Colonel Gaddafi R.I.P, your achievements will be remembered

Libya’s “Water Wars” and Gaddafi`s Great Man-Made River Project

By Mathaba

Libyans called it the eighth wonder of the world. Western media called it a pet project and the pipe dream of a mad dog. The “mad dog” himself in 1991 prophetically said about the largest civil engineering venture in the world:
After this achievement, American threats against Libya will double. The United States will make excuses, but the real reason is to stop this achievement, to keep the people of Libya oppressed.

Gaddafi’s dream

It was Muammar Gaddafi’s dream to provide fresh water for all Libyans and to make Libya self-sufficient in food production. In 1953, the search for new oilfields in the deserts of southern Libya led to the discovery not just of significant oil reserves, but also of vast quantities of fresh water trapped in the underlying strata. The four ancient water aquifers that were discovered, each had estimated capacities ranging between 4,800 and 20,000 cubic kilometers. Most of this water was collected between 38,000 and 14,000 years ago, though some pockets are believed to be only 7,000 years old.

After Gaddafi and the Free Unitary Officers seized power in a bloodless coup from the corrupt King Idris during the Al-Fateh Revolution in 1969, the Jamahiriya government nationalized the oil companies and spent much of the oil revenues to harness the supply of fresh water from the desert aquifers by putting in hundreds of bore wells. Large farms were established in southern Libya to encourage the people to move to the desert. It turned out that the majority of the people however preferred life in the northern coastal areas.

Therefore Gaddafi subsequently conceived a plan to bring the water to the people instead. The Libyan Jamahiriya government conducted the initial feasibility studies in 1974, and in 1983 the Great Man-Made River Authority was set up.

In 1996, during the opening of Phase II of the Great Man-Made River Project, Gaddafi said:

This is the biggest answer to America and all the evil forces who accuse us of being concerned with terrorism. We are only concerned with peace and progress. America is against life and progress; it pushes the world toward darkness.

The ‘rivers’ are a 4000-kilometer network of 4 meters diameter lined concrete pipes, buried below the desert sands to prevent evaporation. There are 1300 wells, 500,000 sections of pipe, 3700 kilometers of haul roads, and 250 million cubic meters of excavation. All material for the project was locally manufactured. Large reservoirs provide storage, and pumping stations control the flow into the cities.
The last two phases of the project should involve extending the distribution network together. When completed, the irrigation water from the Great Man-Made River would enable about 155,000 hectares of land to be cultivated. Or, as Gaddafi defined, the project would make the desert as green as the flag of the Libyan Jamahiriya.
In 1999, UNESCO accepted Libya’s offer to fund the Great Man-Made River International Water Prize, an award that rewards remarkable scientific research work on water usage in arid areas.

In July 2011, NATO not only bombed the Great Man-Made River water supply pipeline near Brega, but also destroyed the factory that produces the pipes to repair it, claiming in justification that it was used as “a military storage facility” and that “rockets were launched from there”. Six of the facility’s security guards were killed in the NATO attack, and the water supply for the 70% of the population who depend on the piped supply for personal use and for irrigation has been compromised with this damage to Libya’s vital infrastructure.
The construction on the last two phases of the Great Man-Made River Project were scheduled to continue over the next two decades, but NATO’s war on Libya has thrown the project’s future – and the well being of the Libyan people – into great jeopardy.

A ‘democratic’ and ‘democracy-bringing’ government that came to power through the wounding and killing of thousands of Libyans by ‘humanitarian bombs’, and that overthrow the ‘dictator’ whose dream it was to provide fresh water for all Libyans for free.

http://libyaagainstsuperpowermedia....rs-and-gaddafis-great-man-made-river-project/

 

Short movie about Gaddafi's water pipelines:

[video=youtube;ZFnGOZWnm1o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFnGOZWnm1o[/video]

And also one more opinion:

 

The writer must have been born yesterday.. Ghadaffi was an illiterate Bedouin boy with a huge ego .. and he was a thug.

Libya imports 90% of its food.. Ghadaffi took credit for all the programs that Idris put in place.. threw out the most enlightened Constitution in the region... crashed the oil business .. got rid of Tobruk and Wheelus. His military and police were all African mercenaries because the tribes hated him... and, at one time or another he threatened to assassinate many other leaders over stupid stuff like his embarrassment at drinking out of the fingerbowl at a state dinner.

 

Yes but he LIVED *******n it!

 

What? I lived in Libya...... across the street from the US embassy in Tripoli.. Ghadaffi was dangerous , sneaky, stupid and unpredictable.

 

Cool. I like him even more.

 

I was actually reading about aquifers on the internet the other day and it mentioned Libya's system as one of the best examples of man-made water ways. Wikipedia says it is the world's largest irrigation project. That sounds pretty good.

 

Compared to whom?

 

Work started on the Man-Made River in 1983, and went on for 25 years, with a total cost estimated at some $30 billion. However, the water of the river is non-renewable, and will thus run out in 50 years.The project transfers fresh water through large underground pipes, with a diameter of four metres each, extending from wells in the south-eastern oases of al-Kafra and al-Sarir and from the Fazzan Basin and Mount Hasawna in the south-west. The water then reaches northern cities with high population density.Efforts by Muammar Gaddafi, who was overthrown in 2011, to connect the Man-Made River to African lakes, such as those in Congo and Chad, have failed.In 2009, Libya sought to sign a number of contracts with European countries to use nuclear energy in several projects, including desalination plants, but no plans came to fruition. -

See more at: http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/ne...-crisis-looming-in-libya#sthash.NlHWJrDC.dpuf

 

He wanted pipelines for his ppl and his ppl killed him with a pipe, so maybe its a sort of closure for him....

 

Looks like US taxpayers are fixin' to help the Libyans again:

http://news.antiwar.com/2016/01/22/joint-chiefs-chairman-us-looking-to-attack-isis-in-libya/

 

I miss Gaddafi.. the man knew how to control his tribes ..
By force.
The ONLY way Arabs understand !!