Six
years after the U.S. helped “moderate rebels” overthrow Muammar
Gaddafi, Libya has gone from enjoying the highest standard of living
in Africa to a failed state. Sex slavery is rampant, the illegal arms
trade has proliferated and ISIS maintains a strong presence.
by
Whitney Webb
Today’s
Libya is virtually unrecognizable from the Libya of years past.
Following the violent ouster of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi
in 2011, things have taken a turn for the worse as the north African
nation declines further into failure.
One example
of Libya’s steep decline has been the proliferation of the illegal
arms trade. In 2014, the United Nations named Libya as the primary
source of illegal weapons for 14 different countries, fueling a
series of international conflicts. More recently, a new report
released by the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey has also labeled Libya
as an international hotspot for illicit weapon sales, examining
thousands of attempted trades.
The Gaddafi
regime, prior to losing power, had tightly regulated the domestic
arms trade and prevented the illegal sale of weapons. But now, Libya
is unable to secure its borders. The weapons market has surged in the
years since the 2011 invasion that resulted in Gaddafi’s ouster, as
the Libyan government’s weapon stores were looted and quickly fell
into the hands of terrorists.
In addition
to appearing on online arms markets, weapons from the Gaddafi
regime’s arsenal have been found throughout North Africa and the
Middle East, particularly in the hands of Daesh (ISIS) militants who
are active in Syria and Iraq. Many of these weapons were purchased by
the U.S. government and deliberately given to “moderate rebels”
in Syria, which – at the time – included the al-Nusra Front, a
branch of al-Qaeda that operates in Syria.
In addition,
Libya’s geographical location has led to the growth of another
illicit industry – sex slavery. With many West African migrants
traveling through Libya as they seek passage to Europe, sex slavery
has become so commonplace that live slave auctions now occur in plain
view of the public, according to a recent statement from the
International Organization for Migration. Those not sold into slavery
are sometimes thrown in private prisons, where they are held until
their families make a ransom payment. Those whose families are unable
to pay are taken away and killed, while others have reportedly wasted
away from a lack of food and other basic necessities.
Libya still
lacks a federal government, which has led to the rise of several
warring factions, many of them based on tribal affiliations. Some of
the more powerful factions include infamous terrorist groups like
Daesh, who, according to U.S. intelligence agencies cited by the New
York Times, maintain a presence of some 5,000 fighters in the
troubled nation.
Worse still,
while U.S. bombings and some armed Libyan factions have reduced
Daesh’s power, they have also torn apart the country’s social
fabric and set the stage for all-out civil war. In addition, the
Italian government recently asserted that Daesh militants are leaving
Libya for Europe, posing as wounded Libyan government soldiers.
Libya has
also been crippled by constant power blackouts and surging prices for
food and other necessities, as well as months of lost salaries for
many people who have been put out of work. The situation has
deteriorated so much that numerous civilians, many of whom once
detested Gaddafi and even fought against his regime in 2011, are
lamenting the loss of the nation’s longtime ruler. Tebu Mohammed, a
Libyan citizen living in Tripoli, expressed the views of many Libyans
when he told the Daily Mail that “Libya died with Gaddafi. We
are not a nation anymore.”
Gaddafi’s
Libya: prosperous and independent
The current
situation in Libya stands in sharp contrast to what things were like
under Gaddafi’s rule. Despite his 42-year-long despotic rule, along
with his reputation as a “crazy leader,” Libya was once Africa’s
most economically successful nation and enjoyed the continent’s
highest standard of living, thanks to handsome oil reserves that
helped to fill the state’s coffers.
Gaddafi used
state money to offer a variety of popular services including free
electricity, interest-free loans, grants to newlyweds, legal rights
to housing, maternity bonuses for new mothers, free education,
50-percent subsidies on new car purchases and free healthcare. The
country’s literacy rate also rose from 25 to 87 percent during his
time as its leader. In addition, Gaddafi nationalized Libya’s
central bank and kept Libya free of external debt.
However,
Gaddafi committed a cardinal sin in the lead-up to his assassination
– not against the Libyan people, but against the hegemony of the
U.S. dollar. In the early 2000s, Gaddafi had saved up a large
amount of gold and planned to introduce a gold-backed pan-African
currency based on the Libyan dinar in order to restore economic
strength to a continent besieged by neocolonialism. He had planned to
start selling Libyan oil using the dinar before the 2011 invasion, a
move that would have challenged the petrodollar system – an
agreement negotiated in the 1970s where OPEC nations sell their oil
in dollars in order to create artificial demand for the currency.
Recently
declassified emails from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
provided concrete proof that the dinar was a major determining factor
in the invasion of Libya. Considering this, it should come as no
surprise that the Libyan oil industry, as well as the country’s
central bank, were privatized following Gaddafi’s death.
Libya is
not the only nation to have been decimated by the U.S. for
undermining the dollar’s hegemony. In 2000, former Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein rejected the petrodollar system and began selling
Iraq’s oil in euros. Despite economic sanctions from the U.S.
and its allies, Iraq had made millions of dollars as a result of the
switch at the time of the 2003 U.S. invasion.
The U.S.
made an example of Iraq to show what happens when a country subverts
the U.S.’ economic hegemony, doing the same to Libya just 8 years
later. With terrorism, slavery and a proliferating illegal arms
trade, Libya’s current condition is showing the world what the
consequences can be when the U.S.’ superpower status is challenged.
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