By Michael W. Baca

As the 2011 Libyan uprising took hold of Benghazi and spread like wildfire into Tripolitania, Western commentators scrambled to write up political obituaries for the embattled Muammar el-Qaddafi.  While most pieces emphasized the Libyan strongman’s role in recent Arab history, a handful of insightful observers drew attention to Qaddafi’s far more significant legacy in sub-Saharan Africa.  For decades, Qaddafi has used his oil wealth to exert influence throughout the region, providing aid to an array of insurgent groups, investing heavily in economic projects, and even inserting Libyan forces into African conflicts.  The scale of this engagement raised questions about the impact of Qaddafi’s downfall on lands south of the Sahara.

Now that the tide of war has turned in favor of Africa’s self-proclaimed “King of Kings”, analysts must determine the implications for the sub-Saharan region if Qaddafi survives this latest political challenge.  Though it would be foolhardy to draw any firm conclusions at the moment, Tripoli’s record of engagement in Africa suggests that a preserved Qaddafi regime would represent a destabilizing force.  Such a development would have grave implications for many of the states located in the continent’s western and central regions.

Despite Qaddafi’s early infatuation with pan-Arabism, his impact on the contemporary Middle East’s political evolution has been minimal.  The pan-Arabist cause was already in decline by the time Qaddafi came to power in 1969, undermined by the United Arab Republic’s 1961 dissolution, Egyptian intervention in North Yemen, and Israel’s crushing victory during the Six Days War.  Within a year of Qaddafi’s accession, the movement’s godfather, Egyptian dictator Gamal Nasser, had died of a heart attack.  Efforts by Libya to form a political union with Egypt and Syria floundered; by 1977 relations between Tripoli and Cairo had degenerated to the point of open hostility.  The subsequent Egyptian-Libyan war (1977) ended with Cairo’s military launching of a successful punitive expedition that resulted in the occupation of the oasis town of Al-Jaghbub.  This stinging defeat curtailed Qaddafi’s ambitions in the Middle East, and though in later decades Libya made noise about merging with Sudan, pan-Arabism ceased to serve as the driving force behind Tripoli’s foreign policy.  A rebuffed Qaddafi increasingly turned his attentions southwards to Africa.

Qaddafi’s shift in focus was neither unprecedented nor illogical.  By focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, Qaddafi carried on a long tradition among the inhabitants of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan to seek fame and fortune in the Sahel and beyond.  Nineteenth century European visitors to modern-day Cameroon, Chad, and Nigeria reported encountering Tripolitanian and Fezzanian mercenaries fighting in the armies of local potentates, while Benghazi long served as the northern terminus for trans-Saharan trade routes originating from Lake Chad basin.  What is more, members of the Cyrenaica-based Sanussi religious order temporarily established military, religious and cultural strongholds in the eastern Sahel during the late 1800s.  From a geopolitical perspective, Libya was far better positioned to be a major player in impoverished Africa than the Middle East, where its small population, modest hydrocarbon reserves (relative to Saudi Arabia and Iraq) and dearth of culturally significant urban centers (e.g., Mecca, Cairo, Baghdad, Damascus) limited its ability to shape events.

Initially, Qaddafi relied on a dual-strategy of supporting “revolutionary” guerrillas and liberally deploying Libyan military personnel to promote his African agenda that included turning Chad into a client state and helping establish anti-Western regimes throughout the continent.  Flushed with petrodollars, Qaddafi sponsored insurgents and governments alike, winning friends from the Western Sahara to southern Africa.  Unfortunately for Tripoli, the Libyan army lacked the capability to match Qaddafi’s ambitions.  A contingent dispatched to Uganda to help Idi Amin repulse the 1979 Tanzanian invasion proved unable to hold onto Kampala and had to be ignominiously withdrawn.  Libya’s foray into Chad initially proved more successful, with the sparsely populated Aouzou Strip annexed and its local allies seizing control of N’Djamena.  However, French intervention on the behalf of anti-Qaddafi forces undid most of these gains.  Libyan activities in Chad came to a disastrous conclusion with the so-called “Toyota War” (1986-87), when Western-supported Chadian armies ejected Tripoli’s soldiers from the entire country. The debacle left over 7,000 Libyans dead and cost Qaddafi $1.5 billion in lost military equipment.  It effectively marked the end of large-scale Libyan military campaigns in sub-Saharan Africa.

With the Libyan army no longer a viable instrument for furthering Tripoli’s goals, Qaddafi concentrated his resources on clandestinely aiding rebels in the Sahel and littoral West Africa.  Shortly after this recalibration, Libyan-trained Charles Taylor invaded Liberia, where he rapidly wrested control of the interior from the pro-American Samuel Doe regime.  Further east, Tuareg rebels, including many who had served in Qaddafi’s armies during the 1970s and 80s, plunged the states of Mali and Niger into turmoil. It would be absurd to attribute the conflicts that gripped Upper Guinea and the northern Sahel during the 1990s solely to Qaddafi’s machinations.  In all cases, local grievances and indigenous actors played a far more critical role in initiating and sustaining the violence.  Nevertheless, the arms and training Tripoli provided anti-government insurgents greatly enhanced their military capabilities.

Libya’s role as a major purveyor of arms and funds to African insurgencies only ended at the dawn of the twenty-first century.  Though Tripoli continued to have cozy relations with several disreputable figures, most notably Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Qaddafi and his coterie dedicated their country’s wealth to promote regional organizations such as the African Union and the Community of Sahel-Saharan States in order to realize greater Libyan influence in Africa.  The transformation coincided with concerted diplomatic efforts by the Qaddafi regime to end its status as a pariah.  Tripoli appears to have concluded that its adventurism in Africa represented a stumbling block to achieving international respectability.  With Qaddafi once again persona non grata in much of the world, it seems likely that if he clings onto power Libya will return to its old, destructive policies in sub-Saharan Africa.

A brief survey of the region reveals a troubled sociopolitical landscape where Qaddafi would have plenty of opportunities to causes mischief in West Africa and beyond.  The Ivory Coast teeters on the brink of full-scale civil war and many of its neighbors are grappling with simmering ethnic/regional tensions, widespread underemployment, and skyrocketing food prices.  Meanwhile, the territories stretching from Equatoria to Darfur remain in a state of agitation as South Sudan advances towards independence.  Washington policymakers will have to be vigilant of Libyan meddling in African affairs in the event the Qaddafi regime endures.