Free Republic

Islamic SocialismFrom the CIA factbook: Following a 1969 military coup, Col. Muammar Abu Minyar al-QADHAFI began to espouse his own political system, the Third Universal Theory. The system was a combination of socialism and Islam derived in part from tribal practices and was supposed to be implemented by the Libyan people themselves in a unique form of "direct democracy.[1] The "Green Book" - Arabism, Islam & socialism, with Islam the main line Author John L. Esposito: Under Qaddafi three interrelated ideas were woven into Libya's ideological identity: Pan-Arabism, socialism, and Islam. Qaddafi's appeals to Islam were influenced by his...

Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi is well known now for the abuses he has inflicted on his own people during more than four decades of brutal rule in Libya, but few remember the vast campaign of carnage and terrorism he orchestrated across West Africa and Europe when he was at the height of his powers. Nor are his more recent alliance with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and his long-standing relationship with Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua -- both of whom are busy trampling their constitutions and moving toward dictatorship -- well understood. And the fact that all three governments support the Revolutionary Armed...

Angry Sierra Leoneans jeer Sankoh's body August 02, 2003, 09:27 PM Hundreds of angry Sierra Leoneans turned out in the capital Freetown today to jeer the body of former rebel leader Foday Sankoh, a man reviled for launching one of Africa's most horrific wars. "Take his body to hell or give it to us, the crowd, to burn his body to ashes," shouted Dowu Johnson, a woman in the crowd. The former warlord, who had been indicted for war crimes by a UN-backed court investigating atrocities during the West African nation's decade-long civil war, died in hospital on Tuesday. His...

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone - Foday Sankoh, an indicted Sierra Leone war criminal whose rebel forces were notorious for hacking off the limbs, lips and ears of civilians, died in U.N. custody at a Freetown hospital, the war-crimes court said Wednesday. He was 65. Sankoh died late Tuesday, said David Hecht, spokesman for the U.N.-Sierra Leone war crimes court. No cause of death was given, but Sankoh reportedly suffered a mild stroke after his capture in early 2000 and had been ill and disoriented. The court's chief prosecutor, American David Crane, said Sankoh's death from natural causes granted him "a peaceful...

<p>July 10, 2003 -- AS the president and Pentagon ponder whether to send U.S. troops to Liberia, many Americans will be surprised to learn that the crisis there was in part the creation of a U.S. political leader who claims to champion Africans' right to self-governance: Jesse Jackson.</p>