Dr Jim Swire has suggested that it would be useful to have a link on this blog to the Dutch television documentary directed by Gideon Levy that was broadcast in Europe in April (and had a by-invitation-only showing in the Scottish Parliament). I am happy to oblige. The film can be watched here.
At the suggestion of a reader, I am also posting here a link to Allan Francovich's 1994 film The Maltese Double Cross. The audio and visual quality is not high.
Showing posts sorted by date for query allan francovich. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query allan francovich. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Wednesday 5 August 2009
Thursday 30 October 2008
The South African connexion
[I am grateful to Patrick Haseldine for the following, written in response to various recent press contentions that a high-powered South African delegation was "hauled off" Pan Am flight 103.]
Both Magnus Linklater in the The Times ("Lockerbie questions demand an answer") and David Maddox in The Scotsman ("Was Lockerbie suspect working for the US?") are making the same mistake. They refer to senior South African figures being "hauled off" the plane, which is demonstrably untrue.
Following the first screening of Allan Francovich's film The Maltese Double Cross, which first revealed a South African connection to Lockerbie, a Reuters news agency report of 12 November 1994 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:REUTERS12NOV94.jpg) clarified what actually happened. A 23-strong South African delegation - including Foreign Minister Pik Botha, Defence Minister Magnus Malan and Military Intelligence Chief C J Van Tonder - were travelling by South African Airways from Johannesburg. Their inbound flight inexplicably cut out a stopover at Frankfurt, which was SAA's European hub, and arrived early at Heathrow. The London embassy booked Botha and five of the party on Pan Am Flight 101 to New York for the signing of the Namibia Independence Agreement at UN headquarters on 22 December 1988. The remaining 17 members of the party returned from Heathrow on the SAA aircraft to Johannesburg.
UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, had been booked to travel by Sabena from Brussels (where he had addressed a Committee of the European Parliament) to New York for the same signing ceremony. However, Carlsson was persuaded by the South Africans to stopover at Heathrow and became the most high profile of the 270 Lockerbie victims.
Apartheid South Africa is thus intimately involved and might even have planned and executed the bombing without the involvement of any other country. This scenario neatly explains why Botha & Co did not need any forewarning by the CIA, and destroys the myth that they were "hauled off" the flight.
While it might be judicially and politically convenient now to shift the blame from the ailing Abdelbaset Megrahi to the dead terrorist Abu Nidal, we would be no nearer to the truth about the Lockerbie bombing. I continue to believe that, to get to the truth, a United Nations Inquiry into the death of UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/UNInquiry/) is required. Let us hope that when the new US president takes office next January we will finally get this UN Inquiry.
Both Magnus Linklater in the The Times ("Lockerbie questions demand an answer") and David Maddox in The Scotsman ("Was Lockerbie suspect working for the US?") are making the same mistake. They refer to senior South African figures being "hauled off" the plane, which is demonstrably untrue.
Following the first screening of Allan Francovich's film The Maltese Double Cross, which first revealed a South African connection to Lockerbie, a Reuters news agency report of 12 November 1994 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:REUTERS12NOV94.jpg) clarified what actually happened. A 23-strong South African delegation - including Foreign Minister Pik Botha, Defence Minister Magnus Malan and Military Intelligence Chief C J Van Tonder - were travelling by South African Airways from Johannesburg. Their inbound flight inexplicably cut out a stopover at Frankfurt, which was SAA's European hub, and arrived early at Heathrow. The London embassy booked Botha and five of the party on Pan Am Flight 101 to New York for the signing of the Namibia Independence Agreement at UN headquarters on 22 December 1988. The remaining 17 members of the party returned from Heathrow on the SAA aircraft to Johannesburg.
UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, had been booked to travel by Sabena from Brussels (where he had addressed a Committee of the European Parliament) to New York for the same signing ceremony. However, Carlsson was persuaded by the South Africans to stopover at Heathrow and became the most high profile of the 270 Lockerbie victims.
Apartheid South Africa is thus intimately involved and might even have planned and executed the bombing without the involvement of any other country. This scenario neatly explains why Botha & Co did not need any forewarning by the CIA, and destroys the myth that they were "hauled off" the flight.
While it might be judicially and politically convenient now to shift the blame from the ailing Abdelbaset Megrahi to the dead terrorist Abu Nidal, we would be no nearer to the truth about the Lockerbie bombing. I continue to believe that, to get to the truth, a United Nations Inquiry into the death of UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/UNInquiry/) is required. Let us hope that when the new US president takes office next January we will finally get this UN Inquiry.
Monday 19 May 2008
In praise of the 'subversive' documentary
This is the title of a post earlier today on Kurt Rudder's blog. It deals with the importance of documentary films challenging the "official" version of events. One paragraph reads:
"There is a hunger among the public for documentaries because only documentaries, at their best, are fearless and show the unpalatable and make sense of the news. The extraordinary films of Allan Francovich achieved this. Francovich, who died in 1997, made The Maltese Double Cross - Lockerbie. THIS destroyed the official truth that Libya was responsible for the sabotage of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. Instead, an unwitting 'mule', with links to the CIA, was alleged to have carried the bomb on board the aircraft. (Paul Foot's parallel investigation for Private Eye came to a similar conclusion.) The Maltese Double Cross - Lockerbie has never been publicly screened in the United States. In this country, the threat of legal action from a US Government official prevented showings at the 1994 London Film Festival and the Institute of Contemporary Arts. In 1995, defying threats, Tam Dalyell showed it in the House of Commons, and Channel 4 broadcast it in May 1995."
The full text can be read here.
The post appears to be simply a reproduction of an article by John Pilger published on 16 September 2006, which can be read here.
"There is a hunger among the public for documentaries because only documentaries, at their best, are fearless and show the unpalatable and make sense of the news. The extraordinary films of Allan Francovich achieved this. Francovich, who died in 1997, made The Maltese Double Cross - Lockerbie. THIS destroyed the official truth that Libya was responsible for the sabotage of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. Instead, an unwitting 'mule', with links to the CIA, was alleged to have carried the bomb on board the aircraft. (Paul Foot's parallel investigation for Private Eye came to a similar conclusion.) The Maltese Double Cross - Lockerbie has never been publicly screened in the United States. In this country, the threat of legal action from a US Government official prevented showings at the 1994 London Film Festival and the Institute of Contemporary Arts. In 1995, defying threats, Tam Dalyell showed it in the House of Commons, and Channel 4 broadcast it in May 1995."
The full text can be read here.
The post appears to be simply a reproduction of an article by John Pilger published on 16 September 2006, which can be read here.
Saturday 27 October 2007
Juval Aviv
For a hatchet-job on Juval Aviv, author of the Interfor Report on the destruction of Pan Am 103 and a contributor to Allan Francovich's film The Maltese Double Cross, see
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/secret-agent-sc.html
For a somewhat different view of Aviv, see http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/lockerbie/resources/story_aviv.html
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/secret-agent-sc.html
For a somewhat different view of Aviv, see http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/lockerbie/resources/story_aviv.html
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