QADDAFI'S AUTHORITY SAID TO BE WEAKENING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807600013-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: April 29, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

f STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807600013-0
ARTICLE APPEAR.''
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WASHINGTON POST
.19 April 1984
s Authority Said to Be
Qadda Ii'
recently returned and, according to
one reliable account, was kidnaped
By Bob Woodward Weakentnff W htngten PoCol. f Writer by Qaddafi's agents. In 1983, former
TRIPOLI, Libya-Col. Muammar Qad- CIA en dwj~TjlSgn, ?h4
daft is still publicly hailed as "The Leader" had been imprisoned for selling ex
of this North African revolutionary state, according to American sources. One U.S. losives to Libya, was acquitted by a
port iurv in Washine
but there are signs that his regime faces po- official said that Qaddafi is "burning the District
tentially serious trouble. candle energy. both ends ... high anxiety, high ton of charges of plotting the assas-
Often under the influence of sleeping ? D. g this Y sination of Muhayshi.
During month's crisis at the Lib an All this attention on real or imag-
pills, constantly fearful for his life, at times embassy in London, which led to the Brit fined enemies has disillusioned many
a near hermit and unpredictable to his sub- ish decision to break diplomatic relations officials here, as have Qaddafi's var-
ordinates and allies, Qaddafi appears to with Libya, it was apparent here that gov- ious military adventures in Africa-
have lost the once fervent support of some ernment authority was almost hopelessly as in Chad, where be has about
of his countrymen, according to several spread among.Qaddafi the'. Foreign Min- P 5,000 troops-and his attempts to
Libyan officials who have personal contact istry and the so-called ,people's committees overthrow enemies in Egypt and
Li Qaoda . fi _ that theoretically rule the country. Sudan. His designs to forge a greater
During my week-long visit here, many of The result was bungled negotiations Arab revolutionary state, unifying
the western-educated officials and bureau- that many here had hoped to resolve Libya with Tunisia, Algeria, Syria,
crats who try to run the country on a daily without a break in diplomatic rela- EQypt or Sudan, have, in the words
basis said in private that they have become tions. of one Libyan official, "cost billions
increasingly frustrated by the internal and If a dictatorship controls either by and got. us nowhere."
foreign chaos their leader has stirred. Some co-opting'-or crushing, Qaddafi has The internal repression has left a
"God." deep mark. The public hangings of
refer to him jeeringly as been crushing more than co-opting,
"The country is in turmoil," one official stepping up a campaign of intern al two students for treason at Tripoli
said. "We expect something." terror and repression. This may be University on April 16 contributed
Another official. in a rage, called Qaddafi in response to an attack on one of the anti-Qaddafi demonstration at
"small, out of it ... a pinhead." his most trusted aides, a shadowy ; the Libyan Embassy-in London the
next. day. It was at that demonstra-
By no account is but key figure in the Libyan govern- tion that a British policewoman was
Qaddafi, who has ruled ment named Said Qadaf Dam. Ac
build-
Libya for nearly 15 years, losing all of his ' cording to U.S. intelligence, Dam, a killed by shots fired from the build
.political instincts. There are times when he military officer and Qaddafi relative, ing and 11 other persons were
appears in public, gives speeches and shows is the second most powerful man in wounded. Five days later Britain
his lucidity and flair. But these periods are Li ya and has been in charge of a broke diplomatic relations.
interspersed with longer times of withdraw- series of attacks against the Lib an During that week, several Libyan
al and public utterings ? that. two Libyan opposition abroad, including dissi- officials urged me to write about the
authorities here separately. described with ents and unfriendly foreign govern- hangings. It was obvious from the
the same word: "gibberish." menu. tone of their remarks, and the fear
Qaddafi has always left aides and visitors In March, it was learned here, a ! expressed in their eyes, that the pub-
waiting for hours or days for meetings with car bomb injured Dam, and officials lie executions greatly troubled them.
said he may lose his legs as a result. The public hangings are a frequent
him, but some Libyan officials said it has Foreign Minister Ali Treiki said subject of whispered conversations
become much worse in recent months. He Dam had been hurt in an automobile on the streets and in government
has trouble sleeping, they said, and wan- accident, but brushed off questions,'; offices '
ders around day and night. making morbid about the incident. Another well- . One report. circulating among Lib-
was that a total of 23 persons
remarks. They said be is not in good health placed official- in Libya confirmed , yans
and either is incapable of making some key that it was an attack and said the had been publicly executed for trea-
decisions or unable to communicate his bombing had substantially increased son in April alone. An official said
thoughts. There is an irregularity in his Qaddafi's fear that the CIA or Lib- that number was an exaggeration: he
daily schedule that is transmitted through yan dissidents were going to kill him. placed the total at 10. But he added:
the entire government and country. officials also confirmed "It is impossible to know because
try. there is no certain information, only
Hi hl classified CIA re rts circulatin that a government ammunition
g y Po g dump had recently been blown up 'rumors and maybe one hanging be-
comes 10 as [the report] circulates
fi l e _'_S. government confirm this eval reportedly called The Volcano. and is repeated "
-
ustion including evidence that Qadd~ One Libyan dissident, Omar Abd- This official said there were thou
~nEx~,essive ~mQunt. s1eQrrr ills, ullah Muhayshi, a one-time Qaddafi sands of political prisoners in Libya,
rake people who had spoken out against i
intimate who left. the country in
1975 after a dispute with the ruler, {w^^!'.P
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Qaddafi or some revolutionary prin-
ciple and were jailed for doing so.
Questioned about such a high num-
ber, the official repeated: "Thou-
sands. I tell you thousands." He said
he knew names but refused to pro-
vide any, insisting that even to know
about the alleged political prisoners
or to .discuss them was dangerous.
He then told a story about some-
one who reportedly disappeared sud-
denly after making a derogatory
comment about green tea. Green is
the national revolutionary color of
renewal: the Libyan flag is green,
and Qaddafi's three-volume revolu-
tionary manifesto is called "The
Green Book."
The official acknowledged that
the story might be apocryphal, at
least an exaggeration, but he insisted .
that it had taken on the weightf
truth on a larger and more revealing
scale.
"People believe it," he said, "be-
cause it could happen. Things like
that happen." Carrying the thought
further, perhaps in another exagger-
ation, he said, "No one is happy
here."
Qaddafi's peculiar and sometimes
contradictory statements and actions
in foreign affairs have troubled some
of his countrymen. In a speech a
month ago he publicly suggested
that "to vex the United States,"
Libya could provide the Soviets with
bases along the country's 1,300-mile
Mediterranean coastline.
"We can change the balances [be-
tween the superpowers] a thousand
times and turn the tables upside
down," Qaddafi said.
But later in an interview here,
Foreign Minister Treiki dismissed
the idea.
"We are against any foreign troops
in any other country ... whether it
is the United States in Grenada or
West Germany cr the Soviets in Af-
ghanistan." Treiki added: "We don't
accept communism and we will
never accept communism and they
know it"
Qaddafi seemed to be sending an-
other perplexing signal to an African
ally recently. Sam Nujoma, leader of
the South-West Africa People's Or-
ganization, which is fighting to end
South African rule in Namibia, came
here earlier this month to see Qad-
dafi and get more money to supple-
ment the millions of dollars Nujoma
said the Libyan leader has supplied
to his rebel forces. For six days Nu-
joma was stranded at a seaside hotel,
ignored by Qaddafi. As of last Tues-
day he still had not seen him.
One Libyan official, distressed by
his boss's unavailability, said that
Nujoma would someday be the lead-
er of Namibia and it was a measure
of Qaddafi's shortsightedness that he
had been kept waiting so long.
Nujoma laughed off the long wait,
but one of his aides and a Libyan
official said it was insulting and hu-
miliating, almost an unforgivable
slight in the revolutionary brother-
hood. By contrast, when Maurice
Bishop, the fate leader of the Carib-
bean island of Grenada, came to see
Qaddafi in 1982, Bishop stayed at
his guest house and spent four days
with the Libyan leader.
ca
The Libyan handling of its crisis
with Great Britain, from the April
17 shooting outside the Libyan Peo-
ple's Bureau, or embassy, in. London
to the time five days later when the
British decided to break relations
with Libya, was botched from begin-
ning to end, according to some of-
ficials here. One called it "a meta-
phor for our pathology about -dis-
sent."-'
There were many- voices in the
Libyan government for accommoda-
tion. -
"What possible, what conceivable
advantage would we have in broken
relations with [the] British?" one
frustrated official asked. Fuad Zali-
teni, who is one of Qaddafi's regular
interpreters, said that the British
move was a blow, a kind of interna-
tional seal of disapproval.
It was clear that no one here had
the authority to conduct the nego-
tiations from the Libyan side, al-
though Foreign Minister Treiki had
the assignment in name. Several
hours after the announcement that
relations would be broken, British
Ambassador Oliver Miles said of
Treiki - in an 'interview: "Half his
ministry is against him. He has no
authority."
The day after the shootings in
London, the people's committee of
the Foreign Liaison Bureau (the
name given the foreign ministry)
issued a statement blasting the Brit-
ish for aggression against the embas-
sy, for "arrogance and barbarism,"
and promising "revenge." Treiki said
the next day, "The British are,very
reasonable people, people we can
deal with."
2.
Qaddafi placed himself between
the two voices of his revolutionary
government-the people's commit-
tees and the bureaucrats and senior
officials, like Treiki, who are for the
most part western-educated profes-
sionals. The committees, which the-
oretically run everything, are dom-
inated by younger Libyans dedicated
to revolutionary principles and full
bf rhetorical zeal. At the Foreign Li-
aison Bureau, the committee is made
up of 10 members, many of whom
have no diplomatic training or qual-
ifications-"street bureaucrats," ac-
cording to one official.
Qaddafi, either unwilling or inca-
pable of resolving disputes between
the 'two factions, often lets them
argue and contradict each other. The
results are chaotic.
Treiki has a deputy in the foreign
ministry. But according to rules set
up by the people's committee, when
he is absent the acting foreign min-
ister comes from the committee, ro-
tating each month among the 10
members. Several foreign diplomats
in Tripoli say it is nearly impossible
to do business when Treiki is out of
town.
To make the Libyan actions dur-
ing the British crisis even more con-
fusing, according to officials here,
Qaddafi was sending personal mes-
sages of "revolutionary encourage-
ment" to those manning the people's
bureau in London during the siege
by British police.
So negotiations were conducted
on four fronts by the Libyans-
Treiki, the people's committee here
in Tripoli, the people's bureau in
London and Qaddafi.
The point seems to be that the
revolution is more important than
the government. The revolutionary
principles and drumbeat of anger at
old authority don't die very easily
and Qaddafi feeds the fires regularly.
The British were a perfect target, a
symbol of the imperialist, colonial
past. One committee member even
suggested that the march to revolu-
tionary purity must necessarily en-
tail diplomatic disengagement with
the British.
At the foreign ministry officials
saw all this as a loss. Several expe-
rienced observers here noted that
the situation resembled the Iranian
revolution in 1979 when the radicals
would articulate, then initiate, a
course of extreme action-such as
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 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807600013-0
the seizing of the hostages in the
American embassy-and the mod-
erates had no other choice than to go
along.
cv"
The thin, expert fingers of the
soldier moved effortlessly over the
release springs of the Soviet-de-
signed AK47. Out on the blacktop of
the vast parade ground the soldier
hurriedly field-stripped the weapon,
laid out the final part and leapt up,
black combat boots clicking. The
soldier shouted in Arabic, "It is
ready, sir!" and came to attention, a
slight smile of pride rising and then
quickly snuffed out. The time was
about 30 seconds, faster than anyone
else in the class.
A long, braided pony tail flopped
over the small, red shoulder boards
denoting the lowest rank, coming to
rest at the back of the green fatigues.
She was 14 years old, a female vol-
unteer in Col. Qaddafi's new cadre.
Women have been training here at
the Women's Army'.College since
1979, according to. Maj. Abdul
Razak.
Qaddafi has tried to institute uni-
versal compulsory military training
for women, but the People's Con-
gress which he set up in the 1970s
has so far thwarted him, so all
women are volunteers. By the hun-
dreds, some hardly 4 feet tall, aged
13 to 17, they march and learn about
machine guns, pistols and larger
weapons.
During one morning of drill, while
watching the gangly adolescents
wield the weapons, in some cases the
bayonets as long as the teen-agers'
thighs, an official whispered: "Look
at this, what kind of life is this for
these girls?"
Military training for men is not
popular. Work normally stops here
at about 2 in the afternoon, but men
undergoing military training must
keep their regular jobs and then
spend three to four hours, five days
a week, with their military unit.
They must do this for six months to
one year at different intervals every
several years.
cv"
Qaddafi set up a universal educa-
tion system that now costs about
$1.5 billion a year. But Abdul Hafiz
Zallitali, chairman of the People's
Education Committee, said in an
interview that the system is under-
going dramatic revision.
"We have been so concerned in
the last 13 or. 14 years to expand and
solve the literacy problem," said Zal-
litali, a heavy-set, well-dressed man
smoking Rothman cigarettes.
"This means we had to build
classrooms and train teachers ....
We inherited a traditional system
with no specialties, no emphasis on
practical and technical skills. We
[educated] people to put them on
the doorsteps of a university .. .
. This system was irrelevant to the
needs of the country.
"We poured enormous sums into
this, [but) the people who work here
do not need a university education.
So we needed serious. rethinking and
we've been doing so in the last three
'years and now we're settled on a
general course."
That course, he said, will empha-
size the "manpower needs of the fu-
ture." That means about 40 percent
of the students, those with lower ac-
ademic achievement levels, will get
vocational training and another 30
to 35 percent will get various types
of technical training.
The practical effect of the old ed-
ucational system is that much work
is done by outside laborers and tech-
nicians; about 40 to 50 percent of
the labor force in the entire country
is foreign. They do everything from
waiting on tables in hotels to the
most technically sophisticated work
in the oil fields.
One official said, "So we have
thousands of university-educated
people who are too educated to do
[vocational or basic labor] and have
nowhere to fit in ... and we wind
up with thousands sitting around
being revolutionaries."
Others interviewed said there is
bound to be some resistance to the
education department's efforts to
tell the low achievers they are going
to solder circuit boards or repair re-
frigerators for a living. The expec-
tations raised by the Qaddafi social-
ist revolution are greater.
cva
Libya's economy is not in very
good shape, according to information
,provided by Libyan officials and
government reports.
Oil revenue, which accounts for
about 99 percent of the country's
income, has been cut as much as half
by comparatively low prices and re-
duced quotas set by the Organiza-
tion of Petroleum Exporting Coun-
tries. In addition, the economy is not
structurally sound. Although some
officials tried to convince a reporter
that many industries were springing
up, others said this claim was exag-
gerated.
"We can't make even a needle to
sew a shirt," said one. "All labor and
equipment come from outside ....
We cover everything with money.
Take away the money or the oil and
we have nothing."
Nonetheless, travel around Tripoli
Land its outskirts revealed a land that
appears to be one vast construction
'site, with housing, factories' and
-nearly every imaginable building
bbeing erected. Billions of dollars'of
the work is being done by foreign
subsidiaries of American companies,
'much more than either the Libyans
or U.S. government would like "'to
acknowledge. Libyan officials say the
U.S. role is critical and accounts for
the generally good treatment that
the hundreds of Americans who
work here receive. -
Libya has spent billions of dollars
for arms from the Soviet Union and
is currently negotiating to buy an-
other $5 billion to $10 billion worth.
but many officials, including Foreign
Minister Treiki, made it clear that
they would rather buy arms from the
United States.
U.S. relations with Libya have
grown increasingly cool since Qad-
daft took power. All U.S. diplomats
were withdrawn from Libya after-in
attack on the embassy in December
1979 and Libyan diplomats were
expelled from the United States 'in
May 1981. In August of that year,
U.S. planes shot down two .Libyan
'jets over the Gulf of Sidra and there
;have been other tense encounters4n
the same area since.
Fawzi' Shakshuki, the minister?.of
planning, said in an interview that
the only nonmilitary project with the
Soviet Union was a small agriculti -
al contract to study the soil. ;;`
"There are no big projects with
the Soviet Union," he said, "because
they can't give us the best prices and
conditions."
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The largest development project
in the country, the first stage of
which will cost $3 billion, is a desert
irrigation plan that was awarded to a
South Korean company; $100 miil-
lion of that goes to the Texas-based
construction firm of Brown and Root
for managing the project. I
One visible success of the Qaddafi
revolution is that the oil wealth has
been distributed widely and poverty
has been virtually eliminated. Food,
most of which is imported, is heavily
subsidized. Rent has been abolished
and ownership transferred to those
who occupy a house or apartment.
The lavish, ostentatious wealth of
the oil-rich Persian Gulf states can-
not be found. I did not see a single
limousine during a week's stay in
Tripoli.
Despite the strict fundamentalist
Moslem laws here, there are seveial
large television antennas in the Trip-.
He kept trying to turn the discus-
sion to the United States, saying it
had no real foreign policy in the
Middle East, rather just a series of
incoherent actions that change di-
rection almost daily.
"You should write a long article
about this city instead of the other
things .... President Reagan
should give up the billions he spends
for armaments to rebuild this city-
q,
among other things, to pick up
uallv oriented broadcasts from Ita
ool"
On Friday, the day of worsh'
Foreign Minister Treiki arrived=
dark green, 1982 government C
rolet. He drove me to a friend's f
south of Tripoli.
Libyan and U.S. sources describ
Treiki, 45, as smooth and ruthless
Said one analyst: "He is the m0
that has carried out the policy
Qaddafi. During the Chad [invasloa'
Treiki was the guy who appear"Z
with the money in one bag of
threats in the other." '
After we arrived at the fad
Treiki regularly tuned in the ne ';
negotiations with the British amb 9
sador over the siege at the Liby n
Embassy in London.
Treiki seemed relaxed, took off
his shoes and socks and lay dos
Covering relations and policy fro'
the Soviet Union to Nicaragua,
kept to the line that Libya w*
peace and the United States is
aggressor.
For nine hours he laughed, ask
questions, shrugged, gave half-head
ed denials but provided little new.
Before sunset he drove to the co2
and the Roman ruins of the large
city of Lepcis Magna and walk
though the remains of the foruz,
theater and baths for an hour. z
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807600013-0