Dan Snow's History Hit - Colonel Gaddafi and Libya
Episode Date: November 8, 2021Even after his overthrow and bloody death in 2011, Colonel Gaddafi still looms large over Libya but there is much more to the history of this important and often misunderstood country. It is the 16th ...largest country on Earth, its capital Tripoli is closer to London than Athens is and Britain's relationship with the country goes back to the 17th century and beyond. Over the centuries Libya has been an important trading partner and has been a battlefield across which Commonwealth forces battled during the Second World War. To set the Libya story in its proper historical context Dan is joined on the podcast by Rupert Wieloch. Rupert was a Senior British Military Commander during the Arab Spring and is the author of the upcoming book: Liberating Libya: British Diplomacy and War in the Desert. They discuss the relationship between Britain and Libya, why and how Colonel Gaddafi came to rule, how he was brought down and what the future holds for Libya.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History. Can you believe it has been 10 years this
month since the assassination and the murder of President Gaddafi in the streets of Libya?
Hard to believe. On this episode I want to talk about Libya, Britain and the international
community's relationships with Libya stretching back hundreds of years, and also the regime
of Gaddafi himself. I'm very happy to be talking to Rupert Wheelock, he was a senior British
military commander in the Arab Spring, he's just written a book on liberating Libya. And he's the man to
talk to about the deeper history and the more recent history of this part of the world. If you
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Welcome.
In the meantime though, folks,
here's Rupert Wheelock talking about Libya.
Enjoy.
Rupert, thank you very much for coming on the podcast.
It's a great pleasure to join you. Now, this is always very exciting for me,
someone who has not just studied history, but has been through it and shaped it and lived it as well.
Where were you when you found out that a Tunisian man set himself on fire?
I was actually at Cambridge. I was involved in the Middle East peace process and I was representing the army on the Enfield in international relations when the Arab Spring started.
Was it clear to you immediately this was something completely different,
not only in terms of the passion and the emotions that were running high to overthrow governments,
which in terms of Tunisia and Egypt went fairly quickly, but also in terms of the responses from
the international community, which to my mind were slightly inconsistent. Some revolutionary groups
were supported, and some regimes were supported. Now, you're fascinated in Libya in particular,
and we'll talk about the history of Libya, and maybe it will come up to the present day.
As you demonstrate, the issue of Libya, of who runs Libya, of Libyan independence,
is one that is deeply connected with British and European history. It's very, very significant what happens in that part of North Africa.
Well, the close relationship has been built on two wars where we helped overthrow brutal regimes.
But if you look before that, there was a war, which was the Zanussi campaign, which was
in many ways like the Sikh campaign, where we started off as enemies, but we ended up
very much as friends and allies. And before that, if you go back to the previous century,
the relationship was built initially on humanitarian reasons with the ending of the
white slave trade, but also in terms of Britain's position of trying to prevent
France from taking a complete hold of North Africa.
It's very poorly understood, Libier. As you point out, Tripoli, the capital,
is closer to London than Athens.
Yes. And I think not only is it poorly understood, but although we've got involved
several times, each group that has got involved hasn't really known very much about the past, which is the reason why I
wrote this book, to try and link things together so people understand the connection between the
Zanussi campaign in 1915, 1916, and the great Saharan explorers in the 1920s and the 1930s,
and the Second World War, and then on with the British administration, and finally,
what's happened recently. Okay, well, let's go all the way back. I can't resist the long 18th
century, technically the late 17th, this was the 1690s. Why do you start there? Why did you go all
the way back to the 1690s? We first got involved because of the white slave trade, when the Berber
Courses were capturing people from all nations at sea and selling them in Tripoli.
Tripoli was one of the four main Berber states, and they derived their income from this trade.
And so we got involved to try and stop English people from being sold on the market.
So these are North African slave traders that are coming as far as southern
England, Ireland, even Iceland, and taking slaves. Yes, and of course, internally within Africa as
well. And so there's English and then British fleets going down in the 17th century. Yes,
and again, the French were trying to do the same thing and extend their influence. And it all came to a head, I suppose,
with the Napoleonic Wars. But before we got involved, the Americans got involved because they
had a ship which was captured, the Betsy, and the new American government under Jefferson
decided that they were going to do something about it and sent a team led by US Marines
on an overland trip from Alexandria in Egypt to capture
Derna. And that was, I think, the first ever US foreign intervention, effectively, particularly
in Eurasia, North Africa. It was. And it was significant because it made the Americans realise
that they had to have a land force as well as a navy in terms of dealing with
their international protection of their fleets. So the birth of American hard power there?
It was. I don't think they realised that they would be back again so frequently to Libya.
And Nelson, among others, admired that expedition enormously, didn't he?
Let's come forward now. So the rulers of Tripoli, these Berber states, as you call them, are they technically part of the Ottoman Empire? What's their relationship?
What is their political status? So the Pasha with three tails,
which was second only to the Sultan, looked after Tripoli, and he paid duty to the Ottoman Empire.
And as a result of that, the relationship was fairly close. But in many ways, the Ottoman Empire. And as a result of that, the relationship was fairly close. But in many ways,
the Ottoman Empire was more concerned with the main landmass around Arabia and what's now Iraq,
Mesopotamia. So they tended to let their North African holdings be run by the local leaders.
Is it worth coming now to the beginning of the 20th century? Or no, talk to me about the 19th with European competition in that area.
Well, obviously, it's quite sensitive because of the way Africa was carved up by Europeans
in the late Victorian age.
So there was an element of that.
But the Ottomans, with British help, managed to keep hold of the relationship with Tripoli,
help, managed to keep hold of the relationship with Tripoli, albeit that there were some difficult moments where there were uprisings of local Libyans who wanted to take control
of their own destiny. And then jump into the 20th century.
Sorry, just worth interrupting for a second there. Isn't it one of the great
irony strategies of world history that the British spent so long trying to keep the Ottoman Empire intact in the eastern Mediterranean, only eventually to help destroy it in 1915, 16, 17, 18?
It's just crazy, isn't it?
Yes. And I think if you look into the detail of why that was, I'm afraid to say it was to do with the way the Ottoman Empire treated the people in Azerbaijan
and Armenia. The genocide? Yes. We're going to come back to that. But before the First World War,
there is this Italian invasion of Libya, which I think is underrated as really almost the start
of that escalation of violence then spreads to the Balkans and elsewhere.
But tell me about that Italian invasion of Libya, because that's essential.
Well, I think it's, again, significant for two main reasons. First, connecting with what you
just said, the Foreign Secretary at the time said it was definitely one of the major steps
on the route between the Morocco crisis and the beginning of the First World War, in as much as it
gave the Balkan League the confidence to take on the Ottoman Empire. And the second thing is that
it was the first campaign that really integrated land, sea and air together. And with the communications
developments of Marconi, brought in new technology
that was to be used by all the protagonists in the First World War. So it was significant
for the way war was conducted as much as the outcome in terms of the Italian defeat of the
Ottomans. But in terms of that egregious assault on the Ottoman Empire and just picking off provinces
of the Ottoman Empire, it did set the mood music, didn't it, for then further erosion
of their position in the Balkans.
And then that's where we start to get this deeply competitive atmosphere and toxic atmosphere
in the Balkans between the great powers and Serbia and other players.
Yes.
And I think there was one other geostrategic event which played
into this, which was the defeat of Russia by Japan, which meant that Imperial Russia focused
much more on the Balkans with their foreign policy than they did Siberia and their east.
That was really important. So they started getting involved in Serbia and supporting the Serbian cause and backing that against the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottomans looked like a better opponent at that point than rapidly modernising Japan.
That's correct. Yes. Yeah. And it's a complicated and discontinuous occupation the Italians carry out, isn't it?
But it's technically in Italian hands, and there's a series of brutal counterinsurgencies,
pacifications over the next couple of decades.
Yes.
And I think what I have to say is that the British media played a very large part in
bringing the massacre that happened in Tripoli to the world's attention.
bringing the massacre that happened in Tripoli to the world's attention. There were some very famous correspondents, including Francis McCullough, and former MPs who were out there who wrote about
what was happening and the brutality of the Italian fighting in 1911 and 1912. And that slightly turned the opinion of the British government from supporting the
Italians wholeheartedly to sitting on the fence. And that also influenced their thinking in terms
of who was going to be their allies against Germany in the forthcoming war, which they knew
at that stage was going to happen.
So Italy is trying to extend its control over Libya using brutal methods. Talk to me about,
and then following the First World War, Mussolini kind of redoubles that effort, doesn't he?
Yes, Italy came out of the First World War in a poor shape, heavily in debt, and politically in a very fragile situation. And after Mussolini took over, he then determined to concentrate on Libya and build it into a proper Italian colony. And he did that by posting a succession of brutal generals to the Libyan shore who conducted counterinsurgencies, which included the use of gas and other pretty brutal weapon
systems against a poorly armed insurgency, which was Libyans on horses.
insurgency, which was Libyans on horses. And this campaign of imperialism, of conquest,
again, helps to set the temper for subsequent Japanese and German moves in the 1930s. Libya is again the sort of canary in the coal mine, if that's the right expression.
Yes, I can't remember who it is, but a famous historian described Mussolini as the icebreaker
for Hitler in terms of the way he used force in terms of his foreign policy, both in terms of
Libya and in East Africa and then in Albania. During the Second World War, when Britain finds
itself fighting Italy in the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa. Libya is for much of the time the battlefield.
Yes, and I think we've forgotten how important places like Tobruk were in 1940-1941.
The siege of Tobruk itself was the first time that the German military machine was blunted.
And Rommel up to that time had a pretty clear run, what had obviously
happened in France. But also, as soon as he arrived, he managed to cut through the British
army, which had previously dispatched the Italian 10th Army in Cyrenaica. And then the Siege of
Tobruk was iconic. In many ways, it was the same as the Blitz here,
Dunkirk, as a symbol of resistance of the British and the Allies, because it was also very much the
Australians to begin with, who resisted and defeated the Africa Corps as they tried to
take Tobruk, which was in itself a really important strategic port.
take Tobruk, which was in itself a really important strategic port.
And after Alamein in 1942, eventually the Brits succeed.
The sea soaring back and forth across Libyan territory, Cyrenican territory, the Brits do end up successfully occupying Libya.
My grandpa was part of that occupation force.
He spent much of the 1940s and 50s in Libya.
What did Britain want to achieve in Libya after the war? Well, I think reading the administrators' diaries, I believe they
had in mind something like the relationship that we had and continue to have in Jordan,
with a monarchy that brought everyone together. Libya is a huge country. It's the 16th largest
country in the world. And yet the population is small. The population is only now 7 million.
The whole population of the country is less than Cairo or Nairobi. So there's a lot going for it.
But at that time, it was a very poor country because oil hadn't been discovered. So they needed something to hold
people together. And the religious order of the Zanussi, which linked east to west, was the vehicle
by which they promoted Libyan unity. And the 70th anniversary of its independence comes up
in December this year. What went wrong there? How did the British plan get frustrated?
Well, they managed to overcome very difficult challenges like the challenge of the creation
of Israel. There was a large Jewish population in Libya, historically, and yet because of their
allegiance to Arab states and the Palestinians, when Israel was created, there were a number of rats in Tripoli, and the
British troops and the British administrators had to stand between the Arabs and the Israelis there.
So that was a problem. But they managed to overcome that. The real problem came when oil
was discovered in 1958-1959. And the country suddenly became very wealthy indeed. And as a result of that,
with the Arab nationalism that was promoted in the neighbouring countries, especially Nasser
in Egypt, the British administration and the monarchy which they supported
was undermined by young revolutionaries who eventually took control in 1969.
Listen to Dan Snow's history. I'm talking to Rupert Wheelock about Colonel Gaddafi
and Libyan history. More coming up.
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After these centuries of occupation, of brutality, of foreign involvement,
it's kind of easy to see why Arab nationalism was a sort of siren song in that era.
Yes. And I think we have to remember that there was also overlaid on that time, the Cold War. So there was quite a bit of mischief making from the superpowers, which undermined anyone who was
trying to lead a country in a moderate way. One of the other problems was the king had no natural
heir who was well-liked by the population. So when he was ageing, the throne was intended to go to
his nephew, but his nephew wasn't deemed to be suitable to take on responsibility for the whole
country. So that gave the opportunity for the Revolutionary Command Council to take over in the summer of 1969.
And then we get Mr Gaddafi. We could do a whole podcast on his extraordinary career,
but how did power change him? We remember him as a sort of strutting
fantasist of his later years. How did he change over the decades? I think he started with good intentions. But the nature of the country and the people he was
working with, that old adage, power corrupts, total power totally corrupts. And certainly by
the end of the 1970s, he was deemed to be a maverick in the international community who supported terrorism.
I was actually in Northern Ireland at the end of the hunger strike, and the weapons that were
being provided to the provisional Irish Republican Army came from Colonel Gaddafi, and they were used
against British soldiers. So the relationship with Britain by
that stage had deteriorated significantly. And you were in a position of importance
when the moment came in the Arab Spring. Tony Blair had negotiated a deal with Britain,
had had a rapprochement with Gaddafi. It must have been very difficult in Whitehall,
working out what to do about this. The low point of the relationship between Britain and Libya came with Lockerbie. Before that, the murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher had ended
diplomatic relations. But then with the downing of the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie,
that really put it on a low point. And Robin Cook, as the foreign secretary, had built a relationship which had begun to improve the
connection with Libya. And they found a way to set up the trial, which brought the perpetrator
of the crime to justice. And that obviously meant that there was the opportunity to improve relations,
which occurred soon after 9-11, really, because Colonel Gaddafi by that stage was the opportunity to improve relations, which occurred soon after 9-11,
really, because Colonel Gaddafi, by that stage, saw the writing on the wall and wanted to come
inside the tent with the West and try and make up so that he wouldn't be attacked by American forces.
But therefore, when the Arab Spring stretched to Libya, were there different groups within,
while as there were within
Washington, about what to do about Libya? There was always caution in Washington about how close
they could get to Libya and how much they could trust Gaddafi and his regime. They were more
cautious than us. Britain's relationship with Libya, because of our historical ties,
we've been a little bit more comfortable than other nations in dealing with Libya.
And Washington was certainly more cautious. So when the Arab Spring came up, the international community looked on. And it was only when Gaddafi reverted to his old type of trying to crush the rebellion with tanks. And people sort
of imagined what he was saying would lead to something like what happened in Rwanda in terms
of the genocide. And that was the moment that the international leaders in terms of David Cameron,
Sarkozy, and a slightly more reluctant President Obama actually took action
and intervened initially as part of the responsibility to protect on humanitarian
grounds, to protect the civilians in Benghazi, who were about to be attacked by a column of tanks.
And I saw the column of tanks had been destroyed by French Rafale aircraft. And there's no doubt in
my mind, Libyans who were there told me that they believed the revolution would have been
crushed completely if the international community hadn't intervened at that moment in time.
Again, it's interesting, as you say, it's interesting how we, the West, Britain, France, have been jolted into action on Libya by pictures,
reports, looming humanitarian crises and outrages. And words. It was actually the speeches that came
out of Tripoli, Gaddafi's speech, his son's speech, his intelligence chief's speech, the intercepted communications, which were as much a part of
decision making in governments as it was images which were portrayed by people with handheld
cameras posting it on the internet. There was a lot of military intelligence in there,
as well as the public's images that came across to everyone on the news at night.
And Gaddafi died a terrible death at the hands of a mob.
He was captured and killed in his hometown of Sirte. I wasn't there when that happened,
but I did go in fairly soon afterwards and I saw the culvert under the road where he was caught up.
And it was a pretty desperate flight that he made in his convoy of cars,
trying to get out of his trapped area. The area was getting smaller and smaller. Eventually,
he had to make a break for it. And he was trying to make for the southern border,
where he could get through to Mali and Niger, where he felt he would be safe and he had allies.
where he felt he would be safe and he had allies.
But in the end, it all ended in tears for him and his son and the intelligence chief
who were all killed and then taken up to Misurata
because most of the rebels who were down there at the time
came from that area.
We've just had the death of Colin Powell
and Colin Powell came up with the doctrine, didn't he?
Never get involved in a war
unless we know how we're going to get out of it and end it.
Where does Libya fit into that reading? I mean, this isn't a forever war Colin Powell came up with the doctrine, didn't he? Never get involved in a war unless we know how we're going to get out of it and end it.
Where does Libya fit into that reading?
I mean, this isn't a forever war because the British and French this time didn't even stay,
but there was no thought that there'd be troops on the ground to provide a stabilisation force, was there? This was regime change without any nation building at all.
To a certain extent, that is true. It was an operation to
protect civilians, which then because Gaddafi didn't give up when perhaps he should have,
it turned into regime change, although that is illegal in international law, and therefore no
country will admit to it. But that is how the conflict developed. But there
was two other really important points. The first that was unlike Syria, there was a viable
alternative government, the NTC, National Transitional Council, which was set up and
they were given Libya's seat in the United Nations. and they formed a viable alternative with democratic principles to provide
an alternative government immediately. And it was their wish that international troops should not
be seen boots on the ground in Libya. So although there were offers there by international partners,
there was a reluctance to accept any boots on the ground.
And I remember at a disarmament conference that I attended on Christmas Day in Tripoli,
the gist of what the Libyans were saying is they put up a photograph of American troops in Iraq.
And he said, we've got to get this right. Otherwise, this is what's going to happen.
They were really keen to try to do that.
They believed at first that all the frozen money that was being held by the United Nations
would allow them to do that. But they missed the opportunity to integrate what's known as the
Thwa, the revolutionaries. There were about 150,000 revolutionaries. They missed the opportunity to
integrate them into society, to provide them with education programmes, to provide them with alternative employment,
to bring them into the decision-making process of government. And if they'd done that at the time,
then we could have built on that with contracts for reconstruction, and the story might have been different. But there was a lot going on in 2012,
internationally, which distracted the international community. And because the Libyans saying we're
fine, we can do it ourselves, whenever anybody asked, it meant that that moment, that fragile
moment passed without the foundations put in place to build a fresh country.
Afghanistan, obviously, the withdrawal this year, in less than ideal circumstances. Iraq,
how should we think about intervention? Before I talk generally about intervention,
I think it really is worth mentioning that the relationship with Libya between Britain
and the inhabitants, the country itself,
is very different from Afghanistan. We have never had a close, working, friendly relationship with
Afghanistan, which is a really long way away and is distant. We have had a fantastic relationship
with Libya over the years. And as you said, the capital, Tripoli,
is closer to London than Athens is to London. It's not exactly on our doorstep. Obviously,
Italy and France are closer. But what happens in Libya affects Britain. If nothing else,
the illegal migration flows, which are coming through from sub-Saharan Africa, through the Libyan coast into southern
Europe and ending up on our doorstep. But there are other aspects as well. We've had a fantastic
trading relationship in the past, and that could continue in the future. So there's much more to
the British relationship than the relationship with Afghanistan in terms of economic. It's a
stunning tourist destination, if we can just get over the hurdle of what's happening Afghanistan in terms of economic. It's a stunning tourist destination
if we can just get over the hurdle of what's happening now
in terms of the contest between the two rival governments
in Tobruk and Tripoli.
And as you say, that engagement is hugely important.
The temptation is always, especially after a decade of,
you know, in many ways failure in terms of building states,
building resilient modern governments in countries that we've attempted to help,
you've just got to keep trying. There's no other option because it's a problem whether you try and
withdraw or not. Yes, and I think just picking up on the issue of intervention, there are reasons,
legitimate reasons to intervene.
And humanitarian intervention, although it's contentious with some people, all of the nations
in the UN have signed up to this responsibility to prevent genocides from happening. And one would
like to see that upheld in the international community. You know, and it wasn't Libya which
spoiled that, I'm afraid it
was Syria, but that's another story. I think it is just worth mentioning on the military side,
my regiment was the last regiment to leave Libya in 1970. In fact, some of the soldiers who were
there I served with in the 1970s and 1980s. And we are very good at adapting to the situation that we
find ourselves in. In that case, the British military was acting as protection of civilians
and the garrison. My experience over the last 30 odd years is that we've had different changes in the way we conduct our military. And the Libya work that I did
was small teams of specialist military, whether that was special forces, intelligence teams,
D-miners, or military advice to the government, who were working to partner with the individuals.
And that was, to my mind, the model of how the British could be used
in a good way in the 21st century. And I was, I think, the 50th British military individual who
was posted to Libya. And everyone who arrived there before me made a valuable contribution
in terms of either helping to protect the people or in terms of the
reconstruction. That was an extraordinary gallop over 300 years of Libyan history. So thank you
very much, Rupert, for doing that. How can people learn more about Libya? The book is out very
shortly. It's called Liberating Libya. And it tells the whole story. It links the British involvement from the past. One of the things that
I really wanted to do in it was to pay tribute to those who have given the ultimate sacrifice in
Libya. There are over 10,000 British and Allied casualties who are buried in the four war cemeteries
and the garrison cemetery in Benghazi.
And there were nine Victoria Crosses,
which were awarded between April 1941 and the summer of 1942.
Five of them were in November 1941,
which included Geoffrey Keyes, who led his Special Forces raid
on Rommel's headquarters at Bader Fromm,
who led his special forces raid on Rommel's headquarters at Bader Fromm to the day that Tobruk was relieved finally by General Arkinleck's Operation Crusader.
So I wanted to pay tribute to that as well as link together
what happened recently and in the 17th century.
Fantastic. Well, thank you very much for coming on, Rupert. Tell us all about it.
Thank you, Dan.
I feel we have the history on our shoulders.
All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs,
this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished.
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