Gaddafi's Harem

by Cojean, Annick

  It also seemed to put into practice his view of himself as the great liberator of women. How many conferences and rants must he have delivered on this theme? How many lessons must he have given to the West and the whole Arab world? A truth to be acknowledged by all: Colonel Gaddafi was “the friend of women.” There was not a single trip into the regions of Libya, not a single tour abroad where this message was not hammered out at a meeting with some women’s association. He had already laid out a certain attitude toward women in the third volume of his famous Green Book (equality between the sexes, freedom from discrimination, the right to work for everyone on the condition that women’s “femininity” be respected), but his intention was rapidly radicalized, leading in 1979 to the creation of a Military Academy for Women and, two years later, to a fiery and triumphant speech when the first to receive their degrees were presented before the country. This school, unique in the world, would be an enormous source of pride for Libya, he proclaimed. How daring the multitudes of young Libyan women who registered were, embodying the shining proof of how mentalities had changed. They had to continue!

  Thus, on September 1, 1981, he made a great declaration: “The men and women of the Arab nations are subject to an attempt to subjugate their powers. But inside the Arab nation, women have actually been dominated by the forces of oppression, feudalism, and profit. We call for a revolution to liberate the women of the Arab nation, which will be a bomb to shake up the entire Arab region, inciting female prisoners, whether in palaces or marketplaces, to rebel against their jailers, their exploiters, and their oppressors. This call is certain to cause profound echoes and repercussions in the entire Arab nation and in the world at large. Today is not just any day, it is the beginning of the end of the era of harems and slaves and the beginning of women’s liberation within the Arab nation.” And so, women in arms appeared as the most beautiful jewel in the crown of the revolution. Entrusting them with his personal security was therefore more than symbolic. It was an act of faith in feminism. That, at least, is how Gaddafi’s preference for female guards was frequently framed in the West. The irony is shocking.

  Having an escort of Amazons flattered the Colonel’s idea of himself as a seducer, feeding people’s fantasies and suspicions. The cliché of the oriental harem was never far away—in sharp contrast to his feminist rhetoric—and was reinforced by the absence on the public stage of his legal wife, Safia Farkash, the official mother of seven of his children, whom he had married in 1971 (after a lightning-quick divorce from his previous wife). All these young women at his service, devoted to him, and ready to give up their lives for him . . . The message was, shall we say, blurred.

  But who were they really, these girls in uniform, those close guards, those standard-bearers of the Guide? Soraya’s account categorically denies the endless adulation these guards received, including the praise for their combat training and skill. Had she not been told to simply put on the uniform the very day after her kidnapping? Had she not, without consultation, been told she would join the “elite” corps, and instructed merely to mimic the other bodyguards on the Guide’s trips, by looking busy and severe, like the guards on whom the master’s life depended? “What a joke!” Soraya said, rolling her eyes. What a charade! My observation of a handful of Amazons, who accompanied the Colonel on a visit to Paris in December 2007, seemed to confirm these kinds of allegations. Perched on the roof of a sightseeing river boat, the guards took pictures of each other laughing like schoolgirls, and afterward went shopping on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and the Champs-Elysées. No, these girls had not been trained at the Military Academy. Yes, they certainly were Gaddafi’s mistresses and sexual objects. His favorites or his little slaves. Sayed Gaddaf Eddam, a cousin of the Guide’s and a high-ranking military officer, told me from his prison in Misrata that he was “disgusted” by these women.

  The investigation in Tripoli proved to be difficult. There was now no one who wanted to hear about the famous bodyguards. They had vanished with the Guide. Flown away! Any mention of them only prompted embarrassment and scorn—first of all, at the Libyan Ministry of Defense, at the entrance of which sits a carpet with the image of Gaddafi. “Their existence gravely damaged the image of the Libyan army,” Oussama Jouili, commander of the rebels of the city of Zintan, who was named minister of defense after the Guide’s death, assured me. “What a disgrace! And such a slap in the face for members of the real military, those who had a noble ideal of their profession and of the defense of their country! Gaddafi put them forward to attract the spotlight and refine his own image, but it was nothing but hypocrisy. At the same time he was destroying his own army. Unbearable! I was a young captain, and I reached the point of hating the whole institution of the army, and was ready to resign as soon as it was possible. Where were we heading? How could I take seriously those women who Gaddafi was simply throwing to the wolves? Who could imagine for even a second that he would trust them completely with his protection? Let’s face it, they were there just for show, to play to the gallery, and—how shall I say it?—to brighten up his leisure time. It was revolting.”

  I saw the same reaction from Ramadan Ali Zarmouh, the president of the Military Council of Misrata, the third largest city in the country, and certainly one of the most ravaged by the war. He, too, had resigned from Gaddafi’s army very early on, despite his rank as colonel. And, like the rebel commander Jouili, deplored the “masquerade” and the “pathetic theater” not only of the bodyguards but of all the female soldiers. “Poor girls! They landed among our ranks, fully inflated by the speeches of that bastard, who manipulated them to try to impress the world and satisfy his own desires! They were badly trained, badly prepared, and often didn’t have their parents’ blessing to be in the army. Besides, how could they have in good conscience accepted that their daughters would be thrown into this man’s universe? In Libya this would be unthinkable. We saw them as victims behind whom [better trained] men inevitably had to be placed, while he was showing off, surrounded by mistresses and puppets untrained to defend him.”

  Radical judgments like these were shared by all the rebels and military men I was able to question. Was it machismo on their part? Yes, to some extent, since the integration of women in the army had never been truly accepted by the military hierarchy, nor by traditional Libyan society. It could be said that Gaddafi had probably gone too far too fast in a country where women were wives and mothers before all else and often confined to the house. From 1975 on, he had pushed the concept of “people at arms” and supported the idea that weapons should no longer be the monopoly of a classical army, destined to disappear, but ought to be put in the hands of all citizens—men and women—and that this should happen without delay. In 1978, he authorized a law that made military training for all compulsory in the secondary schools, for girls as well as boys. This caused a minor revolution since, to the utter amazement of their parents, the former had to wear combat fatigues and be taught by male teachers. “Combat fatigues worn by a woman is worth more than a silk outfit worn by an ignorant, inane, superficial bourgeois woman, unaware of the challenges that confront her and, consequently, her children,” the Guide once declared. When in 1979 he created the Military Academy for Women, he sent hordes of especially aggressive recruiters to girls’ schools. It had to be done fast. Liberated women in arms would be Gaddafi’s best propaganda. Three months of training for female soldiers, recruited after the third year of secondary school; two years for female officers, selected after the baccalaureate diploma. Finally, in 1981, he launched the idea of a movement of so-called revolutionary nuns, open to all women, both civil and military, who would be “the elite of the elite.”

  In order to be accepted into this group, the women had to renounce marriage and devote their entire lives exclusively to the defense of the revolution—in other words, devote themselves to the Guide. That was his greatest fantasy. In a speech he gave on February 13, 1981, to the pioneers of the revolutionary wom
en’s movement, in referring to Christian nuns “who dress in white, the symbol of purity, and who devote themselves entirely to the ideal of Christ,” Muammar Gaddafi was deliberately provocative. “Why do Christian women become nuns while you sit still and remain spectators? Can Christian nuns be greater than the Arab nation?” He concluded: “It is through renunciation that the revolutionary nun is holy, pure, and places herself above ordinary individuals so she can be closer to the angels.”

  I met no revolutionary nuns. Even in Gaddafi’s time they had already disappeared into the society at large, and nobody has managed to estimate their number. There’s no point in stating that no one today claims that title. But I did interview two women colonels who had each responded to the Guide’s call at a very young age and wholeheartedly joined the army. Quickly disappointed, one of them affirmed having wished for Gaddafi’s deposition and after his death discovered a certain renewal of interest in her profession. Now in prison waiting to go to court for murders committed during the civil war, the other one fluctuates between nostalgia and anger.

  It took many days to convince Colonel Fatima to talk. On the face of it, she had no reason to blame herself for anything. But here she was: a soldier who had believed in the Guide’s message and became one of the dupes of history. Despite the propaganda, the Libyans had never felt any sympathy for the female soldiers; since the revolution of 2011 they were overtly expressing their feeling of repulsion. So it wasn’t easy for the unfortunate survivors of the Gaddafi era; they had no desire whatsoever to put themselves forward. And yet Fatima refused the idea that women should be forever banned from the army and that the Guide’s atrocities and duplicity should provide the opportunity for them to be disqualified. It was both unjust and insulting.

  An imposing woman in her fifties, wrapped in a large red coat with a black veil around her plump face, her bearing a little tense, Fatima finally came to my hotel room in Tripoli one evening. The place was inconspicuous and neutral. After years of propaganda, she said, the time had surely come to speak the truth.

  “The recruiters who came to my high school in the late seventies enthralled me: the idea they presented about military engagement was so dazzling that I could only see my future as in the army. Nothing could be more exalting than defending one’s country, and having men and women united and equal. What an awe-inspiring idea, and how revolutionary! All the more so because these recruiters cited the example of the Algerian revolution in which young women like Djamila Bouhired had taken all sorts of risks as liaison officers, planting bombs and fighting battles in order to liberate their people. They were magnificent people, heroines. Women were raising their heads. I was dreaming of a similar involvement.” Military training had just started to get considerable emphasis at the school. Physical exercises, handling of weapons, lectures, exams . . . Fatima committed herself wholly to it, convinced she would thereby be part of the “armed people” of whom Gaddafi used to speak. Her parents, on the other hand, were scandalized that high school girls could be asked to dress in male uniforms; it was so improper. “Libyan society wasn’t ready for it,” she said. “But we, the young, we took the bait. And then, once military service became obligatory again, and every Libyan had to devote several weeks a year to being trained, we were all forced to take part in the project. Every Libyan had their reservist’s card.” In reality, traffic in these cards allowed the wealthiest people to avoid these exercises, but at the time she didn’t know that.

  So in 1980 Fatima entered the Military Academy of Tripoli, which was then only in its second year. There she met girls from Egypt, Lebanon, Algeria, and Sudan. The teachers were basically still all men and the courses were demanding: Morse code, cartography, secretarial work, military tactics, weapons handling, maneuvers training, including during the night and in stormy weather. “But it was worth it! We were a world attraction. Television crews came from all over. We felt like we were growing wings. We were the future. We were modern!” Obviously, with every speech Gaddafi gave the women became more galvanized. He was their champion and they didn’t doubt his readiness to change the lives of all Libyan women and, one day, to push a few of them to the rank of general.

  Then there was the graduation ceremony and the marching parade, repeated a thousand times. “I was too exhausted to listen to the Guide’s speech all the way to the end.” But it took no more than a month for Fatima to grow disenchanted. “We had been had. The promises were nothing but lies. Gaddafi spurned his own army and obviously expected nothing from women—they were just images by which to create his myth . . . and a breeding ground for mistresses.” Fatima was named an officer in a school near Bab al-Azizia, where she was officially in charge of the daily military training, but “the daughters of the Gaddafi clique” performed arrogantly. “I wore a uniform but had a title stripped of any power.” She was then transferred to army headquarters. In the morning a driver would pick her up, but she had no role to play and remained underpaid. “So gradually the girls in my year grew bitter. Our study was nothing but a fraud; the love for the nation died. We told ourselves that our lives were a failure! I stopped wearing the uniform, forgot my service number, was no longer in shape, and disregarded everything I’d learned in school. I wouldn’t even have been able to take a Kalashnikov apart anymore.”

  Obviously, if she had been incorporated as one of the bodyguards she would have had a few advantages, especially those of travel and money. But you had to be tall and beautiful, have long hair, and be deemed eye-catching by Gaddafi’s first circle or by the Guide himself. This is what had happened to Salma of Soraya’s story, who was noticed during a visit to her city of Zliten. “Gaddafi’s bodyguards were not a true corps. It was just a collection of girls from Special Forces, the revolutionary guards, the police academy, the Military Academy, the revolutionary nuns, and his mistresses of the moment. Gaddafi used them as he pleased and no one had any chance of resisting, even less of complaining. The most cunning ones managed to take advantage of it and were given cars and houses. But, please, forget the image of an elite corps! It was just any old group, a mere show in which Gaddafi made sure he included a few black women to demonstrate he wasn’t racist and keep some doors in Africa open. The real guards on whom his personal security rested didn’t appear in this picture. They were men from Sirte, his native city.”

  Early in 2011 Fatima was excited to see the insurrection against Gaddafi make headway. She officially joined the revolutionary movement on March 20, making her Kalashnikov “available to the rebels.” But she stayed within the system, gathering as much information as she could and distributing tracts in the army offices. “Desertion was not an option, or else my parents and I would be in a communal grave today.” When I spoke with her, she was part of the military corps led by Abdelhakim Belhadj, the commander of the Military Council of Tripoli, and said she had gotten some of her drive back and had renewed faith in her profession. But she knew it would take time to repair the damage and restore credit to the women in uniform.

  I met another female colonel in the prison of Zawiya, a small town on the coast about fifty kilometers from Tripoli. At first she refused to give me her name, but at the end of the interview she unexpectedly told it to me, gave it to me like a pledge of trust. A gift. “Fine then! My name is Aicha Abdousalam Milad. Goodbye!” The cell, in the back of a small courtyard, was painted yellow and had an iron door with a huge dead-bolt lock, an obstructed window, and two places to sleep: a mattress right on the floor and a metal bed that had seen better days. A dim lightbulb dangled from a wire running along a side wall, a small electric radiator stood in a corner, and a kettle soon provided some hot water for tea. I was surprised at first to see two people in this minuscule room, and assumed that both were prisoners, but the woman who seemed most miserable, huddled up on the bed, her eyes deep in their sockets and her expression one of exhaustion, explained that she was the guard. Having slept in her car for five years—“Nobody wanted to rent a room to
a poor woman by herself!”—she now preferred to share the cell with her prisoner.

  In contrast, Aicha looked in very good shape. Tall and slender, her hair held together in a turban, she had a refined face, a beauty spot on her left cheek, and was wearing a striped sweatshirt under a black velvet outfit with athletic elegance. Sitting cross-legged on her mattress, she agreed to talk about the path she’d taken but insisted on having things be clear from the start: she was a professional army woman—“This is my calling in life!”—but had never belonged to the Gaddafi “clique,” nor to his bodyguards. Once this point was settled, she could disclose the passion she’d felt for the army at a very young age, the fateful encounter with the recruiters visiting her school in Sebha, a town in the Saharan desert and a stronghold of the Gaddafi tribe, and how she had joined the Military Academy for Women at the end of December 1983. Like most of the students, she came from a large family (nine children) of modest income, with parents who had been extremely reluctant to have a daughter in uniform. “We all had to force the issue. But what bliss! Half of the army had to be composed of women or the concept would make no sense. Gaddafi finally had shown confidence in girls and brought them out of the house!”

  At the same time, Aicha managed to get her nursing degree, and when she graduated from the Academy in 1985 she was assigned to her native south to train other girls and was rapidly promoted. Returning to Tripoli twenty years later, she joined the management of the revolutionary guards, whose duty it was to protect the Guide, and found herself in charge of the regular selection of his bodyguards. “What a responsibility! They were the ones who were going to show the whole world that Libyan women were armed and respected. They played the role of ambassadors! I couldn’t make any mistakes!” So, she said, she chose the “spectacular” ones. Meaning what? The girls who were “endowed with charisma.” Prettiness “wasn’t the point. I wanted them to have a presence, be impressive. And I preferred them tall, otherwise I made them wear high heels.” Every girl dreamed of being chosen and begged Aicha to let them be in the limelight one day. “It could turn their life upside down, especially if they weren’t professional soldiers. They accompanied the Guide when he traveled, received envelopes with a lot of money. So—please believe it—once they were in place, they pulled out all the stops to measure up. Beautiful makeup, impeccable dress . . . They knew very well that all the cameras were fixed on them.”