Word: gaddafi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Such a view contrasts sharply with that of the militant Gaddafi, whose tastes are spartan and anti-imperialist. The son of a nomadic horse and camel trader, he lived in a tent throughout his childhood. With the help of a tutor, he studied at night by the light of an oil lamp, and he remains fiercely proud that he skipped several grades after entering school. He traces his political consciousness to the late 1950s. "Everything was happening," he says. "Arab nationalism was exploding. The Suez Canal had been nationalized by the Egyptians in 1956; Algeria was fighting for its independence...
...Gaddafi also spends millions of dollars to buy the allegiance of countries in sub-Sahara Africa, particularly those with large Moslem populations; in the past year, at least partly because of Gaddafi's largesse, Uganda, Mali, Chad, Niger and Congo-Brazzaville have all broken diplomatic relations with Israel. Gaddafi even lent $3,000,000 to the U.S. Black Muslims, but he refused further loans because he decided that the group was not truly Islamic. He receives dozens of appeals for foreign aid each year, says Gaddafi, and he judges them all on two criteria: Will the loan help Islam...
This kind of bravura would not be possible without the billions of barrels of oil that lie beneath the region's sands. Gaddafi and the other oil-rich Arabs have exploited their resources with a shrewd combination of cooperation and militancy. Under the auspices of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), founded by Iran, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia in 1960 to fight a reduction in prices by the oil companies, the eleven major petroleum-producing countries have increased prices 72% since 1970. Last week in Beirut they demanded further compensation to cover the recent erosion of the dollar...
Rebels. He went on to Libya's military academy, where he gradually won over his classmates to the cause of revolution-and each class revolutionized its successors. Says Gaddafi: "We decided that we could make the revolution when we got half the officers in the Libyan army. By 1969 we had them." The opportunity came on the night of Sept. 1, as the army officers were playing host to the senior officers of the national police, who were loyal to King Idris. As the evening drew to a close, the young officers simply arrested their guests. The 80-year...
...inhabited by fewer than 2,000,000 people. Their chief exports consisted of camels, dates and scrap metal from the battle wreckage of World War II. Their per capita income: $50 a year. But underneath the desert, undiscovered until the late 1950s, lay the oil that would fuel Gaddafi's ambitions for Libya...