Moammar Gadaffi’s deal with the West is designed to put him back
into the world market, rather than bring justice to the victims of the terrorist attacks he is paying for.
Even as the United Nations prepares to lift sanctions against Libya, Gadaffi has not complied with all the conditions laid down when the sanction were imposed 11 years ago.
The Libyan leader has not accepted responsibility for either the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie that killed 270 people, or that of the UTA plane over the Sahara a year later that killed 170 people.
He has admitted that he bought his way out of the imbroglio. ”God curse money!” he said in a speech this week celebrating the 34th anniversary of the coup that brought him to power.
”What is money for? With money we defend our country. I believe that the UTA and Lockerbie issues are behind us and we, God willing, have entered a new era. Through wisdom, Libyans’ courage and the skill in managing the strategic battle, in managing this dangerous conflict with nuclear powers, money is not important.
”We have our dignity and we are not interested in money. We have reached a new era with the West.”
Gadaffi listed for the cheering crowd how Libya had ”fought the liberation battle” by supplying Palestinians with arms; Egyptians with rubber dinghies to cross the Suez Canal in their 1973 war with Israel; and by helping liberation movements in Africa.
”We liberated South Africa, Zimbabwe, Guinea Bissau, Cap Verde and Angola. Now we are reaping the fruits of our struggle. Africa is with us and supports us. Our voice is heard and respected.”
Gadaffi did not mention support for the Irish Republican Army, presumably because of British sponsorship
of the UN resolution lifting the
sanctions. He has a delicate path to tread between keeping the Western powers happy and placating his compatriots upset about the huge cash settlements.
Recently Gadaffi turned down the request for asylum by former Liberian president Charles Taylor so as not to anger the United States. He appears also to have shelved plans to get Libya on to the UN Security Council later this year.
”He has stopped lobbying us at least,” said a South African official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
”If he was still planning to get African support for Libya to go on to the council, he would have to be working us very hard.”
The US was incensed when Libya became a member of the UN Human Rights Commission two years ago.
The Libyan deals on Lockerbie and UTA are carefully structured to bring the country back into the world fold and open the way to vital foreign investment in the small, but oil-rich, economy.
Gadaffi has agreed to pay compensation of $2,7-billion for the Lockerbie victims. This amounts to about $10-million per family.
The payment per family has been structured in three stages:
l The first $4-million will be paid when UN sanctions are lifted;
l A second tranche, of equal size, will be paid when the US lifts sanctions it imposed on Libya before 1992; and
l The final slice of $2-million will be paid when the US removes Libya from its list of countries sponsoring terrorism.
Gadaffi paid $33-million for the UTA victims in 1999, but has agreed to increase this substantially to avoid a French veto of the sanctions-lifting resolution.
British Labour Party MP Tam Dalyell, who fought for the Lockerbie families, said: ”Gadaffi may be so
desperate to get back into the international fold that he came to this business deal. The issue remains, have we got the right people? There are many of us who would doubt it.”
In 1999 Gadaffi turned over Abdelbasset Ali Mohammed al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah for trial by a Scottish judge in a court at Cam
Zeist in The Netherlands. Fhimah was cleared. Al Megrahi was jailed for life in Glasgow after being found guilty. French judges found six Libyans guilty, in absentia of the UTA bombing.
Now Gadaffi’s diplomatic skills face another hurdle.
Bulgaria chairs the UN sanctions committee in Libya, and a Bulgarian doctor is the chief accused in a trial of eight foreign medical staff charged with spreading HIV/Aids in a Benghazi clinic in 1998.
After the case was dismissed last year, the Libyan authorities relaunched the prosecution. This week French doctor Luc Montagnier, the man who first isolated the HI virus, testified that the infection was probably caused by poor hygiene.
Libya is believed to be holding out for an easing of the $300-million it owes Bulgaria, in exchange for a final scrapping of the case.