Part III: an Army for Islam

RUTH FIRST Libya The Elusive Revolution Part III: An Army for Islam First published by Penguin Books in 1974 Republished in 2012 by the Ruth First Papers Project www.ruthfirstpapers.org.uk Part III: An Army for Islam t D LIBYA ................ 1---·-·-· ........ I ............... Niger Chad .......T.J Sudan i ...---:,:>·----Main Roads .l t..ll. Oil Wells ====Oil Pipelines 1 The Intervention of the Army When the news of the Libyan coup d'etat on r September 1969 reached Cairo, Nasser sent Mohammed Hussanein Heykal, editor of Al Ahram,and his close political confidant, to make the first on-the-spot investigation for Egypt. At Benghazi airport Heykal looked past the young army officers who met him and asked: 'Where is Abdul Aziz?' He was referring to Abdul Aziz Shalhi, the brother of Omar Shalhi, and commander-in-chief of the army. Colonel Shalhj. had in fact been arrested on coup day, up• braiding the soldiers sentto fetch him : 'Go away, you fools. It's not today, it's the fourth.' A Libyan coup had been expected; the problem was, whose? There were in fact at least two and probably three distinct take-over conspiracies under way inside the Libyan army. One of them was for a classic coup by colonels. Both Nasser and Shalhi hd anticipated the wrong coup. Abdul Aziz Sruilhi had been backwards and forwards to Cairo during 1969. There he was reputed to have enjoyed rapid and easy access to Nasser and the top echelons of the E!n'Ptian army; he was himself a product of the Cairo military academy.Whether independently or as a result of the same intelligence briefings, by 1969 both Egypt and the United States had come to the conclu• sion that vyhile a scramble for power was inevitable when the King died, the monarchy's survival might be in doubt even while he lived. Intrigues in and around the Palace made the ruling group far from homogenous. Tripolitania was restive under what it regarded as rule from Cyrenaica. Western powers and oil interests were already persuaded that a more 'modem' adminis• tration, less subject to tribal pressures and less stigmatized by corruption, would pre-empt opposition to the monarchy polar• izing into radicalism, as had h,appened during the 1964 and 1967 99 An Army for Islam demonstrations. In the Middle East the two classic sources of opposition had traditionally been the students and the army. A strike from the anny seemed only a matter of time. By 1969 the army was about ro,ooo strong, but it was a rather static force. It was top heavy with senior officers- seventy-four colonels for instance, by 1969 -and this imbalance was a source of grievance with junior and middle officers. It could not do field training without the express permission of the King. This was another safeguard against the army acting as coup-maker. After Egypt's defeat in the Six Day War, together with the decline in prestige of all the Arab armies, there WllS strong pressure for the Libyan army to be enlarged and better equipped. Britain's General Mogg arrived to set up the Anglo-Libyan Board of Reorganization for the purpose.The plan that emerged, inspired by British military advisers, was for the reorganization of Libya's army into two brigades, one armoured and one in• fantry, based on the British Aircraft Corporation tanks and self• propelled guns. The Ministry of Defence and its advisers had devised a conscription system which was due to enrol its first recruits on 8 September. But until Libyan officers had been put through training courses, British officers were to be seconded to the Libyan army; and this, together with a new British• installed sophisticated logistics maintet;1ance system, made it plain that the entire army expansion plan was totally dependent upon Britain and British officers. This was seen by young and middle-ranking officers as Britain's way of colonizing the Libyan anny and it brought to a head the rumbles against the regime's subservience to Western defence interests. The contract for the anti-aircraft missiles and tanks was signed in April 1969, but negotiations over some of the sub-contracting began to stall as even se.nior officers began to express reservations about the project. In Libya the 'revolution' stands or falls by Gadafi's official version. It provides for a continuous history of planning: with Gadafi, from schoolboy to president, its visionary, theoretician, and leader of a close-knit conspiratorial group. It makes the young officers the natural heirs and custodians of power, because 100 The Intervention of the Army they alone not only conceived but organized and carried through the revolution. The version is, however, silent on some of the key events. This is relevant not only to the physical seizure of power but also to the presence in the first Council of Ministers after the coup of two senior anny officers of the rank of colonel. By the end of 1969 they had been arraigned for treason before a court martial. The following year there were further plots and trials involving army officers among others. Why was the revo• lution so early devouring its children? Part of the answer lies in the chronicle of the coup which the official version does not provide, because it strives to repeat the Nasserite model of a Free Officer revolution. Revolution as a concept can have no definite time period be• cause it undergoes natural growth and happens in its own time, Gadafi has said. 'When things on earth change against the norms of nature, there must be a revolution.' Pressed for a more detailed and coherent account of the plann• ing of the revolution, Gadafi has written: It is impossible to give a specific date for the beginning of the Libyan revolution (thawrah) - no one can determine the beginning of any revolution. This differs from a coup (iniJilab) which is a casual event occurring at the pleasure of senior officers. These sometimes issue orpers from positions of legal authority for the movement of ttoops and officers who bring about everything but their masters' orders. These may not be discussed and are followed without certainty or conviction. A revolution is the opposite, even if the practical application of the idea partakes of the same appearance as a military coup. A revolution is a vital necessity which grows naturally in the consciousness of the society as a whole ... The necessity for complete and radical change ... produces . a man of revolution, a man of comprehensive and 1 complete change, a man who is as if born again in a new age. As for the practical organization of the revolution: ... the collection of men and the provision of weapons - a specific time for them can be determined. The practical steps of the revolution, including the beginning of secret meetings, began in I959, when my colleagues and I were students in secondary school. IOI An Army for Islam The first command committee was formed while we were students in secondary schools in the town of Sebha to be exact. Our number began to increase and to branch out within the ranks of the youth. One can (thus) fix a date for planning and preparation of the revolution. We go back ten years to I959· What inspired them? Our souls were in revolt against the backwardness enveloping our ,. country and irs land, whose best gifts and riches were being lost through plunder, and against the isolation imposed on our people in a vain attempt to hold it back from the path of the Arab people and from its greatest cause. We met as a group of friends to plan a long hard path for ourselves. It would, however, lead to a goal we had promised ourselves to achieve. Gadafi had been expelled from school for his part in organizing a demonstration against Syria's secession from the United Arab Republic. He found the doors of all the government schools of Fezzan closed to him. He moved from that province to Tripoli• tania and enrolled at Misurata's secondary school to sit examina• tions for the college preparatory certificate. By then,even earlier at school in Sebha, Gadafi maintains, the young men of his group had decided that the ideal way to revolution was through the Military Academy. Why not political activity? The opposition parties and groups were weak. They did not have the strength for confrontation and did not have de ite ideas ... As for the people, they proceeded in their opposition without organiza• tion. As for the ideological parties, there was a small group of the Arab Baath Party whose movement was suppressed by the authorities, and later a small group of Arab Nationalists appeared. Socialist revolutionary thought e.xisted among a few individuals without organization. j j In 1964 Gadafi entered the Military Academy. He instructed some of his friends to do the same: MEHBISHY: I was surprised.I never thought of doing that. But Gadafi insisted. When we parted the decision was not really firm. Later Gadafi wrote me a letter: 'You are to submit your papers to the Academy', signed Gadafi. 102 The Intervention of the Army GADAFI: I wish to remind Meheishy·he once asked me if I was con• nected with any of the political parties. I said no. I have no connec• tion whatever with any political group. I do not believeintheir aims. INTERVIEWER: You are against political in uences? . MEHEISHY: We are but we supported Nasser's ideas ... Gadafi had some civilian contacts but once we joined the Academy (our organization) changed from civilian to military, from no power to power.

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