1981, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated. Gaddafi applauded the murder and remarked that it was a "punishment" for Sadat's signing of the Camp David Accords with the United States and Israel.
In 1982, Libya provided $100 million in arms to Argentina during the Falklands War.
During the 1980s, Libya provided financial support for the National Front in the United Kingdom, and paid for neo-Nazis and neo-fascists from France, the Netherlands and other countries to visit Libya.
In April 1984, Libyan refugees in London protested against the execution of two dissidents. Libyan diplomats shot at 11 people and killed Yvonne Fletcher, a British policewoman. The incident led to the breaking off of diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Libya for over a decade. Two months later, Gaddafi asserted that he wanted his agents to assassinate dissident refugees, even if they were just on pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca—in August 1984, a Libyan plot in Mecca was thwarted by Saudi Arabian police.
After the December 1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks, which killed 19 and wounded around 140, Gaddafi indicated that he would continue to support the Red Army Faction, the Red Brigades, and the Irish Republican Army as long as European countries support anti-Gaddafi Libyans. The Foreign Minister of Libya also called the massacres "heroic acts".Seale, Patrick. Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire. Hutchinson, 1992, p. 245.
In 1986 Libyan state television announced that Libya was training suicide squads to attack American and European interests.
Gaddafi claimed the Gulf of Sidra as his territorial water and his navy was involved in a conflict from January to March 1986.
On 5 April 1986, Libyan agents bombed "La Belle" nightclub in West Berlin, killing three people and injuring 229 people who were spending the evening there. Gaddafi's plan was intercepted by Western intelligence. More detailed information was retrieved years later when Stasi archives were investigated by the reunited Germany. Libyan agents who had carried out the operation from the Libyan embassy in East Germany were prosecuted by reunited Germany in the 1990s.
Germany and the United States learned that the bombing in West Berlin had been ordered from Tripoli. On 14 April 1986, the United States carried out Operation El Dorado Canyon against Gaddafi and members of his regime. Air defenses, three army bases, and two airfields in Tripoli and Benghazi were bombed. The surgical strikes failed to kill Gaddafi but he lost a few dozen military officers.Qaddafi, terrorism, and the origins of the U.S. attack on Libya. Brian Lee Davis There were around 30 military deaths, and around 15 civilian deaths, including Gaddafi's 6-month-old adopted daughter, allegedly.
Gaddafi announced that he had won a spectacular military victory over the United States and the country was officially renamed the "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah". However, his speech appeared devoid of passion and even the "victory" celebrations appeared unusual. Criticism of Gaddafi by ordinary Libyan citizens became more bold, such as defacing of Gaddafi posters. The raids against Gaddafi had brought the regime to its weakest point in 17 years.
The Chadian–Libyan conflict (1978–1987) ended in disaster for Libya in 1987 with the Toyota War. France supported Chad in this conflict and two years later on 19 September 1989, a French airliner, UTA Flight 772, was destroyed by an in-flight explosion for which Libyan agents were convicted in absentia. The incident bore close similarities to the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 (the Lockerbie Bombing) a year earlier. The downing of these two airliners along with the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing seemed to establish a pattern of reprisal attacks—in the form of terrorist bombings—by Libya or at least Libyan agents. The United Nations imposed sanctions on Libya for these two acts (with UN Security Council Resolutions 731, 748 and 883). The UN eventually lifted these sanctions (with Resolution 1506) in 2003 when Libya "accepted responsibility for the actions of its officials, renounced terrorism and arranged for payment of appropriate compensation for the families of the victims." In 2008 Libya established a fund to compensate victims of these three terrorist acts (and the 1986 US bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi).
Gaddafi fueled a number of Islamist and communist terrorist groups in the Philippines, as well as paramilitaries in Oceania. He attempted to radicalize New Zealand's Māori people in a failed effort to destabilise the U.S. ally. In Australia, he financed trade unions and some politicians who opposed the ANZUS alliance with the United States. In May 1987, Australia deported diplomats and broke off relations with Libya because of its activities in Oceania.
In late 1987 French authorities stopped a merchant vessel, the MV Eksund, which was delivering a 150-ton Libyan arms shipment to European terrorist groups.
In 1988, Libya was found to be in the process of constructing a chemical weapons plant at Rabta; former CIA Director Webster has called the Libyan facility "the largest chemical plant that I know for chemical warfare."
Libya's relationship with the Soviet Union involved massive Libyan arms purchases from the Soviet bloc and the presence of thousands of east bloc advisers. Libya's use—and heavy loss—of Soviet-supplied weaponry in its war with Chad was a notable breach of an apparent Soviet-Libyan understanding not to use the weapons for activities inconsistent with Soviet objectives. As a result, Soviet-Libyan relations reached a nadir in mid-1987.