How was Libya doing under the rule of Gadaffi? How bad did the people have it? Were they oppressed as we now commonly accept as fact? Let us look at the facts for a moment.
Before the chaos erupted, Libya had a lower incarceration rate than the Czech republic. It ranked 61st. Libya had the lowest infant mortality rate of all of Africa. Libya had the highest life expectancy of all of Africa. Less than 5% of the population was undernourished. In response to the rising food prices around the world, the government of Libya abolished ALL taxes on food.
People in Libya were rich.
Libya had the highest gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita of all of Africa. The government took care to ensure that everyone in the country shared in the wealth. Libya had the highest Human Development Index of any country on the continent. The wealth was distributed equally. In Libya, a lower percentage of people lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands.
How does Libya get so rich?
The answer is oil. The country has a lot of oil, and does not allow foreign corporations to steal the resources while the population starves, unlike countries like Nigeria, a country that is basically run by Shell.
Like any country, Libya suffers from a government with corrupt bureaucrats that try to gain a bigger portion of the pie at the cost of everyone else. In response to this, Kadaffi called for the oil revenue to be distributed directly to the people, because in his opinion, the government was failing the people. However, unlike the article claims, Gaddafi is not the president of Libya. In fact he holds no official position in the government. This is the big mistake that people make. They claim that Gaddafi rules over Libya when in fact he doesn’t, his position is more or less ceremonial. He should be compared to a founding father.
The true leader of Libya is an indirectly elected prime-minister. The current prime-minister is Baghdadi Mahmudi.
Calling Gaddafi the leader of Libya is comparable to calling Akihito the leader of Japan.
Contrary to what your media is sketching, opinions in Libya vary. Some people support Gaddafi but want Mahmudi out. Others want both out. Many just want to live their life in peace. However, effort is taken to sketch the appearance of a popular revolt against the supposed leader of Libya, Gaddafi, when in fact he is just the architect of Libya’s current political system, a mixture of pan-Arabism, socialism, and Islamic government.
Also, Gaddafi used his oil profit to build a irrigation and water system which 70% of Libyans depend on. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Manmade_River)
It's now destroyed, thanks to NATO bombing.
I hope these "rebels" will be happy to find that when the oil profit sharing scheme with Europe goes awry and the profit does not arrive, they will be ok with their free health care and free education being canceled.
