qadhafi

b. 1942) Libyan; President 1977 – Qadhafi was born to a family of desert nomads and expelled from secondary school for pro-Nasserite political agitation. In 1963, he joined Benghazi Military Academy and launched the Nasserite Free Officers movement to infiltrate the army in 1964. As a junior officer, he led the movement in a bloodless coup which overthrew King Idris in 1969 and headed the ruling Revolutionary Command Council.In line with the "third universal theory" of his Green Book, Qadhafi reconstructed Libyan political, economic, and military systems, ostensibly on direct democracy principles and Koranic tenets, to produce the Libyan People's Jamahiriya. From 1975, political power was wielded by People's Congresses and People's Committees at all levels of Libyan society and institutions like the Cabinet and RCC were abolished. In 1979, embassies and diplomats were eliminated and replaced by "people's bureaux". The armed and police forces were abolished in 1988 in favour of popular organs and remaining state institutions, including the security apparatus, were similarly abolished and replaced later.Qadhafi's foreign policy is subversive and pan-Arab. It includes: attempted unions and mergers with Arab states, of which one, the 1989 Arab Maghreb (economic) Union, succeeded; subversive intervention in Egypt, Sudan, and Chad; sponsorship of international terrorism by supplying arms, training, money, and sanctuary to insurgents and liquidation of political opponents in Europe. Since 1992, Libya has been subject to UN economic sanctions over the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie. A mounting Islamist challenge to Qadhafi's nationalist regime began in 1989.