Dedicated Troublemaker

Deidcated Troublemaker

In his twelve years as Libya's master, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has earned a special place on the world stage: that of the quintessential troublemaker. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat has described him as "a mental case" and "a lunatic." African neighbors fear his expansionist ambitions. The U.S. considers him an international outlaw and has accused him of meddling in no fewer than 45 nations. When Authors Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre were looking for a villain to cast as the mastermind of a plot to hold New York City up for nuclear blackmail in their novel The Fifth Horseman, they naturally settled upon Gaddafi.

The handsome, square-jawed Gaddafi wasted little time in building his reputation. Shortly after leading the 1969 army coup that deposed 80-year-old King Idris, Gaddafi, then only 27, began to apply his peculiar blend of Islamic fundamentalism, Arab nationalism and desert-bred xeno phobia to his country. He closed down U.S. and British military bases, expelled 25,000 descendants of Italian colonials, nationalized foreign banks and decreed that all signs and documents be written in Arabic. A devout Muslim, he banned liquor imports and imposed the Sharia (Islamic law), which can, for example, punish a thief by amputation of a hand. In 1970 Gaddafi's Libya became the first Arab oil-exporting country to demand substantially higher prices for crude. Around the same time, Gaddafi struck a deal with the Soviet Union, exchanging oil for what would become an arsenal of highly sophisticated weaponry.

From the beginning, Gaddafi's aspirations were not limited to Libya. Hoping to succeed Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser as the charismatic leader of the Arab world, Gaddafi tried to engineer mergers first with Egypt, then the Sudan, Tunisia and finally Syria. He bankrolled Palestinian commando groups, including the extremists of Black September, and at one time made his country a refuge for international air hijackers. By pouring petrodollars into poor sub-Saharan Africa, he persuaded a number of African nations to sever their ties to Israel. At the same time, he proffered arms and money to "liberation" movements across the globe, ranging from the Irish Republican Army to the Philippines' Muslim rebels. Most recently, Gaddafi angered the West by dispatching "death squads" to Europe and the U.S. to murder Libyans opposed to his rule.

Paradoxically, Gaddafi has little to show for his efforts. His merger attempts were rebuffed. His military backing for Uganda's Idi Amin Dada failed to keep that despot in power. Despite generous support for the Palestinians, he has few real friends in P.L.O. Leader Yasser Arafat's entourage. Gaddafi's only notable success came last December when his forces invaded and virtually annexed Chad.

Yet Gaddafi cannot be dismissed as a madman. "He comes across as cool, self-disciplined, shrewd," reports TIME Diplomatic Correspondent Strobe Talbott, who has interviewed the Libyan leader twice. "He radiates authority, confidence and self-control." Little is known about Gaddafi's private life except that he lives austerely, sometimes spending days meditating alone in the desert. In Libya,. Gaddafi's eclectic revolutionary ideology, which he calls the "Third International Theory," is summed up in his three-volume Green Book. He describes his theory as "an alternative to capitalist materialism and Communist atheism." Gaddafi has transformed Libya into a Jamahiriya (State of the Masses), a system of "direct popular democracy" that operates without constitution, parliament or parties. In practice, it means that he retains almost total power--without accountability. The country's oil riches have allowed him to build a generous welfare state, in which every citizen is guaranteed food, housing and clothing. Although Gaddafi has alienated much of Libya's middle class and some military officers, his future does not appear threatened. "The Libyans are lethargic politically," says a Washington analyst. "They react to political turmoil by retreating to their tribes and clans." Even if Gaddafi's own countrymen put up with him, others, as last week's events demonstrated, may no longer be so tolerant.

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