LIBYA

Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

Al-Jamahiriyah al-'Arabiyah al-Libiyah ash-Sha'biyah al-Ishtirakiyah

CAPITAL: Tripoli (Tarabulus)

FLAG: The national flag is plain green.

ANTHEM: Almighty God.

MONETARY UNIT: The Libyan dinar (ld) of 1,000 dirhams is a paper currency. There are coins of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 dirhams, and notes of ¼, ½, 1, 5, and 10 dinars. ld1 = $0.76923 (or $1 = ld1.3) as of 2005.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES: The metric system is the legal standard, but some local weights and measures are used.

HOLIDAYS: UK Evacuation Day, 28 March; US Evacuation Day, 11 June; Anniversary of the Revolution, 1 September; Constitution Day, 7 October. Muslim religious holidays include 'Id al-Fitr, 'Id al-'Adha', the 1st of Muharram, and Milad an-Nabi.

TIME: 2 pm = noon GMT.

LOCATION, SIZE, AND EXTENT

Situated on the coast of North Africa, Libya is the fourth-largest country on the continent, with an area of 1,759,540 sq km (679,362 sq mi), extending 1,989 km (1,236 mi) se–nw and 1,502 km (933 mi) ne–sw. Comparatively, the area occupied by Libya is slightly larger than the state of Alaska. It is bounded on the n by the Mediterranean Sea, on the e by Egypt, on these by the Sudan, on the s by Chad and Niger, on the w by Algeria, and on the nw by Tunisia, with a total land boundary length of 4,348 km (2,702 mi) and a coastline of 1,770 km (1,100 mi).

The Aozou Strip (114,000 sq km/44,000 sq mi) in northern Chad was claimed and had been occupied by Libya since 1973; in a judgment of 3 February 1994, the UN International Court of Justice returned the Aozou strip to Chad. Monitored by an observer force deployed by the UN Security Council, Libyan forces withdrew on 31 May 1994. However, Chadian rebels from the Aozou still reside in Libya. Libya also claims about 19,400 sq km (7,490 sq mi) of Nigerian territory.

Libya's capital city, Tripoli, is located on the Mediterranean coast.

TOPOGRAPHY

Libya forms part of the North African plateau extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. The highest point is Bikku Bitti, or Bette Peak, a 2,267-m (7,438-ft) peak in the extreme south. The chief geographical areas are Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, the Sirte Desert, and Fezzan. Tripolitania, in the northwest, consists of a series of terraces rising slowly from sea level along the coastal plain of Al-Jifara to a sharp escarpment. At the top of this escarpment is an upland plateau of sand, scrub, and scattered masses of stone, with elevations of up to 1,000 m (3,300 ft). Farther south are depressions extending from east to west. Here are found many oases and artesian wells.

The Sirte Desert is a barren area along the Gulf of Sidra separating Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. An upland plateau rising to about 600 m (2,000 ft) gives a rugged coastline to Cyrenaica. This plateau, the Jabal Akhdar, contains three of Libya's leading cities—Banghāzī (or Benghazi), Al Baydā, and Darnah. Farther south the desert is studded with oases such as Jālū and Al Jaghbūb. The Fezzan, in the southwest, is largely a series of depressions with occasional oases. There are no perennial rivers in the country.

CLIMATE

The climate has marked seasonal variations influenced by both the Mediterranean Sea and the desert. Along the Tripolitanian coast, summer temperatures reach between 40 and 46°c (104–115°f); farther south, temperatures are even higher. Summers in the north of Cyrenaica range from 27–32°c (81–90°f). In Tobruk, the average January temperature is 13°c (55°f); July, 26°c (79°f). The ghibli, a hot, dry desert wind, can change temperatures by 17–22°c (30–40°f) in both summer and winter.

Rainfall varies from region to region. Rain falls generally in a short winter period and frequently causes floods. Evaporation is high, and severe droughts are common. The Jabal Akhdar region of Cyrenaica receives a yearly average of 40–60 cm (16–24 in). Other regions have less than 20 cm (8 in), and the Sahara has less than 5 cm (2 in) a year.

FLORA AND FAUNA

The primary plant is the deadly carrot (Thapsia garganica). Other flora are various cultivated fruit trees, olive trees, date palms, junipers, and mastic trees. Goats and cattle are found in the extreme north. In the south, sheep and camels are numerous. As of 2002, there were at least 76 species of mammals, 76 species of birds, and over 1,800 species of plants throughout the country.

ENVIRONMENT

A major environmental concern is the depletion of underground water as a result of overuse in agricultural developments, causing salinity and seawater penetration into the coastal aquifers. The Great Manmade River Project, developed to transport water from large aquifers under the Sahara Desert to coastal cities, is the world's most extensive water supply project. Another significant environmental problem in Libya is water pollution. The combined impact of sewage, oil by-products, and industrial waste threatens the nation's coast and the Mediterranean Sea generally. Libya has about 1 cu km of renewable water resources. Only about 68% of the people living in rural areas have pure drinking water. The desertification of existing fertile areas is being combated by the planting of trees as windbreaks.

According to a 2006 report issued by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), the number of threatened species included 5 types of mammals, 7 species of birds, 3 types of reptiles, 9 species of fish, and 1 species of plant. Endangered species in Libya included the Mediterranean monk seal, the leopard, and the slender-horned gazelle. The Bubal hartebeest and Sahara oryx are extinct.

POPULATION

The population of Libya in 2005 was estimated by the United Nations (UN) at 5,766,000, which placed it at number 106 in population among the 193 nations of the world. In 2005, approximately 4% of the population was over 65 years of age, with another 35% of the population under 15 years of age. There were 107 males for every 100 females in the country. According to the UN, the annual population rate of change for 2005–2010 was expected to be 2.4%, a rate the government viewed as satisfactory. The projected population for the year 2025 was 8,323,000. The overall population density was 3 per sq km (8 per sq mi), but 90% of Libya's inhabitants live in the narrow coastal regions of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania.

The UN estimated that 86% of the population lived in urban areas in 2005, and that urban areas were growing at an annual rate of 2.15%. The capital city, Tripoli (Tarabulus), had a population of 2,006,000 in that year. Banghāzī, another chief city, had an estimated population of 1,033,000.

MIGRATION

The number of Italians was as high as 70,000 during the period of colonial rule. In 1964 Italians numbered 30,000, but most left after their land and property were nationalized in 1970. There were 30,000 Jews in Libya in 1948, but because of the Arab-Israeli conflict the community had virtually disappeared by 1973.

In 1984 there were officially 263,100 non-Libyans in the country, of whom more than 40% were Egyptians and 15% were Tunisians. The remainder came from a variety of other countries in Africa, the Mideast, and elsewhere. This figure was less than half the 569,000 foreigners in 1983, before new restrictions were placed on remittances abroad. In 1992, the foreign population was estimated at two million, half of them Egyptian, and 600,000 from South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. This estimated figure probably reflects illegal immigration. About 100,000 Libyans were in exile in the mid-1980s.

The nomadic inhabitants of Libya follow regular patterns of migration; nomadic tribes in the south normally ignore international frontiers. Since the discovery of oil there has been significant internal migration from rural to urban regions.

In 2000 there were 570,000 migrants living in Libya, including 11,500 refugees. In 2004 there were 12,166 refugees, mainly from Palestine, and 200 asylum seekers, all located in Tripoli. Also, in that same year over 700 Libyans sought asylum in Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Norway. In 2005, the net migration rate was estimated at zero. The government views the immigration level as too high, but the emigration level as satisfactory.

ETHNIC GROUPS

For thousands of years the inhabitants of Libya were Berbers. Arabs started arriving in the 7th century ad, displacing or assimilating their Berber predecessors. The latest estimates indicate that 97% of the total population is comprised of Berbers and Arabs. The remaining 3% are made up of Greeks, Maltese, Italians, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Turks, Indians, and Tunisians.

LANGUAGES

Arabic is the official language; since 1969, its use in daily life, even by foreigners, has been encouraged by government decree. English, which is also used in some government publications, has replaced Italian as the second language; however, Italian is still widely understood. Berber is spoken by small communities, especially in Tripolitania. Native speakers constitute about 5% of the population.

RELIGIONS

Under the constitution, Islam is Libya's official religion and the government publicly supports a preference for a moderate practice of Islam. About 97% of the people are Sunni Muslim. In an effort to eliminate alternative political power bases, the government banned the once powerful Sanusiyya Islamic order. Libyan leader Colonel Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi then established the Islamic Call Society, which is the Islamic arm of the government's foreign policy. The ICS's main goal was to promote a moderate form of Islam, reflecting the views of the government.

Though other religions are generally tolerated, the government places a number of restrictions, which essentially limit the practice of non-Muslim faiths. There are no known places of worship for the small number of Hindus, Baha'is and Buddhists within the country. Proselytizing is prohibited. Members of non-Muslim faiths are, however, free to worship within their own homes. There are about 100,000 Christians in the country, with about half of them being Roman Catholics. Other denominations include Anglican and Coptic and Greek Orthodox. There is also a very small Jewish community.

TRANSPORTATION

Transportation varies from dirt tracks suitable for camels and donkeys to a coastal highway extending for 1,822 km (1,132 mi) between the Tunisian and Egyptian borders. At the end of 1968, this highway was connected with a north-south road to Sabhā. Further extensions to Murzūq and Ghat were later completed, as well as a spur to Birāk. In 1973, a 350-km (217-mi) road between Nalut and Ghadamis was completed. Roads also connect the Cyrenaica coastal centers with the interior. In all, there were an estimated 24,484 km (15,214 mi) of roads in 2002, of which 6,798 km (4,224 mi) were paved. In 2003, there were 368,600 private cars and 354,000 commercial vehicles registered in the country.

As of 2004, Libya had no operating railways, following the closure in the mid-1960s of two railway lines and the dismantling of the rest. However, work has begun on seven new standard gauge lines, totaling 2,757 km (1,715 mi), which it is hoped, will be completed by 2008.

The main ports are Tripoli, Banghāzī, Qasr Ahmad (the port for Mişratāh), and Tobruk. Crude oil export terminals include Port Brega (Marsá al-Burayqah) and Ras Lanuf. Since 1973, Tripoli's harbor has been developed considerably. As of 2005, Libya's merchant fleet had 17 vessels of 1,000 GRT or more, totaling 129,627 GRT.

In 2004, there were an estimated 139 airports. As of 2005, a total of 59 had paved runways, and there were 2 heliports. Libya's two international airports are Tripoli Airport (34 km/21 mi south of Tripoli) and Benina Airport (19 km/12 mi from Banghāzī). In 1968, a new airport at Sabhā in the Fezzan was opened. Libyan Arab Airlines, established in 1965, operates to neighboring Arab countries, central and southern Africa, and Europe. Many major world airlines serve Libya. There is also regular domestic service, with airports at Tobruk, Port Brega, Ghat, Ghadamis, Mişratāh, and Al Baydā. In 2003, about 627,000 passengers were carried on scheduled domestic and international flights.

HISTORY

Archaeological evidence indicates that a Neolithic culture, skilled in the domestication of cattle and the cultivation of crops, existed as far back as 6000 bc along the Libyan coast. To the south, in what is now the Sahara, hunters and herdsmen roamed what was then a well-watered savanna. Increasing desiccation and the coming of the Berbers about 2000 bc presumably, from southwestern Asia, ended this period. The pharaohs of the so-called Libyan dynasties who ruled Egypt (c.950–720 bc) are thought to have been Berbers. Phoenician seafarers, who arrived early in the first millennium bc, founded settlements along the coast, including one that became Tripoli.

Around the 7th century bc, Greek colonists settled in Cyrenaica. In succeeding centuries, the western settlements fell under the sway of Carthage; the eastern settlements fell to the Egyptian dynasty of the Ptolemies in the 4th century bc. When the Romans defeated Carthage in the Punic Wars of the 3rd and 2nd centuries bc, they occupied the regions around Tripoli. In 96 bc, they forced Egypt to surrender Cyrenaica, and Roman influence later extended as far south as the Fezzan. Libya became very prosperous under Roman rule; with the decline of Rome, western Libya fell in the 5th century ad to Germanic Vandal invaders, who ruled from Carthage. In the 6th century, the Byzantines conquered the Vandals and ruled the coastal regions of Libya until the Arab conquest of the 7th century. The Arabs intermixed with the Berbers, who were gradually absorbed into the Muslim Arab culture.

Western Libya was administered by the Aghlabids of Tunisia in the 9th century, and by the Fatimids of Tunisia and then Egypt in the 10th. During the 11th century, invasions by two nomadic Arab peoples, the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym, destroyed many of the urban and agricultural areas. Normans from Sicily occupied Tripoli and surrounding regions in 1145 but were soon displaced by the Almohads of Morocco; during the 13th century, the Hafsids of Tunisia ruled western Libya. The eastern regions remained subject to Egyptian dynasties. In the 16th century, Spanish invaders seized parts of the coast, turning over control of Tripoli to the crusading Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. The Ottoman Turks occupied the coastal regions in 1551, ruling the country until 1711, when Ahmad Qaramanli, of Turkish origin, wrested semiautonomous status from Istanbul. Pirate captains, operating out of Tripoli, raided the Mediterranean and the Italian coasts. The Qaramanlis ruled until 1835, when the Ottomans again assumed control.

In September 1911, the Italians invaded Libya, meeting fierce resistance from both Turks and indigenous Libyans. A peace treaty of 17 October 1912 between Turkey and Italy placed Libya formally under Italian rule, but the Libyans continued their resistance. Led by a Muslim religious brotherhood, the Sanusi, the Libyans (with some Turkish help) fought the Italians to a standstill during World War I. Following the war, and particularly after the accession of Benito Mussolini to power in Italy, the Italians continued their often-brutal efforts to conquer Libya. In 1931, 'Umar al-Mukhtar, a leader of the Sanusi, was captured and executed, and in 1932 the Italian conquest was completed. In World War II, Libya became a main battleground for Allied and Axis forces, until it was occupied by victorious British and Free French troops. The Treaty of 1947 between Italy and the Allies ended Italian rule in Libya and, when the Allies could not decide upon the country's future, Libya's fate was left to the UN. On 21 November 1949, the UN General Assembly voted that Libya should become an independent state. On 24 December 1951, Libya gained independence, with Muhammad Idris al-Mahdi as-Sanusi as king. In 1959 significant oil discoveries were made.

On 1 September 1969, a secret army organization, the Free Unionist Officers, deposed the king and proclaimed a republican regime. On 8 September, the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) announced the formation of a civilian government. This government resigned on 16 January 1970, and a new cabinet was formed under Col. Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi, chairman of the RCC. Later that year, the United Kingdom and the United States closed their military installations. On 15 April 1973, Qadhafi called for a "cultural revolution" based on Islamic principles. In subsequent months, hundreds of "people's committees" were established to oversee all sectors of the nation's political, cultural, and economic life. In April 1974, Qadhafi withdrew from the supervision of daily administrative functions (these were assumed by Maj. Abdul Salam Jallud), but he remained the effective head of state of Libya.

Qadhafi sought to make Libya the axis of a unified Arab nation. Union was achieved with Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, and Sudan at various times, but only on paper. Subsequent relations with the many Arab nations, including Egypt and Tunisia, have often been tense. Libya itself, despite rhetorical support for radical Palestinians, has stayed on the sidelines in Arab-Israeli conflicts.

Qadhafi has been equally active in Africa. In 1973, he annexed from Chad the disputed Aouzou Strip, an area that may contain rich deposits of uranium. In 1979, his armed forces tried unsuccessfully to prop up the failing regime of Idi Amin in Uganda. Libya sent over 10,000 troops into Chad in 1980 in support of the regime of Goukouni Oueddei, and a union of the two nations was proposed. Intense international pressure, however, led to a Libyan withdrawal in November 1981. After the fall of Oueddei's regime in June 1982, Qadhafi provided military support for Oueddei's efforts to topple the new French-backed government in Chad. Libya's and Oueddei's forces were in control of much of northern Chad until 1987, when Chadian forces ousted them, capturing or destroying $1 billion in Libyan military equipment, and attacking bases inside Libya itself. In 1989, after acknowledging his error in moving into Chad, Qadhafi agreed to a cease-fire and the submission of the dispute over the Aouzou Strip to the Court of International Justice. The Court settled the dispute in Chad's favor in 1994.

Qadhafi has been accused of supporting subversive plots in such countries as Morocco, Niger, Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Gambia, Somalia, Senegal, and Mali and of providing material support for a variety of insurgents, including the Irish Republican Army, Muslim rebels in the Philippines, and Japanese and German terrorists. Qadhafi did find some support in small, poor black African countries, eager for Libyan aid. In 1982, however, he suffered a setback when the annual OAU summit scheduled for Tripoli failed to convene because of disputes over Libya's policies in Chad and its support of Polisario guerrillas in Western Sahara. As a result, Qadhafi was denied his term as OAU chairman. In contrast, in February 1997 in a deliberate jab at the UN Security Council's sanctions against Libya over the Lockerbie bombing affair, the OAU Ministerial Council met in Tripoli, the first time this meeting had been convened outside of its headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

In 1981, two Libyan jets were shot down by US fighters over the Gulf of Sidra, an arm of the Mediterranean claimed by Qadhafi as Libya's territorial waters. In 1982, the United States, charging Qadhafi with supporting international terrorism, banned oil imports from Libya and the export of US technology to Libya. In January 1986, the United States, citing "irrefutable evidence" of Libyan involvement in Palestinian attacks on airports in Rome and Vienna in the previous month, ordered all Americans to leave Libya and cut off all economic ties as of mid-1986. In March, a US naval task force struck four Libyan vessels after US planes entering airspace over the Libyan-claimed Gulf of Sidra were fired upon. On 15 April, following a West Berlin bomb attack in which US servicemen were victims, US warplanes bombed targets in Tripoli and Banghāzī. Libya said that Qadhafi's daughter was killed and two of his sons were wounded in the attack. Qadhafi survived several reported assassination and coup attempts in the 1980s and 1990s as well as the opposition of Islamist groups, which prompted him to crack down on militants in 1993.

Qadhafi's most serious challenge in the recent past was the tough sanctions imposed since 1992 and 1993 on Libya by the UN Security Council after he refused to surrender two men suspected in the terrorist bombing of a Pan American passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. The UN resolutions (nos. 731 and 883) prohibited sales of equipment and air travel to Libya and froze its overseas bank deposits but significantly, did not ban sales of petroleum products. Throughout the period of the sanctions the United States repeatedly attempted to persuade the UN to impose an oil embargo against Libya, but it was not successful. After numerous pleas to the UN by Arab and African countries and organizations to the UN Security Council to lift the sanctions, and numerous rounds of negotiations, in August 1998 Qadhafi agreed to eventually hand over the two Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie bombing for trial in the Netherlands before Scottish judges. The suspects were transferred to the Netherlands in April 1999. This decision led to an easing of tensions, with a suspension of the UN sanctions (although they were not lifted at the time) and Britain resuming full diplomatic relations in July 1999. The United States, however, remained committed to the branding of Libya as a supporter of international terrorism and therefore a pariah state. In January 2001, the Scottish court in the Netherlands found one of the two Libyan defendants guilty of involvement in the Lockerbie bombing, and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The other Libyan was acquitted. US president, George W. Bush, stated sanctions would remain in place not only until Libya compensated for the bombing of the aircraft, but also until Libya admitted guilt and expressed remorse for the act. In mid-2002, Libya stated that it was ready, in principle, to pay families of the victims of the bombing compensation in the amount of us$2.7 billion (us$10 million for each of the 270 victims). In August 2003, Libya accepted the responsibility for the actions of its officials and payment of the compensation to the victims' families. UN sanctions were lifted in September 2003, and US International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) sanctions were lifted in September 2004.

In early September 1995, Libya began deporting thousands of Arab workers, primarily Palestinian, Sudanese, and Egyptian. In a speech on 1 September 1995, Qadhafi stated that foreigners (including some 30,000 Palestinians) were being expelled in order to create jobs for Libyans, although the move was widely interpreted as punishment of the PLO for holding peace talks with Israel. Qadhafi stated that many of those being deported were Islamic militant "infiltrators" posing as migrant workers. On 6 and 7 September, at least 30 people were killed in Banghāzī when armed Islamic militants battled Libyan security forces during a roundup of workers for deportation. By 11 September, 7,000 Egyptians had been expelled, and thousands of Palestinians were stranded either at sea or at the border wi The gypt. The deportations continued into October, when 650 Palestinians were stranded aboard a ferry off the coast of Cyprus, and 850 were still camped on the Egyptian border.

In March 1996, as many as 400 prisoners—many of them government opponents and Islamic militants—broke out of a prison near Banghāzī. The ensuing clash with Libyan troops was viewed by many observers as an indication of significant antigovernment feeling in eastern Libya. The growth of the Islamist movement in Libya is cause for concern in the region and for Qadhafi's maintenance in power.

In May 2001, Libya sent troops into the Central African Republic to aid President Ange-Félix Patassé and his supporters, to regain power after a failed coup attempt. It withdrew its troops in December 2002; Qadhafi stated the mission of restoring peace and stability to the country had been achieved. That month, Libya denied allegations put forward by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DROC) that it was sending troops and equipment into Congolese territory along the border with the Central African Republic. On 13 December, the DROC government wrote the UN Security Council to condemn Libya's actions and to demand an immediate withdrawal of Libyan troops from its territory. The DROC accused Libya of aiding the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo (MLC), a rebel group.

Qadhafi has long called for reforms in the Arab League, including the creation of a single Arab currency, the forging of closer ties between the Arab League and the African Union, and the use of Arab military force against Israel if it does not agree to the "complete return of the Palestinians to their land."

In January 2003, Libya was elected by secret ballot to head the UN Commission on Human Rights. The votes were 33 in favor, 3 opposed, and 17 abstentions. This caused international controversy, and led to calls for reform of the UN. In 2006, plans were being made to create a new Human Rights Council to replace the UN Commission on Human Rights. The Human Rights Council is meant to be a standing body that would meet year-round to promote and protect human rights with a membership that excluded the worst human rights violators.

In December 2003, Libya publicly announced its intention to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR)-class missile programs. Since that time, it has cooperated with the United States, the United Kingdom, the IAEA, and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons toward these objectives. Libya also signed the IAEA Additional Protocol, and became a state party to the Chemical Weapons Convention.

GOVERNMENT

The Libyan Arab Republic was established on 1 September 1969, and a new constitution was announced by the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) on 11 December 1969. The constitution, which has been effectively superseded by the principles of Qadhafi's "Green Book," proclaimed Libya to be "an Arab, democratic, and free Republic, which constitutes part of the Arab nation and whose objective is comprehensive Arab unity." Supreme authority rested with the 12-member RCC, which appointed both the prime minister and cabinet. Qadhafi, as chairman of the RCC, was the effective head of state and commander in chief of the armed forces. In March 1977, the nation's name was changed to the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and the "authority of the people" was proclaimed by a newly convened General People's Congress (GPC). The people theoretically exercise their authority through a system of some 600 people's congresses and committees. At the top of this system is the GPC, which replaced the RCC as the supreme instrument of government. The 760 GPC members are chosen out of about 2,700 representatives of the basic people's congresses. All executive and legislative authority is vested in the GPC, but it meets for only two weeks a year and delegates most of its authority to its own Secretariat and to the General People's Committee, in effect the cabinet, which is appointed by the Secretariat. GPC members serve three-year terms. Voting for local people's congresses, whose elected members select members of the GPC, is mandatory for those over 18. In 1979, Qadhafi gave up his official post as secretary-general of the GPC to become a "private citizen." As "Leader of the Revolution," however, he remains the de facto head of state. He also remains the commander of the armed forces and virtually all power is concentrated in him and his close advisers. In 1988, public discontent with shortages led Qadhafi to limit the authority of revolutionary committees, release many political prisoners, and remove restrictions on foreign travel and private enterprise.

In the 1990s Qadhafi saw his regime challenged by discontented military personnel and Islamist groups. Several assassination attempts have been reported, both within the military and from armed Islamist groups. His intolerance of opposition has continued. In March 1997 the GPC adopted the Charter of Honor, imposing collective punishment on Libyans convicted of crimes of disorder, such as sabotage, drug and arms trafficking, and "terrorists, criminals, saboteurs and heretics." The charter is clearly aimed at opponents of the regime.

POLITICAL PARTIES

Political parties have not played an important role in Libya's history. All political parties were banned in 1947 by British administrators, but many groups soon emerged to debate their country's future. By 1949, the Tripolitanian National Congress Party, led by Bashir Sadawi, was the leading party. However, it was dissolved in 1952, following local disorders, after Libya's first election campaign.

In 1971, the RCC founded the Libyan Arab Socialist Union as an alternative to political parties. It was viewed as an organization to promote national unity but has functioned little since 1977. Seven exiled opposition groups agreed in Cairo in January 1987 to form a joint working group, but their work had no discernible impact on political conditions in Libya. The following groups have been in opposition to the government: Fighting Islamic Group, Islamic Martyrs' Movement, Libyan Baathist Party, Libyan Conservatives' Party, Libyan Democratic Movement, Libyan Democratic Authority, Libyan Democratic Conference, Libyan Movement for Change and Reform, Libyan National Alliance, Movement of Patriotic Libyans, National Front for the Salvation of Libya, Libya Islamic Group, and Supporters of God.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Jamahiriya means "state of the masses" and politically implementing this system would involve a process of total decentralization of power, whereby all decisions would be left to the citizens via direct democracy. One source claims that in 1998 the GPC divided Libya into 26 governorates (Sha'biyah), each to be headed by the secretary of a people's committee. However, other sources differ on the structure of the local government. According to some sources, Libya is divided into 3 provinces, 10 governorates, and 1,500 administrative communes. One source lists a subdivision of 34 governorates. The CIA reports that there are 25 "municipalities," but notes that they may have been replaced by 13 "regions." There are municipal people's congresses, as well as vocational, production, professional, and craft people's congresses. Although in theory Qadhafi plans to decentralize power to the 600 popular congresses, most decision-making power is tightly controlled by the central government. The municipal people's congresses appoint people's committees to execute policy.

JUDICIAL SYSTEM

The Proclamation of People's Authority designates the Holy Quran as the law of society. The Libyan legal system largely follows Egyptian codes and precedents. All cases relating to personal status are dealt with according to Muslim law. Minor civil and commercial cases were heard in summary courts by a sitting judge in each village and town until January 2005. Cases of the first instance are heard by courts of first instance, and appeals may be taken to courts of appeal. A separate body called the Shariah Court of Appeals hears cases appealed from the lower courts involving Islamic law. There is also a Supreme Court, consisting of a president and judges appointed by the GPC. It may deal with constitutional and legislative questions referred to it and may hear administrative cases. Special revolutionary courts try political offenses.

The 1994 Purge Law provides for the confiscation of private assets above a certain amount. The law requires that the confiscated property should be given to the poor.

ARMED FORCES

In 2005, the armed forces of Libya numbered 76,000 active and some 40,000 reserve personnel. The Army had an estimated 45,000 personnel armed with 2,025 main battle tanks, 120 reconnaissance vehicles, over 1,000 armored infantry fighting vehicles, 945 armored personnel carriers, and over 2,421 artillery pieces. The Navy had 8,000 personnel including the Coast Guard. Major naval units included 5 tactical submarines, 2 frigates, 4 corvettes and 23 patrol/coastal vessels. The Air Force numbered an estimated 23,000 active personnel, operating 374 combat capable aircraft, including 7 bombers, 229 fighters and 113 fighter ground attack aircraft. The service also had 60 attack helicopters. The military budget was $620 million in 2005.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

Libya joined the United Nations on 14 December 1955 and is a member of ECA and several nonregional specialized agencies, such as the FAO, UNESCO, IAEA, IFC, ILO, the World Bank, and the WHO. The country joined the Arab League in 1953, the OAU (now the African Union) in 1963, and OPEC in 1962. In January 1968, it was a founding member of OAPEC, along with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Libya also belongs to the African Development Bank, the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa,

the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, the Council of Arab Economic Unity, the Community of Sahel and Saharan States (CENSAD), the Arab Maghreb Union, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), and G-77. The country is an observer in the WTO.

Libya has been listed as a State Sponsor of Terrorism by the United States, even though the government has offered strong commitments to the United Nations to renounce and fight against terrorism. Libya is part of the Nonaligned Movement. In environmental cooperation, Libya is part of the Basel Convention, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the London Convention, the Montréal Protocol, and the UN Conventions on Climate Change and Desertification.

ECONOMY

Until the late 1950s, Libya was one of the poorest countries in the world. In 1950, per capita annual income was about $40, while Libya's most valuable source of foreign earnings was the revenue received for leasing bases to the United Kingdom and United States (the bases were vacated in 1970). But with the discovery of the Zaltan oil field in 1959, the economic horizons of the country were dramatically enlarged. The first oil pipeline, from B'ir Zaltan to the coast, was opened in 1961. More oil fields were subsequently discovered, until in 1970 a peak oil output of 159.9 million tons was achieved. Production has fallen since then, but its value has increased, and Libya remains one of the world's leading oil producers. Petroleum, petroleum products, and natural gas accounted for almost all the value of exports and for one-quarter of GDP in 2002. As of 2002, Libya had 12 oil fields with reserves of 1 billion barrels or more each, and two others with reserves of 500 million–1 billion barrels.

Until the late 1950s, about 80% of the population was engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry; in 1999, however, only 18% of the labor force was engaged in agricultural pursuits. Agriculture, forestry, and fishing represented only 5% of GDP in 1999. A massive water pipeline project, called the Great Man-made River (GMR) project was initiated in 1984, and was expected to take 25 years to complete. The GMR is built to carry water in a 427 km (267mi) pipeline from 225 underground wells to a 3.3 million liter (880,000 gallon) reservoir. This scheme envisaged providing irrigation large areas devoted to cereal cultivation. The government believed that this project would help Libya achieve self-sufficiency in grain (the country has to import at least 75% of its food needs). Total costs of the GMR were likely to exceed $25 billion.

The GDP was believed to have fallen 20% during 1984–86 due to low oil prices. After 1985, growth rates fluctuated sharply, reflecting changes in the oil market. Growth in GDP fell by 3% in 1998 due, once again, to falling oil prices, but prices rose in 1999–2000, leading to an increase in export revenues and a rise in GDP growth to 3% in 2001. In 2002, Libya devalued the official exchange rate of the dinar by 51% to increase the competitiveness of its firms and to attract foreign investment. At the same time it cut its customs duty rate by 50% on most imports to offset the effects of the currency devaluation.

Between 1992 and 1999, during the UN-imposed air embargo, many large projects were postponed because of budget restrictions. Libya's isolation slowed the pace of oil exploration through the absence of major foreign oil companies. Lack of outlets limited the development of refineries, petrochemicals, and gas facilities. In 1999, the UN sanctions on Libya—an air and arms embargo—were suspended because of the extradition of two suspects in the bombing of the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie. Oil companies are eager to exploit Libya's resources, and Libya as of 2003 was actively courting foreign companies to help develop its production capacity from 1.5 million barrels per day to 2 million barrels per day over a five-year period. Libya is looking to cast itself as a key economic intermediary between Europe and Africa.

The economy expanded by 9.3% in 2004, up from 9.1% in 2003; in 2005, the GDP growth rate was estimated at 8.5%. The inflation rate was in the negatives for some years, and at -3.4% in 2004 it posed problems to the export sector. The unemployment rate was 30% and represented one of the main problems the government had to deal with. The oil sector continued to be the main foreign exchange provider, but revenues from it are unevenly distributed across the different layers of society. The country's geographic location and its poor soils limit agricultural output, which means that most of the food (75%) has to be imported.

INCOME

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports that in 2005 Libya's gross domestic product (GDP) was estimated at $48.2 billion. The CIA defines GDP as the value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year and computed on the basis of purchasing power parity (PPP) rather than value as measured on the basis of the rate of exchange based on current dollars. The per capita GDP was estimated at $8,400. The annual growth rate of GDP was estimated at 8.5%. It was estimated that agriculture accounted for 7.6% of GDP, industry 49.9%, and services 42.5%.

Foreign aid receipts amounted to $10 million or about $2 per capita.

The World Bank reports that in 2003 household consumption in Libya totaled $10.97 billion or about $1,973 per capita based on a GDP of $23.5 billion, measured in current dollars rather than PPP. Household consumption includes expenditures of individuals, households, and nongovernmental organizations on goods and services, excluding purchases of dwellings.

LABOR

As of 2005, Libya's labor force totaled an estimated 1.64 million people. Unemployment as of 2004 was put at 30%. It was estimated that for 1997 (the latest year for which data was available), 17% of the workforce was in agriculture, with 29% in industry and 54% in the services sector. Foreign workers, who do much of the bluecollar and technical work, are not treated wi The quality under Libyan labor law, and may only stay in the country for the duration of their employment contracts. The largest employer is the government, which operates public utilities, public works, several banks, the port and harbor organizations, and other enterprises.

The National Trade Unions' Federation is the official trade organization, and any independent union or association is prohibited. All Libyan workers are required to join a trade union. Foreign workers may not join unions and have little protection. There is no collective bargaining; the government controls all employment matters. Strikes are not permitted. Foreign workers make up a large part of the labor force, but are subject to arbitrary treatment.

There is no information about the prevalence of child labor although the minimum age for employment is legally set at 18 years old. The maximum legal workweek is 48 hours. The average family wage is estimated at $170 a month, but it is reported that employees are irregularly paid, especially in the public sector.

AGRICULTURE

Only about 1.2% of the country is cultivated. As of 2003, irrigation covered about 470,000 hectares (1,161,000 acres), or 22% of the cultivated area.

Agriculture is the only economic sector in which private ownership is still important. Cereals are grown in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica; agriculture in the Fezzan is concentrated in the oases. Virtually all crops are grown for domestic consumption. Nevertheless, most agricultural products must be imported; the cost, in 2004, was over $1.1 billion. Estimated agricultural output in 2004, in tons, included potatoes, 195,000; tomatoes, 190,000; wheat, 125,000; and barley, 80,000. The 2004 production of fruits, in tons, included watermelons, 240,000; dates, 150,000; olives, 180,000; oranges, 44,000; and apples, 20,000.

Libya is investing a significant share of national revenues in agriculture in the hope of someday becoming agriculturally self-sufficient; cultivation has been changing from subsistence farming to highly mechanized operations. Development plans aim to increase irrigation and introduce and extend the use of advanced techniques; seeds and fertilizers have been subsidized. Areas singled out for development include the Al-Jifara Plain in Tripolitania; the Jabal Akhdar, east of Banghāzī; part of the Fezzan; and the oases of Kufrah and Sarir. In the Kufrah oasis, large, untapped water reserves are being utilized to help provide fodder for sheep. In 1984, Libya embarked on a massive project to pipe water to the coast from underwater aquifers. The project was designed to transport 2 million cu m of water per day via 2,000 km (1,240 mi) of pipeline from 270 artesian wells in the east to connect Sirte and Banghāzī. The first phase was inaugurated in 1991 at a cost of $5 billion; the total project is estimated to cost $25 billion. In all, the scheme would provide 50 years of irrigation to the coastal areas, where 80% of Libya's agriculture is located.

A government agency markets farm produce and has authority to operate cooperatives and farms. The Agricultural Bank has been provided with sufficient capital to make short- and long-term loans easily available.

ANIMAL HUSBANDRY

Before the transformation of the economy by the discovery of oil, livestock was an important sector, providing transport, clothing, food, and skins for tents. South of the Jabal areas, a wide belt of drought-resistant vegetation extending across most of the country is still used by nomadic and seminomadic herdsmen for grazing. In the Fezzan, the nomads move about between oases or other places where vegetation is suitable for their animals. Libya's livestock are vulnerable to disease and drought, and in past years losses have reached as high as 60%.

The livestock population of Libya in 2005 included 4,500,000 sheep, 1,265,000 goats, 130,000 head of cattle, 47,000 camels, 45,000 horses, 30,000 donkeys, and 25 million chickens. Private dairy farms are allowed to operate, but their milk has to be sold to the state. The government maintains large poultry farms.

New strains of livestock and more efficient grazing practices are being encouraged. The government hopes its development plans will make Libya self-sufficient in meat supplies. Livestock products in 2005 included 142,000 tons of meat, 60,000 tons of eggs, and 130,000 tons of cow's milk.

FISHING

Fishing is of minor importance, but the government is actively supporting extension of fishing and related activities, including the construction of sardine canning factories and modern storage facilities in the principal ports and the creation of local fishing fleets. Libya's excellent fishing grounds contain tuna, sardines, and other fish. The catch was 33,671 tons in 2003. Landings of bluefin and bigeye tuna have sharply increased since 1990. The value of fish exports significantly rose from $380,000 in 1990 to $79.5 million in 2003.

FORESTRY

The only important forest areas in Libya are shrubby juniper growths in the Jabal Akhdar areas of Cyrenaica. A few conifers are found in more isolated districts. Tripolitania has some forest remnants in inaccessible regions. Encroaching sand dunes in the north create a need for afforestation, and many acacia, Aleppo pine, carob, cypress, eucalyptus, olive, and palm trees have been planted. Some 358,000 hectares (884,600 acres) of Libyan territory are classified as "forest," but almost all of this land could more properly be called maquis. Dune fixation, both for reforestation and to preserve agricultural land, has been an important part of the forestry program.

Up to 1976, the government had planted 213 million seedlings, mostly in western Libya. By 1981, 165,405 hectares (408,722 acres) of forest and 63,443 hectares (156,770 acres) of windbreak had been planted. During the 1980s, reforestation was proceeding at the rate of 32,000 hectares (79,000 acres) per year, but that rate slowed to 5,000 hectares (12,300 acres) during the 1990s. In 2004, roundwood removals were estimated at 652,000 cu m (23 million cu ft), of which 536,000 cu m (18.9 million cu ft) were used for fuel.

MINING

The nonfuel sector of the Libyan mining industry was negligible. Petroleum was Libya's leading industry in 2004, although oil production has fallen to under 50% of output in 1970. Libya was the third-largest crude oil producer in Africa, after Nigeria and Algeria. Nonhydrocarbon mineral production in 2004 consisted of lime, gypsum, hydraulic cement, salt, and sulfur (as a by-product of petroleum and natural gas). Estimated production in 2004 included: 1,026,000 metric tons of lime; 175,000 tons of gypsum; 15,000 metric tons of sulfur (by-product of petroleum and natural gas); 3,5 million metric tons of hydraulic cement; and 40,000 metric tons of salt. Libya had large reserves of iron ore in the Fezzan. The Wadi ash-Shatti iron ore deposit was estimated to contain 1,600 million tons of oolitic hematite, limonite, chamosite, and siderite with a grade range of 30%–48% iron. There were also deposits of magnesium salts (7.5 million tons) and potassium salts (1.6 million tons) in Maradah, south of the Port Brega oil terminal; potash in the Sirte Desert; and magnetite, phosphate rock, and sulfur.

ENERGY AND POWER

Libya is a major exporter of oil, mainly to Europe, mainly to Italy, Germany, France and Spain. The country is also a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

According to the Oil and Gas Journal, Libya's proven oil reserves, as of 1 January 2005, amount to 39 billion barrels. Although Libya has 12 oil fields, each with reserves of 1 billion barrels or more, plus two other fields with reserves in the 500 million to one billion barrel range, the country remains highly unexplored and is viewed as having excellent potential for additional oil discoveries.

Because Libya is a member of OPEC, its crude oil production is subject to a quota, which as of 1 November 2004, was placed at 1.445 million barrels per day. In 2004, Libya's oil output averaged an estimated 1.60 million barrels per day, of which crude oil accounted for 1.51 million barrels per day, and natural gas liquids at 65,000 barrels per day. Domestic oil demand in 2004 was estimated at an average of 237,000 barrels per day. Net exports in that year were estimated at an average of 1.34 million barrels per day

Libya's domestic refining sector that is made up of five refineries, with a combined capacity of around 380,000 barrels per day, which is greater than its domestic consumption and allows to country to export refined petroleum products. The five refineries and their crude refining capacities are: the Ras Lanuf facility on the Gulf of Sirte (220,000 barrels per day); the Az Zawiya refinery (120,000 barrels per day); the Tobruk refinery (20,000 barrels per day); the Brega (Libya's oldest at 10,000 barrels per day); and the Sarir (10,000 barrels per day). Libya is also a direct distributor and producer of refined products in Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Egypt.

In addition to oil, Libya has large proven reserves of natural gas, which as of 1 January 2005, were estimated, by the Oil and Gas Journal, to contain 52 trillion cu ft. However, these reserves are thought to be larger because they are largely unexplored and unexploited. These potential reserves have been placed by Libyan experts at between 70 to 100 trillion cu ft. In 2002, natural gas output was estimated at 219 billion cu ft, with domestic demand in that year estimated at 197 billion cu ft. Libya is looking to expand its output of natural gas, in part as a replacement for oil in electric power generation, thus freeing up more oil for export, and for natural gas exports to Europe.

Libya's electric power generating sector is marked by rapidly increasing demand that has resulted in widespread power shortages. All of the country's existing power stations use conventional thermal fuels. Most facilities use oil, but others have been converted to use natural gas. Total electric power generating capacity in 2002 was estimated at 4.710 million kW, with output in that year at 14.424 billion kWh. Demand for electric power in Libya is growing rapidly at a rate of about 6–8% per year. In 2002, demand for power came to 13.414 billion kWh. By 2010, demand for power in Libya is anticipated to reach 5.8 GW and 8GW by 2020.

INDUSTRY

Libyan manufacturing industries developed significantly during the 1960s and 1970s, but fell far behind the petroleum sector of the economy in the 1980s. Non-oil manufacturing and construction sectors accounted for about 20% of GDP in 2002.

Libya is Africa's largest oil producer. Libya's oil and gas potential is vast and the country remains largely underexplored. The country's proven oil reserves are 29.5 billion barrels and production is 1.4 million barrels per day. Among the many industries utilizing petroleum products is a natural gas liquefaction plant which went into operation in 1971 at Marsá al-Burayqah (Port Brega). Libya is a direct producer of refined products in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland. The refining sector was adversely affected by the UN embargo; several projects for expanding domestic refining were delayed. When UN sanctions were suspended in 1999, foreign oil companies showed a keen interest in investing in the exploration and production of oil in Libya.

The petrochemicals industry is centered at the Marsá al-Burayqah plant, which produces methanol, ammonia, and urea. Despite the fact that the plant operates at only 35% of capacity, its production of urea and ammonia far exceeds domestic demand. A major plant producing ethylene, propylene, and butene was opened at Ras Lanuf in 1987. A second phase of the Ras Lanuf complex was to produce benzene, butadiene, methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), and butane-1, but as of 2000, it was not complete. The Abu Kammash petrochemical complex produces ethylene dichloride (EDC), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and vinyl chloride monomer (VCM). The iron and steel complex at Mişratāh began operations in 1990. Large natural gas reserves were underdeveloped in 2002; a pipeline network was expected to be planned by 2006.

Libya's other manufacturing industries are small, lightly capitalized, and devoted primarily to the processing of local agricultural products (tanning, canning fruits and vegetables, milling flour, and processing olive oil), and to textiles, building materials, and basic consumer items. Handicraft products include carpets and rugs, silver jewelry, textiles, glassware, and leather goods.

Industry accounted for 49.9% of economic output in 2005, followed by services with a 42.5% share. Agriculture continued to be the weakest economic sector, with just a 7.6% share in the GDP. Oil and gas carry the lion share of industrial output, accounting for around 33% of the GDP. The non-oil manufacturing and construction sectors had expanded and by the early 2000s they included the production of petrochemicals, iron, steel, and aluminum.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

There is a predominance of foreign labor in scientific and technical positions. Al-Fatah University at Tripoli (founded in 1973) has faculties of science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, pharmacy, veterinary medicine, nuclear engineering, and petroleum and mining engineering. The University of Garyounis at Banghāzī (founded in 1955) has faculties of science and engineering. Bright Star University of Technology at Marsá al-Burayqah (founded in 1981) has faculties of basic engineering science, electrical and electronic engineering, mechanical and production engineering, chemical engineering, and petroleum engineering. Al-Arab Medical University at Banghāzī was founded in 1984. Sabhā University has faculties of science, agriculture, medicine, and engineering. A posts and telecommunications institute is at Tripoli.

Despite its abundant oil and gas reserves, Libya is highly interested in nuclear power. A 10-MW research reactor is located at Tajura.

DOMESTIC TRADE

Tripoli, the leading port and transportation center, is the focus of trading activities. In 1978, Qadhafi announced that individuals should cease engaging in trade or marketing, and in 1979 the private import-export trade was banned. In 1981, all shops were closed and replaced by huge supermarkets with stocks purchased by the state. About a dozen basic commodities are price-subsidized, and a rationing system was established in 1984. Because of an acute shortage of consumer goods, including food staples, some private stores were allowed to reopen by 1987. The nation depends heavily on imports for basic food products, since the agricultural sector only provides for about 25% of the nation's food supply as of 2002. The sale of alcohol is prohibited.

An annual international trade fair is held in Tripoli each March. Normal business hours are 7 am to 2 or 2:30 pm, Saturday through Thursday. Banks are open Saturday through Thursday from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm in winter and from 8 am to 12 pm in summer. Summer banking hours also include 4 to 5 pm, Saturday through Wednesday.

FOREIGN TRADE

Libya has long enjoyed a favorable trade balance because of exports of crude oil, mostly to Europe. Crude petroleum and petroleum products make up the majority of Libya's export commodity

market (93%). Other exports include natural and manufactured gas (3.1%), hydrocarbons (1.5%), and fertilizers (1.1%).

In 2005, exports reached $31 billion (FOB—free on board), while imports grew to $11 billion (FOB). The bulk of exports went to Italy (37%), Germany (16.6%), Spain (11.9%), Turkey (7.1%), and France (6.2%). Imports mainly came from Italy (25.5%), Germany (11%), South Korea (6.1%), the United Kingdom (5.4%), Tunisia (4.7%), and Turkey (4.6%).

BALANCE OF PAYMENTS

Libya customarily registered balance-of-payments surpluses from 1962 until 1981, thanks to large trade surpluses derived from the export of oil. Declining oil production caused payments deficits

from 1981 to 1984. The services and transfers accounts are in deficit because of travel by Libyans abroad, transportation costs, payments to foreign contractors, and remittances by foreign workers. The capital account is also usually in deficit because of Libyan aid and investment abroad. Foreign debt is difficult to calculate because trade debts are often settled by the barter supply of oil.

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reported that in 2001 the purchasing power parity of Libya's exports was $13.1 billion while imports totaled $8.7 billion resulting in a trade surplus of $4.4 billion.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that in 1999 Libya had exports of goods totaling $6.76 billion and imports totaling $4 billion. The services credit totaled $55 million and debit $918 million.

Exports of goods totaled $17 billion in 2004, up from $15 billion in 2003. Imports grew from $7 billion in 2003, to $9 billion in 2004. The resource balance was consequently positive, and fairly constant in both years—$8 billion. A similar trend was registered for the current account balance, which improved slightly from $3.6 billion in 2003, to $3.8 billion in 2004. Foreign exchange reserves (excluding gold) grew to almost $26 billion in 2004, covering more than three years of imports.

BANKING AND SECURITIES

The Central Bank of Libya, established in 1956, supervises the national banking system, regulates credit and interest, and issues bank notes. It also regulates the volume of currency in circulation, acts as a banker to the government, provides clearinghouse facilities for the country's commercial banks, and administers exchange control. Since 5 August 1962, the bank has been vested with a monopoly in the import of fine gold.

Libya formerly had branches of many Arab, Italian, and British commercial banks; they were nationalized in 1969. The government ruled that 51% of the capital of each should be taken over by the government, which paid the value of this share. Thus, the Banco di Roma became Umma Bank, Barclays Bank eventually became Jamahiriya Bank, and the Banco di Sicilia became the Sahara Bank. The commercial department of the Central Bank was merged with two small banks to form the National Commercial Bank. In 1972, a reorganization of the commercial banks left the Jamahiriya and Umma banks owned by the Central Bank of Libya; two other institutions, the Sahara Bank and the Wahda Bank, were jointly owned by the Central Bank and private interests.

The National Agricultural Bank, established in 1957, provides advice and guidance on agricultural problems, advances loans to farm cooperatives, and generally assists the agricultural community. The Industrial and Real Estate Bank, founded in 1965, made loans for building, food-processing, chemical, and traditional industries; later it was divided into the Savings and Real Estate Bank and the Development Bank. A decree in 1966 abolished interest on loans made by the government development banks. In 1972/73, the government created the Libyan Arab Foreign Bank, later renamed Jamahiriya Foreign Bank, owned by the Central Bank of Libya, to invest in foreign countries. In 1981, its role in foreign investment was taken over by the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Co.

In 1997, in addition to the central bank, there were eight other banks in Libya: the Agricultural Bank, Jamahiriya Bank, Libyan Arab Foreign Bank, National Commercial Bank, Sahara Bank, Savings and Real Estate Investment Bank, Umma Bank, and Wahda Bank. In 1994, Libyan financial assets frozen in the United States alone amounted to some $1 billion. Interest rates are fixed by the central bank, which has applied a discount rate of 5% since 1980. The maximum lending rate for secured loans and overdrafts currently stands at 7%.

The International Monetary Fund reports that in 2001, currency and demand deposits—an aggregate commonly known as M1—were equal to $11.3 billion. In that same year, M2—an aggregate equal to M1 plus savings deposits, small time deposits, and money market mutual funds—was $15.2 billion. The money market rate, the rate at which financial institutions lend to one another in the short term, was 4%. The discount rate, the interest rate at which the central bank lends to financial institutions in the short term, was 5%.

There are no securities exchanges in Libya.

INSURANCE

In 1995, all classes of insurance were available through the Libya Insurance Co. and Al-Mukhtar Insurance Co., both state enterprises. All licensed vehicles require third-party liability insurance, and all imported goods must be insured.

PUBLIC FINANCE

The fiscal year follows the calendar year. There are two budgets, one for ordinary expenses, the other (and larger one) for development. By law, 15% of total oil revenue is put aside yearly into the country's reserves, while 70% of the remainder goes to development expenditures. All non-oil revenues are assigned to cover ordinary expenditures, and any shortfall is made up by transferring some of the petroleum revenues from the development budget. If funds from petroleum revenues are not sufficient to cover development expenses, some planned projects are postponed. Although Libya has used part of its oil revenue to finance internal development (new schools, hospitals, roads) much has been wasted. Limited privatization continued in 1993, involving the sale of some parastatal assets. In 1999, Libya announced the need for $150 billion of investment in the economy in order to retain a growth rate of 5%; 60–70% of the funds were to be financed by public monies.

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated that in 2005 Libya's central government took in revenues of approximately $25.3 billion and had expenditures of $15.4 billion. Revenues minus expenditures totaled approximately $9.8 billion. Public debt in 2005 amounted to 8% of GDP. Total external debt was $4.267 billion.

TAXATION

Individual income taxes are levied at different rates for income from real estate, agriculture, commerce, industry, crafts, independent professions, and wages and salaries. Corporate taxes range from 20–60%. Also levied are a 16.7% royalty on petroleum production, a general income tax of up to 90% and a Jihad tax. Indirect taxes in 2002 were mainly sales taxes at various rates.

CUSTOMS AND DUTIES

As of 1996, the average weighted tariff was 21.3%. Import controls remain extremely tight, even by regional standards, keeping Libya a difficult place to do trade.

Libya has a single-column tariff schedule. Goods from all countries are subject to the same duties. Also levied are customs surcharges totaling 15% of the application customs duties. Almost all customs duties are ad valorem.

FOREIGN INVESTMENT

Outside of the oil industry, foreign investment in Libya is limited. No foreign investment is allowed in certain areas, including banking, insurance, domestic commerce, and foreign aid. A minimum of 51% of the capital of joint stock companies must be held by Libyans and the chairman of the board of directors must be a Libyan national.

With the massive increase in oil revenues in the 1970s, Libya became a major exporter of capital. Economic cooperation agreements were signed with many African countries and in 1976 Libya purchased 10% of the shares of the Italian auto company Fiat; it sold its Fiat holdings in 1986 for about $3 billion.

In 1999, with the lifting of international sanctions on Libya, Qadhafi called for foreign investment in the energy sector (hydrocarbons, power, and water). He also encouraged investment in telecommunications, transport, and electricity generation. Under the current prime minister, Ghanem, a large part of the national companies was privatized, and the economy as a whole is considered to be ripe for modernization and foreign investment. Many international oil companies (e.g. Shell) have recently returned to Libya and the tourism sector will likely benefit from investments in hotels and infrastructure.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Under Libya's first five-year development plan (1963–68), several long-run measures were taken to raise industrial production and to expand and improve the quality of agriculture. Of the government's oil revenue, 70% was earmarked for the development plan. Of this total, 23% was allocated for public works, 17% for agriculture, 16% for communications, 13% for education, 7% for public health, and 4% for industry. The 1972–75 development plan targeted a growth of 11% annually in GDP. Investment was allocated as follows: industry and mineral resources, 15%; agriculture, 14%; communications, 14%; housing, 11%; petrochemicals, 11%; and education, 9%. The 1976–80 development plan invested principally in agriculture, 20%; communications, 14%; industry, 13%; and housing, 12%. The 1981–85 development plan called for investment in industry, 23%; agriculture, 18%; communications, 12%; and electricity, 12%. The drop in oil income caused a contraction in planned projects, however. The plan for 2001–05 foresaw $35 billion total of investments, mostly in hydrocarbons, power, and water, with a projected GDP growth rate of 5%.

In 1980, Libyan bilateral aid to developing countries totaled 0.90% of GNP. In 1981, however, the total was only 0.39% of GNP. In 1981, Libya also contributed funds to multilateral aid organizations, principally to the Arab agencies and the OPEC Fund. As of 1987, the investments of the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Co. included 30 companies in Arab countries. There are also significant Libyan holdings in African countries.

According to BIS, Libya increased its deposits in foreign banks in 1986, while at the same time reducing its outstanding debt. By 1989 Libya's net creditor position with BIS reporting banks had declined almost two-thirds in 1987. However, rising deposits in 1990 reflecting soaring oil revenues because of the Persian Gulf crisis, combined with reduced liabilities, led to a positive net balance. Due to the decline in oil export receipts in 1991, this surplus was reduced by one-third. Frozen assets in US banks netted $1 billion in 1994. The 1999 lifting of sanctions saw increased foreign investment.

In 2003, the government planned to diversify the economy away from its total dependence on oil, which accounts for 95% of Libya's foreign currency. Tourism was one sector of the economy targeted for development, and those working in the industry have encouraged the formation of commercial banks to finance tourism projects. The Tourism Development Bank, 80% of whose shares are held by the private sector, was one example of this initiative. Qadhafi in 2003 urged Libyans to undertake investment projects such as road and port projects, and communication and industrial production projects. The oil sector was not to be privatized, but rather open to investment, while the public sector would not be entirely dismantled, but would work with the private sector. Qadhafi reaffirmed the need to establish people's socialism as the foundational economic structure of society, whereby companies would not be owned by the state, but by the people who run them, assisted by foreign investors where necessary. Libya initiated a $35 billion investment plan for 2002–05. In July 2004, Libya applied for membership in the WTO; as of late 2006, the Working Party committee to consider the application had not met.

The economy was expected to expand vigorously. Thus, by 2006, the GDP growth rate was projected to be 8.1%—the result of slower output in the oil sector.

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

By law, all employees are entitled to sickness, invalid, disability, death, and maternity benefits and unemployment payments. The cost of these programs is shared by employers, employees, and the government. Survivor benefits are paid to widows, siblings, or sons. Rehabilitation programs are provided for sick and disabled employees to provide them with new employment opportunities. Lump sum grants are provided for maternity, births, and funerals. There is no statutory benefits for unemployment, and there are limited family benefits under Social Care Fund legislation.

Despite a constitutional proclamation providing equality for women, customary Muslim restrictions still apply. Women are granted full legal rights, but few women work outside of the home, and those who do remain in low-paid positions. There is evidence to suggest that younger, urban women are gradually becoming more emancipated. Younger women in urban areas have largely discarded the veil, although in rural areas it is still widely used. Women still must obtain their husband's permission in order to leave the country. Violence against women remains a serious problem and is not discussed publicly.

There have been many reports of continuing human rights violations, including torture. Under Libyan law, persons may be detained incommunicado for unlimited periods, and the government has defended its practice of imprisoning political dissenters. Citizens do not have the right to legal counsel or to fair public trials. The government discriminates against ethnic and tribal minorities, and restricts freedom of speech, press, movement, assembly, religion, and association.

HEALTH

In 2004, there were an estimated 129 physicians, 360 nurses, 14 dentists, and 25 pharmacists per 100,000 people. Approximately 72% of the population had access to safe drinking water and 97% had adequate sanitation.

Widespread diseases include typhoid, venereal diseases, and infectious hepatitis. In 1992, the UN approved trade and air traffic embargoes affecting the economy and health care system. With the assistance of the World Health Organization, Libya has eradicated malaria, once a major problem. Tuberculosis is still prevalent.

As of 2002, the crude birth rate and overall mortality rate were estimated at, respectively, 27.6 and 3.5 per 1,000 people. The infant mortality rate was 24.6 per 1,000 live births in 2005. The fertility rate in 2000 was 3.5 children per woman during her childbearing years. The maternal mortality rate was estimated at 75 per 100,000 live births. The average life expectancy was 76.50 years in 2005. Immunization rates for children up to one year old were: diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus, 96%, and measles, 92%. Diarrheal diseases took the lives of 4,683 Libyan children under five years of age in 1995.

The HIV/AIDS prevalence was 0.30 per 100 adults in 2003. As of 2004, there were approximately 10,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in the country.

HOUSING

Increasing urbanization has created slum conditions in the major cities. There have been slum clearance and building projects since 1954. Around 125,000 new homes were built between 1969 and 1977. Low-income families were allowed to buy ready-made houses from the state at 10% of cost or to build their own homes with interest-free loans. Real estate was the main area of private investment until 1978, when most tenants were made owners of their residences. The state paid full compensation to landlords for confiscated property and resold it to tenants at subsidized prices. As of the late 1980s, the last period for which housing information was available, total housing units numbered 700,000 with 5.6 people per dwelling.

EDUCATION

When Libya attained independence, about 90% of its population was illiterate, and there were few university graduates. Since then, the government has invested heavily in education, which is free at all levels. In 1985, the number of years of compulsory schooling was increased from six to nine years. Many students are enrolled in kindergarten programs of one or two years. Basic (primary) education covers nine years of study. This is followed by four years of specialized secondary education or four years of vocational school. The academic year runs from September to June.

In 2001, about 8% of children between the ages of four and five were enrolled in some type of preschool/kindergarten program. In 1994, primary schools had 1,357,040 pupils. Secondary schools had 310,556 pupils in 1992. Of these, 26,393 were in teacher training schools and 94,961 were in vocational schools. There has been a rapid increase in the number of students attending vocational schools, from 16,008 in 1980 to 118,564 in 1993.

The two main universities are Al-Fatah University and University of Garyounis in 1976. The Bright Star University of Technology at Marsá al-Burayqah was founded in 1981. There were also two higher institutes of technology and one of mechanical and electrical engineering. In 2003, about 58% of the tertiary age population were enrolled in some type of higher education program. The adult literacy rate for 2004 was estimated at about 81.7%, with 91.8% for men and 70.7% for women.

As of 2003, public expenditure on education was estimated at 2.7% of GDP.

LIBRARIES AND MUSEUMS

The National Library in Banghāzī holds 150,000 volumes, including the official documents of the Arab League. The public library in Banghāzī had 14,000 volumes in 2002. Libya's largest library, with 295,000 volumes in 2002, is at the University of Garyounis; at that time, the Government Library in Tripoli had 37,000 volumes. The National Archives, which have an extensive collection of documents relating to the history of Tripolitania under Ottoman rule, are in Tripoli. In addition, France and Italy maintain cultural centers with libraries in the national capital. The Libyan Studies Center in Tripoli holds 100,000 volumes.

The museums exhibit mainly antiquities excavated from various Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Arabic sites. The Department of Antiquities is responsible for all museums and archaeological sites in the country. Tripoli houses the Archaeological Museum, Epigraphy Museum, Ethnographic Museum, Natural History Museum, Prehistory Museum, and Islamic Museum. There are other museums, mainly archaeological, at Cyrene, Homs, Gaigab, Germa, Leptis Magna, Tokrah, Zanzur, Marsa Susah, and Sabrata.

MEDIA

Postal, telephone, and wireless services are owned and operated by the government. Radiotelephone ties exist between Tripoli and European centers. In 2003, there were an estimated 136 mainline telephones for every 1,000 people. The same year, there were approximately 23 mobile phones in use for every 1,000 people.

The Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Broadcasting Corp. broadcasts on radio in Arabic and English, and on television in Arabic, English, Italian, and French. As of 2005, there were no privately owned broadcasting stations. In 2003, there were an estimated 273 radios for every 1,000 people. The number of televisions stations was not reported in the same survey. The same year, there were 23.4 personal computers for every 1,000 people and 29 of every 1,000 people had access to the Internet.

In 2002, there were three major daily newspapers. Al-Fair AlJadeed (The New Dawn) published in Tripoli, with circulation of about 40,000. The other dailies included Al-Jihad and Libyan Press Review. All print media is owned by the government.

The state is said to restrict all expression and opinion on matters deemed crucial to Qadhafi or his regime. All political activities, including publication and broadcasting, which are not officially approved are banned. Vague laws exist by which any speech or expression may be interpreted as illegal. It is said that there is a pervasive system of informants, which creates an atmosphere of mistrust and self-censorship at all levels of society.

ORGANIZATIONS

There are chambers of commerce in Tripoli and Banghāzī. Libya has few nongovernment organizations. Membership in an illegal organization was made a capital offense in 1975. Youth organizations include the General Union of Great Jamahiriya Students, which has a membership consisting of all Libyan students registered at both secondary and tertiary educational institutions throughout the country. There is also a Libyan Public Scout and Girl Guide movement. Several sports associations and clubs are active throughout the country. The Gaddafi Charity Foundation encourages volunteer efforts in social welfare and human rights programs. The Red Crescent Society and Caritas have active national chapters.

TOURISM, TRAVEL, AND RECREATION

Tourists are attracted to Libya's climate, extensive beaches, and magnificent Greek and Roman ruins. However, tourist facilities are not widely available, because tourism has been discouraged during the tenure of Qadhafi. It suffered a further blow with the 1992 imposition of UN sanctions related to the bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland; UN sanctions were lifted in September 2003 when Libya resolved this case.

All visitors, except Arab nationals, need a valid passport and visa. Visitors must register at the nearest police station within three days of arrival to avoid problems either during their stay or when departing. In 2003, Libya had 957,896 foreign visitors. Of these visitors, 44% came from Egypt. There were 12,405 hotel rooms with 20,967 beds and an occupancy rate of 45%.

According to the US Department of State, the 2005 estimated cost of staying in Tripoli was $344.

FAMOUS LIBYANS

As Roman emperor, Septimius Severus (r.193–211) was responsible for initiating an extensive building program at his native Leptis Magna. Muhammad bin 'Ali as-Sanusi (1780?–1859), the founder of the Sanusi order, established its headquarters in Cyrenaica in the 1840s. Muhammad Idris al-Mahdi as-Sanusi (1890–1983), his descendant, was Libya's first king, ruling the country from its independence until he was deposed in 1969. Col. Mu'ammar Muhammad al-Qadhafi (b.1942) became the actual ruler of the country at that time. Omar al-Muntasser (1939–2001) became secretary-general of the General People's Committee in 1987.

DEPENDENCIES

Libya has no territories or colonies.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Burr, Millard. Africa's Thirty Years War: Libya, Chad, and the Sudan, 1963–1993. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999.

Cirincione, Joseph, Jon B. Wolfsthal, and Miriam Rajkumar. Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Threats. 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005.

El-Kikhia, Mansour O. Libya's Qaddafi: The Politics of Contradiction. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997.

Matar, Khalil I. and Robert W. Thabit. Lockerbie and Libya: A Study in International Relations. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2004.

The Middle East. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2005.

O'Sullivan, Meghan L. Shrewd Sanctions: Statecraft and State Sponsors of Terrorism. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2003.

St. John, Ronald Bruce. Historical Dictionary of Libya. 3rd ed. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1991.

——. Historical Dictionary of Libya. [computer file] Boulder, Colo.: netLibrary, Inc., 2000.

——. Libya and the United States: Two Centuries of Strife. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.

Vandewalle, Dirk J. History of Modern Libya. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Zeilig, Leo and David Seddon. A Political and Economic Dictionary of Africa. Philadelphia: Routledge/Taylor and Francis, 2005.

LIBYA

Compiled from the November 2003 Background Note and supplemented with additional information from the State Department and the editors of this volume. See the introduction to this set for explanatory notes.

Official Name:
Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

PROFILE
PEOPLE
HISTORY
GOVERNMENT
POLITICAL CONDITIONS
ECONOMY
FOREIGN RELATIONS
U.S.-LIBYAN RELATIONS
TRAVEL

PROFILE

Geography

Area: 1, 759, 540 million sq. km.

Cities: Capital—Tripoli (1984 pop est. 990,000). Other—Benghazi (1984 pop est. 485,000).

Terrain: Mostly barren, flat to undulating plains, plateaus, depressions.

Climate: Mediterranean along coast; dry, extreme desert interior.

People

Nationality: Noun and adjective—Libyan(s).

Population: (July 2001 est.) 5,240,599 (includes 662,669 non-nationals, of which an estimated 500,000 or more are sub-Saharan Africans living in Libya.

Annual growth rate: (2001 est.) 2.42%.

Ethnic groups: Berber and Arab 97%; Greeks, Maltese, Italians, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Turks, Indians, and Tunisians.

Religion: Sunni Muslim 97%

Languages: Arabic, Italian, English, all are widely understood in major cities.

Education: Years compulsory—9. Attendance — 90%. Literacy—72.2%.

Health: (2001 est.) Infant mortality rate—27.67/1,000. Life expectancy—male, 73.53 yrs.; female, 77.88 yrs.

Work force: (2000 est.) 1.5 million, an estimated 500,000 of whom are Sub-Saharan African foreign workers. By occupation (1997 est.) Industry—29%;

services and government—54%; agriculture—17%.

Government

Official name: Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

Type: "Jamahiriya," is a term Col. Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi coined and which he defines as a "state of the masses" governed by the populace through local councils. In fact, the Libyan state is a military dictatorship.

Independence: December 24, 1951. Revolution: September 1, 1969.

Constitution: December 11, 1969, amended March 2, 1977 — established popular congresses and people's committees.

Administrative divisions: 25 municipalities (singular-, "baladiyah"" plural – "baladiyat") Ajdabiya, Al'Aziziyah, Al'Fatih, Al Jabal al-Akhdar, Al Jufrah, Al Khums, Al Kufrah, An Nuqat al Khams, Ash Shati', Awbari, Az Zawiyyah, Benghazi, Darnah, Ghadamis, Gharyan, Misratah, Murzuq, Sabha, Sawfajjin, Surt, Tarabulus, Tarhunah, Tubruq, Yafran, Zlitan.

Political system: Political parties are banned. According to the political theory of Col. Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi, multi-layered popular assemblies (people's congresses) with executive institutions (people's committees) are guided by political cadres (revolutionary committees).

Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal and compulsory.

Economy

GDP: (2000 est.) $45.4 billion.

Per capita GDP: (2000 est.) $8,900.

Natural resources: Petroleum, natural gas, gypsum.

Agriculture: Products — wheat, barley, olives, dates, citrus, vegetables, peanuts, soybeans; cattle; approximately 75% of Libya's food is imported.

Industry: Types — petroleum, food processing, textiles, handicrafts, cement.

Trade: Exports (2000 est.)—$13.9 billion: crude oil, refined petroleum products. Major markets (1999)—Italy (33%),Germany (24%), Spain (10%), France (5%), Turkey (4%), Tunisia (4%). Imports (2000 est.)—$7.6 billion: machinery, transport equipment, food, manufactured goods. Major suppliers (1999)—Italy (24%), Germany (12%), Tunisia (9%), UK (7%), France (6%), South Korea (5%)

PEOPLE

Libya has a small population in a large land area. Population density is about 50 persons per sq. km. (80/sq. mi.) in the two northern regions of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, but falls to less than one person per sq. km. (1.6/sq. mi.) elsewhere. Ninety percent of the people live in less than 10% of the area, primarily along the coast. More than half the population is urban, mostly concentrated in the two largest cities, Tripoli and Benghazi. Fifty percent of the population is estimated to be under age 15.

Native Libyans are primarily a mixture of Arabs and Berbers. Small Tebou and Touareg tribal groups in southern Libya are nomadic or semi-nomadic. Among foreign residents, the largest groups are citizens of other African nations, including North Africans (primarily Egyptians and Tunisians), West Africans and Sub-Saharan Africans. Specific numbers are not available.

HISTORY

For most of their history, the peoples of Libya have been subjected to varying degrees of foreign control. The Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Vandals, and Byzantines ruled all or parts of Libya. Although the Greeks and Romans left impressive ruins at Cyrene, Leptis Magna, and Sabratha, little else remains today to testify to the presence of these ancient cultures.

The Arabs conquered Libya in the seventh century A.D. In the following centuries, most of the indigenous peoples adopted Islam and the Arabic language and culture. The Ottoman Turks conquered the country in the mid-16th century. Libya remained part of their empire—although at times virtually autonomous—until Italy invaded in 1911 and, in the face of years of resistance, made Libya a colony.

In 1934, Italy adopted the name "Libya" (used by the Greeks for all of North Africa, except Egypt) as the official name of the colony, which consisted of the Provinces of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Fezzan. King Idris I, Emir of Cyrenaica, led Libyan resistance to Italian occupation between the two World Wars. From 1943 to 1951, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were under British administration, while the French controlled Fezzan. In 1944, Idris returned from exile in Cairo but declined to resume permanent residence in Cyrenaica until the removal in 1947 of some aspects of foreign control. Under the terms of the 1947 peace treaty with the Allies, Italy relinquished all claims to Libya.

On November 21, 1949, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution stating that Libya should become independent before January 1, 1952. King Idris I represented Libya in the subsequent UN negotiations. When Libya declared its independence on December 24, 1951, it was the first country to achieve independence through the United Nations and one of the first former European possessions in Africa to gain independence. Libya was proclaimed a constitutional and a hereditary monarchy under King Idris.

The discovery of significant oil reserves in 1959 and the subsequent income from petroleum sales enabled what had been one of the world's poorest countries to become extremely wealthy, as measured by per capita GDP. Although oil drastically improved Libya's finances, popular resentment grew as wealth was increasingly concentrated in the hands of the elite. This discontent continued to mount with the rise throughout the Arab world of Nasserism and the idea of Arab unity.

On September 1, 1969, a small group of military officers led by then 28-year-old army officer Mu'ammar Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi staged a coup d'état against King Idris, who was exiled to Egypt. The new regime, headed by the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), abolished the monarchy and proclaimed the new Libyan Arab Republic. Qadhafi emerged as leader of the RCC and eventually as de facto chief of state, a political role he still plays. The Libyan Government asserts that Qadhafi currently holds no official position, although he is referred to in government statements and the official press as the "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution."

The new RCC's motto became "freedom, socialism, and unity." It pledged itself to remedy "backwardness," take an active role in the Palestinian Arab cause, promote Arab unity, and encourage domestic policies based on social justice, non-exploitation, and an equitable distribution of wealth.

An early objective of the new government was withdrawal of all foreign military installations from Libya. Following negotiations, British military installations at Tobruk and nearby El Adem were closed in March 1970, and U.S. facilities at Wheelus Air Force Base near Tripoli were closed in June 1970. That July, the Libyan Government ordered the expulsion of several thousand Italian residents. By 1971, libraries and cultural centers operated by foreign governments were ordered closed.

In the 1970's, Libya claimed leadership of Arab and African revolutionary forces and sought active roles in international organizations. Late in the 1970s, Libyan embassies were redesignated as "people's bureaus," as Qadhafi sought to portray Libyan foreign policy as an expression of the popular will. The people's bureaus, aided by Libyan religious, political, educational, and business institutions overseas, exported Qadhafi's revolutionary philosophy abroad.

Qadhafi's confrontational foreign policies and use of terrorism, as well as Libya's growing friendship with the U.S.S.R., led to increased tensions with the West in the 1980's. Following a terrorist bombing at a discotheque in West Berlin frequented by American military personnel, in 1986 the U.S. retaliated militarily against targets in Libya, and imposed broad unilateral economic sanctions.

After Libya was implicated in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, UN sanctions were imposed in 1992. UN Security Council resolutions (UNSCR) passed in 1992 and 1993 obliged Libya to fulfill requirements related to the Pan Am 103 bombing before sanctions could be lifted. Qadhafi initially refused to comply with these requirements, leading to Libya's political and economic isolation for most of the 1990s.

In 1999, Libya fulfilled one of the UNSCR requirements by surrendering two Libyans suspected in connection with the bombing for trial before a Scottish court in the Netherlands. One of these suspects, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, was found guilty; the other was acquitted. Al-Megrahi's conviction was upheld on appeal in 2002. In August 2003, Libya fulfilled the remaining UNSCR requirements, including acceptance of responsibility for the actions of its officials and payment of appropriate compensation to the victims' families. UN sanctions were lifted on September 12, 2003. U.S. sanctions against Libya remain in place.

GOVERNMENT

Libya's political system is theoretically based on the political philosophy in Qadhafi's Green Book, which combines socialist and Islamic theories and rejects parliamentary democracy and political parties. In reality, Qadhafi exercises near total control over the government.

For the first 7 years following the revolution, Colonel Qadhafi and 12 fellow army officers, the Revolutionary Command Council, began a complete overhaul of Libya's political system, society and economy. On March 3, 1977, Qadhafi convened a General People's Congress (GPC) to proclaim the establishment of "people's power," change the country's name to the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and to vest, theoretically, primary authority in the GPC.

Qadhafi remained the de facto chief of state and secretary general of the GPC until 1980, when he gave up his office. He continues to control all aspects of the Libyan Government through direct appeals to the masses, a pervasive security apparatus, and powerful revolutionary committees. Although he holds no formal office, Qadhafi exercises absolute power with the assistance of a small group of trusted advisers, who include relatives from his home base in the Surt region, which lies between the rival provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica.

The Libyan court system consists of four levels: summary courts, which try petty offenses, the courts of first instance, which try more serious crimes; the courts of appeals, and the Supreme Court, which is the final appellate level. The GPC appoints justices to the Supreme Court. Special "revolutionary courts" and military courts operate outside the court system to try political offenses and crimes against the state. Libya's justice system is nominally based on Sharia law.

POLITICAL CONDITIONS

After the revolution, Qadhafi took increasing control of the government, but he also attempted to achieve greater popular participation in local government. In 1973, he announced the start of a "cultural revolution" in schools, businesses, industries, and public institutions to oversee administration of those organizations in the public interest. The March 1977 establishment of "people's power"—with mandatory popular participation in the selection of representatives to the GPC —was the culmination of this process.

The GPC is the legislative forum that interacts with the General People's Committee, whose members are secretaries of Libyan ministries. It serves as the intermediary between the masses and the leadership and is composed of the secretariats of some 600 local "basic popular congresses."

The GPC secretariat and the cabinet secretaries are appointed by the GPC secretary general and confirmed by the annual GPC congress. These cabinet secretaries are responsible for the routine operation of their ministries, but Qadhafi exercises real authority directly or through manipulation of the peoples and revolutionary committees.

In the 1980s, competition grew between the official Libyan Government and military hierarchies and the revolutionary committees. An abortive coup attempt in May 1984, apparently mounted by Libyan exiles with internal support, led to a short-lived reign of terror in which thousands were imprisoned and interrogated. An unknown number were executed. Qadhafi used the revolutionary committees to search out alleged internal opponents following the coup attempt, thereby accelerating the rise of more radical elements inside the Libyan power hierarchy.

In 1988, faced with rising public dissatisfaction with shortages in consumer goods and setbacks in Libya's war with Chad, Qadhafi began to curb the power of the revolutionary committees and to institute some domestic reforms. The regime released many political prisoners and eased restrictions on foreign travel by Libyans. Private businesses were again permitted to operate.

In the late 1980s, Qadhafi began to pursue an anti-Islamic fundamentalist policy domestically, viewing fundamentalism as a potential rallying point for opponents of the regime. Ministerial positions and military commanders are frequently shuffled or placed under temporary house arrest to diffuse potential threats to Qadhafi's authority.

Despite these measures, internal dissent continues. Qadhafi's security forces launched a pre-emptive strike at alleged coup plotters in the military and among the Warfallah tribe in October 1993. Widespread arrests and government reshufflings followed, accompanied by public "confessions" from regime opponents and allegations of torture and executions. The military, once Qadhafi's strongest supporters, became a potential threat in the 1990's. In 1993, following a failed coup attempt that implicated senior military officers, Qadhafi began to purge the military periodically, eliminating potential rivals and inserting his own loyal followers in their place.

Principal Government Officials
Last Updated: 10/17/03

Col. Muammar al-Qadhafi has no official title, but he runs Libya and is the de facto chief of state. The Secretary of the General People's Congress is chief of state in theory but is not treated as such. The Secretary of the General People's Committee plays the role of prime minister.

Leader: Qadhafi, Muammar Abu Minyar al-, Col.

Sec. of the Gen. People's Congress:

Zanati, Muhammad al-

Asst. Sec. of the Gen. People's Congress:

Ibrahim, Ahmad Mohamed Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee (Prime Minister): Ghanim, Shukri Muhammad

Dep. Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee: Badri, Abdallah Salim al-

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Economy & Trade: Bilkhayr, Abd al-Qadir

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Finance: Burayni, al-Ujayli Abd al-Salam al-

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Foreign Liaison & International Cooperation: Shalgam, Abd al-Rahman

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Justice & Public Security: Masirati, Mohamed Ali al-

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Planning: al-Juhaymi, al-Tahriri al-Hadi

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Tourism: al-Tayf, Ammar al-Mabruk

Governor, Central Bank: Hamid, Ahmed Munaysi Abd al-

Permanent Representative to the UN, New York: Turayki, Ali Abd al-Salam al-

ECONOMY

The government dominates Libya's socialist-oriented economy through complete control of the country's oil resources, which account for approximately 95% of export earnings, 75% of government receipts, and 30% of the gross domestic product. Oil revenues constitute the principal source of foreign exchange. Much of the country's income has been lost to waste, corruption, conventional armaments purchases, and attempts to develop weapons of mass destruction, as well as to large donations made to developing countries in attempts to increase Qadhafi's influence in Africa and elsewhere. Although oil revenues and a small population give Libya one of the highest per capita GDPs in Africa, the government's mismanagement of the economy has led to high inflation and increased import prices, resulting in a decline in the standard of living.

Libya's gross domestic product grew in 2001 due to high oil prices, the end of a long cyclical drought, and increased foreign investment following the suspension of UN sanctions in 1999.

Despite efforts to diversify the economy and encourage private sector participation, extensive controls of prices, credit, trade, and foreign exchange constrain growth. Import restrictions and inefficient resource allocations have caused periodic short ages of basic goods and foodstuffs.

Although agriculture is the second-largest sector in the economy, Libya depends on imports in most foods. Climatic conditions and poor soils severely limit output, while higher incomes and a growing population have caused food consumption to rise. Domestic food production meets about 25% of demand.

The U.S. Government has prohibited the importation of Libyan crude oil into the United States since March 1982, as well as strict controls on U.S.-origin goods intended for export to Libya. On January 7, 1986, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions against Libya which broadly prohibit U.S. persons from engaging in unauthorized financial transactions involving Libya, including, in part, the following: the export to Libya of all goods, services, or technology; the import of goods or services of Libyan origin; engaging in the performance of a contract in support of an industrial, commercial, or government project in Libya; or dealing in any property in which the Government of Libya has any interest. The economic sanctions also prohibit U.S. persons from working in Libya.

Although UN sanctions were suspended in 1999 and lifted in 2003, foreign investment in the Libyan gas and oil sectors has been severely curtailed due to the United States' Iran and Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA), which caps the amount any foreign company can invest in Libya yearly at $20 million (lowered from $40 million in 2001).

Editor's Update
April 2004

A report on important events that have taken place since the last State Department revision of this Background Note.

After nine months of secret negotiations between Libya and the United Kingdom, Libya announced in December 2003 that it had been producing weapons of mass destruction, but agreed to halt the program and submit to international inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In January 2004 it was revealed that Pakistan's former top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, had been involved in an international network of clandestine nuclear proliferation from Pakistan to Libya, Iran, and North Korea, including the sharing of secret designs for centrifuges capable of producing weapons-grade uranium. After its decision to halt attempts to procure and develop weapons of mass destruction, Libya called on the United States to repeal its 17-year old sanctions regime, saying it was costing Libya's economy $3 billion a year.

In another recent effort taken by Libya to rejoin the international community, Libya announced in February 2004 that it accepted responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, and agreed to pay retributions. Libya agreed to pay $2.7 billion, or $10 million for each victim's family, and hoped that that decision would lead to the lifting of UN and U.S. sanctions. The United States stated Libya's actions would only satisfy the minimum requirements for lifting UN sanctions, but that they would not trigger a lifting of U.S. sanctions, due in part to Libya's poor human rights record, lack of democratic institutions, and a disruptive role in perpetuating regional conflicts in Africa.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Since 1969, Qadhafi has determined Libya's foreign policy. His principal foreign policy goals have been Arab unity, elimination of Israel, advancement of Islam, support for Palestinians, elimination of outside—particularly Western—influence in the Middle East and Africa, and support for a range of "revolutionary" causes.

After the 1969 coup, Qadhafi closed American and British bases on Libyan territory and partially nationalized all foreign oil and commercial interests in Libya. He also played a key role in promoting the use of oil embargoes as a political weapon for challenging the West, hoping that an oil price rise and embargo in 1973 would persuade the West—especially the United States—to end support for Israel. Qadhafi rejected both Soviet communism and Western capitalism, and claimed we was charting a middle course.

Libya's relationship with the former Soviet Union involved massive Libyan arms purchases from the Soviet bloc and the presence of thousands of east bloc advisers. Libya's use—and heavy loss—of Soviet-supplied weaponry in its war with Chad was a notable breach of an apparent Soviet-Libyan understanding not to use the weapons for activities inconsistent with Soviet objectives. As a result, Soviet-Libyan relations reached a nadir in mid-1987.

After the fall of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, Libya concentrated on expanding diplomatic ties with Third World countries and increasing its commercial links with Europe and East Asia. Following the imposition of UN sanctions in 1992, these ties significantly diminished. Following a 1998 Arab League meeting in which fellow Arab states decided not to challenge UN sanctions, Qadhafi announced that he was turning his back on pan-Arab ideas, one of the fundamental tenets of his philosophy.

Instead, Libya pursued closer bilateral ties, particularly with North African neighbors Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. It has also sought to develop its relations with Sub-Saharan Africa, leading to Libyan involvement in several internal African disputes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Central African Republic, Eritrea and Ethiopia. Libya has also sought to expand its influence in Africa through financial assistance, ranging from aid donations to impoverished neighbors such as Niger to oil subsidies to Zimbabwe. Qadhafi has proposed a borderless "United States of Africa" to transform the continent into a single nation-state ruled by a single government. This plan has been moderately well received, although more powerful would-be participants such as Nigeria and South Africa are skeptical.

Terrorism

There have been no credible reports of Libyan involvement in terrorism since 1994, and Libya has taken significant steps to mend its international image. In 1999, the Libyan government surrendered two Libyans suspected of involvement in the Pan Am 103 bombing, leading to the suspension of UN sanctions. On January 31, 2001, a Scottish court seated in the Netherlands found one of the suspects, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, guilty of murder in connection with the bombing, and acquitted the second suspect, Al-Amin Kalifa Fhima. Megrahi's conviction was upheld on March 14, 2002.

UN sanctions were lifted on September 12, 2003 following Libyan compliance with its remaining UNSCR requirements on Pan Am 103, including acceptance of responsibility for the actions of its officials and payment of appropriate compensation. Libya paid compensation in 1999 for the death of British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher, a move that preceded the reopening of the British Embassy in Tripoli, and paid damages to the families of the victims in the bombing of UTA Flight 772.

On November 13, 2001, a German court found four persons, including a former employee of the Libyan embassy in East Berlin, guilty in connection with the 1986 La Belle disco bombing, in which two U.S. servicemen were killed. The court also established a connection to the Libyan government. The German government has demanded that Libya accept responsibility for the La Belle bombing and pay appropriate compensation.

U.S.-LIBYAN RELATIONS

The United States supported the UN resolution providing for Libyan independence in 1951 and raised the status of its office at Tripoli from a consulate general to a legation. Libya opened a legation in Washington, DC, in 1954. Both countries subsequently raised their missions to embassy level.

After Qadhafi's 1969 coup, U.S.-Libyan relations became increasingly strained because of Libya's foreign policies supporting international terrorism and subversion against moderate Arab and African governments. In 1972, the United States withdrew its ambassador. Export controls on military equipment and civil aircraft were imposed during the 1970s, and U.S. embassy staff members were withdrawn from Tripoli after a mob attacked and set fire to the embassy in December 1979. The U.S. Government declared Libya a "state sponsor of terrorism" on December 29, 1979.

In May 1981, the U.S. Government closed the Libyan "people's bureau" (embassy) in Washington, DC, and expelled the Libyan staff in response to a general pattern of conduct by the people's bureau contrary to internationally accepted standards of diplomatic behavior.

In August 1981, two Libyan jets fired on U.S. aircraft participating in a routine naval exercise over international waters of the Mediterranean claimed by Libya. The U.S. planes returned fire and shot down the attacking Libyan aircraft. In December 1981, the State Department invalidated U.S. passports for travel to Libya and, for purposes of safety, advised all U.S. citizens in Libya to leave. In March 1982, the U.S. Government prohibited imports of Libyan crude oil into the United States and expanded the controls on U.S.-origin goods intended for export to Libya. Licenses were required for all transactions, except food and medicine. In March 1984, U.S. export controls were expanded to prohibit future exports to the Ras al-Enf petrochemical complex. In April 1985, all Export-Import Bank financing was prohibited.

Due to Libya's continuing support for terrorism, the United States adopted additional economic sanctions against Libya in January 1986, including a total ban on direct import and export trade, commercial contracts, and travel-related activities. In addition, Libyan Government assets in the United States were frozen. When evidence of Libyan complicity was discovered in the Berlin discotheque terrorist bombing that killed an American serviceman, the United States responded by launching an aerial bombing attack against targets near Tripoli and Benghazi in April 1986. Since then, the United States has maintained its trade and travel embargoes and has sought to bring diplomatic and economic pressure to bear against Libya.

In 1988, Libya was found to be in the process of constructing a chemical weapons plant at Rabta, a plant which is now the largest such facility in the Third World. Libya is currently constructing another chemical weapons production facility at Tarhunah. Libya's support for terrorism and its past regional aggressions made this development a matter of major concern to the United States. In cooperation with like-minded countries, the United States has since sought to bring a halt to the foreign technical assistance deemed essential to the completion of this facility.

In 1991, two Libyan intelligence agents were indicted by federal prosecutors in the U.S. and Scotland for their involvement in the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. In January 1992, the UN Security Council approved Resolution 731 demanding that Libya surrender the suspects, cooperate with the Pan Am 103 and UTA 772 investigations, pay compensation to the victims' families, and cease all support for terrorism. Libya's refusal to comply led to the approval of UNSCR 748 on March 31, 1992, imposing sanctions designed to bring about Libyan compliance. Continued Libyan defiance led to passage of UNSCR 883—a limited assets freeze and an embargo on selected oil equipment—in November 1993.

Promulgated in 1996, the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) sought to penalize non-U.S. companies which in vest more than $40 million in Libya's oil and gas sector in any one year. ILSA was renewed in 2001, and the investment cap lowered to $20 million.

Libya refused to comply with any of its UNSCR requirements on Pan Am 103 until 1999, when it turned over two suspects for trial by a Scottish court in the Netherlands. UN sanctions were subsequently suspended. UN sanctions were lifted on September 12, 2003 after Libya fulfilled all remaining UNSCR requirements, including acceptance of responsibility for the actions of its officials and payment of appropriate compensation to the victims' families. US sanctions remain in force.

TRAVEL

Consular Information Sheet
January 9, 2004

Country Description: Officially known as the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Libya has a developing economy. Islamic ideals and beliefs provide the conservative foundation of the country's customs, laws, and practices. Tourist facilities are not widely available.

Entry Requirements: Passports and visas are required. On December 11, 1981, U.S. passports ceased to be valid for travel to, in, or through Libya and may not be used for that purpose without a special validation. Please see paragraphs below on Passport Validation and U.S. Treasury Economic Sanctions. Visa applications and inquiries must be made through a Libyan Embassy in a third country. Under certain circumstances such as a family visit or business meeting, a person may apply for a visa at the Libyan Mission to the United Nations in New York. The land borders with Egypt and Tunisia are subject to periodic closures even to travelers having valid Libyan visas. Short-term closures of other land borders occur with little notice. Within three days of arrival, visitors must register at the police station closest to where they are residing or they may encounter problems during their stay or upon departure.

In an effort to prevent international child abduction, many governments have initiated procedures at entry/exit points. These often include requiring documentary evidence of relationship and permission for the child's travel from the parent(s) or legal guardian not present. Having such documentation on hand, even if not required, may facilitate entry/departure. Foreign women will be asked by Libyan authorities to present a letter of consent signed by their Libyan husband if they apply for an exit visa for themselves and their children.

Dual Nationality: In addition to being subject to all Libyan laws affecting U.S. citizens, individuals who also possess the nationality of Libya may be subject to other laws that impose special obligations on Libyan citizens, including use of a Libyan passport to enter and depart Libya. For additional information, please see the Consular Affairs home page on the Internet at http://travel.state.gov for our Dual Nationality flyer.

Safety and Security: Security personnel may at times place foreign visitors under surveillance. Hotel rooms, telephones and fax machines may be monitored, and personal possessions in hotel rooms may be searched. Taking photographs of any thing that could be perceived as being of military or security interest may result in problems with the authorities.

For the latest security information, Americans traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department's Internet website at http://travel.state.gov where the current Worldwide Caution Public Announcement, Travel Warnings, including the Travel Warning for Libya, and Public Announcements can be found.

The Overseas Citizens Services call center at 1-888-407-4747 can answer general inquiries on safety and security overseas. This number is available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. federal holidays). Callers who are unable to use toll-free numbers, such as those calling from overseas, may obtain information and assistance during these hours by calling 1-317-472-2328.

Crime: Crime is a growing problem in Libya. The most common types of crime are auto theft and theft of items left in vehicles, as well as burglaries. Increasing availability of drugs has led to an increase of crime in the past few years. Libya's beaches are the frequent sites of muggings and purse-snatchings. The loss or theft of a U.S. passport abroad should be reported immediately to the local police, the U.S. Interests Section at the Belgian Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, and the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate outside of Libya. The U.S. Interests Section located at the Belgian Embassy in Tripoli can, for example, assist you to find appropriate medical care, to contact family members or friends and explain how funds can be transferred. Although the investigation and prosecution of the crime is solely the responsibility of local authorities, consular officers can help you to understand the local criminal justice process and to find an attorney if needed.

U.S. citizens may refer to the Department of State's pamphlets, A Safe Trip Abroad and Tips for Travelers to the Middle East and North Africa, for ways to promote a trouble-free journey. The pamphlets are available by mail from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402, via the Internet at www.gpoaccess.gov, or via the Bureau of Consular Affairs home page at http://travel.state.gov.

Medical Facilities: Basic modern medical care and medicines may not be available in Libya. The hospital with the best reputation in Libya is the "Oil Clinique-N.O.C." There is also a new Swiss clinic and a facility with French doctors, known as Medelink, but both are very small. Most Libyan citizens prefer to be treated outside of Libya for ailments such as heart disease and diabetes.

Medical Insurance: The Department of State strongly urges Americans to consult with their medical insurance company prior to traveling abroad to confirm whether their policy applies overseas and if it will cover emergency expenses such as a medical evacuation, particularly as there are economic sanctions in place. (See paragraph on U.S. Treasury Sanctions). U.S. medical insurance plans seldom cover health costs incurred outside the United States unless supplemental coverage is purchased. Further, U.S. Medicare and Medicaid programs do not provide payment for medical services outside the United States. However, many travel agents and private companies offer insurance plans that will cover health care expenses incurred overseas including emergency services such as medical evacuations.

When making a decision regarding health insurance, Americans should consider that many foreign doctors and hospitals require payment in cash prior to providing service and that a medical evacuation to the United States may cost well in excess of $50,000. Uninsured travelers who require medical care overseas often face extreme difficulties. When consulting with your insurer prior to your trip, please ascertain whether payment will be made to the overseas healthcare provider or if you will be reimbursed later for expenses that you incur. However, please note the section on U.S. Treasury Sanctions, which may impact on the ability of insurers to provide payment and air ambulance services to provide assistance in Libya. Some insurance policies also include coverage for psychiatric treatment and for disposition of remains in the event of death.

Useful information on medical emergencies abroad, including overseas insurance programs, is provided in the Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs brochure, Medical Information for Americans Traveling Abroad, available via the Bureau of Consular Affairs home page.

Other Health Information: Information on vaccinations and other health precautions, such as safe food and water precautions and insect bite protection, may be obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's hotline for international travelers at 1-877-FYI-TRIP (1-877-394-8747); fax 1-888-CDC-FAXX (1-888-232-3299), or via the CDC's Internet site at http://www.cdc.gov/travel. For information about outbreaks of infectious diseases abroad consult the World Health Organization's website at http://www.who.int/en. Further health information for travelers is available at http://www.who.int/ith.

Traffic Safety and Road Conditions: While in a foreign country, U.S. citizens may encounter road conditions that differ significantly from those in the United States. The information below concerning Libya is provided for general reference only, and may not be totally accurate in a particular location or circumstance.

Safety of Public Transportation: Poor
Public transportation, which is limited to occasional bus service, is poor.
Urban Road Conditions/Maintenance: Fair

The major streets in most cities are maintained properly as a matter of necessity since they are heavily trafficked. Many smaller side streets in urban areas, however, are in poor conditions and are seldom maintained.

Rural Road Conditions/Maintenance: Poor

The paved roads in rural areas are satisfactory, however, many rural roads are unpaved (i.e. dirt roads). Also, major highways along the seacoast and leading south merge into single-lane highways once they are outside the cities. These roads are heavily trafficked and precarious to navigate, especially at night and during the winter rainy season. The presence of sand deposits and domestic and wild animals that frequently cross these highways and rural roads make them even more hazardous. Availability of Roadside Assistance: Poor

Availability of roadside assistance is extremely limited and offered only in Arabic. Inside urban areas and near the outskirts of major cities there is a greater possibility of assistance by police and emergency ambulance services although they are usually ill equipped to deal with serious injuries or accidents.

Driving in Libya may be hazardous, and there is a high accident rate. Police enforcement of traffic signs and laws is rare. As a result, it is often difficult to anticipate the actions of other drivers on Libyan streets and highways. Wind-blown sand can make roads impassable to all but four-wheel drive vehicles. Road conditions are poor, and public transportation, which is limited to occasional bus service, is poor. Taxis, which are available, are usually on a shared-basis. Rental cars are often old and poorly maintained, and they are not recommended for long-distance driving. The sidewalks in urban areas are often in bad condition, but pedestrians are able to use them.

For additional information about road safety, including links to foreign government sites, please see the Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs home page at http://travel.state.gov/road_safety.html. Please see also road safety information on Libya at http://www.arab.net/libya/transport/la_roads.html.

Aviation Safety Oversight: Commercial air service between the United States and Libya is prohibited by U.S. sanctions, although major European carriers have established regular routes. As there is no direct commercial air service by local carriers to the United States at present, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not assessed Libya's Civil Aviation Authority for compliance with international aviation safety standards. For further information, travelers may contact the Department of Transportation within the United States at tel. 1-800-322-7873, or visit the FAA's Internet website at http://www.faa.gov/avr/iasa/index.cfm.

Passport Validation: Without the requisite validation, use of a U.S. passport for travel to, in, or through Libya may constitute a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1544, and may be punishable by a fine and/or imprisonment.

The categories of individuals eligible for consideration for a special passport validation are set forth in 22 C.F.R. 51.74 as noted below. Passport validation requests for Libya can be forwarded in writing to the following address:

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Passport Services
U.S. Department of State
2100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, 3rd Floor
Washington, DC 20037
Attn: Office of Passport Policy and Advisory Services
Telephone: 202-663-2662
Fax: 202-663-2654

The request must be accompanied by supporting documentation according to the category under which validation is sought. Currently, the four categories of persons specified in 22 C.F.R. 51.74 as being eligible for consideration for passport validation are as follows:

1. Professional Reporters: This category includes full-time members of the eporting or writing staff of a newspaper, magazine or broadcasting network whose purpose for travel is to gather information about Libya for dissemination to the general public.
2. American Red Cross: An applicant in this category must establish that he or she is a representative of the American Red Cross or International Red Cross traveling pursuant to an officially-sponsored Red Cross mission.
3. Humanitarian Considerations: An applicant in this category must establish that his or her trip is justified by compelling humanitarian considerations or for family unification. At this time, "compelling humanitarian considerations" include situations where the applicant can document that an immediate family member is critically ill in Libya. Documentation concerning family illness must include the name and address of the relative, and be from that relative's physician attesting to the nature and the gravity of the illness. "Family unification" situations may include cases in which spouses or minor children are residing in Libya with and dependent on a Libyan national spouse or parent for their support.
4. National Interest: For this category, the applicant's request must be otherwise found to be in the national interest.

In all requests for passport validation for travel to Libya, applicants must submit their full name, date and place of birth, telephone number, and U.S. passport number and expiration date for themselves and all individuals requesting validations.

U.S. Treasury Sanctions: In addition to the restrictions on the use of a U.S. passport discussed above, all U.S. persons (defined as all U.S. citizens, permanent alien residents, wherever they are located, all people and organizations physically in the United States and all branches of U.S. organizations throughout the world) are subject to the Libyan Sanctions Regulations administered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which generally prohibit any dealings with any Government-of-Libya-owned or controlled entity and any commercial activity with Libya. For up-to-date information about the embargo on Libya, and for a list of Specially Designated Nationals already determined to be owned or controlled by the Government of Libya, please consult OFAC's home page on the Internet at http://www.treas.gov/ofac or via OFAC's Info-by Fax service 202-622-0077.

On January 7, 1986, the United States imposed economic sanctions against Libya, which broadly prohibit U.S. persons from engaging in unauthorized financial transactions involving Libya, including, in part, the following: the export to Libya of all goods, services, or technology; the import of goods or services of Libyan origin; engaging in the performance of a contract in support of an industrial, commercial, or governmental project in Libya; or dealing in any property in which the Government of Libya has any interest. The economic sanctions also prohibit U.S. persons from working in Libya.

In addition, these restrictions prohibit U.S. persons from engaging in unauthorized travel-related transactions to and within Libya. Please note, however, that transactions relating to travel for journalistic activity by persons regularly employed in such capacity by a news gathering organization are exempt from the prohibition. Please note as well that U.S. persons may engage in travel-related transactions for the sole purpose of visiting immediate family members in Libya, provided that the U.S. persons seeking to travel register with the Office of Foreign Assets Control or the U.S. Interests Section at the Embassy of Belgium in Tripoli. To register, U.S. persons who are potential travelers should provide (for each potential traveler - parents and children) the following information:

1. Name, date and place of birth of the person registering (including the name under which a registrant's most recent U.S. passport was issued, if that is different);
2. If applicable, place and date of birth of the registrant's naturalization as a U.S. citizen, and the number of the registrant's naturalization certificate, or, for permanent resident aliens, the alien registration number of the registrant's alien registration receipt card;
3. The name, relationship, and address of the immediate family member in Libya whose relationship forms the basis for the registrant's eligibility; and
4. The number and issue date of the registrant's current U.S. passport, and the most recent date on which the passport was validated by the U.S. Department of State for travel to Libya; or if the registrant does not hold a U.S. passport, the country issue date and number of the registrant's current passport.

Potential travelers should contact the Treasury Department at the following address and phone number:

Licensing Division
Office of Foreign Assets Control
U.S. Department of the Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20220
Telephone 202-622-2480
Fax: 202-622-1657

Department of Commerce Controls: The U.S. Department of Commerce controls the export and reexport of U.S.-origin goods, technology or software whether such items are exported or re-exported by a U.S. person or a non-U.S. person. The Department of Commerce also controls the export to Libya of foreign manufactured items containing more than 10% U.S.-origin content. For further information about exports and re-exports, please contact the Department of Commerce as follows:

U.S. Department of Commerce
Bureau of Industry and Security
Office of Strategic Trade and Foreign Policy
15th and Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC. 20230
Telephone 202-482-4196
Fax 202-482-6088

UN Sanctions: United Nations sanctions against Libya were lifted on September 12, 2003 after Libya complied with all UN Security Council demands related to the Lockerbie bombing; this included payment of compensation to the victims' families and acceptance of responsibility for the actions of its officials. Despite the lifting of UN sanctions, U.S. sanctions remain in place.

Customs Regulations: Libyan customs authorities enforce strict regulations concerning the introduction into Libya or removal from Libya of firearms, religious materials, antiquities, medications, and currency. Importation of alcohol is forbidden. Any passenger arriving in Tripoli is required to bring into Libya a minimum of $500. This requirement is subject to a border check, and the passenger faces possible deportation if this requirement is not met. It is advisable to contact any Embassy of Libya abroad for specific information regarding customs requirements.

Special Circumstances: Libya's economy operates on a "cash-only" basis for most transactions. ATM machines are non-existent. Foreign visitors should be aware that the penalties for use of unauthorized currency dealers are severe. Foreign visitors should also be aware that their passports might be confiscated in business disputes. There is a Sunday-Thursday workweek.

Criminal Penalties: While in a foreign country, a U.S. citizen is subject to that country's laws and regulations, which sometimes differ significantly from those in the United States and may not afford the protections available to the individual under U.S. law. Penalties for breaking the law can be more severe than in the United States for similar offenses. Persons violating Libya's laws, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested, or imprisoned. Penalties for possession, use, or trafficking in illegal drugs are severe in Libya, and convicted offenders can expect jail sentences, heavy fines, and/or flogging or other physical punishment.

Family and Children's Issues: Children under 18 whose fathers are Libyan must have the father's permission to depart Libya, even if the mother has been granted full custody by a Libyan court. Women and children are often subjected to strict family controls; on occasion, families of Libyan-American women visiting Libya have attempted to prevent them from leaving the country. Young, single women are most likely to encounter opposition from their families when trying to leave. Finally, a Libyan husband is permitted to take legal action to prevent his wife from leaving the country, regardless of her nationality.

For information on international parental child abduction, please refer to our Internet site at http://www.travel.state.gov/children's_issues.html or telephone the Overseas Citizens Services call center at 1-888-407-4747. The OCS call center can answer general inquiries regarding international parental abductions or adoptions and will forward calls to the appropriate officer in the Bureau of Consular Affairs. This number is available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. federal holidays). Callers who are unable to use toll-free numbers, such as those calling from overseas, may obtain information and assistance during these hours by calling 1-317-472-2328.

Registration/U.S Interests Section Location: There is no U.S. Embassy in Libya. The U.S. Government is not in a position to accord normal consular protective services to U.S. citizens in Libya. U.S. Government interests are represented by the Government of Belgium, which, as a protecting power, can provide only limited services to U.S. citizens. Inquiries on the present local situation, like currency regulations, should be made to the U.S. Interests Section of the Embassy of Belgium. The Belgian Embassy is located at Dhat al Emad Towers Complex, Tower Number Four, Fifth Floor, Tri-poli; [mailing address is the same as the physical address] Telephone: 00218/21/3350115 or 116, or 00218/21/3350936. Fax: 00218/21/3350118. Email: [email protected].

Travel Warning
November 20, 2003

This Travel Warning is being issued to reflect the lifting of UN sanctions. However, the security situation in Libya remains unstable, and the Department continues to have concerns about travel to Libya. This Warning supersedes the Travel Warning for Libya issued October 7, 2002.

The United States Department of State warns U.S. citizens against travel to or residence in Libya. There has been evidence of hostility to the United States in some segments of the population and some elements of the Libyan Government.

There is no U.S. Embassy in Libya. Therefore, the U.S. Government is unable to provide any assurances of the safety of travel to Libya by U.S. citizens. U.S. Government interests are represented by the Government of Belgium, which, as a protecting power, can provide only limited emergency services to U.S. citizens.

United Nations sanctions on Libya were lifted on September 12, 2003. U.S. sanctions, however, remain in place. All financial and commercial transactions with Libya by U.S. citizens are prohibited unles slicensed by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. U.S. passports are not valid for travel to, in, or through Libya, unless a special validation is obtained beforehand from the Department of State.

Those Americans who decide to travel to Libya despite the Travel Warning should exercise a high level of caution. Updated information on travel and security in Libya may be obtained from the Department of State by calling 1-888-407-4747 within the United States, or, from overseas, 1-317-472-2328. U.S. citizens who plan to travel to or remain in Libya despite this Travel Warning should consult the Department of State's latest Consular Information sheet for Libya, the current Worldwide Caution and Middle East and North Africa Public Announcements, which are available on the Department's Internet site at http://travel.state.gov.

Libya

Compiled from the October 2007 Background Note and supplemented with additional information from the State Department and the editors of this volume. See the introduction to this set for explanatory notes.

Official Name:

Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

PROFILE

Geography

Location: North Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria, southern border with Chad, Niger, and Sudan.

Area: 1,759,540 million sq. km.

Cities: Tripoli (capital), Benghazi.

Terrain: Mostly barren, flat to undulating plains, plateaus, depressions.

Climate: Mediterranean along coast; dry, extreme desert interior.

Land use: Arable land—1.03%; permanent crops—0.19%; other—98.78%.

People

Nationality: Noun and adjective—Libyan(s).

Population: (July 2007 est.) 6,036,914 (includes non-nationals, of which an estimated 500,000 or more are sub-Saharan Africans living in Libya).

Annual growth rate: (2007 est.) 2.262%. Birth rate (2007 est.)—26.09 births/1,000 population. Death rate (2007 est.)—3.47 deaths/1,000 population.

Ethnic groups: Berber and Arab 97%; Greeks, Maltese, Italians, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Turks, Indians, and Tunisians.

Religions: Sunni Muslim 97%.

Languages: Arabic is the primary language. English, French, and Italian are understood in major cities.

Education: Years compulsory—9. Attendance—90%. Literacy (age 15 and over who can read and write)—total population 82.6%; female 72% (2003 est.).

Health: (2007 est.) Infant mortality rate—22.82 deaths/1,000 live births. Life expectancy—total population 76.88 yrs.; male 74.1 yrs.; female 78.58 yrs.

Work force: (2006 est.) 1.787 million, an estimated 500,000 of whom are sub-Saharan African foreign workers.

Government

Type: “Jamahiriya” is a term Col. Mu′ammar al-Qadhafi coined and which he defines as a “state of the masses” governed by the populace through local councils. In practice, Libya is an authoritarian state.

Independence: December 24, 1951. Revolution: September 1, 1969.

Constitution: December 11, 1969, amended March 2, 1977—established popular congresses and people's committees.

Political subdivisions: 31 municipalities (singular—“shabiya”, plural—”shabiyat”) Butnan, Darnah, Gubba, Al Jabal al-Akhdar, Marj, Green Belt, Benghazi, Ajdabiya, Wahat, Kufra, Surt, Al Jufrah, Misurata, Murgub, Bani-waleed, Tarhuna and Msallata, Tripoli, Jfara, Zawiya, Subrata & Surman, An Nuqat al Khams, Gharyan, Mezda, Nalut, Ghdames, Yefren and Jadu, Wadi Alhaya, Ghat, Sabha, Wadi Shati, Murzuq.

Political parties: Political parties are banned. According to the political theory of Col. Mu′ammar al-Qadhafi, multi-layered popular assemblies (people's congresses) with executive institutions (people's committees) are guided by political cadres (revolutionary committees).

Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal and compulsory.

Economy

Real GDP: (2000$, 2006) $46.451 billion.

GDP per capita: (PPP, 2006) $12,204.

Real GDP growth rate: (2006) 5.6%.

Natural resources: Petroleum, natural gas, gypsum.

Agriculture: Products—wheat, barley, olives, dates, citrus, vegetables, peanuts, soybeans; cattle; approximately 75% of Libya's food is imported.

Industry: Types—petroleum, food processing, textiles, handicrafts, cement.

Trade: Exports (2006 est.)—$37.02 billion f.o.b.: crude oil, refined petroleum products. Major markets (2005)—Italy (38%), Germany (15.1%), Spain (9.3%), Turkey (6.2%), France (6.2%), U.S. (5.2%). Imports (2006 est.)—$14.47 billion f.o.b.: machinery, transport equipment, food, manufactured goods. Major suppliers (2003)—Italy (21.2%), Germany (10.2%), Tunisia (5.9%), Turkey (4.8%), U.K. (4.8%), France (4.7%), South Korea (4.6%), China (4.5%).

PEOPLE

Libya has a small population in a large land area. Population density is about 50 persons per sq. km. (80/sq. mi.) in the two northern regions of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, but falls to less than one person per sq. km. (1.6/sq. mi.) elsewhere. Ninety percent of the people live in less than 10% of the area, primarily along the coast. More than half the population is urban, mostly concentrated in the two largest cities, Tripoli and Benghazi. Thirty-three percent of the population is estimated to be under age 15.

Native Libyans are primarily a mixture of Arabs and Berbers. Small Tebou and Touareg tribal groups in southern Libya are nomadic or semi-nomadic. Among foreign residents, the largest groups are citizens of other African nations, including North Africans (primarily Egyptians and Tunisians), West Africans and Sub-Saharan Africans.

HISTORY

For most of their history, the peoples of Libya have been subjected to varying degrees of foreign control. The Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Vandals, and Byzantines ruled all or parts of Libya. Although the Greeks and Romans left impressive ruins at Cyrene, Leptis Magna, and Sabratha, little else remains today to testify to the presence of these ancient cultures.

The Arabs conquered Libya in the seventh century A.D. In the following centuries, most of the indigenous peoples adopted Islam and the Arabic language and culture. The Ottoman Turks conquered the country in the mid-16th century. Libya remained part of their empire—although at times virtually autonomous—until Italy invaded in 1911 and, in the face of years of resistance, made Libya a colony.

In 1934, Italy adopted the name “Libya” (used by the Greeks for all of North Africa, except Egypt) as the official name of the colony, which consisted of the Provinces of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Fezzan. King Idris I, Emir of Cyrenaica, led Libyan resistance to Italian occupation between the two World Wars. From 1943 to 1951, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were under British administration, while the French controlled Fezzan. In 1944, Idris returned from exile in Cairo but declined to resume permanent residence in Cyrenaica until the removal in 1947 of some aspects of foreign control. Under the terms of the 1947 peace treaty with the Allies, Italy relinquished all claims to Libya.

On November 21, 1949, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution stating that Libya should become independent before January 1, 1952. King Idris I represented Libya in the subsequent UN negotiations. When Libya declared its independence on December 24, 1951, it was the first country to achieve independence through the United Nations and one of the first former European possessions in Africa to gain independence. Libya was proclaimed a constitutional and a hereditary monarchy under King Idris.

The discovery of significant oil reserves in 1959 and the subsequent income from petroleum sales enabled what had been one of the world's poorest countries to become extremely wealthy, as measured by per capita GDP. Although oil drastically improved Libya's finances, popular resentment grew as wealth was increasingly concentrated in the hands of the elite. This discontent continued to mount with the rise throughout the Arab world of Nasserism and the idea of Arab unity.

On September 1, 1969, a small group of military officers led by then 28-year-old army officer Mu′ammar Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi staged a coup d'état against King Idris, who was exiled to Egypt. The new regime, headed by the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), abolished the monarchy and proclaimed the new Libyan Arab Republic. Qadhafi emerged as leader of the RCC and eventually as de facto chief of state, a political role he still plays. The Libyan government asserts that Qadhafi currently holds no official position, although he is referred to in government statements and the official press as the “Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution.”

The new RCC's motto became “freedom, socialism, and unity.” It pledged itself to remedy “backwardness”, take an active role in the Palestinian Arab cause, promote Arab unity, and encourage domestic policies based on social justice, non-exploitation, and an equitable distribution of wealth.

An early objective of the new government was withdrawal of all foreign military installations from Libya. Following negotiations, British military installations at Tobruk and nearby El Adem were closed in March 1970, and U.S. facilities at Wheelus Air Force Base near Tripoli were closed in June 1970. That July, the Libyan Government ordered the expulsion of several thousand Italian residents. By 1971, libraries and cultural centers operated by foreign governments were ordered closed.

In the 1970s, Libya claimed leadership of Arab and African revolutionary forces and sought active roles in international organizations. Late in the 1970s, Libyan embassies were redesignated as “people's bureaus,” as Qadhafi sought to portray Libyan foreign policy as an expression of the popular will. The people's bureaus, aided by Libyan religious, political, educational, and business institutions overseas, exported Qadhafi's revolutionary philosophy abroad. Qadhafi's confrontational foreign policies and use of terrorism, as well as Libya's growing friendship with the U.S.S.R., led to increased tensions

with the West in the 1980s. Following a terrorist bombing at a discotheque in West Berlin frequented by American military personnel, in 1986 the U.S. retaliated militarily against targets in Libya, and imposed broad unilateral economic sanctions.

After Libya was implicated in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, UN sanctions were imposed in 1992. UN Security Council resolutions (UNSCRs) passed in 1992 and 1993 obliged Libya to fulfill requirements related to the Pan Am 103 bombing before sanctions could be lifted. Qadhafi initially refused to comply with these requirements, leading to Libya's political and economic isolation for most of the 1990s. In 1999, Libya fulfilled one of the UNSCR requirements by surrendering two Libyans suspected in connection with the bombing for trial before a Scottish court in the Netherlands. One of these suspects, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, was found guilty; the other was acquitted. Al-Megrahi's conviction was upheld on appeal in 2002. In August 2003, Libya fulfilled the remaining UNSCR requirements, including acceptance of responsibility for the actions of its officials and payment of appropriate compensation to the victims’ families. UN sanctions were lifted on September 12, 2003. U.S. International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)-based sanctions were lifted September 20, 2004.

On December 19, 2003, Libya publicly announced its intention to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR)-class missile programs. Since that time, it has cooperated with the U.S., the U.K., the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons toward these objectives. Libya has also signed the IAEA Additional Protocol and has become a State Party to the Chemical Weapons Convention. These were important steps toward full diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Libya.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS

Libya's political system is in theory based on the political philosophy in Qadhafi's Green Book, which combines socialist and Islamic theories and rejects parliamentary democracy and political parties. In reality, Qadhafi exercises near total control over major government decisions. For the first seven years following the revolution, Colonel Qadhafi and 12 fellow army officers, the Revolutionary Command Council, began a complete overhaul of Libya's political system, society and economy. In 1973, he announced the start of a “cultural revolution” in schools, businesses, industries, and public institutions to oversee administration of those organizations in the public interest. On March 2, 1977, Qadhafi convened a General People's Congress (GPC) to proclaim the establishment of “people's power,” change the country's name to the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and to vest, theoretically, primary authority in the GPC.

The GPC is the legislative forum that interacts with the General People's Committee, whose members are secretaries of Libyan ministries. It serves as the intermediary between the masses and the leadership and is composed of the secretariats of some 600 local “basic popular congresses.” The GPC secretariat and the cabinet secretaries are appointed by the GPC secretary general and confirmed by the annual GPC congress. These cabinet secretaries are responsible for the routine operation of their ministries, but Qadhafi exercises real authority directly or through manipulation of the peoples and revolutionary committees.

Qadhafi remained the de facto chief of state and secretary general of the GPC until 1980, when he gave up his office. Although he holds no formal office, Qadhafi exercises power with the assistance of a small group of trusted advisers, who include relatives from his home base in the Sirte region, which lies between the traditional commercial and political power centers in Benghazi and Tripoli.

In the 1980s, competition grew between the official Libyan Government and military hierarchies and the revolutionary committees. An abortive coup attempt in May 1984, apparently mounted by Libyan exiles with internal support, led to a short-lived reign of terror in which thousands were imprisoned and interrogated. An unknown number were executed. Qadhafi used the revolutionary committees to search out alleged internal opponents following the coup attempt, thereby accelerating the rise of more radical elements inside the Libyan power hierarchy.

In 1988, faced with rising public dissatisfaction with shortages in consumer goods and setbacks in Libya's war with Chad, Qadhafi began to curb the power of the revolutionary committees and to institute some domestic reforms. The regime released many political prisoners and eased restrictions on foreign travel by Libyans. Private businesses were again permitted to operate. In the late 1980s, Qadhafi began to pursue an anti-Islamic fundamentalist policy domestically, viewing fundamentalism as a potential rallying point for opponents of the regime. Qadhafi's security forces launched a pre-emptive strike at alleged coup plotters in the military and among the Warfallah tribe in October 1993. Widespread arrests and government reshufflings followed, accompanied by public “confessions” from regime opponents and allegations of torture and executions. The military, once Qadhafi's strongest supporters, became a potential threat in the 1990s. In 1993, following a failed coup attempt that implicated senior military officers, Qadhafi began to purge the military periodically, eliminating potential rivals and inserting his own loyal followers in their place.

The Libyan court system consists of three levels: the courts of first instance; the courts of appeals; and the Supreme Court, which is the final appellate level. The GPC appoints justices to the Supreme Court. Special “revolutionary courts” and military courts operate outside the court system to try political offenses and crimes against the state. “People's courts,” another example of extrajudicial authority, were abolished in January 2005. Libya's justice system is nominally based on Sharia law.

Principal Government Officials

Last Updated: 2/1/2008

Col. Muammar al-Qadhafi has no official title, but he runs Libya and is the de facto chief of state. The Secretary of the General People's Congress is chief of state in theory but is not treated as such. The Secretary of the General People's Committee plays the role of prime minister.

Leader: Muammar Abu Minyar al-QADHAFI, Col.

Sec. of the Gen. People's Congress: Muhammad al-ZANATI

Asst. Sec. of the Gen. People's Congress: Ahmad Mohamed IBRAHIM

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee (Prime Min.): al-Baghdadi Ali al-MAHMUDI

Asst. Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee: Abd-al-Hafid Mahmud al-ZULAYTINI

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Agriculture & Animal Resources: Abu Bakr Mabruk al-MANSURI

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Culture & Information: Nuri Dhaw al-HUMAYDI

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Economy, Trade, & Investment: Ali Abd al-Aziz al-ISSAWI

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Electricity, Water, & Gas: Umran Ibrahim Abu-KRA’AA

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for General Education: Abd al-Qadir Muhammad al-BAGHDADI

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Finance: Muhammad Ali al-HUWAYZ

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Foreign Liaison & Intl. Cooperation: Abd al-Rahman Muhammad SHALGHAM

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Health & Environment: Muhammad Abu Ujaylah RASHID

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Higher Education: Aqil Husayn AQIL

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Industry & Mines: Ali Yusuf ZIKRI

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Justice: Mustafa Muhammad Abd-al-JALIL

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Planning: al-Tahriri al-Hadi al-JUHAYMI

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Public Security: Salih Rajab al-MISMARI

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Social Affairs: Ibrahim al-ZARRUQ al-SHARIF

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Telecommunications & Transport: Muhammad Abu-Ujayl al-MABRUK

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for the Workforce, Training, & Employment: Matuq Muhammad MATUQ

Sec. of the Gen. People's Committee for Youth & Sports: Mustafa Miftah Bel’id al-DERSI

Governor, Central Bank: Farhat Omer Ben GDARA

Charge d’Affaires, People's Bureau, Washington: Ali Suleiman AUJALI Permanent Representative to the UN, New York: Giadalla Azzoz Belgasem ETTALHI

The Libyan Embassy is located at 2600 Virginia Avenue NW, Suite 705, Washington DC 20037 (tel. 202-944-9601, fax 202-944-9060).

ECONOMY

The government dominates Libya's socialist-oriented economy through complete control of the country's oil resources, which account for approximately 97% of export earnings, 75% of government receipts, and 54% of the gross domestic product. Oil revenues constitute the principal source of foreign exchange. Much of the country’ income has been lost to waste, corruption, conventional armaments purchases, and attempts to develop weapons of mass destruction, as well as to large donations made to developing countries in attempts to increase Qadhafi's influence in Africa and elsewhere. Although oil revenues and a small population give Libya one of the highest per capita GDPs in Africa, the government's mismanagement of the economy has led to high inflation and increased import prices. These factors resulted in a decline in the standard of living from the late 1990s through 2003.

Despite efforts to diversify the economy and encourage private sector participation, extensive controls of prices, credit, trade, and foreign exchange constrain growth. Import restrictions and inefficient resource allocations have caused periodic shortages of basic goods and foodstuffs.

Although agriculture is the second-largest sector in the economy, Libya imports most foods. Climatic conditions and poor soils severely limit output, while higher incomes and a growing population have caused food consumption to rise. Domestic food production meets about 25% of demand.

On September 20, 2004, President George W. Bush signed an Executive Order ending economic sanctions imposed under the authority of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). U.S. persons are no longer prohibited from working in Libya, and many American companies are actively seeking investment opportunities in Libya. The government has announced ambitious plans to increase foreign investment in the oil and gas sectors to significantly boost production capacity. The government is also pursuing a number of infrastructure projects such as highways, railways, telecommunications backbones, and irrigation.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Since 1969, Qadhafi has determined Libya's foreign policy. His principal foreign policy goals have been Arab unity, elimination of Israel, advancement of Islam, support for Palestinians, elimination of outside—particularly Western—influence in the Middle East and Africa, and support for a range of “revolutionary” causes.

After the 1969 coup, Qadhafi closed American and British bases on Libyan territory and partially nationalized all foreign oil and commercial interests in Libya. He also played a key role in promoting the use of oil embargoes as a political weapon for challenging the West, hoping that an oil price rise and embargo in 1973 would persuade the West—especially the United States—to end support for Israel. Qadhafi rejected both Soviet communism and Western capitalism, and claimed he was charting a middle course. Libya's relationship with the former Soviet Union involved massive Libyan arms purchases from the Soviet bloc and the presence of thousands of east bloc advisers. Libya's use—and heavy loss—of Soviet-supplied weaponry in its war with Chad was a notable breach of an apparent Soviet-Libyan understanding not to use the weapons for activities inconsistent with Soviet objectives. As a result, Soviet-Libyan relations reached a nadir in mid-1987.

After the fall of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, Libya concentrated on expanding diplomatic ties with Third World countries and increasing its commercial links with Europe and East Asia. Following the imposition of UN sanctions in 1992, these ties significantly diminished. Following a 1998 Arab League meeting in which fellow Arab states decided not to challenge UN sanctions, Qadhafi announced that he was turning his back on pan-Arab ideas, which had been one of the fundamental tenets of his philosophy.

Instead, Libya pursued closer bilateral ties, particularly with North African neighbors Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. It has also sought to develop its relations with Sub-Saharan Africa, leading to Libyan involvement in several internal African disputes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Central African Republic, Eritrea and Ethiopia. Libya has also sought to expand its influence in Africa through financial assistance, ranging from aid donations to impoverished neighbors such as Niger to oil subsidies to Zimbabwe, and through participation in the African Union. Qadhafi has proposed a borderless “United States of Africa” to transform the continent into a single nation-state ruled by a single government. This plan has been greeted with skepticism. Libya has played a helpful role in facilitating the provision of humanitarian assistance to Darfur refugees in Chad.

One of the longest-standing issues in Libya's relationship with the European Union and the international community was resolved in July 2007 with the release of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who had been convicted in 1999 of deliberately infecting over 400 children in a Benghazi hospital with the HIV virus. The six medics were sentenced to death in 2004, a sentence that was upheld by the Libyan Supreme Court but commuted in July 2007 by the Higher Judicial Council to life in prison. Under a previous agreement with the Bulgarian Government on the repatriation of prisoners, the medics were allowed to return to Bulgaria to finish their sentence, where upon arrival the Bulgarian president pardoned all six. The Benghazi International Fund, established by the United States and its European allies, raised $460 million to distribute to the families of the children infected with HIV, each of whom received $1 million.

Terrorism

Libya has taken significant steps to mend its international image and formally renounced terrorism in a letter to the UN Security Council in August 2003. In 1999, the Libyan government surrendered two Libyans suspected of involvement in the Pan Am 103 bombing, leading to the suspension of UN sanctions. On January 31, 2001, a Scottish court seated in the Netherlands found one of the suspects, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, guilty of murder in connection with the bombing, and acquitted the second suspect, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhima. Megrahi's conviction was upheld on March 14, 2002, but an appeals hearing was granted in June 2007 by the Scottish High Court.

UN sanctions were lifted on September 12, 2003 following Libyan compliance with its remaining UNSCR requirements on Pan Am 103, including acceptance of responsibility for the actions of its officials and payment of appropriate compensation. Libya paid compensation in 1999 for the death of British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher, a move that preceded the reopening of the British Embassy in Tripoli, and paid damages to the families of the victims in the bombing of UTA Flight 772. With the lifting of UN sanctions in September 2003, each of the families of the victims of Pan Am 103 received $4 million of a maximum $10 million in compensation. After the lifting of U.S. IEEPA-based sanctions on September 20, 2004, the families received a further $4 million.

On November 13, 2001, a German court found four persons, including a former employee of the Libyan embassy in East Berlin, guilty in connection with the 1986 La Belle disco bombing, in which two U.S. servicemen were killed. The court also established a connection to the Libyan government. The German Government demanded that Libya accept responsibility for the La Belle bombing and pay appropriate compensation. A compensation deal for non-U.S. victims was agreed to in August 2004. U.S. victims continue to pursue their claims in federal court.

By 2003, Libya appeared to have curtailed its support for international terrorism, although it may have retained residual contacts with some of its former terrorist clients. In August 2004, the Department of Justice entered into a plea agreement with Abdulrahman Alamoudi, in which he stated that he had been part of a 2003 plot to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdallah (now King Abdallah) at the behest of Libyan government officials.

In 2005, the Saudi Government pardoned the individuals accused in the assassination plot. During the 2005 UN General Assembly session, Foreign Minister Shalgam issued a statement that reaffirmed Libya's commitment to the statements made in its letter addressed to the Security Council on August 15, 2003, renouncing terrorism in all its forms and pledging that Libya will not support acts of international terrorism or other acts of violence targeting civilians, whatever their political views or positions. Libya also expressed its commitment to continue cooperating in the international fight against terrorism. On June 30, 2006, the U.S. rescinded Libya's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism.

U.S.-LIBYAN RELATIONS

The United States supported the UN resolution providing for Libyan independence in 1951 and raised the status of its office at Tripoli from a consulate general to a legation. Libya opened a legation in Washington, DC, in 1954. Both countries subsequently raised their missions to embassy level.

After Qadhafi's 1969 coup, U.S.-Libyan relations became increasingly strained because of Libya's foreign policies supporting international terrorism and subversion against moderate Arab and African governments. In 1972, the United States withdrew its ambassador. Export controls on military equipment and civil aircraft were imposed during the 1970s, and U.S. embassy staff members were withdrawn from Tripoli after a mob attacked and set fire to the embassy in December 1979. The U.S. Government designated Libya a “state sponsor of terrorism” on December 29, 1979.

In May 1981, the U.S. Government closed the Libyan “people's bureau” (embassy) in Washington, DC, and expelled the Libyan staff in response to a general pattern of conduct by the people's bureau contrary to internationally accepted standards of diplomatic behavior.

In August 1981, two Libyan jets fired on U.S. aircraft participating in a routine naval exercise over international waters of the Mediterranean claimed by Libya. The U.S. planes returned fire and shot down the attacking Libyan aircraft. In December 1981, the State Department invalidated U.S. passports for travel to Libya and, for purposes of safety, advised all U.S. citizens in Libya to leave. In March 1982, the U.S. Government prohibited imports of Libyan crude oil into the United States and expanded the controls on U.S.-origin goods intended for export to Libya. Licenses were required for all transactions, except food and medicine. In March 1984, U.S. export controls were expanded to prohibit future exports to the Ras Lanuf petrochemical complex. In April 1985, all Export-Import Bank financing was prohibited.

Due to Libya's continuing support for terrorism, the United States adopted additional economic sanctions against Libya in January 1986, including a total ban on direct import and export trade, commercial contracts, and travel-related activities. In addition, Libyan Government assets in the United States were frozen. When evidence of Libyan complicity was discovered in the Berlin discotheque terrorist bombing that killed two American servicemen, the United States responded by launching an aerial bombing attack against targets near Tripoli and Benghazi in April 1986. Subsequently, the United States maintained its trade and travel embargoes and brought diplomatic and economic pressure to bear against Libya. This pressure helped to bring about the Lockerbie settlement and Libya's renunciation of WMD and MTCR-class missiles.

In 1991, two Libyan intelligence agents were indicted by federal prosecutors in the U.S. and Scotland for their involvement in the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. In January 1992, the UN Security Council approved Resolution 731 demanding that Libya surrender the suspects, cooperate with the Pan Am 103 and UTA 772 investigations, pay compensation to the victims’ families, and cease all support for terrorism. Libya's refusal to comply led to the approval of UNSC Resolution 748 on March 31, 1992, imposing sanctions designed to bring about Libyan compliance. Continued Libyan defiance led to passage of UNSC Resolution 883—a limited assets freeze and an embargo on selected oil equipment—in November 1993. UN sanctions were lifted on September 12, 2003, after Libya fulfilled all remaining UNSCR requirements, including renunciation of terrorism, acceptance of responsibility for the actions of its officials, and payment of appropriate compensation to the victims’ families.

On December 19, 2003, Libya announced its intention to rid itself of WMD and MTCR-class missile programs. Since that time, it has cooperated with the U.S., the U.K., the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons toward these objectives. Libya has also signed the IAEA Additional Protocol and has become a State Party to the Chemical Weapons Convention.

In recognition of these actions, the U.S. began the process of normalizing relations with Libya. The U.S. terminated the applicability of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act to Libya and the President signed an Executive Order on September 20, 2004 terminating the national emergency with respect to Libya and ending IEEPA-based economic sanctions. This action had the effect of unblocking assets blocked under the Executive Order sanctions. Restrictions on cargo aviation and third-party code-sharing have been lifted, as have restrictions on passenger aviation. Certain export controls remain in place. U.S. diplomatic personnel reopened the U.S. Interest Section in Tripoli on February 8, 2004. The mission was upgraded to a U.S. Liaison Office on June 28, 2004, and to a full embassy on May 31, 2006. The establishment in 2005 of an American School in Tripoli demonstrates the increased presence of Americans in Libya, and the continuing normalization of bilateral relations. Libya re-established its diplomatic presence in Washington with the opening of an Interest Section on July 8, 2004, which was subsequently upgraded to a Liaison Office in December 2004 and to a full embassy on May 31, 2006.

On May 15, 2006, the State Department announced its intention to rescind Libya's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism in recognition of the fact that Libya had met the statutory requirements for such a move: it had not provided any support for acts of international terrorism in the preceding six-month period, and had provided assurances that it would not do so in the future. On June 30, 2006, the U.S. rescinded Libya's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. In July 2007, Mr. Gene Cretz was nominated by President Bush as ambassador to Libya.

Principal U.S. Embassy Officials

Last Updated: 2/19/2008

TRIPOLI (E) Corithia Hotel Bab Africa Souk Althulata Alkadem, 218-21-335-1848, Fax 218-21-335-1847, Workweek: Sun-Thurs, 08:00-16:45, Website: http://libya.usembassy.gov.

TRAVEL

Consular Information Sheet

January 16, 2008

Country Description: Officially known as the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Libya has a developing economy. Islamic ideals and beliefs provide the conservative foundation of the country's customs, laws, and practices. Tourist facilities are not widely available.

Entry Requirements: Passports and visas are required. The restrictions on the use of U.S. passports for travel to, in, or through Libya were lifted in February 2004.

Without prior notice, the Libyan government on November 11, 2007 “reinstated” a requirement that all foreign travelers must have an Arabic translation of their personal biographic data added to their passport in order to apply for a Libyan visa, to enter Libya, or to stay in Libya even with a Libyan visa. This requirement includes foreigners who already received visas before the requirement was put into place, including those foreigners currently resident in Libya. Since that date, foreign travelers whose passports do not have Arabic translations have been denied entry into Libya or refused boarding by airlines on flights into Libya.

The U.S. passport is a U.S. travel document that meets all generally recognized international standards. While the Libyan government has the right to impose its own requirements for travelers in connection with obtaining a Libyan visa, it also has the responsibility to give travelers information on where and how to meet these requirements. Travelers should be aware that in some cases, Libyan officials may ask that U.S. citizens obtain translations from U.S. Government-approved translation services. However, U.S. consular officers have no authority to designate or certify private translations; nor do they have authority to place a consular authentication stamp over a privately-obtained translation.

American citizens who hold Libyan visas or who intend to apply for a visa are advised to contact the nearest Libyan embassy or consulate for information on how to obtain an acceptable translation. Information from Libyan embassies and consulates may differ from country to country. American citizens may also contact the Consular Section at the U.S. embassy or consulate for additional information.

In a letter dated January 1, 2008, the Libyan government notified airlines that, beginning January 7, 2008, all tourist visa holders, both individuals and in tour groups, must show that they have at least USD1000 or the equivalent in currency in order to be allowed to enter Libya. Credit cards, bank statements, and traveler's checks will not be accepted to meet this requirement. This requirement applies only to tourist-visa holders; persons traveling to Libya on other types of visas are exempt from the requirement. Americans planning to travel to Libya should contact the Libyan Embassy or their air carrier for further information. Americans should remember to be especially vigilant while carrying the large amount of currency required by this measure.

The Government of Libya does not allow persons with passports bearing an Israeli visa or entry/exit stamps to enter the country. At this time, neither Libya nor the U.S. provides visa services to the general public in each other countries; U.S. visitors to Libya should therefore plan to obtain a visa via a third country. Libyan visas require an invitation or sponsor, can take up to several months to process, and should be obtained prior to travel. All visas are vetted and approved by immigration departments in Tripoli and only issued by the appropriate Libyan Embassy upon receipt of that approval. There may be another wait for actual visa issuance once approval has been received. For tourists, the visa application procedure in most cases requires a letter of invitation from an accredited tour company in Libya; for business travelers, a letter of invitation is needed from the Libyan business entity. Americans who apply for Libyan visas are experiencing significant delays, often waiting several weeks or months if their applications are approved at all. Inconsistent Libyan visa practice is subject to change without notice and visa service to American citizens is often blocked without warning. With few exceptions, Libya has stopped issuing tourist visas to Americans. It is recommended that Americans always obtain individual Libyan visas prior to travel, rather than group visas. Americans who expected to enter on group tour visas or individual airport visas arranged by Libyan sponsors have routinely been denied entry at the air and sea ports and have been forced to turn back at the airport or remain onboard ship at the port while other nationals disembark. The U.S. Embassy in Tripoli cannot provide assistance to American citizens seeking Libyan visas.

Inquiries about obtaining a Libyan is a may be made through the Libyan Embassy in Washington, D.C. The Embassy is located at 2600 Virginia Avenue NW—Suite 705, Washington, DC 20037, phone number 202-944-601, fax number 202-944-9606. Nei-her the Libyan Mission to the UN in New York nor the Libyan Embassy in Washington, DC accepts visa applicaions. The closest Libyan visa-issuing ffice to the continental United States is the Libyan People's Bureau n Ottawa, Canada; however, that ffice frequently declines to accept visa applications from American citizens. The land borders with Egypt and Tunisia are subject to periodic closures even to travelers with valid Libyan visas. Short-term closures of other land borders may occur with little notice. Within three days of arrival, visitors must register at the police station closest to where they are residing or they may encounter problems during their stay or upon departure.

Women and children in Libya are often subject to strict family controls. On occasion, families of Libyan-American women visiting Libya have prevented them from leaving the country. This can be a particular problem for young single women of marriageable age. Although a woman does not need her husband's explicit consent every time she wishes to leave Libya, a Libyan husband may take legal action to prevent his wife from leaving the country, regardless of her nationality. While not illegal, it is not acceptable for women and children to travel alone. Children under 18 whose fathers are Libyan must have the father's permission to depart Libya, even if the mother has been granted full custody by a Libyan court.

The Libyan Government requires all its citizens, including dual nationals of Libyan descent, to enter and depart Libya on Libyan documents. In some cases American citizens of Libyan descent have entered Libya on old or expired Libyan identity document and then discovered that they cannot depart Libya without obtaining a valid Libyan passport, which can be a cumbersome process.

Safety and Security: As Libya has taken steps to cooperate in the global war on terrorism, the Libyan Government's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism was rescinded on June 30, 2006. Recent worldwide terrorist alerts have stated that extremist groups continue to plan terrorist attacks against U.S. interests in the region. Therefore, any American citizen who decides to travel to Libya should maintain a strong security posture by being aware of surroundings, avoiding crowds and demonstrations, keeping a low profile, and varying times and routes for all required travel.

Security personnel may at times place foreign visitors under observation. Hotel rooms, telephones, and fax machines may be monitored, and personal possessions in hotel rooms may be inspected. Taking photographs of anything that could be perceived as being of military or security interest may result in problems with the authorities.

For the latest security information, Americans traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs’ web site at http://travel.state.gov, where the current Travel Warnings and Travel Alerts, as well as the Worldwide Caution, can be found. Up-to-date information on safety and security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the U.S. and Canada, or for callers outside the U.S. and Canada, a regular toll-line at 1-202-501-4444.

Crime: Crime against foreigners is a growing problem in Libya. The most common types of crime are property crimes. Pick-pocketing and residential burglaries are also on the increase. Women routinely face verbal harassment. While physical violence is not common, there have been instances of assault against women. These assaults can range from sexual groping or assault/battery, to attempted rape.

In many countries around the world, counterfeit and pirated goods are widely available. Transactions involving such products may be illegal under local law. In addition, bringing them back to the United States may result in forfeitures and/ or fines. More information on this serious problem is available at http://www.cybercrime.gov/18usc2320.htm.

Information for Victims of Crime: The loss or theft abroad of a U.S. passport should be reported immediately to the local police and the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. If you are the victim of a crime while overseas, in addition to reporting to local police, please contact the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate for assistance. The Embassy/Consulate staff can, for example, assist you to find appropriate medical care, contact family members or friends and explain how funds could be transferred. Although the investigation and prosecution of the crime is solely the responsibility of local authorities, consular officers can help you to understand the local criminal justice process and to find an attorney if needed.

Medical Facilities and Health Information: While some health care providers have been trained in the United States or Europe, basic modern medical care and/or medicines may not be available in Libya. Most Libyan citizens prefer to be treated outside of Libya for ailments such as heart disease and diabetes. A representative list of healthcare providers is available at the U.S. Embassy Tripoli's web site at http://libya.usembassy.gov/medical_information.html.

Information on vaccinations and other health precautions, such as safe food and water precautions and insect bite protection, may be obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's hotline for international travelers at 1-877-FYI-TRIP (1-877-394-8747) or via the CDC's web site at http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel. For information about outbreaks of infectious diseases abroad consult the World Health Organization's (WHO) web site at http://www.who.int/en. Further health information for travelers is available at http://www.who.int/ith/en.

Medical Insurance: The Department of State strongly urges Americans to consult with their medical insurance company prior to traveling abroad to confirm whether their policy applies overseas and whether it will cover emergency expenses such as a medical evacuation.

Traffic Safety and Road Conditions: While in a foreign country, U.S. citizens may encounter road conditions that differ significantly from those in the United States. The information below concerning Libya is provided for general reference only, and may not be totally accurate in a particular location or circumstance.

Paved roads in rural areas are satisfactory; however, many rural roads are unpaved (i.e. dirt roads). Also, major highways along the seacoast and leading south merge into single-lane highways once they are outside the cities. These roads are heavily trafficked and precarious to navigate, especially at night and during the winter rainy season. The presence of sand deposits, and domestic and wild animals that frequently cross these highways and rural roads, makes them even more hazardous.

Availability of roadside assistance is extremely limited and offered only in Arabic. In urban areas and near the outskirts of major cities there is a greater possibility of assistance by police and emergency ambulance services, although they are usually ill equipped to deal with serious injuries or accidents.

Driving in Libya may be hazardous, and there is a high accident rate. Police enforcement of traffic signs and laws is rare. As a result, it is often difficult to anticipate the actions of other drivers on Libyan streets and highways. Wind-blown sand can make roads impassable to all but four-wheel drive vehicles. Road conditions are poor, and public transportation, which is limited to occasional bus service, is poor. Taxis, which are available, are usually on a shared basis, and many taxi drivers are reckless and untrained. Rental cars are often old and poorly maintained, and they are not recommended for long-distance driving. The sidewalks in urban areas are often in bad condition and cluttered, but pedestrians are able to use them.

Aviation Safety Oversight: As there is no direct commercial air service between the United States and Libya, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not assessed Libya's Civil Aviation Authority for compliance with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) aviation safety standards. For more information, travelers may visit the FAA's web site at http://www.faa.gov.

Special Circumstances: Libya's economy operates on a “cash-only” basis for most transactions, even though U.S. law now permits the use in Libya of credit cards and checks drawn on U.S. banks. Some hotels, restaurants, and major airlines are the only businesses known to accept credit cards (Visa more often than MasterCard). It is recommended that travelers consult their credit card entity prior to travel to ensure that transactions from Libya can be accepted by that entity. A very limited number of ATM machines are being put into service at a few large hotels, major office complexes, the airport, and one or two markets. Service is sporadic and sometimes unreliable. Foreign visitors should be aware that the penalties for use of unauthorized currency dealers are severe. Foreign visitors should also be aware that their passports might be confiscated in business disputes and/ or they may not be permitted to depart Libya until the dispute has been settled. The workweek is Sunday-Thursday. Most U.S. economic sanctions against Libya were terminated effective September 21, 2004. For further information, please contact the Office of Foreign Assets Control at http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac.

On June 30, 2006, the U.S. Department of State officially rescinded Libya's designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. On August 31, 2006, the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published an amendment to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) in the Federal Register. This amendment updated BIS’ license requirements for Libya under the EAR due to its removal from the State Sponsors’ List. For further information specific to Libya, contact BIS’ Office of Nonproliferation and Treaty Compliance/Foreign Policy Controls Division at (202) 482-4252. Libya-related information is also found on the BIS web site; http://www.bis.doc.gov.

Libyan customs authorities enforce strict regulations concerning the introduction into Libya or removal from Libya of firearms, religious materials, antiquities, medications, and currency. Importation of pornographic materials is illegal. The importation and consumption of alcohol and pork products are illegal in Libya. Any passenger arriving in Tripoli is required to bring into Libya a minimum of $500. This requirement is subject to a border check, and the passenger faces possible deportation if this requirement is not met. It is advisable to contact any Libyan Embassy abroad for specific information regarding customs requirements.

Criminal Penalties: While in a foreign country, a U.S. citizen is subject to that country's laws and regulations, which sometimes differ significantly from those in the United States and may not afford the protections available to the individual under U.S. law. Penalties for breaking the law can be more severe than in the United States for similar offenses. Persons violating Libyan laws, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned. Penalties for possession, use, or trafficking in illegal drugs in Libya are severe, and convicted offenders can expect long jail sentences and heavy fines. Engaging in sexual conduct with children or using or disseminating child pornography in a foreign country is a crime, prosecutable in the United States.

Children's Issues: For information on international adoption of children and international parental child abduction, see the Office of Children's Issues website at http://travel.state.gov/family.

Registration and Embassy Locations: Americans living or traveling in Libya are encouraged to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate through the State Department's travel registration web site so that they can obtain updated information on travel and security within Libya. Americans without Internet access may register directly with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. By registering, American citizens make it easier for the Embassy orConsulate to contact them in case of emergency. Although diplomatic relations were upgraded to embassy status on May 31, 2006, the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli is operating with limited staff and in interim facilities. A consular officer is available to provide assistance to U.S. citizens. Appointments for routine services can be made by telephone from 9am—4 pm Sundays through Thursdays (except U.S. and Libyan holidays) at (218) 21-335-1235 or via e-mail at [email protected].

In the event of an emergency involving an American citizen, the after-hours telephone number is (218) 91-220-0125. General information, including forms, is available on the U.S. Embassy's web site at http://libya.usembassy.gov.

Libya

Culture Name

Libyan

Alternative Names

The Socialist Popular Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

Orientation

Identification. The Socialist Popular Libyan Arab Jamahiriya—literally, "state of the masses," is a nation that has been undergoing a radical social experiment over the last thirty years. This experiment has been underwritten by massive oil revenues and directed by the revolutionary government of Muammar Qaddafi.

Location and Geography. Situated on the coast of North Africa, nearly all of the nation's land mass is within the Sahara Desert. The country is bounded to the north by the Mediterranean Sea, to the west by Tunisia and Algeria, and to the south by Chad and Niger. Egypt borders Libya to the east and Sudan is to the southeast. The landmass of 679,500 square miles (1,760,000 square kilometers) makes Libya the fourth largest country in Africa.

Each of the three provinces of Libya—Tripolitania on the western coast, Cyrenaica to the east, and Fezzan in the south—are influenced by the great Sahara in different ways. Tripolitania is sheltered by barrier mountains, the Jabal Nafusa, south of the coast. While the mountains create a favorable environment for agriculture, the coastal littoral, protected from the Sahara, is still arid and requires irrigation. The capital of Libya, Tripoli, is an oasis on the Tripolitanian coast and its inhabitants rely on aquifers to meet most of their water requirements. The coastal mountain range of Cyrenaica, the Jabal Akhdar, rises to a high plateau, which breaks precipitously down to the sea. There are five distinct ecological zones in this region, from a high plateau in the north to desert in the south, each with different combinations of pastoralism and agriculture. There are large towns in Cyrenaica, but until recently the nomadic Bedouins dominated the countryside.

The Gulf of Sirte is between eastern Tripolitania and the mountain chains in Cyrenaica. Primarily steppe country, it is suited to pastoral pursuits and historically has been a major seasonal grazing ground for some of the powerful tribes who spend winters in the interior of the desert.

South of the two mountain chains and the Gulf of Sirte lies the Sahara Desert and the province of Fezzan. The area is vast, extremely dry, and barren. It is characterized by large sand seas, eroded mountain ranges, and upland mesas. Aridity is a fact of existence in Libya. There is not a single permanent waterway in the whole country.

Permanent settlement in the south is limited to a number of depressions where irrigated agriculture may be pursued due to easily accessible supplies of fresh water from deep aquifers. These oases produce a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and support extensive date plantations. While these areas contain highly productive agricultural systems, they are restricted in population size due to the limitation on amounts of water available for irrigation.

Demography. This vast land has an extremely small population, estimated at 5.1 million in 2000, including approximately 163,000 non-nationals. The indigenous population is homogeneous, with 90 percent claiming to be of Arab ancestry. While largely rural, the massive oil wealth beginning in the 1960s changed the economic and residential profile of the population. For instance, between 1954 and l964, the citizen population of Tripoli grew by 58 percent, while Benghazi grew by 66 percent. A five-year plan introduced in the 1960s was geared to bring prosperity to rural areas. Its success slowed the migration to the urban areas and made paid employment widely available throughout the country. The oil industry brought large numbers of European and North American workers to the country. Oil revenues allowed the state to greatly expand its work force while the wealth stimulated the private sector. Thus, over the years large numbers of guest workers have found their way to Libya from Eastern Europe and the surrounding Mediterranean and Arab states.

Linguistic Affiliation. The Bedouin invasion of North Africa in the eleventh century brought the Arabic language to Libya. In the western mountains of Libya, the Berber language is still spoken in places and remnants of it remain in the southern oases. Still, Libya is culturally homogeneous. Its citizens speak a distinctive dialect of Arabic in public while modern standard Arabic is taught in the schools and used in government and business. In culture, language, and religion, Libya forms a part of the greater Arab world.

History and Ethnic Relations

Emergence of the Nation. In Libya, as in most of the Middle East and North Africa, the modern concept of the territorially discreet nation is a recent development. Historically, Libya was characterized by sets of connections between relatively autonomous polities. Even under Turkish rule in the nineteenth century, the city of Tripoli was more of a city–state with commercial links to a politically autonomous countryside rather than a center of integrated rule. A large tented population of pastoral nomads, independent and aggressively autonomous, resided in the steppe and desert to the southeast and to the west. Smaller towns, some similar in commerce, trade, and political aspiration to Tripoli, occupied the shores of the Mediterranean to the west and east. The town of Misarata, with the support of the powerful Bedouin tribal allies of the Wafallah confederacy, challenged Tripoli's hegemony. To the south, the richly endowed agricultural communities of the Jabal Nafusa Mountains maintained an opposition to the coastal powers. With abundant rainfall and a temperate climate, crops were plentiful; citrus and olive groves abounded. Communities maintained independence, some supported by their kin among the powerful camel herding tribes to the south. Everyone was aware of the military prowess and political autonomy of the tribes.

Cyrenaica had a similar but more distinct antagonism between the desert and the town, and between pastoral tribal and sedentary agricultural society. Important towns like Ajadabya and Benghazi were isolated from a countryside occupied by Bedouin tribes who numbered over 90 percent of the province's population. The country was divided among the so-called noble tribes (i.e., landowners), all linked to one another through a common genealogical pedigree from a common ancestress, Sa-ada. In the south, there was a similar opposition between the oasis communities and the tribes.

Much of Libya was organized into agricultural centers surrounded by tribally-organized Bedouin nomads. There was no sense of nation; instead there was a series of social structures bound by the material conditions of trade in both practical and luxury goods. The only nineteenth-century institution that might be considered a defining characteristic of the country was the presence of a Turkish administration (the Porte). Even here the Porte was at a loss to exert its influence outside of the administrative centers.

The nascent strides toward a national identity began with the Italian invasion in the early twentieth century. The first Italian invasion in 1911 focused on the fertile coastal plain of Tripolitania and the city of Tripoli where political fragmentation gave the Italians an easy victory. Libyan allies were easy to gain if not to maintain. Having secured a foothold on the coast, the Italians mistakenly turned their attention to the Fezzan. They marched south through the Al Jufrah oases to Sebha, the modern capital of Fezzan, securing towns on their way. Once in Sebha, the tribes rallied, cut off the garrison and harassed the Italians as they tried to fight their way back to the coast. A decisive battle was fought in Sirte where the tribes under the Ulad Sleman defeated the Italians who then withdrew from the countryside.

In 1934, a more determined Italian force invaded. This time the primary opposition came from Cyrenaica where the tribes rallied under the banner of the Sanussi religious order and the leadership of such national heroes such as Umar al Mukhtar. A brutal and bloody ten-year guerilla war followed, pitting the modern military might of the Italians against a largely subsistence-based nomadic society. It is claimed that nearly 50 percent of the population of Cyrenaica perished during the struggle. The guerilla war represents an historic struggle in the minds of the Libyan people and its leader Umar al Mukhtar became Libya's first national hero.

The future king of Libya, Idris, the head of the Sanussi order (an ascetic Muslim sect), remained in exile during the colonial period, a symbol of regional if not national opposition to the Italians. He lent his support and that of his forces to the allied war effort in World War II, in exchange for a promise of national independence. The United Nations awarded Libya independence in 1951 and economic stability was assured by grants in aid from the United States and several European countries.

National Identity. In 1969, Libya underwent a revolution with far reaching consequences for the country both nationally and internationally. Muammar Qaddafi emerged as leader of the country. Under this regime, a series of far reaching social experiments have been tried, producing a somewhat unique political system. Internationally the pan-Arab and leftist leanings of the regime have had an impact, as the immense oil wealth of the country has allowed the leadership a position on the international stage disproportionate to the country's size. The majority of Libyans have a pride in nation. The birth of the nation, the heroics of Umar al Mukhtar, and the 1969 revolution are commemorated in annual national celebrations as are the major religious events on the Islamic calendar.

Ethnic Relations. Although the Libyan people are in culture, language, and religion largely homogeneous, there have been and still are significant cultural minorities. Until the last half of the twentieth century there were relatively large Jewish and Italian communities in the country. Members of the Jewish community began to emigrate to Israel in 1948 and several anti-Israeli riots in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973 encouraged further emigration. In 1973, the revolutionary regime of Muammar Qaddafi confiscated all property owned by nonresident Jews. Also in 1973, Qaddafi's regime "invited" forty-five thousand Italian residents who remained from the Italian colonial era to leave the country, and all Italian properties were confiscated by the State.

Black Libyans are descendants of slaves brought to the country during the days of the slave trade. Some worked the gardens in the southern oases and on the farms along the coast. Others were taken in by Bedouin tribes or merchant families as retainers and domestics.

Berber peoples form a large, but less distinguishable minority in the Libyan population. The original inhabitants in most of North Africa, they were overrun in the eleventh and twelfth centuries by the Bedouin Arab armies of the expanding Islamic empire. Over the centuries, the Berber population largely fused with the conquering Arabs. Evidence of Berber culture still remains. The herdsmen and traders of the great Tuareg confederation are found in the south. Known as the "Blue Men of the Desert," their distinctive blue dress and the practice of men veiling distinguish them culturally from the rest of the population. Historically autonomous and fiercely independent, they stand apart from other Libyans and maintain links to their homelands in the Tibesti and Ahaggar mountain retreats of the central Sahara.

Urbanism, Architecture, and the Use of Space

Modern Libyan architecture throughout the country reflects the impact of the spectacular oil wealth. Modern apartment buildings and government and private office complexes abound in the major urban centers, while government (peoples') housing is a characteristic of the countryside. However, the distribution of political power among the sectors of Libyan society, to some degree, is reflected, still, in traditional forms of architecture. Walled fortifications, a testimony to tribal power as well as a reminder of the past as a piratical state, dominate the old section of Tripoli. Similar concerns for security characterized other ancient Libyan towns. In the mountains of Tripolitania, some settlements were constructed completely underground on hillsides. These towns of troglodytes maintained security by having only one entrance. Further south, the concern for defense also was a characteristic of architecture. Most oasis communities were walled and fortified. In the Sawknah oasis of Al Jufrah, for instance, the fortified wall extended around the entire residential area. There were only two gated entrances to the community, and the wall had parapets at intervals of twenty yards to allow defenders to catch the enemy in crossfire. In the center of the walled town stood a large fort whose ramparts commanded a line of fire on all sections of the outer wall. It stood as the last line and a sanctuary should the town be overrun. In many towns the traditional pattern of residence was a dense settlement of domestic units inside a fortified perimeter with agricultural lands lying at some distance from the residential areas.

Libyan towns are characterized by a strict distinction between public and private use of space. The streets, cafés, mosques, and shops are a man's world, while the domestic compound is the woman's world. The gardens, usually worked by families, are sanctuaries, not to be entered by strangers. The compact nature of fortified residential centers gives them a distinctive character. Streets are narrow and twisting. In some areas, kin groups, looking to extend the space available to developing extended families, have joined houses at the second-story level over the street to extend living quarters. This bridging effect produces long canopied cul-de-sacs, where kin groups may convert public to private space by gating the residential quarter. Whole communities may extend this concept of the privacy of space to the reception of strangers.

The use of space in relation to social distance is a major feature of Libyan custom. Public space is a busy, bustling, man's world. Private space is as rigidly defined for men as is public space for women. Traditional house design presents no windows at the first-floor level. Houses may have windows at the second-story level, but they are barred, sometimes with elaborate iron filigree. There is usually only one entrance, through a heavy wooden door. Some of the more luxurious homes have a large rectangular courtyard with elaborate gardens and fountains. The courtyard is completely enclosed, as is the private world of the immediate family. A wide balcony runs the full length and width of the second story and is accessed by one or two elegantly designed staircases. As the residence of a large extended family, rooms and apartments lead off from the center of the house on all sides and on both levels.

In the houses of prominent persons and local notables, another set of stairs is located immediately inside the front door without a view of the inner sanctuary of the courtyard. These stairs lead to the guestroom or marabour, a quasi-public space within the confines of the intensely private home. The head of the household entertains friends, business associates, clients, political supporters, and delegates in the marabour. Some of these rooms may accommodate as many as fifty guests. The marabour is almost always rectangular with mattresses lining the walls to provide seating and bedding for guests. Guests who are strangers are confined to this chamber and will not meet the women of the household.

In tented societies, spatial use and the distinction between public and private spaces are similar to that observed in the towns. Pastoral society has less of a problem defining public space. Bedouin camps consist of closely-related kin, and the physical distance between family groups in the same tribal section reinforces privacy. For most of the year, Bedouin camps spread across the countryside with groups separated from each other by several miles. Camps consist of discreet domestic units residing in tents that are placed in a single line.

Camps are organized to meet the complex demands of herd management and cottage industry. Individual male herd owners cooperate to accomplish the difficult task of managing several different herds with varied grazing and maintenance requirements. Male cooperation also extends to producing charcoal and to planting and harvesting cereal crops in years of plentiful rainfall. Women aid each other in weaving and spinning the wool and hair from the flocks; making tent tops, blankets, and storage bags; and milking and processing the products from the herds. Although members of the camp cooperate in daily activities, each married male member of the camp is an independent herd owner, with sons receiving their share of the family herd upon marriage.

Food and Economy

Food in Daily Life. Food in normal daily life reflects the simplicity of peasant and nomadic life styles. Libyan cooking styles are similar whether rural or urban, sedentary or nomadic. Main courses are almost always one–pot dishes. Couscous (cracked wheat), the national dish, is prepared in a spicy sauce of hot peppers, tomatoes, chick peas, and vegetables in season. All meals are eaten out of a communal bowl. Meals are of great symbolic importance; in the houses or the tents of prominent men, the major meal of the day rarely is taken without invited guests.

Most meals are frugal and simple with the daily consumption of meat kept to a minimum. The Bedouin rarely consume meat more than once a month. Agriculturists always seem to have adequate supplies of fruit, vegetables, and grain. Nomads have an abundance of milk, dates, and grain in most seasons. In both town and desert, meals are ended with three glasses of green tea, preparation and consumption of which is a distinct ritual.

Food Customs at Ceremonial Occasions. Meals are prepared by the women of the household and served to guests by the young men of the household. Food is served on long low tables, tall enough to allow guests to sit cross legged and to belly up to the edge.

Meals served in the tented society vary slightly from presentation in towns. In tented society, important guests are honored with a sacrificial slaughter of a goat or sheep. In towns, sacrifice is not as frequent because there usually is easy access to daily markets. The animal is butchered, and the flesh is boiled to form the essential ingredient of a stew to be served over couscous. Sometimes various types of pasta may be used as a substitute for couscous. The main course usually is preceded by dried dates, milk, and buttermilk. Each liquid is served in a large communal bowl. Libyans drink green tea after all meals and throughout the day.

Lavish meals are prepared for almost all ritual occasions. Special and elaborate meals are prepared daily during the month of Ramadan when the daily fast is broken by a meal after sunset.

Basic Economy. The two major components of the traditional Libyan economy were agriculture and pastoralism, both largely subsistence activities. Most agricultural communities were kin-based, organized through patrilineal descent. Differences in wealth produced a class of local notables who relied upon the community for their influence and power. There was a tendency for communities to view themselves as corporate groups rather than agricultural communities or pastoral hinterlands. There were influential trading families in the larger commercial centers, but their power in the hinterland was limited. Communities tended to be self-contained and were based on subsistence activities in which families provided for most of their needs from their own labor. Surpluses were traded in local markets and exchanged in networks of pastoral families.

The economic specialization of pastoral and agricultural communities fostered cooperation as town and country sought each other's products. The Bedouin supplied the towns with meat, wool, hides, clarified butter, and security; markets in the towns provided necessary and luxury goods from artisans and traders (guns and ammunition) and agricultural products.

Land Tenure and Property. Traditionally, property was occasionally held communally, but most agricultural land was held privately. Land fragmentation led to a degree of local social stratification in which sharecropping developed. Generally, agriculture expanded onto marginal lands, mixing agriculture with herding. These communities were largely egalitarian, and less fortunate members of the community could count on support from their kinsmen.

In the pastoral realm, families owned their herds individually and secured land for grazing and watering rights as members of patrilineally-based corporations. Powerful tribes claimed ownership of discrete blocks of territory. A tribe is composed of a number of corporate land-owning groups who define relationships between themselves according to their relative position on the tribal genealogy. Tribal territory was subdivided between tribal sections following a genealogical charter. This charter of descent links the ancestors of the living corporate land-owning descent groups to each other in clearly defined measures of genealogical closeness or distance. Thus the members of one corporate landowning group see the members of an adjacent group as having rights to their territory by virtue of their descent from the brother of the founder of their own group.

Major Industries. Libya has been described as a "hydrocarbon state" since oil sales have an all pervasive role in the Libyan economy, politics, and social structure The discovery of oil in the late 1950s radically altered development and ushered in a period of massive economic redirection. In the first phase of exploration, the oil companies spent large sums and expenditures increased rapidly.

The first substantial oil revenues were paid to the government in 1962 and these revenues increased dramatically during the 1960s, providing rapid expansion in both the private and public sectors.

Two other industries that grew rapidly during the late 1950s and in the 1960s were construction and transportation. Construction, particularly in the cities, increased dramatically. Whole sections of Tripoli were built during this time. Construction was undertaken to provide suitable quarters for the many new local and foreign companies that grew in Libya. There also was an increase in construction of private dwellings in this period. New construction provided accommodations for the increased population and thriving business community in Tripoli.

Trade. Today, crude oil refined petroleum products and natural gas constitute nearly all Libya's exports, totaling $6 billion (U.S. dollars) in 1989. Major export partners were Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Sudan, and the United Kingdom. Major imports include machinery, transportation equipment, food, and manufactured goods. In 1989, Libya's major import partners were Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Tunisia, and Belgium.

Division of Labor. The increase in prosperity brought about a large-scale change in occupation. There was a major decline in persons working in agriculture but there was a sharp increase in laborers and clerical, sports and recreation, and transportation workers. The oil boom had massively changed the occupational and residential structure of the population in just a few years. In the countryside, the five-year plan of the 1960s ushered into existence a period of rural prosperity when many nomadic families became sedentary in order to take advantage of steady wage employment. A wide-scale patronage system developed that was administered through local political structures. Thus, "lamb barrel" politics, in a situation of radical economic change, reinforced family, lineage, tribal, and village structures. The traditional Libyan economy has continued to shrink as the oil economy has grown. By 1997, agriculture accounted for only 7 percent of the economic sector, while industry and services accounted for 47 percent and 46 percent respectively. But not even a revolution could dismantle the national lamb barrel.

Political Life

Government. On 1 September 1969, a group of army officers staged a successful bloodless coup that forced the king into exile and abolished the existing form of government. Muammar Qaddafi quickly emerged as the undisputed leader. The group of young officers considered themselves revolutionaries, but none of them had a background in revolutionary activity or schooling in radical politics. They aligned themselves with Gamal Abdul Nasser, leader of Egypt. Domestically, the conservative nature of the officers' policies became clear when they permanently closed nightclubs and prohibited the consumption of alcohol. They declared themselves to be socialist in politics and conservative in Islamic religious practices.

Once consolidated in power, the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) undertook a series of radical initiatives to transform the economic, social, and political organization of Libya. Begun in 1973, this transformation was guided by theGreen Book written by Qaddafi. The thesis of this book is a critique of participatory democracy in which it is argued that no man should represent another, but that the people should represent themselves directly. A contradictory argument of Qaddafi's is that the building blocks of society are family, tribe, and nation.

In the early 1970s, radical reform of the political process was undertaken to bring about direct participation of the people in the national democratic process. The municipalities in the country were reorganized territorially and their management was placed in the hands of locally elected peoples' committees. These committees were responsible for local government and the development of local budgets. Representatives of local committees presented budgets and other matters through a people's congress, which met once a year to discuss matters of concern and to deliver fiscal demands. This became one mechanism through which Libya redistributed some of the national wealth, and involved its citizens in a democratic process.

In 1975, a crisis developed in the ruling RCC and in the army concerning the course that the revolution should take. There was an attempted coup that was not successful; the army was purged and the RCC disbanded. The five remaining loyal RCC members were assigned to ministerial posts. Qaddafi, now firmly in control of the country, set a course that was enormously disruptive for the country and the international community.

Internally, Qaddafi unleashed the young zealots of the revolution, urging them to form revolutionary committees to instruct the people on the goals of the revolution. A rein of terror followed that was to last for over a decade. Revolutionary courts were soon established and nearly all institutions of government and commerce were put under the scrutiny of these committees. Only the institutions of banking and the oil industry were kept from their reach. Enemies of the revolution were ferreted out, tried secretly in revolutionary courts, jailed, tortured, and subjected to long prison sentences or death. Furor developed on the university campuses and on at least one occasion the student body witnessed the public hanging of fellow students who had been tried by students belonging to the revolutionary committee. There were numerous public hangings of citizens for crimes committed against the revolution, many of which were broadcast on national television. These measures were followed by other "reforms" which tore at the fabric of Libyan society. Private enterprise was abolished and all privately-owned shops were closed and replaced by government run Peoples' Markets. The regime nationalized all non-owner occupied housing and confirmed ownership on the occupants. Bureaucrats were sacked from government ministries and, in 1980, Qaddafi demonetized the currency, severely restricting the amounts of old money that citizens could convert to the new currency. There were reports of outraged citizens burning large piles of currency outside of the National Bank. These measures were adopted at a time when the world price for oil dropped severely, thus ushering in a decade of austerity in Libya. Qaddafi also canceled the stipends of thousands of Libyan students studying abroad and ordered them to return home. Many chose not to return and large numbers of citizens joined them in exile, most from the better-educated classes. By the mid 1980s, as many as 100,000 Libyans were living abroad, many joining political groups opposed to the revolution.

During the 1980s, the consequences of the revolution were being felt abroad. Qaddafi urged that revolutionary committees replace the diplomatic corps in Libyan embassies, renaming them "Peoples' Bureaus." In London a young female constable was shot dead outside the Peoples' Bureau where an anti-Qaddafi rally was under way. Qaddafi stepped up pressure on dissidents and called for the obligatory repatriation of all Libyan exiles. Noncompliance was to result in death. There were gang style executions of Libyan nationals in several European cities.

Internationally, Qaddafi played a controversial role. He fought a war with Chad, skirmished with Egypt, and trained a commando group which attacked a city in southern Tunisia. There were well-publicized financial contributions to Pakistan to aid in building the "Islamic Bomb," and to the Irish Republican Army, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and other revolutionary organizations. There was also growing suspicion in the international community that the Qaddafi regime was involved directly in terrorism itself. These suspicions resulted in the United States and Britain severing diplomatic relations with Libya, putting in place severe economic sanctions and bombing the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi. Subsequently the Pan American Airline explosion over Lockerbie, Scotland was blamed on Libyan agents and the United Nations banned all air travel to Libya until the government was prepared to turn its agents over the Scottish government for trial. By late 1980s, Libya was thoroughly isolated by the international community.

This same period (1986–1987) marked a turning point in the revolution internally. The revolutionary committees were chastised for excesses. Qaddafi released prisoners from jail, personally supervising the destruction of one prison. He invited dissidents to return home without penalty; allowed citizens to travel freely, giving family members $1,000 (U.S.) each for the journey; and restored free enterprise. The liberalization has resulted in free market conditions with satellite dishes springing up everywhere, cell phones in use, and a full array of goods in the shops. But it does not appear that the liberalization has met with entrepreneurial fervor among the citizens. They seem to know that their mercurial government could change course at a moment's notice.

Libya has many characteristics which distinguish it organizationally from other states. Most importantly, the state does not rely upon taxation of its citizens for revenues. State budgets remain out of the realm of public discussion because those in power do not combine finance with politics. The central power seeks other means to gain compliance from its citizens. While direct democracy is a mechanism for distribution of some of the national wealth to the citizens, most of the national wealth remains to be used by those in power beyond public accountability. For instance, the budget for the military, one of the most important elements of Libya's new elite, is simply not published.

Military. The Libyan military has had a critical role in maintaining the Qaddafi regime in power. This support seems to have functioned from three perspectives. First, the military is extremely well funded. Although exact figures are difficult to obtain, Libya has spent at least $5 billion (U.S.) for military procurements every year since the late 1970s, with occasional military expenditures exceeding 40 percent of total government expenditures. The country spent $1,360 (U.S.) per capita in 1984. These figures are about twice the average per capita spending on defense for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and are rivaled only by Israel, Saudi Arabia, and a few oil rich Gulf Emirates. Second, these figures reflect an enormous procurement process in which the senior military seem to have profited greatly. There are accounts of senior officers living opulent life styles, building stately villas, and acquiring properties outside of normal channels. There is a suggestion here that Qaddafi has bought their loyalty. Third, there is hard evidence that tribalism has a role in the army. Qaddafi, during the revolutionary furor that he unleashed, appointed his family members as his bodyguards, trained his tribal kin as his elite army unit and, during the Revolutionary Committee period, appointed members of his tribe to the committee in the army. Thus opulent economic favor, nepotism, and tribal loyalty combined to assure that the most powerful institution in Libyan society continued to support the revolution and its leader.

Gender Roles and Statuses

The Relative Status of Women and Men. Purdah, the custom of secluding and veiling women, is a traditional feature of Libyan cultural life. Groups of veiled women are still found in markets in the company of kinsmen but they are infrequent visitors to mosques and absent entirely from café life. Women were traditionally placed in seclusion at puberty and appear in public veiled. They are only freed from this custom at menopause. The push toward female emancipation, as exhibited in the opening of public space to women, may be repealed at any time by either domestic male prerogative or national decree. Qaddafi established a military academy for females and, occasionally, has arrived at international meetings accompanied by female bodyguards dressed in battle fatigues.

Qaddifi claims that men and women are radically different in biology and nature. His view is that the nature of woman is to nurture and her role as mother and domestic is part of a natural order.

Where social life outside of the compound may be limiting for women due to the institution of purdah, within the household, the movements of women are not constrained. All are close kin and many are descendants of a common ancestor. As such they share a common daily social life. The movements of women are not restricted within the compound and both sexes may freely enter each other's abodes without invitation.

Marriage, Family, and Kinship

Marriage. Descent kinship and marriage are major organizing factors in social, economic, and political life. Patrilineal descent defines group membership, while kinship is largely the product of marriage arrangements. Where the collective interests of descent groups are clearly defined, the patterns of kinship and marriage will reflect these interests. Marriages are arranged by the parents in consultation with members of the extended family and lineage. Libyan society, like much of the Arab world, places a premium on father's brother's daughter's marriage. This rule of "first right" is so important that in strongly-focused descent groups the male first cousin must waive his right to the girl before she is allowed to take a more socially distant spouse. Girls may marry at age fourteen, while men must usually wait until they are in their mid-to-late twenties. The age qualification for marriage between cousins thus restricts this form of marriage.

Approximately 20 percent of all marriages are "first right." Such arrangements give many descent groups a second set of social relationships. Since the father's brother's daughter's marriage removes the rule against group endogamy found in other societies, people are free to arrange marriages within the group outside the range of siblings and within generation. Thus, multiple strands of kinship crosscut group structure and further reinforce the corporate descent group.

Although groups may strive toward endogamy, other interests of the family and corporate group may lead to marriages being contracted between distant relations. In Bedouin society it is normal for groups to contract marriage with groups in distant ecological zones. Failure of the rains in one territory may lead to an invitation by more fortunate kin to visit and graze and water one's animals on their territory for the season.

Occasionally, there are marriages between the Bedouin and families of trading partners in oases. Marriages between adversaries in a feud may occur at the conclusion of the peace agreement. Marriages also are a way of binding groups in alliance since the offspring of successful unions will have close kin in two different groups. Thus marriage reflects family and group interests, and the patterns weave a web of mutual interest between families, lineages, and tribes.

Marriage arrangements require that siblings are married sequentially according to age. For a man to marry, he must be able to pay a "bride price" to the bride's family. Weddings may tax family resources because the more distantly related the bride, the higher the "bride price." Groups of brothers work together to gather the resources necessary for marriage. In Bedouin society, the resources used to marry come from the family herds. In towns, men contribute a portion of their pay to a brother's bride price.

Indications that in the urban areas some of the structures described above have been modified are manifest in several ways. Many women are now seen unveiled in public. A recent report now claims that there are more female than male university students. And the Qaddafi regime has prohibited the admission of foreign women into the country unaccompanied by senior male kinsmen, as the bride price for mail-order brides from surrounding Arab states is significantly less than for Libyan women. These suggestions of social transformation have not been adequately analyzed as yet.

Domestic Unit. The social makeup of Bedouin camps almost always consists of closely-related patrilineal relatives and their wives. A camp may consist of a large central tent housing a couple and their unmarried sons and daughters. Adjacent tents will house married sons and their wives and children. Occasionally a distant relative or friend and his family may join the camp for a season. In the line of tents, social solidarities are expressed by the proximity of tents in the line. Close kin, brothers, and fathers position their tents so that the tent pegs overlap and the guide ropes of the tents cross one another. The tent of a more remotely related member of the camp will be at the end of the line, a few yards from his neighbor, without guide ropes crossing.

Kin Groups. Descent groups with clearly-focused interests usually reside in contiguous residential structures, marry endogamously, cooperate in all social, economic, and political matters, and have a highly ramified social life within the group. For the most part, life is extremely comfortable.

The tribal land-owning corporations are themselves patrilineal descent groups or lineages whose members acquire rights by virtue of being the sons and daughters of a particular man. In theory all members of the group are patrilineal descendants of the founder. Members are said to be of one flesh and bone with equal rights to territorial resources. Equal rights also implies equal obligations. Members have the obligation to defend the territory against the encroachment of neighboring corporations. Liability is not an individual matter, but a matter between groups. Injury leads to a "state of feud" between groups in which all members of the offended group are required to take revenge against any male member of the offending group; this can lead to anarchy with a continual cycle of killings. Feuds have rules of conduct in which groups may decide to end the matter by a payment of a "blood price" whereby the offending group must compensate the offended group for the loss of life with payment. The members of the offending corporation must all contribute to the blood price, while all members of the offended group share in the compensation.

The institution of the feud makes possible a fairly orderly set of relations between competing groups where there are no institutions of government. While feuds may lead to peace through settlement, the relationships between groups defined through the genealogy will lead to a stand-off of equal numbers through opposition. The tribal segmentary system thus fosters an ethic of egalitarianism with its expression found in the members of the corporate patrilineal descent groups.

Nicknaming within tribes is prevalent as an expression of individual personality. The descent group is an institution that gives pride of place to its members, demands extreme loyalty of them, and provides a warm, nurturing support system to men and women of all ages.

The oil wealth has radically transformed the Libyan economy and its demography with widespread urbanization and wage employment. This process has only partially undermined traditional social structures as they were first reinforced by the pre-Revolutionary patronage system and then by the post-revolution political system. In the urban areas the constraints of family, lineage, and tribe have no doubt loosened. While the upper level bureaucrats—a second major section of the new elite—may answer to Qaddafi and his ruling clique, this is not true for the rural areas. There, ties of family, lineage, tribe, and residence still remain the dominant forms of organization. This striking feature of Libyan life is partially the result of the implementation of the political structures described by Qaddafi in theGreen Book. Local committee members and bureaucrats are themselves members of local kin-based groups whose loyalty they must retain and whose wishes they must consider. While this is a society where immense oil wealth might lead to radical social transformation, in the rural areas, at least, this has not happened. There, cultural traditions have been slow to change as the political and economic institutions of government are refracted through family, lineage, and tribal interests.

Socialization

Higher Education. Libya has two universities, several technical schools, and a well developed primary and secondary school system. By the mid 1980s, there were 1,245,000 students enrolled in primary and secondary education: 54 percent were males and 46 percent were females. During this period the government claimed to have constructed 32,000 new classrooms while the number of teachers increased from about 19,000 to 79,000.

University enrollments also show dramatic increases from 3,000 students in 1969 to more than 25,000 during the 1980s with female enrollments numbering about 25 percent. Education is free and university students receive generous stipends. Even though large strides have been made in Libyan education, the country still lacks technical expertise in many areas. The military lacks the skilled personnel to adequately maintain its weapons systems. Most doctors, dentists, and pharmacists are foreign nationals, while 60 percent of Libya's top bureaucrats and 40 percent of the work force are expatriates.

Etiquette

A polite stranger, when approaching a camp, will pause about one hundred yards from the line of tents. A series of activities converting private into public space begins. Either one tent in the line will be vacated and converted into a guest tent, or the large tent of the oldest male will be divided down the middle to produce a guest compartment separated from the domestic section. Entertainment of guests in tented society is similar to towns. One difference in tented society is that a guest will not be asked his social identity until after the meal when the breaking of bread has placed the guest under his host's protection. This rule of sanctuary ensures that members of rival groups or those in a feuding relationship may travel the desert in relative safety.

Religion

Religious Beliefs. Most traditional Libyans are devout Muslims and practice a simple and deeply personal religion. Adults follow the strictures of Islam; they pray five times a day, give alms to the poor, and fast for the month of Ramadan. There is a certain austerity to Libyan Islam shaped by the harshness of traditional life. This asceticism was reinforced by the Sanussi order, which was abolished by the Qaddafi regime for political reasons. In its place, the regime instituted fundamentalist practices with very little impact on rural life, where the Libyan version of an ascetic Islam is still practiced.

Religious Practitioners. The Ulama, or religious scholars, have been upstaged by the regime, but in the countryside mosques are well attended. The folk religion of the people subscribes, in part, to a deviation from traditional Islam. In Libya, as in other parts of North Africa, the cult of saints is highly developed. There are individual living saints, marabout, whose miracles are widely reported and whose services in a curative capacity are sought. People also visit the tombs of men of reputation, seeking cures for illness, success in business, and luck in passing an examination. There are small tribes whose members are said to have inherited baraka, the quality of goodness or holiness, and minister to local people. There are also lineages who are said to be descendants of the prophet Mohammed. They are given the title of sharif.

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—William G. Dalton

LIBYA

Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
Al-Jamahiriyah al-'Arabiyah al-Libiyah ash-Sha'biyah al-Ishtirakiyah

COUNTRY OVERVIEW

LOCATION AND SIZE.

Libya is a North African country, which shares a border with the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt and Sudan to the east, Niger, Chad and Sudan to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west. With 1,759,540 square kilometers of area (679,358 square miles), it is slightly larger than the State of Alaska. The length of its land border and its coastline is 4,383 kilometers (2,723 miles), and 1,770 kilometers (1,099 miles), respectively. With the exception of Sabha, located in the south, all its major cities—including the capital city of Tripoli—are along its coastline.

POPULATION.

Libya's population of roughly 5,115,450 (est. July 2000) has seen an annual growth rate of 3.5 percent since 1975, when it was 2,400,000. With a predicated annual growth rate of 2.1 percent, the population will reach 7,600,000 in 2015. In 2000, the birth and death rates were 27.68 births per 1,000 population, and 3.51 deaths per 1,000 population, respectively.

The Arabic-speaking Berbers and Arabs constitute 97 percent of Libya's population. Greeks, Maltese, Italians, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Turks, Indians, and Tunisians are the significant minority groups.

The Libyan population is relatively young, with 64 percent of the population between the ages of 15 and 64. Only 4 percent of Libyans are over the age of 64. (In contrast, almost 13 percent of the population in the United States is over the age of 64.) In 1998, 86.8 percent of the population was living in urban areas, particularly in Tripoli and Benghazi; this percentage marks a significant growth in urban population since 1975, when it accounted for 60.9 percent of the population. Urban dwellers will constitute roughly 90 percent of the population by 2015.

OVERVIEW OF ECONOMY

After about 5 centuries of colonization by the Ottoman Empire, Italy, Britain, and France, Libya became an independent monarchy in 1951. In 1969, Colonel Muammar Qadhafi staged a coup (an internal military uprising against a government) and established a republic. During its first decade, the new regime nationalized all foreign businesses and weakened the private sector through nationalization, confiscation, and "spontaneous" seizures of private factories by workers. The private sector was confined to retail trade, but the shortage of investments in the late 1980s forced the Libyan government to ease laws restricting its activities. Nevertheless, the private sector is still limited to small-scale activities in agriculture, retail trade, and manufacturing. Various legal and practical restrictions have prevented its rapid expansion, including the absence of respect for private property reflected in the periodic arrest of merchants and shopkeepers, and confiscation of their businesses.

Libya has a single-product economy, which survives on exports of hydrocarbons (oil, gas, and their refined products), accounting for 94 percent of exports in 1998. Thanks to these exports, since the 1960s Libya has had trade surpluses and a small foreign debt (US$3.9 billion in 1999) compared to its foreign exchange reserves (US$7.28 billion in 1999). However, the economy is highly vulnerable to fluctuations in oil prices, which directly affect government revenues. The Libyan government has been successful to a great extent in creating an infrastructure , but it has failed to establish viable industry, agriculture, and service sectors. In particular, it has failed to diversify the economy through establishing desired heavy industries. As a result, the Libyan economy is still an oil-based economy.

Internal and external factors have prevented the economic growth of Libya. Inconsistent planning, frequent changes in government economic policies, and the government's weakening of the private sector have been the major internal factors. External factors include periodic low oil prices, which have deprived the Libyan government of financial means needed to implement fully its development plans. In addition, the imposition of American sanctions in the late 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s on Libya for its alleged involvement in terrorism has limited Libya's income and its access to foreign technology and investment. Additionally, the UN-imposed sanctions on Libya in the 1990s over Libya's refusal to hand over for trial 2 Libyan suspects implicated in the 1988 bombing of a Pan American jetliner further worsened its economic situation. Libya's improving relations with Europe following the suspension of UN sanctions in 1999, and high oil prices have eased pressure on its economy as reflected in a jump from a 2 percent growth rate in 1998 to 5.4 percent in 1999, and to an estimated 6.5 percent in 2000.

POLITICS, GOVERNMENT, AND TAXATION

As explained in his manifesto The Green Book, published in the 1970s, Colonel Qadhafi's ideology has shaped the Libyan political system and economy since 1969. As an "alternative" to capitalism and Marxism , this ideology draws on Arab nationalism and Islam, but its economic program is primarily socialist . Accordingly, the state controls the economy, and the private sector assumes a negligible role. The situation has remained the same despite the relaxation of some restrictions on the private sector.

Libya has a peculiar political system known as the Jamahiriya or the "republic of the masses." In theory, this means that the Libyans rule their country directly through a series of popular entities that function as local governments, which are called Basic People's Congresses (BPCs). Each BPC chooses a secretary to represent it in Libya's highest legislative organ, the General People's Congress (GPC). The GPC chooses "the secretaries of the secretariat," (cabinet ministers) who form the cabinet called the General People's Committee, and also the head of the Committee, who presides over the cabinet as the prime minister.

The system has undergone changes in form, but the theoretical concept of running the country through popular entities has been kept. In 1992, Colonel Qadhafi divided Libya into 1,500 mahallat (communes or neighborhoods) and granted each of them its own budget as well as executive and legislative powers. As part of his decentralization policy, in 2000 he transferred most central government executive functions excluding its defense, trade, social security, health, education, and infrastructure to 26 municipal councils represented in the GPC.

Having the title of "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution," Colonel Qadhafi does not hold any official government position. Theoretically, he has no power and defers to the GPC. However, in practice, the GPC is a rubber stamp for the colonel, who appoints all influential figures and ensures the docility of all security and political organs through the revolutionary committees (associations of pro-Qadhafi young men led by the colonel's appointees). They function as a political police force with the power of arrest and summary execution, although their power has been curtailed to some extent since the late 1980s to appease the growing popular dissatisfaction with their abuses. Since mid-1996, the newly formed "purification committees" have also operated on Colonel Qadhafi's behalf to combat corruption and black-market activities. In short, Libya is run by Qadhafi and a small circle of his close allies.

There is no legal opposition group inside the country with an alternative economic view or with any impact on the economy whatsoever. The government has suppressed various secular and religious political groups and turned them into ineffective political forces based mainly in exile. They include the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, the Militant Islamic Group, and the Libyan Martyrs' Movement.

Fossil-energy exports have been the major contributor to government revenues since the 1960s, accounting for more than 70 percent of these revenues. The Libyan government has failed to reduce its heavy reliance on such exports by increasing its revenue from taxes due to the limited tax base and insignificant private sector activities. In absence of such activities, salaried government employees are the main tax payers, although they make little income that can be taxed. Heavy dependency on energy exports affects government revenues, since world oil prices tend to fluctuate. Due to this vulnerability on energy prices, the Libyan government makes every effort to balance its budgets and avoid deficit spending. While accurate budget figures are difficult to obtain from a relatively closed society, it is estimated that in 1999, government revenues roughly equaled expenditures of US$10.88 billion, of which the share of exports was over US$7 billion.

INFRASTRUCTURE, POWER, AND COMMUNICATIONS

Libya has a good infrastructure thanks to its development projects since the 1970s. Its fossil-fuel generators produced electricity at the rate of 16.92 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) in 1998, which was well above consumption (15.736 billion kWh in 1998). There are large-scale plans for their expansion—which will prepare Libya for increasing consumption—valued at about US$6 billion.

Libya's land communication system is confined to an extensive road network estimated at 83,200 kilometers (51,700 miles) in 1996 of which 47,590 kilometers (29,572 miles) are paved. They provide adequate access to most of its major rural and urban areas. There is no train service, but there are plans for building north-south and east-west railway lines.

Sea and air connections are facilitated through several ports and airports. Major ports include Tripoli, Benghazi, Marsa el-Brega, Minsurat and El-Sider (Sidra), and 3 new ports are under construction. There are also 5 major oil terminals at Zuetina, Ras Lanuf, Marsa el-Hariga, Marsa el-Brega, and El-Sider. Libya has 59 airports with paved runways and 83 with unpaved runways. UN sanctions stopped international flights to and from Libya, and lack of spare parts caused by other sanctions grounded about 80 percent of its civilian air fleet in the 1990s. The 1999 suspension of UN sanctions paved the way for the resumption of international flights and for purchasing new aircraft and modernizing the airports.

The state-owned General Post and Telecommunications Company (GPTC) dominates the Libyan telecommunications system. It provides fixed telephone services; a private company (El Mada) in which the GPTC has a 20 percent stake provides cellular telephone services. There are at least 318,000 fixed telephone lines (1995 est.) and 20,000 cellular telephones (2000 est.) in use.

All Libyan radio and television programs are state-run. There were 24 AM, FM and short wave radio programs, and 12 television programs in the late 1990s, but many people in urban areas had access to satellite television programs. There were also 1.35 million radios and 730,000 televisions in use. Internet access is provided by the GPTC.

ECONOMIC SECTORS

After a decade of growth in the 1970s, the state-dominated Libyan economy has suffered from over 2 decades of sanctions. Additionally, the practical exclusion of the private sector from major economic activities has limited the growth and diversification of the 3 economic sectors. Agriculture is the smallest sector with limited farming activities and underdeveloped fisheries; it is unable to feed the population. Industry is the largest sector, almost exclusively because of the large hydrocarbon industry. Oil exports make industry the largest contributor to the economy, and fluctuations in oil prices expand and contract both the sector and the entire economy. The service sector is not underdeveloped, but lacks viable tourist and retail industries. Financial services and transportation, however, make service a significant part of the economy.

AGRICULTURE

Libya has sought to expand its agriculture since the early 1970s. Its success in this regard has been limited despite heavy investments that equaled 30 percent of government expenditures in the 1970s. For example, production of cereals in 1998 (207,000 metric tons) met only 15 percent of the country's needs. Therefore, Libya has remained dependent on large agricultural imports, estimated at about 75 percent of its annual needs.

Libyan agriculture is a small contributor to the work-force (about 17 percent), and to GDP (about 5.6 percent in 1997). Major barriers to its growth are limited arable land (1.7 percent of Libya's area) and water resources, over-use of arable land and fertilizers, and a shortage of labor. Apart from a limited production of barley and wheat, major agricultural products are mostly fruits and vegetables such as dates, almonds, grapes, citrus fruits, watermelon, olives, and tomatoes, which constitute about 80 percent of annual agricultural production. Agricultural activities take place mainly along the coastline. Inland farming is very limited because of water shortages. Rapid urbanization has resulted in a severe shortage of agricultural workers, forcing Libya to rely on foreign farm laborers.

Libya's animal husbandry has suffered from the sanctions, limiting imports of animal feed on which it depends heavily. For example, the production of beef and veal dropped from 22,100 metric tons in 1994 to 2,100 metric tons in 1998.

The low annual catch (34,500 metric tons in 1997) demonstrates the underdeveloped nature of Libya's fisheries, despite the richness of its waters in exportable fish (e.g., tuna and sardines). Low investments in fishing boats, ports, and processing facilities are major obstacles to its growth. The country has 1 major fishing port (Zlitan), 1 tuna plant, and 2 sardine factories with small processing capacities (1,000 metric tons per year each). Libya is planning to build 24 fishing ports in addition to the one under construction at Marsa Zuaga.

INDUSTRY

While its share of GDP is only 52.8 percent (est. 1994), industry is by far the most important segment of Libya's economy, since it encompasses the oil industry, which is vital to the country's economic survival.

OIL.

As the main export item, oil dominates Libya's mining industry. Estimated at 29.5 billion barrels in 1998, Libya's oil reserves ensure exports until 2053 at the 1999 export level of 1,137,000 barrels per day (b/d). The Libyan government owns 5 oil refineries in Libya as well as a network of oil refineries in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany in partnership with European oil companies.

Libya's oil production has decreased significantly since the 1970s. In 1975, the Libyans reduced their production from 3.32 million b/d to 1.48 million b/d, for fear of drying up their resources. Managerial problems, OPEC quotas, and sanction-created shortages of spare parts and investments have further lowered production. Sanctions have also resulted in a decrease or stoppage in production of certain oil products (e.g., gasoline), which then had to be imported. American sanctions are still in force, but the 1999 suspension of UN sanctions opened the way for Europe's involvement in Libya's oil industry.

MINING.

With estimated gas reserves of 1.5 trillion cubic meters, Libya is also rich in natural gas, but most of its reserves are undeveloped. The Libyan government has tried to develop them to increase the life of its oil reserves by replacing oil with gas for domestic consumption, and also to increase its gas exports. Development projects include 2 gas pipelines to connect 4 new gas-powered electricity generators to the national grid, and a US$5.5 billion project with Italy for the development of onshore and offshore gas reserves and the construction of an undersea pipeline to export gas to Italy. On average, 20 to 25 percent of annual gas production (6.4 billion cubic meters in 1998) is exported mainly to Italy and Spain.

Iron ore and salt are other major resources that play a role in Libya's economy. The iron ore resources are estimated at 700 million metric tons and are located in southern Libya far from its iron and steel complex. Their development has been delayed due to the absence of financing for building the required rail link. Libya's salt mines—located mainly around Tripoli and Benghazi—produce 30,000 metric tons annually. There is also a limited extraction of construction materials (e.g., limestone, clay, and stone).

MANUFACTURING.

Libya's manufacturing industry is not well-developed. Ambitious projects in heavy industries (e.g., aluminum and fertilizer complexes) have been partially realized at best, as various sanctions have limited funds, denied foreign investments, and severely restricted transfer of technology and sale of required equipment. Manufacturing establishments suffer from a shortage of spare parts and poor maintenance, which lower their production. The current share of this industry of GDP must be well below its 1994 share of about 10 percent.

Besides a few joint ventures (mainly with Italy), most manufacturing establishments are Libyan. They are mostly small- and medium-sized factories producing light and consumer goods (e.g., foodstuffs, wood, paper, textiles, and VCRs). The limited heavy industries include an iron and steel complex, a petrochemical complex, and a pharmaceuticals plant. Libya produces about 3,000 cars a year, and assembles trucks in joint venture with Italy. The manufacturing products are far short of domestic demand, making Libya very dependent on imports.

CONSTRUCTION.

Thanks to extensive hydrocarbon supplies and water projects, construction is a major industry. Two long-term major projects are the construction of the Great Man-Made River to transfer water from Libya's southern water resources to its major urban and farming areas in the north. It has received an average of 10 percent of government annual expenditures since 1984. Another project is a large gas development and pipeline construction with Italy. There have been modernization projects in major cities including Tripoli since the suspension of UN sanctions.

SERVICES

Services form a growing economic sector, which accounted for about 40 percent of GDP in 1994. Given the suspension of the UN air embargo against Libya in 1999, the expected growth in tourism in the first decade of the 21st century should strengthen the role of this sector in the Libyan economy.

FINANCIAL SERVICES.

The Libyan government controls the financial system, including banking, insurance, and investment activities. In 1970, it nationalized all financial institutions, but economic problems forced it to allow the operation of private banks in 1993. With one exception in Misurata, no private bank has been established yet. Nor is there any foreign bank, excluding the Arab Banking Corporation, a Baharini bank partly owned by Libya. The banking system consists of the Central Bank of Libya and 8 major banks: the Agriculture Bank, the Jamahiriya Bank, the National Commercial Bank, the Savings and Real Estate Investment Bank, the Umma Bank, the Wahda bank, the Sahara Bank, and the Libyan Arab Foreign Bank. The last 2 are among the top 1,000 banks of the world. State-run companies provide insurance and business services. The Libyan finance ministry conducts foreign investments through the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company, which has invested US$500 million in 45 countries.

TOURISM.

Libya has an underdeveloped tourist industry, although it has the potential to grow. As a Mediterranean country with long warm beaches and historic sites, Libya could attract many Europeans who currently vacation on the inexpensive warm coastlines of Libya's North African neighbors Egypt and Tunisia. The industry, however, lacks an adequate infrastructure such as hotels. Furthermore, the sanction-related fall of tourism has turned many Libyan beaches into garbage dumps. Anticipating an upsurge in the tourist trade in the wake of the lifting of UN sanctions, a tourist center, including a large hotel and entertainment facilities, is being built in Tripoli.

TRANSPORTATION.

The Libyan transportation industry is significant, but has suffered a great deal from sanctions. Its merchant fleet consists of 27 vessels and is oriented towards oil and gas exports. Libya's civilian air fleet, under-utilized from the sanctions, will be expanded by the purchase of 24 Airbuses as part of a government plan announced in 2000.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Libya's international trade has been characterized by a positive balance since the 1960s. One estimate put its 1999 balance as US$7.01 billion in exports, and US$4.21 billion in imports, creating a trade surplus of US$2.79 billion, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. Oil and gas and their refined products accounted for about 95 percent of Libya's exports in 1999. Its major imports are food, capital goods , transport equipment, and iron and steel products.

Libya has reduced its trade with the ex-socialist countries since 1991, while expanding trade with North African and Western countries. The suspension of UN sanctions removed barriers to trade with most Western countries. Italy, Germany, Spain, Turkey, France, Sudan, the UK, and Tunisia have been the major destinations of exports for Libya since 1990. With 40.1 percent, 17.8 percent, and 11.3 percent share of exports, the first 3 countries were the largest destinations in 1998. In that year, Italy, Germany, the UK, France, Tunisia, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, and Japan were the major exporters to Libya. The first 3 were the largest exporters in 1998 with 22.9 percent, 12.2 percent, and 9.1 percent share of exports, respectively.

MONEY

To ensure the stability of its currency, the Libyan government pegged the Libyan dinar (LD) to the U.S. dollar at a fixed exchange rate in 1973. In 1986 it switched to a new system: pegging the dinar to an SDR (special drawing right) at a fixed rate. The SDR is an artificial "basket" of 5 currencies selected and used by the International Monetary Fund for internal accounting purposes. The SDR method allows greater flexibility in stabilizing the value of the dinar as world economic conditions change.

There is a significant difference between official exchange rates and those of the black market. In 1996, the black market rate for the U.S. dollar was 10 times as much as the official one. The government has sought to narrow the gap between the 2 rates by selling dollars to push the black market rate down. This policy showed some success in 1999 when that rate dropped to 3 times the official rate (LD 0.45 = US$1).

There are currency restrictions for Libyans and foreigners. Libyans travelling abroad may purchase a certain amount of currency (about US$6,000 in 2000) while foreigners entering Libya have to declare their currencies and leave the country with no more than the declared amount.

In absence of reliable statistics on fluctuations of price changes, it is difficult to determine inflation rates in Libya. The existing rates for the second half of the 1990s are therefore estimates. The inflation rate was estimated at 18 percent in 1999, a significant decrease from the average annual rate of 28.5 percent for the period 1995 to 1998. A major reason for such high rates is the heavy government subsidies for domestic foodstuffs, which it has kept despite their huge cost for an economy heavily dependent on large food imports. Scarcity of many consumer goods provoked rising prices, which further worsened inflation . Economic sanctions, with their limiting effects on trade, and the closure of many retail stores in the second half of the 1990s as part of a government crackdown on the black market, were 2 major

contributing factors. The suspension of UN sanctions in 1999 improved the availability of consumer goods and paved the way for a higher oil-and natural gas-generated income as European oil companies began to return to Libya. These factors, and lower spending by the Libyan government, helped reduce the inflation rate to 18 percent in 1999. Various government subsidies (e.g., free education and medical services and low-priced foodstuffs) helped the Libyans cope with the impact of Libya's high inflation rates without a sharp decline in their living standards.

POVERTY AND WEALTH

The living standards of Libyans have improved significantly since the 1970s, ranking the country among the highest in Africa. Urbanization, developmental projects, and high oil revenues have enabled the Libyan government to elevate its people's living standards. The social and economic status of women and children has particularly improved. Various subsidized or free services (health, education, housing, and basic foodstuffs) have ensured basic necessities. The low percentage of people without access to safe water (3 percent), health services (0 percent) and sanitation (2 percent), and a relatively high life expectancy (70.2 years) in 1998 indicate the improved living standards. Adequate health care and subsidized foodstuffs have sharply reduced infant mortality, from 105 per 1,000 live births in 1970 to 20 per 1,000 live births in 1998. The government also subsidizes education, which is compulsory and free between the ages of 6 and 15. The expansion of educational facilities has elevated the literacy rate (78.1 in 1998). There are universities in Tripoli, Benghazi, Marsa el-Brega, Misurata, Sebha, and Tobruq. Despite its successes, the educational system has failed to train adequate numbers of professionals, resulting in Libya's dependency on foreign teachers, doctors, and scientists.

Many direct and indirect subsidies and free services have helped raise the economic status of low-income families, a policy which has prevented extreme poverty. As part of its socialist model of economic development,

the Libyan government has weakened the private sector and confined it to mainly small-scale businesses. While this policy has damaged the Libyan economy significantly, it has also prevented the accumulation of wealth by a small percentage of the population. While the ruling elite (i.e., top civil servants, military officers, and politicians), enjoys much higher living standards compared to average Libyans, and corruption exists within its ranks, Libya is not a highly polarized society divided between extremes of wealth and poverty.

WORKING CONDITIONS

The Libyan labor law provides for wages and pensions, but prohibits independent trade unions. The government-created National Trade Unions' Federation is the only legal workers' organization. The labor law does not provide for the right to strike, but Qadhafi has confirmed its existence. Collective bargaining is not allowed, since the government must approve all labor agreements. The minimum age of labor is 18, the maximum work week is 48 hours, and the average monthly wage is roughly 270 dinars. At the official exchange rate, this works out to roughly US$750 a month, but is only US$100 at the unofficial (and more realistic) rate. The labor law provides for the equality of women with men, but traditional social restrictions on women's activities outside the home limit the practical effects of the law, and therefore create barriers to full participation of women in the workforce. Foreign workers may be denied rights provided for Libyan workers, and there are restrictions on their repatriation of income.

Libya's workforce is about 1.2 million strong as estimated in 1997. There are also 1 to 2 million foreign workers. The majority of the workforce are government employees. Unemployment was estimated at about 30 percent in 2000. The high unemployment rate is the result of years of sanctions as well as Qadhafi's efforts at preventing the emergence of a viable and growing private sector. Sanctions have been particularly effective in harming Libya's oil and gas exports, thus constraining economic security for many Libyans who directly or indirectly rely on these industries. Large infrastructure projects, financed by the government, also depend on export revenues. Thus, a decline in the activities of the oil and gas industries and large governmental projects has reduced employment opportunities, resulting in a large unemployment rate. This situation will likely change in the near future. In the aftermath of the 1999 suspension of UN sanctions, the growing interest of the European oil companies in the Libyan energy industry will increase its exports, which in turn will generate funds to be invested in the expansion of the industry and also in many other government projects. In short, the revival of the energy industry will surely help reduce unemployment in Libya.

COUNTRY HISTORY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

643. The Arabs invade Libya and rule over it until the 1500s when the Ottoman Empire conquers it.

1911. Italy replaces the Ottoman Empire as the colonizer of Libya.

1945. Libya is divided between Britain and France at the end of World War II.

1951. Libya becomes independent, and King Idris establishes a monarchy.

1959. The first commercially viable oilfield is discovered at Zelten.

1960s. Libya emerges as a major oil-producing country.

1969. Colonel Muammar Qadhafi stages a coup and overthrows the monarchy.

1977. Libya was renamed as the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. Inspired by Colonel Qadhafi, workers assume control of the private manufacturing sector.

1978. The United States imposes sanctions on Libya for its alleged state terrorism.

1982. The USA bans Libyan crude oil imports.

1992. The United Nations imposes sanctions on Libya for its refusal to hand over suspects implicated in the 1988 bombing of a Pan American airliner.

1993. UN sanctions expand to freeze Libyan financial assets abroad.

1996. The United States imposes secondary sanctions, the "Iran and Libya Sanctions Act," targeting non-American companies wishing to invest more than US$40 million a year in the Iranian and Libyan oil industries.

1999. UN sanctions are suspended as Libya, the United Kingdom, and the United States agree on the trial of the 2 suspects in the Netherlands.

FUTURE TRENDS

The suspension of UN sanctions in 1999 has paved the way for large foreign investments in the Libyan hydrocarbon industries, a necessity for its full operation, expansion, and modernization. The Italian oil companies have been eager to embark on major projects in Libya. Libya will likely further expand its economic ties with European countries in energy and non-energy areas, while American sanctions will exclude American businesses, including oil companies, from investment in that country. The expansion of the Libyan private sector will likely gain momentum, since the liberalization of Libya's centralized economy is a necessity for its development and diversification. In the absence of any significant opposition, there is no serious challenge to the Libyan political system and the authority of Colonel Qadhafi. For the foreseeable future, the Libyan political system led by Colonel Qadhafi will likely remain stable.

DEPENDENCIES

Libya has no territories or colonies.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). Country Risk Service Libya. London: EIU, 16 January 2001.

EIU. Country Profile: Libya, 2000-01. London: EIU, 2000.

EIU. Country Report: Libya. London: EIU, December 2000.

EIU. Country Report: Libya. London: EIU, February 2001.

Economic Research Institute. "Libya—Compensation and BenefitLegislation." http://www.erieri.com/codes/LIBYA.htm. Accessed June, 2001.

Gurney, Judith. Libya: The Political Economy of Oil. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1996.

United Nations Development Program. Human Development Report 2000. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

United States Central Intelligence Agency. "The World Factbook 2000: Libya." http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/er.html. Accessed January 2001.

United States Department of State. "1999 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices-Libya." http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/1999/eritrea.htm. Accessed January 2001.

—Dr.Hooman Peimani

CAPITAL:

Tripoli.

MONETARY UNIT:

Libyan dinar (LD). One Libyan dinar equals 1,000 dirhams. Coins come in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 dirhams. Paper currency comes in denominations of .25, .50, 1, 5, and 10 dinars.

CHIEF EXPORTS:

Crude oil, refined petroleum products, and natural gas.

CHIEF IMPORTS:

Machinery, transport equipment, food, and manufactured goods.

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT:

US$39.3 billion (purchasing power parity, 1999 est.).

BALANCE OF TRADE:

Exports: US$6.6 billion (1998 est.). Imports: US$7 billion (1998 est.).