[Most of today's London and Scottish newspapers carry reports on Colonel Gaddafi's attendance at the United Nations and the speech which he is to deliver later today at the 64th session of the General Assembly. The following are excerpts from the story in The Herald.]
Protests will greet Colonel Muammar Gaddafi as he heads to the United Nations in New York today.
The Libyan leader is due to address the general assembly in the morning session with demonstrations planned for outside the compound from relatives of the Lockerbie bombing and other terrorist atrocities. (...)
But it is the appearance of Mr Gaddafi so soon after the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi - the man convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 - that is likely to draw most attention in the US.
Of the 270 lives lost when the plane crashed after exploding over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, 189 were American.
The release of the terminally ill Megrahi on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government drew widespread condemnation in the US.
As such, the appearance of Mr Gaddafi in New York could not have come at a more sensitive time. (...)
He arrived yesterday ahead of the UN meeting and anticipated associated demonstrations.
Attending today’s action will be relatives of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing. They will march on the UN compound alongside others affected by terrorist atrocities, including loved ones of those killed in the September 11 attacks in New York.
Frank Duggan, president of the Victims of Pan Am 103, said: “We are planning a massive demonstration in New York City when Gaddafi will arrive here - objecting to the presence of the Libyan leader on the US soil.
“I personally understand the motives of the US government in trying to bring Libya into the community of peaceful nations, but that does not mean that we have to roll out the red carpet for him to strut on.
“He delights in rubbing salt into our wounds, and he has already misled the UN as to his intentions.”
In today's address to the UN General Assembly, Colonel Gaddafi is expected to propose that the United Nations should conduct an inquiry to determine who was actually responsible for the Lockerbie bombing. The proposal for such an inquiry is likely to secure the widespread support of UN member states.
ReplyDeleteOn 10 September 2009, in anticipation of the Libyan leader's proposal, I submitted the following online petition to Number 10:
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to endorse calls for a United Nations Inquiry into the murder of UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
Sweden's UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, was the most prominent of the 270 Lockerbie bombing victims murdered on 21 December 1988.
In investigating Carlsson's murder, Scottish police detective John Crawford stated in his book (The Lockerbie Incident: A Detective's Tale): "We even went as far as consulting a very helpful lady librarian in Newcastle who contacted us with information she had on Bernt Carlsson. She provided much of the background on the political moves made by Carlsson on behalf of the United Nations. He had survived a previous attack on an aircraft he had been travelling on in Africa. It is unlikely that he was a target as the political scene in Southern Africa was moving inexorably towards its present state....I discounted the theory as being almost totally beyond the realms of feasibility."
A United Nations Inquiry can be expected to find a different - and much better - explanation for Bernt Carlsson's murder.
The petition requires the approval of Number 10 before British citizens can sign up to it at this URL http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/BerntCarlsson/. The closing date for signature is 10 January 2010.
There is already a working petition for a public inquiry into the disaster at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Lockerbie/.
ReplyDeleteAt present it stands at 142 signatures; I believe these petitions require 250 before their closing date for the government to issue an official response.
Dear Patrick,
ReplyDeletegreat initiative with the petition. It would, however, be a mistake to "dilute" signatures.
For this reason we better stick to the one that is ongoing, and that has been linked to by Dr. Black already,
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Lockerbie
As I am not UK citicen I can not sign anyway.
Thanks for your comments Laurence and sfm.
ReplyDeleteAs far as petitions to the PM are concerned, I'm a great believer in "the more the merrier". For example, I've already signed the petition for a UK public inquiry. But I doubt that The UK really wants an inquiry into Lockerbie - or at least an inquiry that will get to the truth.
That's why I prefer to go with a UN inquiry which can be conducted without fear or favour (in regard to the British establishment).
My previous attempt in 2007 at a UN inquiry attracted the signatures of Prof. Black, Dr Jim Swire and Iain McKie - see http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/UNInquiry/.
The president of the UN General Assembly, Dr Ali Treki, was told by Colonel Gaddafi today to set in train a number of UN inquiries into:
the Korean war;
the Suez invasion;
the Vietnam war;
the Iraq invasion;
the Afghan invasion;
the assassination of Patrice Lumumba;
the assassination of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold;
the assassination of JFK;
the assassination of Martin Luther King; and,
the assassination of UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
My petition to Gordon Brown to endorse calls for a United Nations Inquiry into the murder of UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing is therefore very apposite.
I hope you will all sign up to it when approved by Number 10 at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/BerntCarlsson/.
I missed the bit about calling for an enquiry into Bernt Carlsson. Perhaps I'd gone to make a cup of tea.
ReplyDeleteDear Patrick,
ReplyDeletethis comes a bit late. :-)
> As far as petitions to the PM are concerned, I'm a great believer in "the more the merrier".
I was just seeing some "competition" between two similar petitions (both on number10.gov.uk) that both needed some minimum (250 signtures) to have a some specific value.
But in general you are right. Even more so, because nobody should think, that if one petition is not there, people would be bound to find another one.
The Number 10 petitions website says that 500 signatures are now required to trigger an official response to a petition.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be at all surprised to see, once this Lockerbie public inquiry petition closes on 9 December 2009 with, say, 600 signatures, that the required total of signatures is miraculously doubled to 1000!
That's exactly what happened to my first petition which asked the Prime Minister to compensate and substantially increase the FCO pension of British diplomat, Patrick Haseldine, who was sacked for writing a letter to the Guardian 18 years ago.
The full background and justification for this petition are set out in Patrick Haseldine's Wikipedia article. We believe that Patrick Haseldine was wrongfully dismissed from HM Diplomatic Service on 2 August 1989, having written a letter that was published in the Guardian newspaper on 7 December 1988. His sacking, and prior suspension for six months for appearing on BBC TV's "Question Time" on 25 February 1988, clearly constitute interferences with his Article 10 right to freedom of expression.
Accordingly, Haseldine should be paid not only ex gratia compensation (on a par with the out-of-court settlement made in February 2006 to former Scottish police detective, Shirley McKie - see her eponymous Wikipedia article) but also a significantly enhanced FCO pension (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/PJHaseldine/).
My petition had secured 126 signatures at its closure on 22 February 2007, when just 100 were needed for the official response. Notable signatories included:
a. Sir Geoffrey Bindman, human rights lawyer;
b. Iain McKie, father of Shirley McKie;
c. Peter Preston, former editor of The Guardian;
d. Michael Russell MSP, Scottish Minister for Culture, External Affairs and the Constitution;
e. Dr Jim Swire, father of Lockerbie victim Flora Swire; and,
f. David Winnick MP.
By April 2007, Number 10 had surreptitiously revised the required number of signatures upwards to 200. Which meant that my petition's 126 signatories were denied an official response from the then Prime Minister (Tony Blair).
Let us hope that the Lockerbie public inquiry petition (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Lockerbie/) doesn't suffer the same dastardly fate!
Dear Patrick,
ReplyDeleteI know your story briefly from your Wikipage. Free speach is not welcomed from people within, in that matter you side with Craig Murray.
As for the petition, if they need to move the goalposts it should for sure not be done with with reverse effect.
We can do nothing else than try to collect as many signatures as we can. Unless they move again, we only need to collect 5 signatures/day. Wish I could join...