Tripolitania within the former borders of Libya
Tripoli had been under Italian rule from 1911 until World War II, first as a separate colony, then as part of the combined colony of Libya. Italians came to colonize Tripolitania again in the 2000s when Sicily occupied it to settle refugees and displaced persons, as well to extract natural resources. Sicilian rule lasted ten years, 2001 to 2011; after the Second Sicily War the colony was replaced with an independent Republic of Tripolitania.
Political background[]
Sicilian interests in Tripolitania began in the 1990s, thanks in part to the presence of a Libyan refugee community in the republic. These were people who managed to flee Libya's devastating civil war of the 1980s, including many skilled labourers but also farmers, shopkeepers, fishermen and others. Tripolitania was left a lawless region contested by small military factions, much of its pre-1983 population having fled or died of hunger. It represented an opportunity for a country eager to acquire new land and willing to devote manpower, troops and investment.
A few Sicilian military and business leaders floated the idea of more involvement in Libya, if not under a colonial administration then under a friendly government. Reports circulated within the Sicilian government on the feasibility of sending refugees and settlers to repopulate the area. But these plans went nowhere. The government had their hands full with investment and infrastructure projects in its recently-annexed territories of southern Italy.
The plans would be fully realised by Paolo Di Stefano, a 'Ndrangheta boss turned politician after the amnesty given by the government. In the late 1990s, he rose to the top of the ruling Christian Democratic party thanks in part to his connections to organised crime. Under the promise of national revival, he was able to win the presidential elections of 2000. But the rise of opposition parties in the provinces led Di Stefano and his allies to begin to curtail Sicily's democratic institutions and plan a new round of expansionary wars.
Shortly after coming to power, Di Stefano stated a goal that by 2002, Libya would be a place of resettlement for the thousands of Italians displaced from northern and central Italy. In the following months military recon and SISMI units, disguised as fishermen and merchants, were sent to Tripoli. Their goal was to survey the area for a landing, study the region to determine the level of opposition they might face, and if the warlords have access to the stockpiles left by the Libyan Army.
Military conquest[]
In the summer of 2001, Di Stefano's administration announced the start of the general mobilization of the Sicilian military. The troops trained in a desert environment in order to gain knowledge of the future fighting landscape. On the 20th of September thousands of conscripts began to line up in many of the train stations of the country to be transported towards the naval bases that would launch the invasion of Libya. On the same day, Di Stefano addressed the people of the Republic of Sicily, arguing that this military adventure would bring richness and greatness to the republic, with the inclusion of the Libyan oil and more land to farm for the thousands of settlers eager to move in.
On the 3rd of October the Sicilians reached the shores of Libya and began to disembark for naval landing. The selected landing zone was the city of Zliten, approximately one hour away from Misurata and two from Tripoli. When the troops reached the shore at 8 in the morning, they found out that the city was sparsely populated, and their progress was undisturbed by the inhabitants. The Sicilians established at Zilten their HQ for the moment, and declared the city to be under the protection of the Sicilian republic. Sicilian troops started immediately scouting the surrounding area for any threat and secured the Libyan Coastal Highway around the city.
Over the next days Sicily sent armoured convoys 50 km east to the city of Misurata. With the support of the navy they advanced fast and uncontested. The first real opposition came near the city itself, when the military fragment ruling the city tried to halt the Sicilian advance. They were armed with old equipment of the long-defunct Libyan Army, and the Sicilians, armed far better, managed to defeat them with minimal casualties. It took just four days to clear Misurata of any hostile parties, securing control of the zone between Zilten and Misurata by the 8th of October.
The presence of a foreign army did not go unnoticed, and already the news that the invasion had begun had arrived in Cyrenaica and Tripoli. The leaders of Cyrenaica sent troops to their western border, wary of the Sicilian threat but not willing to intervene to save their neighbour. The remaining warlords of Tripolitania finally put aside their differences and started to build up defences and to stock up arms. It would take the another week for Sicilian forces to begin to advance beyond the city.
Sicilian forces arrived on the outskirts of Tripoli by mid-September, setting up camp 24 kilometers away in the city of Tajura. The city was ruled by a military junta composed by officers hostile to Gheddafi. Their force was inferior to that of Sicily, but still the invaders decided to wait for support of the navy and the air force in order to keep the casualties lowest as possible.
The Battle of Tripoli begun on the 25th October of 2001. The first objective for the Sicilians was the International Airport of Tripoli, heavily defended by militiamen and former soldiers of the Libyan Army. When this was secure, they advanced towards the centre of the city. By the 27th, Sicilian forces managed to cut Tripoli in two, securing the neighbourhoods of Bad Ben Ghashir, Al Mansura, the City Centre and the Seaport. Though many fighters still held out at the Red Castle and the Female Police Academy, this managed to separate Bab Al’Aziziya, the former compound of Gheddafi and main military base of the forces of the city and Mitiga Airport, as well the military port.
The city was shelled with both naval batteries and airstrikes, as well by the artillery surrounding the city. Sicilian forces managed to capture Bab Al’Aziziya on the 30th with the surrender of some members of the military junta, who sought refuge in the bunkers of the compound. Though some of the other officers managed to escape using the tunnels that run underneath the residence, the Sicilians took them as prisoners of war, interned them and many more Libyans in the island of Lampedusa. Fighting in the city would continue as the eastern part of Tripoli was still under local control. By the next day, Sicilian forces reached the military port and the Mitiga airport, initiating the capture of both objectives. The port was the first to fall, thanks to the shelling of the navy and the technological advantage of the invaders, and by dawn it was in Sicilian hands. The fighting around the airport took two days, the Libyans resorting to car bombs in order to stop the Sicilian troops, but even this wasn't enough and the last pocket of resistance was be cleared out by November 4th. General Ciro Di Martino gave a speech inside the Royal Palace of Tripoli, declaring that Tripolitania was fully under Sicilian hands and that the fighting had stopped.
Establishing the colony[]
Over the next few weeks, the Sicilian army thoroughly searched the city for remnants of the militia. They paid particular interest to Bab Al’Aziziya, the main residence of Gheddafi before his disappearance. Most of the compound had been kept in order and maintained, and they found that the junta didn’t take anything of value from Gheddafi. Gheddafi and his entourage had escaped in 1985-86 with most of their belongings in the direction of Sirte, his hometown. Inside the compound were the residential palace, military barracks, a garden, communication centre and a library, alongside a complex of bunkers, complete with bedrooms, military accommodations, a clinic, and a series of tunnels that stretches through Tripoli. The army also uncovered thousands of documents and reports conducted by the Libyan intelligence on the population, as well as stockpiles of weapons, though ammunition was almost wholly spent.
The compound became the main Sicilian military base. The Sicilians began to reshape Libya to their own image; Gen. Di Marino declared the start of the Protectorate of Tripolitania (Protettorato della Tripolitania). Claimed to be only a military protectorate, in fact it was under direct rule from Palermo without any possibility for Libyans to express themselves.
After regrouping in Tripoli, the Sicilian army started their advance once more, with the intent of reaching the Tunisian border and completely annexing the coastal area, before pushing towards the interior and further east. On October 22nd, military operations resumed, with the stationing of more soldiers in Tripolitania. Military convoys pushed towards the west under Operation Severo, named after the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus, who was born at Leptis Magna.
Sicilian forces entered Sabratha on the 25th, and after a small battle of two days around the city of Zawiya, the army had a clear path towards the Tunisian border. A force reached the border on the 30th of October. Di Stefano's government had already made an agreement with the new Tunisian president Hédi Baccouche to recognize one another's territorial gains in Tripolitania. Now Tunisian and Sicilian troops greeted one another at the agreed-upon border. These actions prepared the way for a formal military alliance in 2004.
Development[]
A wide range of reforms were introduced in the early days of the protectorate, most notably the establishment of a free market economy; the introduction of the Sicilian lira as the sole legal currency; amnesty for members of the militia of Tripoli that fought the invaders; plans for projects and investments for reinvigorating the economy of the region; the permission to profess any religion, and many others. The army also commandeered any equipment, ordinances and vehicles that were owned by the Libyan Armed Forces. All of these reforms failed to win the support the Libyan people, who regarded the Italians as an invading force. Nevertheless many Libyans saw the opportunity of collaborating with the new colonizers, as it would give them better working positions and privileges.
Over the next ten years, the Sicilian government invested in the area, both in Tripoli and Misurata and in rural areas to be farmed by new settlers. Sicily repaired ports, built a railway from the Tunisian border to Misurata, irrigated and fertilized new farmlands, rebuilt Fascist-era villages or constructed new ones, and offered incentives to Libyans to participate in the colonial economy. The government saw these expenses as necessary for making the region prosperous, though most Libyans saw them as a way for Sicily to assert its control.
Italian emigration also reshaped Tripolitania in a religious and cultural way. The Cathedral of Tripoli, converted into a mosque in 1970, was transferred to Christian authority once more; similar transfers were made in Misurata. This helped to win support of the church for the colonial project, as well as the old Italo-Libyan exiles, many of whom were placed in positions of power. The Vatican officially condemned the actions but unofficially supported the moves of the Sicilian government. The papal Nuncio and the Bishop of Palermo agreed that the Church would send priests and humanitarian aid to Tripolitania, demonstrating the Church's support for the settlers as they pacified Libya.
Also, it built up a large military force in the region; The Corps of Overseas Troops or COT (Corpi Truppe d’Oltremare or CTO ) were the military forces dislocated in Tripolitania. This force was composed of both locally conscripted Libyans and Italian volunteers drafted from the colony. It was established in 2004 as a way to further protect the area and increase the manpower of the Sicilian military in the region.
The CTO was present in every branch of the armed forces, and as well in the State Police located in Tripolitania. It included special forces and distinct units, such as the Meharisti, camel troops composed by Berbers and Bedouins, named for the Mehari dromedary. The Savari or Spahis were regular and irregular formations of cavalry that acted as recon, scouts, border control and other light duties. Other forces included the Zaptié, the locally raised units under the command of the Carabinieri and the Police, this name later stuck as a nickname for the Internal Security Forces. The CTO was equipped with a range of small arms and vehicles. The force was not as thoroughly standardized as the military forces in Italy and so every weapon that didn’t use the standard 5,56 NATO or 7,62 NATO was sent in Tripolitania, so the main service rifle of the COT remained the AK-47 and AKM, due to the relative availability of the Soviet assault rifle.
The program for the settlement of Tripolitania proceeded under the guidance of the Ministry of the Interior. De Stefano intended to send refugees and squatters from Sicily and the peninsula in order to alleviate population pressures. Italo-Libyans, who had lived in Libya before their expulsion in 1970, were also offered the chance to move; however, the majority declined to go. Those who did were given benefits and special roles, and were highlighted in propaganda efforts. Even more important to the project were Libyan people who had arrived in Sicily as refugees in the 1980s. Belonging to both the Libyan and Italian worlds, this group was given generous incentives to return home and participate in the new colonial regime.
Overall, the Sicilian regime managed to send around 50,000 settlers in Libya between 2002 and 2009. This provoked immediate problems with the Libyans. Some were evicted from their houses to make space for the settlers. Some Italians moved into abandoned apartment complexes in the cities, but the majority went to the Jabal Nafusah and Jifarah plains to work as farmers. Many of the villages were the same ones that the Fascist regime used in the 1930s for their settlers, they were just repaired and restructured. Others where created from the ground up; like the villages of Speranza and Giolitti. These villages followed the same style as the old ones, but modernized and completed with newer buildings like a small grocery store, a station of the Carabinieri, a clinic and other commodities.
In 2005, the army began an effort to restore the Tajura nuclear research facility, aiming to reintroduce nuclear energy in mainland Sicily, which the government saw as a necessary evil. However, the Tajura research reactor never came online because the Sicilians could not find a supply of uranium;the facility's usual supplier, Chad, was now a failed state.
War and independence[]
The outbreak of the Second Sicily War in late 2009 put the colony in peril. Sicilian forces initially made gains in Cyrenaica, a Greek ally, but when the tide turned and Cyrenaican and ADC forces entered Tripolitania, things collapsed quickly. Sicily now had to contend not only with enemy troops, but with Arab rebels as well. When the allied Tunisian government collapsed, it was all over. At the time of the cease-fire in December 2010, Sicilian forces were besieged in Tripoli, Misrata, and a few other cities.
One month later, the Treaty of Dublin mandated that Sicily surrender its colony and give support to the new Republic of Tripolitania. Italian settlers were allowed to stay, and tens of thousands did. Their labor would be necessary for the still-depopulated country to survive; but their presence still caused deep resentment among the Arabs. Therefore the legacy of the colonization of Sicilian Tripolitania is decidedly complex: on the one hand, the colonizers were responsible for rebuilding and reuniting the country; on the other, they left behind ethnic tensions that would plague the new republic and threaten its precarious unity.