In 2009, Libya had a population of around 6.3 million people, the majority of whom were ethnically Arab and Berber. The economy was largely based on oil and gas while foreign investment also contributed to economic development. In terms of foreign relations, Libya maintained strong ties with its North African neighbors while it also had close diplomatic ties with Russia and other countries in the region. Libya was a member of several international organisations such as the United Nations, Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Politically, Libya was led by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi at the time who assumed power in 1969 following a military coup. See internetsailors for Libya in the year of 2011.
Yearbook 2009
Libya. On February 10, the EU offered Libya € 20 million to fight immigration from sub-Saharan countries. The offer, which was part of a larger EU-Libya support package, was presented by EU Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner during a visit to the country. Many refugees suffered severe pain. As an example, more than 200 migrants from sub-Saharan countries were reported to have drowned on March 30 when the boat they were traveling with capsized in connection with storms off the Libyan coast. See ABBREVIATIONFINDER for abbreviation LY which stands for the nation of Libya.
Libyan leader Muammar al-Khadaffi said during a visit to Italy in June that the entire debate on asylum seekers was “a widespread lie”. In September, the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized Libya’s treatment of refugees. Migrants are arrested, locked in refugee camps, beaten and not released until they bribe each other, HRW wrote, urging the EU to suspend cooperation with Libya until the country legislates and establishes procedures for the legal treatment of migrants. But the EU did not heed the call. Negotiations for an agreement continued throughout the year and cooperation between Libya and Italy deepened.
According to countryaah, the Scottish Government released on August 20 the imprisoned former Libyan agent Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, convicted in 2001 of the 1988 attack on a US passenger plane over the Scottish village of Lockerbie when more than 270 people, most Americans, were killed. al-Megrahi, a prostate cancer obituary, immediately flew to Libya where he was greeted as a hero. The case led to complicated diplomatic tensions. Scotland, which is self-governing in legal matters, released al-Megrahi citing a law of pardon “of compassion”, which can be used just for dying prisoners to spend their last time in freedom. al-Khadaffi thanked Scotland, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and also the Queen. The British government refused to comment on the issue, but assessors agreed that the release would facilitate British companies seeking to extract oil in Libya. US President Barack Obama called the release “a mistake”.
In conjunction with the opening of the UN General Assembly on September 27, al-Khadaffi gave a 90-minute speech to the assembled members. An American newspaper described it as a “confusing outcome,” an Arab newspaper described it as a “deep analysis.”
Danish war crimes – terrorist bombings in Libya
Denmark committed war crimes in May when Danish pilots on several occasions deliberately attacked and bombed civilian installations. The most spectacular attack took place on May 1, when Danish aircraft bombed a villa in Tripoli. On that occasion, Gadaffi’s son and three of his grandchildren were killed. A few days later, an orphanage was bombed. The bombings were also a violation of Security Resolution 1973, which imposes protection on the civilian population. NATO preferred to use Danish aircraft to commit war crimes, as it was the country in the alliance where propaganda is strongest and where critical journalism was poorly developed. In the spring of 2012, the UN demanded that NATO investigate the bombing of civilians. It rejected NATO.
In May, NATO had to acknowledge that its Libya strategy had failed. The militarily poorly trained and mutually divided rebels failed to topple the Gadaffi regime. NATO therefore began to terrorize Tripoli in the hope of hitting Gadaffi himself. From the end of the month, the war alliance deployed Apache attack helicopters.
On July 27, Rebels Chief of Staff Abdel Fatah Younis was assassinated. He fell into ambush when he was on his way back to Benghazi for questioning. The rebels initially accused Ghadaffi of being behind the murder, but a few days later the responsibility was placed on a small Islamic part of the rebel alliance. Younis was thus murdered by his own. Already the same evening when the Resistance Council President Abdul Mustafa Jalil told a news conference about the murder, Younis’ clan – the Obeidis – attacked the hotel where the press conference was being held. Just one day before the assassination, Britain had thrown Libya’s diplomats out of London and announced that Britain now considered the rebels’ advice to be Libya’s rightful government. The rebel council was now in disarray, and in Misrata other rebels announced that they were no longer accepting orders from Benghazi. Britain’s breach of the Libyan government was a breach of several hundred years of diplomatic tradition where relations are between states, whether one government sympathizes with another. A generalization of British practice would ultimately cause international diplomacy to collapse. In desperation over the dissolution trends in the rebel council, Britain stepped up its terrorist bombings of Libya.
On August 1, Norway withdrew its aircraft and troops from the war against Libya. They were brought back to Norway.
On August 20, NATO and the rebel forces entered the capital Tripoli. As in Iraq eight years earlier, the road was paved by bribes by senior officers in charge of the city’s defense. Subsequently, the city was buzzing with Western intelligence officers and spies. They were to collect and hide documents on the close cooperation between the Kadaffi regime and the Western states over the previous 10 years. Among other things. Britain had sent several prisoners to Libya to torture them. MI6 was therefore on the spot for collecting documents. In addition, intelligence officers worked to detect and buy the regime’s ground-to-air rockets to avoid falling into the hands of other terrorists. It failed. Thousands of rockets ended up in the illegal weapons market in North Africa.
Economy
Inflation rate | 28.50% |
Unemployment rate | 30% |
Gross domestic product (GDP) | $ 61,970,000,000 |
GDP growth rate | 64.00% |
GDP per capita | 9,600 USD |
GDP by sector | |
Agriculture | 1.30% |
Industry | 52.30% |
Service | 46.40% |
State budget | |
Revenue | 35.85 billion |
Expenditure | 16.27 billion |
Proportion of the population below the national poverty line | – |
Distribution of household income | |
Top 10% | k. A. |
Lower 10% | k. A. |
Industrial production growth rate | -6.70% |
Investment volume | 14.1% of GDP |
National debt | 4.70% of GDP |
Foreign exchange reserves | $ 69,350,000,000 |
Tourism | 2008 |
Visitors | 34,000 |
Revenue | $ 170,000,000 |