Training
At Libya's independence (1951), only 10% of the
population was literate. The school system, which has since
expanded considerably, is both state and private, the latter
consisting of Koran schools. The school duty is 9 years,
from 6 to 15 years of age. The three-year high school is
voluntary, but a majority of the students continue to this
level, where the girls are more than the boys. In 2009,
literacy among the population over 15 years was estimated at
90% (95% among men, 82% among women). Priority is given to
expanding teacher education and vocational schools.
Libya has 13 state universities, of which a technical and
a medical college. The 1969 coup d'état and the new
constitutions that followed it had a major impact on the
content of the educational courses, which were given greater
Islamic and socialist orientation. At all stages, Islam and
Arabic are studied, and up to al-Khadaffi's case, his "Green
Book" played an important role in teaching. Military
education for both men and women is compulsory in high
school and university.
On March 17, the United Nations Security Council passed
Resolution 1973, paving the way for Western war against
Libya to save the insurgency. The Security Council thus
completed its metamorphosis from peacemaker to war-creating
institution. The colonial powers never succeeded in getting
the Security Council's blue stamp of the war against Serbia
in 1999 or against Iraq in 2003. The reason was allegedly to
save the civilian population of Libya, but the African
states opposed to the resolution subsequently asked why the
Security Council never intervened in the Darfour conflict
where 1 million were killed, in the Congo where the civil
war had also cost 1 million civilian lives, in the Ivory
Coast where the civil war was fleeing in the same days, or
in Lebanon or Gaza where Israel in 2006 and 2009 killed over
1-2000 civilians. The simple explanation was that Libya had
oil,
The Security Council Resolution established a "no-fly
zone" to "protect the civilian population", but at the same
time rejected an actual foreign occupation of the country.
That the agenda was another showed France, the first country
to send its planes to war against Libya, where they bombed
Gadaffi's tanks. It had nothing to do with the "no-fly
zone", but the purpose was to ensure the rebels military
progress.
Over the course of a few days, Gadaffi's Air Force was
put out of play, and the United States, which had otherwise
played the lead in the war, now announced that the
superpower would no longer take a leading role in the war.
The United States was generally hated in the Arab world for
its occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, support for the
region's dictators, and securing Israel's continued
occupation of Palestine. The War of the Colonial Powers
therefore, after just a week, ran into organizational
problems, because the United States wanted to stay within
the Security Council mandate for "no-fly zone," while the
rest of the Colonial powers wanted to overthrow Gadaffi -
which was outside the resolution. China and Russia that had
otherwise failed to veto the resolution now criticized the
colonial powers for the ongoing war and demanded immediate
ceasefire. So did India, Brazil, the Arab League and the
African Union. The AU had already asked the colonial powers
the day after the Security Council resolution to fly to
Libya to try to negotiate a peaceful solution to the
conflict, but it was flatly rejected by the colonial powers.
In early April, the AU was finally allowed to send a peace
delegation to Libya, but while Gadaffi agreed to enter into
negotiations, negotiations continued to be rejected by
colonial powers and rebels demanding Gadaffi's unconditional
departure.
The colonial powers, with Britain and France at the
forefront, wanted to use NATO as an organizational framework
for the war against Libya when the US withdrew, but Turkey
and Germany initially opposed it. However, they succeeded in
thrusting Turkey, so that on March 24, NATO took over the
leadership of the naval blockade and from the 25th air
strikes on Libya. However, the process revealed new
contradictions between the colonial powers. Barack Obama
publicly warned the other colonial powers against continuing
the war, and NATO Secretary-General strained plans to
deliver weapons to the rebels by declaring it was in
violation of the Security Council resolution on arms embargo
on the country. However, that embargo was already broken at
that time by Qatar supplying weapons to CIA controlled
militias in eastern Libya.
While the air strikes in the days after March 17 paved
the way for the rebels' military progress, at the end of the
month the rebels were again escaped by Gadaffi's forces. At
that time, about 1 million civilians were driven to flight.
The humanitarian disaster was a reality. In turn, the rebels
opened for the shipping of oil from Ras Lanuf.
In light of the military decline of the rebels, at the
beginning of April they began to criticize NATO for lack of
support in the war. NATO responded by stepping up its
attacks on Gadaffi's forces, with the result that the
military alliance bombed a rebel captured by the rebels two
days later, killing 17 of them. The rebels demanded an
apology for the attack. An apology NATO refused to grant.
The Civil War had sent 1 million civilians to flee. On
April 6, a boat with 300 Libyan refugees was on its way to
Italy. At least 250 drowned.
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