Like Algeria, Libya has used oil revenues to create a socialist economic structure and modernize the country, but with the differences that Libya has a less democratic political structure than Algeria and has launched a cultural revolution based on Islamic fundamentalism.

In little more than a decade since the overthrow of King Idris, Libya has moved forward from being an underdeveloped desert kingdom towards becoming an industrialized welfare state. Economic development and social justice have been based on the use of oil revenue, and inspired by the ideology expounded in Gadafi's Green Book. Gadafi calls his philosophy the 'Third Universal Theory" or Islamic socialism, superseding what he regards as the discredited doctrines of capitalism and communism. In practice, Islamic socialism has taken the forms of cultural, political and economic nationalism in Libya. In 1973 Gadafi began a 'cultural revolution' to destroy imported ideologies, whether Western or Eastern. Islamic law was more widely adopted, alcohol was prohibited, Roman script was banned, even on road signs, and no non-Arab could enter Libya without Arabic translations in his passport. All foreign troops were evacuated by June 1970. Thousands of Italian businessmen and farmers were expelled without compensation. Hard-line tactics were used with foreign oil companies which not only showed the way for other OPEC members but increased Libya's per capita income from 1980 dollars in 1970 to 5845 in 1977.

Libya is now the fifth biggest oil producer in OPEC. Oil production hit a peak in early 1970 at 3.7 million barrels a day. The military government took control of two-thirds of the oil industry's output (enough to allow foreign companies to make a profit and not leave), ordered production cutbacks and forced up the price, thus risking short-term cuts in revenue in order to gain long-term benefits.

Between 1970 and 1974 Libya's oil revenue quadrupled while annual production of a wasting asset was reduced. In 1980 production capacity was 2.5 million barrels a day but actual production was only 1.9 million. Libya's government had outsmarted the oil companies by making its moves when a consumer boom in the industrialized West had driven demand up faster than the companies had anticipated.

Libya's unilateral action on prices had a deep impact on other OPEC member scales and in 1973 OPEC began to use its collective muscle in the world market. Unfortunately, very inadequate arrangements were made to cushion the blow of massive oil-price rises for the developing countries

Col. Muamur Gaddafi was a promoter of Africans union.

The oil sector in 1980 accounted for more than 50 per cent of Libya's Gross Domestic Product and over 99 per cent of export earnings. Detailed plans have been drawn up and are being implemented to use oil revenues to diversify the economy. The First Three-Year Plan (1975-5) concentrated on building infrastructure like ports and roads for industry and schools, hospitals and housing for a welfare state. The Five Year Plan (1976-80) emphasized industrial development with a whole range of light and heavy industries. Industry received the second largest allocation in the Five-Year Plan (over 13 per cent) after agriculture and rural development.

There have been severe problems in industrializing Libya: the lack of technological skills, the small population of only two-and-a-half million, and therefore also a limited domestic market and a small supply of labour. Nevertheless, much progress has been made. Thousands of foreign managers and technicians from the West and Islamic countries, and workers from Tunisia and Egypt, have made up staff and labour shortages. Contracts with foreign companies require the training of Libyans. There are now six oil refineries compared to none in 1970, and three more are planned.

Tripoli's iron and steel works has been expanded and a new one is under construction at Misurata. Chemical, aluminium, plastics, cement and food processing industries have been successfully established. Most of these new industries are run by state agencies, almost entirely excluding the private sector.

Agriculture received the largest single allocation in the Five-Year Plan, and by 1980 Libya was virtually self-sufficient in food, a factor of great significance for economic and political independence. Cereal production jumped from 40, 000 metric tons in 1969 to 200 000 tons in 1978. Land reclamation, through irrigation, mainly on the Jafara Plain, and afforestation to provide windbreaks and reduce soil erosion, have rescued over a million acres so far. Livestock improvement schemes have been undertaken. Smallholdings within the co-operative system now benefit from marketing services, subsidies for machinery, fertilizers and livestock, and loans from the Agricultural Bank. In many new settlements free and modern farms and houses are made available.

The transformation in Libya's social services since the revolution is astonishing. Medicine is free, and tuberculosis cases have dropped by more than 80 per cent since 1971. Education is free and compulsory. Between 1969 and 1976 the number of school children doubled and that of university students quadrupled. Vast construction programmes have rehoused shanty-dwellers in practically free accommodation. There is full employment and comprehensive social security.

Libya, of course, has vast oil wealth and a small population to look after. Few African countries are, or ever will be, in a position to emulate Libya's development. But the military government of Libya can take full credit for maximizing the opportunities available to it to modernize the country, for using the wealth of Libya for the welfare of the masses.

Libya is the world's first Jamahiriya, the 'State of the Masses'. In theory, Gadafi and the four Free Officers who remain from the original 12 members of the Revolutionary Command Council no longer rule, but merely act as the General Secretariat to the General People's Committee - the summit of a pyramid in which power is supposed to lie at the base in the local popular committees.

In 1977 political campaigning took place throughout the country to choose representatives for a National Congress. This is similar to Algeria's new constitution.

In practice, however, the RCC led by Gadafi exercises strong central control. Undoubtedly Libya's present constitutional arrangements are superior to those of the feudal regime of King Idris, but it is not true that every citizen can now influence government policy. The 964 popular committees merely settle local problems; popular participation is allowed but dissent is not: all elected representatives must follow the guidelines of the thoughts of the 'Teacher-leader'.

There have been a number of executions of political opponents of the regime, mainly at home but also abroad as Gadafi sends assassins to hunt down exiles in Rome, Paris and London. There is a considerable Gadafi personality cult, based on his charisma, humour and incorruptibility, occasionally dampened by foreign-policy disasters as in Uganda and in Chad, but resting primarily on his unarguable achievements in domestic policies.