The Dalek of Tripoli

Gaddafi, February 2011 - Exterminate! Exterminate!: "They don't want me, they don't want Libya. This is a criminal act. Anybody who lifts an arm, shall be punished by death. Those who spy for other countries will be executed. Anybody who undermines the state will be killed. Those who commit crimes against the army will be executed. Anybody who is with Bin Laden will be killed. [Incomprehensible babbling] We will not forgive. Anybody who undermines the constitution, by force or otherwise, will be killed. Anybody who uses bombs will be arrested and executed. Please, please remain quiet so you can hear. This is very dangerous. I haven't even started to give orders using bullets. Any use of force against the state will be punished by death. Anyone who murders will be executed..." (From Qaddafi's Norma Desmond moment, Justin Raimondo, 22/2/11, antiwar.com/blog)

Gaddafi, April 1973 - Incarcerate! Incarcerate!: "Soon Gadafi was ready to launch his Third Theory. It steered an alternate, middle course between capitalism and communism, but had essentially to be based upon religion. He propounded it not only for Libyans but for the Arab world and, indeed, the world as a whole... By the time that the Third Theory had become the official philosophy, the popular or cultural revolution had been launched. This came as unpredictably as most of the Revolutionary Command Council's major policy initiatives, at a public meeting in Zwara to celebrate the birthday of the prophet Mohamed [15/4/73]. The revolution was in peril, Gadafi said. Libyan commandos sent to take part in the struggle for Palestine had been held back not by Israeli but by Arab soldiers. The front-line states had given up the battle, but Libya would not. In spite of repeated appeals to Libyan youth, they had not enlisted in the army. Ideal agricultural and resettlement schemes had been set up, but Libyans were refusing to work in remote parts of the country. University 'perverts' were engaging in subversive activities. 'I personally cannot allow any more of this irresponsible behaviour'. He suggested a 5-point programme: 1) All existing laws must be repealed and replaced by revolutionary enactments designed to to produce the necessary revolutionary change. 2) The weeding out of all feeble minds from society by taking appropriate measures towards perverts and deviationists. 3) The staging of an administrative revolution so as to get rid of all forms of bourgeoisie and bureaucracy. 4) The setting up of popular committees whereby the people might proceed to seize power. This was meant to ensure freedom for the people as against bureaucrats and opportunists. 5) The staging of a cultural revolution so as to get rid of all imported poisonous ideas and fuse the people's genuine moral and material potentialities.

"Within days of the speech, two overlaying waves of arrests took place. In some instances individuals were denounced by Popular Committees, but the majority of the arrests were carried out by the secret police. University lecturers, lawyers and writers, employees of government ministries including the attorney-general's office and the Tripoli Chamber of Commerce, younger members of prominent coastal families - most of them, seemingly, individuals identified in the past with Marxist, Baathist, Moslem Brotherhood or other such political circles - were seized. There had never been any suggestion that 'factional' organization existed; the persecution was aimed at those who had not succeeded in identifying with the regime's system of state-run politics. The cultural revolution was against people who 'propagate poisonous ideas' alien to the Islamic origins of the Libyan people. The political prisoners were held incommunicado. Unofficial circles calculated that there had been as many as a thousand persons arrested; this, at the rate of one in prison for every 20,000 Libyans, made the country the most politically confined in the world... No trials were held of detainees. Some though not all of the political prisoners were released towards the end of the year, some after televised 'confessions' - though all insisted, after explaining their political convictions, that they had been active only until September 1969 and the army revolution [ie Gadafi's coup] of that date. In August 1973 Gadafi had told Libyans they had 30 days in which 'anyone who still belongs to any organization can come forward and surrender himself, write to me by post. After the 30-day period I do not want anyone to come'. After that anyone who disrupted national unity, 'who seeks to dominate the people or society through a class or party will be considered a traitor subject to the death penalty'." (Libya: The Elusive Revolution, Ruth First, 1975, pp 136-144)