Muammar Gaddafi encouraged economic privatization and was criticized.
Muammar Gaddafi . From 1999 , Gaddafi rejected Arab socialism and encouraged economic privatisation , rapprochement with Western nations , and Pan-Africanism ; he was Chairperson of the African Union from 2009 -- 10 . Conversely , domestically his social and economic reforms were strongly opposed by Islamic fundamentalists and he was internationally condemned as a dictator whose authoritarian administration violated the human rights of Libyan citizens and financed global terrorism .