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Gallery of the Nations
Libya
Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
Libya is bounded on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, on the east by Egypt; Algeria to the west; Chad
and Niger to the south; Sudan to the southeast and Tunisia to the northwest.
Archeologists suggest that the whole of the Mediterranean coast of Africa was inhabited by a pastoral
people who farmed and raised domesticated animals prior to 2000 BC. During this time, what is now the Sahara
Desert was a savanna that provided game and vegetation for the inhabitants and their animals. But after 2000
BC when the land began to dry up and the desert encroached, these pastorals moved to the Sudan and were
replaced by the Berbers. Over 80 percent of Libya's population today is of Berber and Arab origin.
The area around Tripoli, present-day capital of Libya, was once a Phoenician colony. The Phoenicians were
conquered by Carthage in the 6th century BC. The Romans in turn conquered the Carthaginians. In 455 AD the
Vandals took over Libya. A hundred years later, Libya came under Byzantine control before it was finally taken
over by the Arabs in 643 AD. After several Arab dynasties ruled Libya (including a brief period of Norman rule
in 1146), the country was taken over by the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century.
During this period there was very little central authority in Libya and pirates had taken control of the
coastal region. Habsburg Spain occupied Tripoli in 1510, but in 1538 the pirate, Khair ad-Din, also known as
Barbarossa or Red Beard, re-conquered and controlled Tripoli. The area was known as the Barbary Coast at this
time. The Ottomans took control of the Barbary Coast in 1551 but allowed the pirates to continue to run the
place.
In 1911, Italian forces invaded Libya. Through the Treaty of Lausanne, signed in 1912, the Ottomans gave up
all claims over Libya. However, local resistance against Italian authority, spearheaded by the
nomadic Sanusi
tribe, remained until 1931. In October 1920, in return for his acceptance of Italian sovereignty over Cyrenaica,
the Sanusi leader, Sheikh Sidi Idris, is recognized by the Italians as Emir of Cyrenaica. The Emir was forced
into exile in Egypt in 1923 when the Italian fascist governor of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica began interning
local Sanusi leaders.
In 1934 Tripolitania and Cyrenaica are united to form the colony of Libya. Libya was a theater during World
War II (1939-1945). The Sanusi eagerly join the Allies in 1942 and drove the Italians and Germans out of north
Africa in 1943. On November 21, 1949, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution for the independence of Libya
before January 1, 1952. Libya declared its independence on December 24, 1951. The country was proclaimed a
constitutional, hereditary monarchy with Idris as its first king.
Libya's rich oil reserves (discovered in 1959) made the country rich, but most of that wealth was
concentrated in the hands of the elite. On September 1, 1969, a 28-year-old army officer, Mu'ammar Abu Minyar
al-Qadhafi, led a successful coup d'état against King Idris, who once again went into exile in Egypt. Qadhafi
quickly abolished the monarchy and proclaimed a new Libyan Arab Republic.
In 1977 Qadhafi introduced a new constitution and renames the country the People's Socialist Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya (government through the masses).
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