News

USIS Washington 
File

20 January 1999

TRANSCRIPT: LIBYA STILL "STALLING" ON TRIAL OF PAN AM BOMBING SUSPECTS

(U.S. says increased sanctions against Libya are likely) (4020)

Washington -- Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs
Ronald Newman says the United States is prepared to increase sanctions
against Libya because it has not responded to a proposal on the trial
for two Libyans suspected of blowing up a Pan American flight over
Scotland 10 years ago.

Speaking on the Voice of America's "On The Line" broadcast January 16,
Newman said six months had passed since the U.S. first made an offer
to Libyan Leader Moammar Gadhafi that would allow the suspects to be
tried in The Hague by Scottish judges.

In addition, Newman said it's been about two months since "all
substantive discussions" between Libyan attorneys and the U.N.'s legal
advisor were completed to clarify points they wanted to know about.
Also, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan undertook a mission to Libya
with hopes of achieving "significant results" in the case, Newman
said.

"But as of now, Libya has not made the decision to turn over the
suspects as it's required to do," Newman said. "It has not clearly
said it would not, but time is passing."

Joining Newman on the VOA program was Patrick Clawson, a research
director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Asked about his view of the U.S. offer, considering the fact that the
idea for a trial in The Hague with Scottish judges was proposed by
Libya, Clawson said it's not clear to him "whether Libya was ever
serious about the offer."

"I think they (the Libyans) won a lot of propaganda points, especially
in Africa, where many governments have been impressed by what seemed
to them a reasonable offer," Clawson said. "The difficulty now that
Gadhafi faces is that the United States and Britain accepted his
offer. And so he's posing new conditions and some of the conditions
are getting to be truly bizarre."

Said Newman: "We took Gadhafi up on one of the compromise proposals,
which he had said he would accept. And we said, all right, you can do
that. You can bring them out. The trial will be in The Hague. The
motivation is simply to get justice for the families, to get all the
evidence out and to move this matter forward."

However, Newman said, "this can't go on forever with him (Gadhafi)
stalling and the international community not stepping up to its
responsibilities."

Since the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988 that killed
270 people, the U.N. Security Council has passed a number of
resolutions demanding that Libya cooperate in the investigation of
that bombing, and in the terrorist bombing of a French UTA flight in
which another 170 people died.

The resolutions also imposed sanctions on Libya that prohibited direct
flights to and from the country, and on oil equipment that can be sold
to Libya.

According to Clawson, those sanctions have "had considerable effect in
the last six years" on Libya's economy at a time when it is facing
"very serious troubles" because of declining oil prices. Last year,
for example, Libya earned six billion dollars from oil exports, down
from nine billion the year before, Clawson said.

In addition to the economic effects, Clawson said the sanctions have
also contributed to Libya's isolation in the Arab world. "For
instance, the tone of the Egyptian press is quite harsh toward Mr.
Gadhafi ... he has been upset at the way the Arab leaders and the Arab
popular press have reacted," Clawson said.

At a memorial service last month to honor the victims of Pan Am 103,
President Clinton said that if Libya does not respond to the U.S.
proposal for a trial in The Hague, it will soon take steps to increase
sanctions against Libya.

"It seems to us a pretty reasonable sort of equation that the United
Nations, acting as a whole, has said these people should be sent out
for trial, and they've put on sanctions," Newman said.

"If the Libyans, by their refusal to send the suspects for a trial
that all the international bodies have said is fair, make it clear
that they are not abiding, then I think it is incumbent on the
international community to take some further steps," Newman continued.
"Now that will have to be discussed as to what those might be. But
it's certainly a position that we're taking that this can't go on
forever. ..."

Following is the transcript of the broadcast:

(Begin Transcript)

VOA Program: On The Line
Bringing Libyan Terrorists to Justice

Announcer: On The Line, a discussion of United States policies and
contemporary issues. This week, "Bringing Libyan Terrorists to
Justice." Here is your host, Robert Reilly.

Host: Hello and welcome to On The Line. On December 21, 1988, a bomb
exploded aboard Pan American Flight 103, 31,000 feet above the village
of Lockerbie, Scotland. Two-hundred seventy men, women and children
from 21 nations lost their lives, including nearly 200 Americans. At a
recent memorial service, President Bill Clinton said that the
Lockerbie deaths "cannot be considered a mere misfortune; this was
deliberate murder. And while all of us have to strive for
reconciliation in our hearts, we must also pursue justice and
accountability."

The Libyans suspected of blowing up Pan American Flight 103 remain at
large. Despite the U.S. and British offer to have the trial held in
the Netherlands before a Scottish court, Libya's Dictator Moammar
Gadhafi has refused to turn over the suspects for trial.

Joining me today to discuss Libyan terrorism and U.S. policy are two
experts. Ronald Newmann is Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for
Near Eastern Affairs. And Patrick Clawson is director of research at
the Washington Institute for Near East policy. Welcome to the program.

Mr. Newmann, perhaps we could begin by your giving us an update on
exactly where in the procedure in pursuing justice against the two
suspects of the Pan Am 103 bombing we stand today? And those gentlemen
are Lamin Fhimah and Abdal Basit Al Magrahi.

Newmann: They are still in Libya. There have been a variety of
meetings that the UN legal advisor has held to clarify points the
lawyers for the Libyans wanted to know about. There has been a mission
of the [UN] Secretary General, which he undertook hoping that he would
have some significant results. But as of now, Libya has not made the
decision to turn over the suspects as it's required to do. It has not
clearly said it would not, but time is passing. It's now been six
months since we first made the offer, nearly two months since all the
substantive discussions appeared to be complete, and the Libyans still
have not given an answer.

Host: And are there substantive objections that they have raised in
these meetings, saying you have to do "A" before we do "B"?

Newmann: Not in that nature. The Libyans have repeatedly raised two
questions, one of which is whether the people, if convicted, would
have to serve their sentences in Scotland. It's sort of an odd
request, it seems to us. They want them to serve their sentences in
Libya. We think it's an odd request for a country which maintains the
people are innocent: first of all, to be extremely worried already
about where they will serve their sentences; and an even odder one to
suggest that if they are convicted in Scotland, they ought to serve
their sentences right back home in Libya.

Host: Patrick Clawson, this was an initiative from Libya. They're the
ones who came up with this idea, because the United States and Great
Britain had insisted over the years that we would only accept a trial
in the United States or Great Britain. It was Libya's idea: no, this
should be held in the Hague with Scottish judges. There was quite a
bit of international pressure to accede to this agreement. Great
Britain and the United States did accede, and now, Libya is stalling.
What's going on?

Clawson: It's not apparent whether Libya was ever serious about the
offer. They may have been interested in winning propaganda points.

Host:  And did they?

Clawson: I think they won a lot of propaganda points, especially in
Africa, where many governments have been very impressed by what seemed
to them a reasonable offer. The difficulty now that Gadhafi faces is
that the United States and Britain accepted his offer. And so he's
posing new conditions and some of the conditions are getting to be
truly bizarre. Recently, for instance, the Libyan government requested
that the United States extradite to Libya nine people who, it said,
were war criminals because of what they had done in planning the
bombing of Libya in 1986, in response to another terrorist activity of
the Libyans.

Host: Let me ask you, Mr. Newmann, since you are in charge of [U.S.]
policy in that part of the world, why did the United States accept the
Libyan proposal to move the trial to the Hague?

Newmann: The first reason was the we had gone ten years since the
bombing. The families wanted justice and the people weren't happy. The
second reason was that there was pressure on the sanctions. So we
said, look, what we have wanted all along is a trial in a Scottish
Court or an American Court. We don't really care if that trial takes
place in another country, as long as it is the same court sitting, and
that's the offer we made. We took Gadhafi up on one of the compromise
proposals which he had said he would accept. And we said all right,
you can do that. You can bring them out. The trial will be in the
Hague. The motivation is simply to get justice for the families, to
get all the evidence out and to move this matter forward.

Host: There have been UN Security Council Resolutions for some time
demanding that: Libya cooperate in the investigations not only of Pan
Am 103, but the French UTA Flight that was bombed in which another 170
plus people lost their lives; compensation to families of the victims;
and a cessation of Libyan terrorist activity. How old are those UN
Resolutions and have they had any effect?

Clawson: They've had considerable effect in the last six years since
the first resolutions. For one thing, the isolation of the Libyan
Government and the high price that they've had to pay because of the
restrictions on the flights to Libya, as well as the restrictions on
the oil equipment that can be sold to Libya -- all of this has
affected Libya's economy rather badly at a time when they're facing
very serious troubles because of the declining oil prices. This last
year, they only made six billion dollars from oil exports, down from
nine billion the year before. So Gadhafi is hurting on lots of fronts
and these UN Resolutions add to the pain he is feeling.

Host: That's a particularly interesting point, Mr. Newmann, because
President Clinton at the memorial service made it pretty clear that if
Libya did not respond to this proposal for this trial in the Hague,
the United States would move forthwith, perhaps as soon as February to
increase the sanctions against Libya. And perhaps those sanctions
would affect their ability to sell oil in the world. Is that what you
expect to happen? Is that what the United States is going to attempt
to do?

Newmann: It seems to us a pretty reasonable sort of equation that the
United Nations acting as a whole has said these people should be sent
out for trial and they've put on sanctions. Libya said, well, we would
do it if it was a compromise. We've now taken them up on that. If the
Libyans, by their refusal to send the suspects for a trial that all
the international bodies has said is fair, make it clear that they are
not abiding, then I think it is incumbent on the international
community to take some further steps. Now that will have to be
discussed as to what those might be. But it's certainly a position
that we're taking that this can't go on forever with him stalling and
the international community not stepping up to its responsibilities.

Host: Patrick Clawson, as you said, Libya did achieve some propaganda
points when they first floated this proposal, because I recall early
last summer the organization of African Unity made a statement that
unless Great Britain and the United States agreed to the trial
proposal in the Netherlands, the OAU would encourage member states not
to support the UN sanctions. Now that the United States and Britain
have agreed to this, has that changed the picture of support in Africa
and other Arab countries?

Clawson: In the Arab world, Mr. Gadhafi has been really quite
isolated. And so, for instance, the tone of the Egyptian press is
quite harsh towards Mr. Gadhafi. Mr. Gadhafi has been upset at the way
the Arab leaders and the Arab popular press has reacted. And he has
really turned more towards Africa, where there has been more sympathy
for his cause. And he has increased the Libyan presence in Africa, for
instance, offering to play a role in the mediation of the Congo Civil
War. I think it's fair to say that Mr. Gadhafi still has a certain
amount of success in Africa with his arguments that the United States
and Britain are being unfair, arguments which I think are really quite
wrong.

Host: Yes. Mr. Newmann, Mr. Clawson said that Libya has been hurt by
the sanctions, which, to my knowledge, include only the prohibition of
the sale of oil drilling equipment and of landing rights for
international flights. Have those sanctions been observed? Are any of
our allies breaking those sanctions and sneaking equipment in there?
Have they hurt, and how vulnerable do you think the Gadhafi regime is
today? Should further sanctions be put in place because of the
precipitous decline in the price of oil that Patrick Clawson
mentioned?

Newmann: I think the Libyans themselves have made it clear the
sanctions hurt by the amount of complaining they do about them. And I
think there's a hurt which is not economic but a hurt to their pride.
You cannot fly in and out of Libya. You can't get on an airplane and
go to Tripoli. Gadhafi is not accepted arriving in other international
capitals if he flies from Tripoli directly. That is also a blow. That
said, it's been ten years and they have not turned over the suspects.
That suggests that the level of pain is not so high that they have not
felt they had a choice. They could certainly be damaged more by a
variety of measures, but that would have to be discussed in the [UN]
security council.

Host: How are the French handling their procedures against the
suspected Libyan terrorists who blew up the UTA Flight over Africa? I
believe one of the people the French Court indicted was indeed
Momammar Gadhafi's brother-in-law, who is one of the chiefs of their
intelligence services.

Clawson: The French position has varied over time and also the
enthusiasm the French Government has had for pursuing the matter has
varied. I think it's only fair to say that now France doesn't seem to
be as eager to insist on justice as it once was or as Britain and the
United States are, and that France seems to be more open to some kind
of a compromise to provide an opportunity for French commercial
interests in Libya to advance.

Host: If that's the case, how do you expect other Western European
countries that have such commercial interests to line up with us?

Newmann: I think it is clear that Western Europeans and many others
have interests in Libya. At the same time, they also have an interest
in the United Nations. They have an interest in sanctions being
fulfilled. The French, for instance, have been very careful. We've
worked with them very closely to ensure that our initiative would also
include the fact that the Libyans have to give satisfaction in the
trial of the bombers of the UTA plane. And that has been observed in
our proposal. And the French and others are working with us. How far
they will go, I don't know. We're not at that point yet where we've
quite said it's impossible that these people will come out. I think
we're getting very close to that. We cannot be expected to leave this
initiative on the table indefinitely, having made a substantial
political step ourselves, just to sit there smiling pleasantly while
Gadhafi does nothing. So if he does nothing, then I think we have to
try. How far the Europeans will go, how far others will go, that
remains to be seen. But I think there is at least an awareness that we
have taken advice given to us by our Arab friends, by Europeans, by
Africans that we should make a gesture of compromise. We took that
advice. We made that gesture. Now if Gadhafi doesn't follow through, I
think those friends who gave us the advice have some responsibility on
their own part to help bolster us. And in fact, we are getting already
some bolstering in the many states which have urged Libya to accept
this and go forward with it. And that's been the advice of virtually
every Arab leader. And I think that is also significant.

Host: Libya's General People's Congress has apparently endorsed this
proposal. Does that have any significance?

Clawson: It has some significance. Gadhafi likes to bring difficult
decisions in front of a body like this. And the decision to hand these
people over will be very difficult in domestic politics, because they
come from important groups inside Libya and Gadhafi has to worry that
if they were handed over to a trial in the Hague that they might start
providing information about other activities that the Libyan
Government has been involved in, which could be very embarrassing and
damaging for his reputation.

Host: Not only other activities, Mr. Clawson, what if Abdel Basit Al
Magrahi and Lamin Fhimah point the finger upward and say we were
carrying out orders from the head of state?

Clawson: I think we would have to assume that that would be a strong
temptation on their part to defend themselves in that way.

Host: Do you indeed, in your own analysis, think that the operation
was ordered by Gadhafi?

Clawson: I don't think there's any question about that. And there's no
question that these individuals know about other terrorist activities
the Libyan Government has been involved in. So, before Gadhafi hands
them over, he would need to carefully construct some incentives for
them to keep their mouths shut about these other activities. And
that's going to be tricky for him to do.

Host: In other words, it would be your expectation that he is not
going to turn over these two suspects.

Clawson: I would be quite surprised if he turned them over. It would
be difficult domestically. It would be a dangerous gamble because they
might decide to talk. And also, it's just not his style. He's very
suspicious about the United States and Britain and thinks that we
would have ways of getting information out of these people or using
the situation to our advantage against him.

Host: I know that would be a harder question for you to respond to,
Mr. Newmann, and so I won't ask you. But I will ask you this; Libya is
still listed by the U.S. State Department as a state sponsor of
terrorism. Yet there aren't really any recent acts that we can hold
Libya responsible for, as horrible as these two bombings ten years ago
were. Or is there any evidence of continuing terrorist activity on the
part of Libya?

Newmann: I'll start off with, I think you'll understand, that I don't
want to get too much into intelligence information, things that are
not on the public record. First of all, you have the fact that Libya
continues to give support to people who killed 270 people, and to hide
them out Libya. That in our view, first of all is already continuing
support to terrorism. Now in addition, the Security Council Resolution
lays down a very precise set of steps that Libya has to go through to
get out of the bind that it's in. And, in addition to the general
statement about ceasing support for terrorism, it has to provide
cooperation at the trial that would be a specific sign that it's
moving away from the support for terrorism. It has to meet as we said,
the French requirements for the UTA. That's another area of support
for terrorism. So, there are a number of specific steps that Libya can
take, that it is encouraged to take under the UN resolutions, which
will demonstrate very clearly that it's moving away from terrorism and
that one does not have to remain in a sort of gray world of which
groups find sanctuary there or don't.

Host: Do you want to take a shot at answering that same question, Mr.
Clawson?

Clawson: It's pretty clear that Libyan involvement in terrorist
activities has been less in this decade than it was in the 1980s. The
question is why. And part of the reason is probably because of the
firm response by the United States and Britain and, to a lesser
extent, France. It's quite possible that if there hadn't been the firm
response by the Western powers that Mr. Gadhafi would continue with
his terrorist activities. And furthermore, if he hadn't run his
country's economy into such a serious crisis, it's also possible that
he would be engaged in more adventurism abroad.

Host:  Do you think he's vulnerable?

Clawson: There's no question that there's an awful lot of problems in
Libyan society and a lot of people there who blame him. Now some of
those people are not much nicer than he is. For instance, there's some
radical Islamic opposition groups there that frankly are every bit as
opposed to the West as Mr. Gadhafi. But there are also some who are
interested in seeing Libya move in more liberal directions. They're
not likely to take power soon. If Mr. Gadhafi were to run into very
serious difficulties, we might see some chaos and disorder in the
country.

Host: One last subject that you might both be able to make a brief
comment on, and that is other attention has been drawn toward Libya
because of its, some say, continuing effort to obtain weapons of mass
destruction, including curious constructions underneath the desert
that were suspected as chemical weapons plants. Can you comment on
Libya's activity in that area?

Newmann: From time to time, Libya does go back into the desert or go
around and work on its facilities. We have periodically surfaced
something fairly specific about those, based on quite solid
intelligence. Libya's been hard-pressed to prove that it was not doing
the things that it's accused of. It's very difficult to get a precise
read, particularly when you're dealing with things like chemicals
where this same factory can produce fertilizers or chemical weapons
with fairly minor retooling. But as long as the Libyans insist that
these facilities have to remain hidden and secret, then I think a
level of suspicion is going to remain.

Host: I'm afraid that's all the time we have this week. I'd like to
thank our guests -- Ronald Newmann, Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State for Near Eastern Affairs and Patrick Clawson from the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy -- for joining me to discuss Libyan
Terrorism and U.S. Policy.
This is Robert Reilly for on the line.

(End transcript)