Muammar Gaddafi- Devil Dictators part-I

Muammar Gaddafi

            Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi was born in Sirte(Libya) in 1942. He belonged to a poor family of Libya. His childhood passed in poverty and struggle. Like most Libyans he too lived in a tent house in the desert of Libya. In 1951 H e joined The Libyan military service as it was the only opportunity for an average Libyan to live life luxuriously and see the world. This was the most important period of his life. The lessons which he learned during this time changed his future course of life. During this time Gamal Abdel Nasser lead a revolution in Egypt which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan. Nasser modernized Egypt, ended Suez crisis, built Dam Aswan and developed the sense and pride Nationalism in people of Egypt. Because of all this he was seen with respect in the Arab world, Gaddafi was no exception to this. He was inspired from Nasser’s revolution and also considered him as his ideal. Egypt’s defeat in six day war with Israel in 1965 saddened Gaddafi. Being a supporter of Arab nationalism Israel was natural enemy to him and now U.S was also added to his black list because Israel couldn’t have survived against collective forces of Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Badin and Jordan if it wasn’t supported by U.S.

          After his completion of military training and his Graduation in History he went to U.K for further studies. There became an incident which planted the seeds of oil politics in his brain. Once he went to a casino in London with some of his Arab and British friends. There he saw King Idris’ personal adviser spending millions of $ on gambling. His blood boiled since an average Libyan was compelled to live a miserable life of poverty and King and his aides were spending millions and billions on there lavish life style. The main cause of this situation was vast Oil reserves in Libya. Geographically Libya was situated in the desert of Africa, having no other natural resources except plenty of oil underneath its land. In spite of blessed with significant oil reserves Libya remained poor because multi-national oil companies achieved contracts for extracting oil on throw away prices from King Idris. He got another reason to fight against U.S. Next few years Gaddafi spend in studying lives and times of great military commanders like Field Marshall Rommel, Field Marshall Montgomery etc. very carefully. During this period he also meticulously planned strategies regarding how to use oil as a weapon in his war against western world.

         In1969 Gaddafi became Colonel in the Libyan Army. During the same year Occidental Oil Company of U.S completed the construction of oil pipeline on the northern coast of Libya. For its inauguration ceremony Armand hamer the chairman of Occidental Oil Company himself came to Libya. He was given “Guard of Honor” on his arrival. Incidentally Colonel Gaddafi was the commanding officer of that marching contingent. He couldn’t tolerate this humiliation that Libyan Army was giving Guard of Honor to a chairman of U.S’ Oil Company. He decided to end this slavery by dethroning King Idris.

         When King Idris was out of Libya, Gaddafi with some of his trusted allies carried on coup and captured the power. Neither superior officers of Gaddafi nor people opposed this rebellion since everyone was tired of Idris. Initially the world thought that Gaddafi and his boys have indulged in blind dare. Since king Idris was puppet of U.S, by deposing him in this manner Gaddafi has thrown direct challenge to the supremacy of U.S. However Gaddafi proved to be smarter than all the political analysts who forecasted premature end of his rule.

       Immediately after acquiring power Gaddafi abolished the old constitution of 1951 and instead formed 12 members directorate called Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) which acted as government in the Libya. RCC declared Libya as “Libyan Arab Republic” and announced bringing freedom, unity, and social justice, guaranteeing the right of equality to its citizens, and opening before them the doors of honorable work as its main objective. Thus he won the hearts of Libyan people. He also affirmed that treaties and agreements signed by ousted monarch would be respected and property and lives of foreign nationals would be protected. This helped him to earn recognition of not only Libyan people but also of the other countries of the world. In this condition U.S was left with no excuse to topple Gaddafi, hence soon U.S recognized Gaddafi as a genuine leader of Libya.

         After consolidating his power he began the game for which he had arranged this coup. He sent notice to U.S and U.K to shut down their military bases operating on the land of Libya. Now U.S was trapped since being a leader of Libya he had every right to tell foreign powers to wind up their military bases from his land. After driving off foreign military Gaddafi increased the oil prices. This technique was called as ‘participation’ in which neither oil companies are nationalized nor are private companies given complete free hand. In participation oil companies are allowed to work in oil producing nations however greater control remains in the hands of government of host nation and they can increase the price of oil at their will. 

          Because of greater control over oil assets and growing oil prices Libya prospered economically. Libya became the nation with highest nominal per capita GDP in Africa. Literacy rate in Libya rose from 10% to 90%. As there was no river in Libya Gaddafi also completed the development of artificial river Great Manmade River, without any foreign financial assistance.

 

                 Later on rulers like Saddam Hussein of Iraq and ruling Saud family of Saudi Arabia too utilized the weapon of price rise to achieve their political ends. King Fahad of Saudi Arabia used oil embargo to prevent U.S from rendering military assistance to Israel during Yom Kippur war fought between Egypt and Syria on one side and Israel on the other. King Fahad also convinced OPEC countries about the effectiveness of this weapon. Because of which members of OPEC countries revived this dormant organization once again to exploit the benefits of collective bargaining in oil prices. Use of oil as a weapon not only harmed U.S but also dazzled other developing economies of the world. India itself is spending 1/3 of its For-ex reserves to import oil.

 

Saddam Hussein

          Even after repetitive efforts when he failed to hurl any serious blow to U.S or Israel, he started sponsoring terrorist activities in Europe, Australia, U.S and middle -East. Later on countries like Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia also started walking on his path. Ruling Saud family used money earned through oil to spread radical Islam in the world. They also sponsored Sunni Iraq against Shea Iran in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980 in which more than 10,00,000 people on both the sides lost their lives. Trails of direct involvement of Saud family in the 9/11 attack on World Trade Center were also found later wards.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi

             Although Gaddafi was involved in many terrorist activities but serious evidence about his involvement in terrorist activities came out during investigation of Lockerbie bombing case. Pan Am Flight 103 of Pan American World Airways was blown off b y bomb on 21 December 1988 in the sky of Lockerbie town of southern Scotland. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi who was the secret agent of Gaddafi was main culprit in this case. He was convicted and sentenced for life imprisonment.

            He also wanted to make nuclear bomb to destroy U.S and Israel. Over the years his obsession with nuclear bomb grew so much that a legend says once he went to China at 2 P.M in the night, without informing Chinese authorities in advance about his arrival. When asked about such sudden visit he showed them two big suitcase full of $ and told them “take all this money but give me one atom bomb I want to hurl it on U.S.”. He also openly supported and sponsored Pakistan’s nuclear weapon program. In recognition of his help Pakistan renamed cricket stadium in Lahore as Gaddafi stadium in 1974. 

               Absolute power and unquestionable authority turned him into a narcissistic jerk. He had acquired personal wealth worth of approximately 70 billion U.S $. He started spending money earned through oil for his personal luxuries. He had undergone several plastic and cosmetic surgeries to remain young forever. He liked to be surrounded by beautiful women bodyguards and nurses. There are many legends about his and his son’s relationships with his lady bodyguards and nurses.

               Gaddafi abducted power in Libya on the name of fighting tyranny of King Idris but he himself proved to be a greater evil then Idris. In his rule Libyan people were devoid of their fundamental rights like Right to speech and freedom of expression. Price rise of petroleum only initially helped Libya later on all this money was spent on Gaddafi’s luxuries and in executing his utopian ideas. People wanted change however unlike democracy in autocratic states change of rule is possible only by either death or retirement of dictator(read -Revolution in India? No way!!!!!!).  

Dead body of Gaddafi

     Since 2010 uprising took place in many Arab countries like Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia etc. this revolts also sparked off rebellion in Libya. In the initial stage people’s movement was non violent however Gaddafi’s soldiers opened fire on protesters and rape d women to crush the anti Gaddafi movement ruthlessly. This ignited the anger of people and they took arms against Gaddafi. Such inhuman response to protesters also cost him the loss of international recognition. In the month of August 2011 Arab league declared NTC as legitimate representative of Libya. His overseas accounts were freezed by western countries. NATO forces led by U.S and France supported rebellion National Transitional Council (NTC) in the war. Finally Gaddafi was captured alive on 20 October 2011 and was given brutal death.

Share

Arunachal Pradesh: All is not well

      When India lost war against China in 1962 it led to huge uproar in parliament. Whole nation was angry because people (rightly) felt that Jawaharlal Nehru’s feeble foreign and defence policy was responsible for this fiasco. Finally Nehru was compelled to answer about this debacle in parliament. Nehru attempted to reduce the the impact of his blunder by giving a justification in parliament that “The land which we lost in this war was barren. Not a single piece of grain grows there and hence it is not a significant loss”. All the M.P’s were aghast to listen such a shameless justification from Nehru. No one had anticipated Nehru will descend so low. In those circumstances Rajaji stood up and removed his cap. He showed his bald head to Nehru and said “look at my head jawaharlalji it is completely bald. Not a single hair grows on my head like that barren land where as you say a single piece of grain doesn’t grow, but still I wear the cap to protect it from cold, heat and rain. Because even if it is bald it is my head and it is my duty to protect it. Similarly even if the land was barren it was our land and as a P.M of the nation it was your duty to protect it, but you failed miserably. Nothing can justify your inability".  

         I recollected this incident because in last month two important news came which did not bother many in India except few defence experts. 1) China started sea trials of its 68,000 ton aircraft carrier Varyag and 2) China deployed missiles capable of delivering nukes deep inside India along with Arunachal Pradesh border. China’s claim on 90,000 Km. territory of Arunachal Pradesh is not unknown to anyone. China's seriousness is evident from it's policy of allowing people of Arunachal pradesh in China without visa. China argues that Arunachal is their territory so people residing in Arunachal are Chinese citizen hence they needn’t require visa to enter in China.

image source- via Wikipedia

        China has built railway lines in Tibet and highways extending from the main land China to Sino-Indian border. China is also building various dams on Brahmaputra River by which India will not only loose 40,000 M.Wt of Hydroelectricity but whole North-East will become vulnerable to floods and droughts created by China. China is encircling India by building military bases and extending hand of friendship to neighboring countries of India like Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar and Sri lanka. China’s affection for Pakistan is not hidden from anyone. Earlier China has given J-10 super fighter to Pakistan and now it is helping Pakistan to built Khushab nuclear reactor from which Pakistan can extract plutonium for its nukes.

             China is determined to amalgamate Arunachal Pradesh in their territory by hook or crook, on the contrary Indian government’s response to this grave situation is as usual lousy. We don’t have railway lines connecting Arunachal with the rest of India. Most of the roads are still as miserable as they were in 1962. Under the name of preparedness Indian government has started some infrastructural projects in last few years, however they are all far behind projected time. Indian Army had recently requested Ministry of Defence to form two special mountain division dedicated to play offensive against China in the course of war, but reports says Babu’s sitting in the MoD have raised objection on cost included in forming mountain division. Since last many years Army is demanding 1500 new Howitzers but because of Bofors ghost MoD is reluctant to buy new howitzers. In the mountain warfare Howitzer, Multi barrel rocket launcher and assault rifle are the key weapons. Howitzers are necessary to attack and neutralize enemy sitting on the top of mountain. The only silver line in grey cloud is recent awakening of Indian Air-force by opening air fields near Chinese border and  deployment SU-30 MKI in the Tejpur and Chusul airbase of Assam.

            In last 49 years our attitude hasn’t change much towards the security of Arunachal Pradesh. During 62 war our soldiers didn’t have enough bullets, snow boots and carbines to give an effective fight, even though situation is not that bad but even China isn’t remain Communist China of Mao’s regime. Today’s China has become super power which is even bullying U.S, leave India. Our Defence minister A.K Antony is famous for his indecisive attitude. Fearful of 3C’s C&AG, C.V.C AND C.B.I defence minister is not ready to take decision on even urgent issues, since he cares more about his blemish free image. Although government assures “all is well’, but how can we rely on their assurance when their various assurances given after 26/11 have been proved foul. 

          Just last month a merchant ship called M.V.Pavit accidently landed on Indian shores and remained there for 100 hours and neither Navy nor coast Guard had any information about it. Last week few terrorists came and carried on explosion near Delhi high court and security agencies are still clueless. Our so called 'honest' P.M Man Mohan Singh is already walking along the lines of Nehru. In 2009 when a question was raised in parliament about Chinese intrusion in India territory, he replied “It’s true that Chinese soldiers have penetrated into the Indian Territory but the intrusion was not of very significant nature”.

Share

Intelligence Failure -2

                                                                                                                                                

              Continued from IntelligenceFailure-1

• Strife between various intelligence agencies- After independence there were only two intelligence agencies in India IB and MI. IB was civilian intelligence agency hence it was responsible for all internal and external intelligence. During 1962 war India had to face a debacle against China since there was no intelligence input of Chinese invasion, their strength and their strategy. For this unfortunate situation only IB was to be blamed since MI was telling again and again about ill motives of Chinese and their intrusions, but Nehru was not ready to listen to them as he had a tilt toward China because of his socialist philosophy. Now being the premier intelligence agency it was the responsibility of IB to warn Nehru about Chinese motives but the then

  

  K.S.Nair lay naked many 
  truths in his book

  IB chief Bhola Nath Mullik rejected reports of Chinese intrusion by calling them skeptics and presented doctored reports of Chinese strategy and strength. He also advised Nehru that sending some packets of Indian Army to the disputed area will keep Chinese away. The duo(along with Defence minister Krishna Menon and Nehru's cousin Major General B.M Kaul) was busy in singing the song of peace and the over confident Nehru stopped expansion of armed forces by arguing that developing nation like India can’t afford it. Situation was so bad that Indian ordinance factory had to make kettles, matchsticks and T-shirts to pay the salary of its employees. All this nonsense lead to fiasco in the war. Naturally this created strife between IB and MI and this split widened further after the failure of IB and MI in getting information about Pakistan’s ambitious plans Operation Gibraltar and Operation Grand slam and the debacle of Ichchogil Canal in 1965 war. Hence Indira Gandhi established R&AW to permanently end the conflict. However it did not extinguished the fire in fact it ignited the fire as this was a major setback for IB since R&AW was awarded the designation of secretariat and IB remained Directorate (in Indian administration those government departments and agencies are called Secretariat which are entrusted the task of policy making and those departments and agencies are called Directorate which implements the policy). Not only that earlier IB was in charge of external intelligence hence all the foreign postings, luxurious life styles, high pay and perks were in the pockets of IB but now R&AW had snatched that. R&AW had to directly report to P.M, whereas IB was put under the Home ministry. All this lead to clashes between IB and R&AW. Relation between MI and R&AW were extremely healthy in the decades of 70's, which paid us in 1971 war by giving us glaring victory over Pakistan. However in late 80’s relation between R&AW and MI started deteriorating and infiltration of Pakistan supported Mujahidins in Kargil and total unawareness of both the agencies about such a big plan attracted many criticisms, to which both washed their hands and blamed each other. Today every intelligence agency considers each other as their rival and don’t want to share information with each other, for which country is paying unaffordable cost.

• Misuse of intelligence agencies by ruling parties-Intelligence agencies are being misused by politicians for their personal interests. During emergency Indira Gandhi used R&AW to tape the phone calls of her political opponents, not only that later on when she became suspicious about motives of some of her own colleagues and party members she got their phone also taped, because of which R&AW came to be known as Indira’s Gestapo (Gestapo was Hitler’s secrete police service which was used to nab people who were involved in the conspiracy against Hitler). This custom started by Indira Gandhi is followed by all the political parties without any hasitation. Remember Amarsingh’s phone tapping by intelligence agencies in 2008 and when dug dipper it was found that not only Amar singh and Mulayam singh even Digvijay Singh’s (congress general secretary) phone were also tapped. All political parties creates hue and cry when they are in opposition that their phones are being taped and they are being followed by intelligence agencies but when they themselves come in power, follows the same conventions which were cultivated by their predecessors. How one can expect an intelligence agency to give timely information about potential terrorist attack when they are busy in tapping phones of the political opponents of their bosses.  No other country in the world tolerates such nuisance. Even in India Supreme Court had put some stringent guidelines about phone tapping in one case in 2003. According to the judgement of S.C only 11 investigating and intelligence agencies were given the right to tap the phone in national interest and that too on the prior permission of judicial magistrate, but all political parties believe that morality and laws are made to be followed by others. 

• Domination of IPS officers- All the top positions in intelligence agencies and paramilitary forces are dominated by IPS officers. This system was started by British, since they did not have much faith in Indian people. They wanted to consolidate their rule in India hence they recruited Indians on lower posts in all governments services and higher posts were exclusively reserved for British origin people, so that they can command the forces. As most of the IPS officers were from British origin top posts in intelligence agencies were given to them. This system needed to be changed after independence, since these IPS officers were not eligible for the technical work of espionage and intelligence. Although IPS officers also have their informers and intelligence network but it is only on local level and a job of intelligence agency is much more technical, which can’t be handled by a generalist IPS officer satisfactorily, to give it full justice a specialist is needed. Secondly IPS officers aren’t posted in intelligence agencies permanently, they are sent on deputation which is kind of temporary posting. Now think that when an IPS officer is posted in intelligence agency on deputation it takes at least six months or maximum a year to learn his work and become well trained and deputation mostly ends in two or three year, that means 33% to 50% time of an officer is wasted in training. Thus intelligence agencies have been converted in to a training institute for these IPS officers. Thirdly this system generates feeling of hopelessness in lower rungs of intelligence agencies, since the junior officers are appointed by direct recruitment and they have to work permanently in the intelligence agency which they have joined. Now in such condition where top posts are reserved for IPS officers they feel that no matter how much we work we are never going to be promoted.

• Hidden under the iron curtain of secrecy- During British times intelligence agencies were mostly concerned with spying of congress leaders and hence their work and budget was kept secret under the “Official Secrets Act 1923”. After independence this law needed to be repelled since in a democratic country such colonial laws are unacceptable but it did not happened. Most of their work is kept confidential, they are kept out of the preview of RTI Act-2005.
  Their budget is not subject to scrutiny by C&AG or Parliamentary committees. In the countries like U.S, U.K and Israel there are special

  

  
  

  Major Gen V.K Singh exposed 

  R&AW in his book

  committees which look after the working of intelligence agencies and unlike India they are answerable to Parliament, whereas our intelligence agencies are growing under the island unaccountability. Retired R&AW officer Major Gen. V.K Singh has given vivid description of extravagance, misuse and abuse of taxpayer’s money by our intelligence agencies in his book India's External Intelligence.

Remedial measures to strengthen our intelligence network 

• Official Secret Act should be abolished and a new law should be enacted to make working our intelligence agencies more transparent and make them accountable. Spending of intelligence agencies should be scrutinized by C&AG and its report should be presented in Parliament. All the intelligence agencies should be brought under the preview of RTI Act, so that people can ask what is being boiled in our intelligence agencies and misuse of intelligence agencies might be stopped. Now don’t give me  bull sheet argument that if the information about the working of intelligence agencies is published in Parliament all the secret information will reach in the hands of terrorists and enemy countries and this will harm national interest. When I argue in favor accountability of intelligence agencies I do not mean that the information like which spy of R&AW is posted in which embassy of Pakistan or who is our secret agent in Communist party’s Polit bureau in China. What I actually mean is review of their overall budget, their objectives, their organizational structure and their general working and the most important is keep watch over them that they are not being misused. Some people argue that C&AG is not right authority to perform such a technical task. To some extent they are correct but for that specialized regulatory authority like UPSC or Election commission could be appointed, which can look after the working of intelligence agencies. As mentioned earlier all this is already being done in countries like U.S and Israel and their security has not been threatened at all, then how come only our security is going to be threatened. Just by writing in the Preamble of constitution that India is a democratic country can’t make India a democratic country in the true sense. If we have to develop as democracy than we need to nurture the democratic ethos in our administration.

•   Scrap the present system of sending IPS officers on deputation in intelligence agencies rather establish the Indian intelligence cadre like IAS, IPS, give them training and appoint them in intelligence agencies. This will serve two purpose first it will improve the working of intelligence agencies since, now those who are inducted on top post in intelligence agencies are specialist men fully trained and able to deal with such jobs. Second it will also give chance to officers in the lower rungs to get promoted by doing good work. Not only that these officers of Indian Intelligence Cadre can be transferred from one agency to another, so that they do not develop patriotic feeling about one particular agency and do not develop the our group their group schema so that inter agency rivalry can be reduced.

• Enact stringent laws for phone tapping and wireless interception. Although S.C has given guidelines in various cases but now a comprehensive legislation needs to be enacted for this. So that a regulatory body can be established (or the matter can be included in the jurisdiction of already established regulatory body like TRAI) which will look after the matters of phone tapping and wireless interception and if any investigative or intelligence agency is found to be misusing or abusing this procedures than exemplary punitive action should be taken on them (including their political bosses). Since the rate at which the use of mobile phone and internet is growing in India, people’s personal life has become vulnerable to such misuse of communication technology and if we will not wakeup on time than in future our personal lives will be jeopardized by authorities at their will and discretion.

•   Last but not least is politicians should stop discrimination and favoritism in intelligence agencies. We have seen long history of appeasement of one agency at the cost of other. IB was favorite of Nehru and Mrs. Gandhi’s favorite was R&AW, she had so much faith in R&AW that she imposed emergency and conducted operation Blue star on the advice of R&AW while the IB was opposing it(IB being internal intelligence agency it should have more say in matters like emergency and operation Blue star). Morarji Desai had allergy of R&AW because of R&AW's role in emergency hence he rather than restructuring the intelligence network settled personal scores with R&AW by reducing its strength and budget. R&AW had managed to engage a mole in Pakistani security and got blue print of Kahuta atomic plant but Morarji Desai declined to pay 10,000$ to that mole and instead informed about it to Pakistani establishment (if Morarji Desai wouldn’t have done foolishness than Pakistan couldn’t have become nuclear state). Rajiv Gandhi, strengthened R&AW again but misused it to give training and weapons to LTTE in the Shrilanka to get political advantage in Tamilnadu. All this favoritism and discrimination of intelligence agencies created rivalry among different agencies. Hence intelligence agencies have to be made professional and personal relations and grievances should be kept aside, otherwise country will keep paying for it. 

Unless and until we will not bring drastic reforms in our intelligence network we will keep bleeding in many upcoming 26/11.

Did you like this article then you will like other too put your email ID here to get the my new articles in your Inbox

Share