[This is the headline over a report published today on the website of Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. It reads as follows:]
Newly returned MSP and strident campaigner for justice in the Pan Am 103 debacle, Christine Grahame, has declared her candidacy for the role of Presiding Officer at Holyrood.
She would be the first woman to occupy the chair following predecessors David Steel, George Reid and incumbent Alex Fergusson.
“I am known in Parliament as an independent-minded backbencher and that is the same way I would approach the task of presiding officer," she said in a statement.
"I have the experience to do the job, having been an MSP since 1999 and having chaired three committees in that time.
“Parliament needs to be a forum for robust, lively and interesting exchanges, and, if elected as presiding officer, I would ensure that backbenchers have more of a say and also look at ways of making debates more interesting and relevant.”
Grahame has enjoyed the tacit support of First Minister Alex Salmond and has campaigned to seek justice and a Parliamentary inquiry into the case of the Lockerbie convict Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi. [RB: the campaign is for an independent inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005, not a parliamentary inquiry.]
The Presiding Officer will be selected when Parliament reconvenes tomorrow. No other candidates have formally come forward at the time of publication.
[This news creates mixed feelings in me. I think Christine would be an excellent Presiding Officer. But the neutrality required of the holder of that position would largely disqualify her from campaigning actively for a review of the Megrahi conviction. This would be a great loss to those of us who regard the removal of this blemish on the Scottish criminal justice system as crucial for the restoration of domestic and international confidence in the administration of justice in Scotland.]
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
An Aljazeera correspondent on the SNP triumph
[The following is an excerpt from a report on the Aljazeera English-language website:]
Within five years, the people of Scotland will be asked to decide if they want to remain part of the union or create an independent state.
This is due to a remarkable win for the nationalists in elections to Scotland's devolved parliament which sits in Edinburgh.
The Scottish National Party [SNP] had governed as a minority administration but this time around it has taken 69 of the 129 seats up for grabs.
When the parliament was established in 1999 a complex electoral system was drawn up – a mixture of first-past-the-post and proportional representation – to ensure no party, particularly the nationalists, would ever win an overall majority.
But the founding fathers failed to see a complete collapse of the left of the centre Labour Party in its traditional industrial heartlands around Glasgow and Fife, the loss of every single Labour seat in the north east around Aberdeen and the huge collapse of the Liberal Democratic Party.
The SNP was told it would suffer because as the party in government in Scotland it approved the controversial release of the convicted Lockerbie Bomber, Abdel Basset Al Megrahi. It didn't. It simply wasn't an election issue.
Labour claimed the Liberal Democrat vote collapsed because of their links with the Conservatives in the UK government and disaffected voters went straight to the SNP. There might be some truth in that, but it does not detract from this astonishing result.
The leader of the nationalists, Alex Salmond, is by common consent the only 'big beast' in Scottish politics, by far and away the most impressive, informed, in touch politician.
He has in the past put forth the idea of Scotland having a parliament, everyone rejected this but they were wrong. That the SNP would never run Scotland, but they did with a minority administration in the last parliament. And that his party could never secure a majority. And it has.
Now he says those who predict Scotland will never be independent must be worried.
[The following is from a report in yesterday's Glasgow Evening Times:]
After he is confirmed as First Minister next week Mr Salmond will pick his cabinet for the second term and is expected to keep his team largely unchanged.
He fought the election on the SNP’s "record, team and vision" so would be a surprise to ring the changes.
One change is a new post of minister for cities which will be under the control of Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, who is likely to remain as Health Secretary.
Finance Secretary John Swinney appears to be another untouchable after showing immense diplomatic and political skill in dealing with difficult times in local government.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill had a stormier four years than other Cabinet Secretaries carrying the anger from the US and elsewhere over his decision to release the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al Megrahi.
There will also have to be a new Lord Advocate after Elish Angiolini’s decision to step down.
Within five years, the people of Scotland will be asked to decide if they want to remain part of the union or create an independent state.
This is due to a remarkable win for the nationalists in elections to Scotland's devolved parliament which sits in Edinburgh.
The Scottish National Party [SNP] had governed as a minority administration but this time around it has taken 69 of the 129 seats up for grabs.
When the parliament was established in 1999 a complex electoral system was drawn up – a mixture of first-past-the-post and proportional representation – to ensure no party, particularly the nationalists, would ever win an overall majority.
But the founding fathers failed to see a complete collapse of the left of the centre Labour Party in its traditional industrial heartlands around Glasgow and Fife, the loss of every single Labour seat in the north east around Aberdeen and the huge collapse of the Liberal Democratic Party.
The SNP was told it would suffer because as the party in government in Scotland it approved the controversial release of the convicted Lockerbie Bomber, Abdel Basset Al Megrahi. It didn't. It simply wasn't an election issue.
Labour claimed the Liberal Democrat vote collapsed because of their links with the Conservatives in the UK government and disaffected voters went straight to the SNP. There might be some truth in that, but it does not detract from this astonishing result.
The leader of the nationalists, Alex Salmond, is by common consent the only 'big beast' in Scottish politics, by far and away the most impressive, informed, in touch politician.
He has in the past put forth the idea of Scotland having a parliament, everyone rejected this but they were wrong. That the SNP would never run Scotland, but they did with a minority administration in the last parliament. And that his party could never secure a majority. And it has.
Now he says those who predict Scotland will never be independent must be worried.
[The following is from a report in yesterday's Glasgow Evening Times:]
After he is confirmed as First Minister next week Mr Salmond will pick his cabinet for the second term and is expected to keep his team largely unchanged.
He fought the election on the SNP’s "record, team and vision" so would be a surprise to ring the changes.
One change is a new post of minister for cities which will be under the control of Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, who is likely to remain as Health Secretary.
Finance Secretary John Swinney appears to be another untouchable after showing immense diplomatic and political skill in dealing with difficult times in local government.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill had a stormier four years than other Cabinet Secretaries carrying the anger from the US and elsewhere over his decision to release the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al Megrahi.
There will also have to be a new Lord Advocate after Elish Angiolini’s decision to step down.
Monday, 9 May 2011
Judge at first Megrahi appeal retires
[The following is an excerpt from a report in today's edition of The Scotsman. The judge in question, Lord Osborne, asked many penetrating questions during the course of the appeal and had the Crown struggling to provide answers. Regrettably, the restricted compass within which Megrahi's then legal team chose to present the appeal meant that the court could not give effect to the weighty concerns raised by Lord Osborne and his colleague Lord Kirkwood.]
His 21 years' service far exceeds most of the sentences he ever passed as a trial judge in the High Court, while in the last ten years he had become a fixture in the appeal divisions of the Court of Session and the High Court. He might never have attained the title of Lord President or Lord Justice Clerk, the country's most senior judicial positions, but he was often relied on to preside over an appeal court.
Lord Osborne was part of many historic rulings, with none more important, perhaps, than the decision to reject the first appeal by Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi at the Scottish court in the Netherlands.
His style on the bench was very individualistic. Many judges sit, poker-faced, absorbing the arguments and making the odd note as they wrestle, mentally, with the point at issue. Lord Osborne was one to debate, question, challenge and test the arguments of counsel on both sides, and would slump back with a face of tortured contortion as he tried to work out which way, in his opinion, the law lay.
And it was always in his opinion. He was never one to go with the flow for the sake of it. He showed he could be of fiercely independent mind (...)
Lord Osborne was part of many historic rulings, with none more important, perhaps, than the decision to reject the first appeal by Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi at the Scottish court in the Netherlands.
His style on the bench was very individualistic. Many judges sit, poker-faced, absorbing the arguments and making the odd note as they wrestle, mentally, with the point at issue. Lord Osborne was one to debate, question, challenge and test the arguments of counsel on both sides, and would slump back with a face of tortured contortion as he tried to work out which way, in his opinion, the law lay.
And it was always in his opinion. He was never one to go with the flow for the sake of it. He showed he could be of fiercely independent mind (...)
Friday, 6 May 2011
Windhoek musings
The Scottish electorate has responded resoundingly to Labour Scottish parliamentary leader Iain Gray's contention that Alex Salmond's handling of the banking crisis and release of the "Lockerbie bomber" exposed “fundamental flaws” in the SNP leader’s character and judgement. I am particularly pleased at the redoutable Christine Grahame's victory in the Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale seat.
What must now be hoped for is that Alex Salmond and the new SNP majority government, at long last, demonstrate sound judgment over the shameful Megrahi conviction and immediately institute an independent inquiry. The first indication will be who is appointed to the office of Lord Advocate to replace the disastrous Elish Angiolini QC. If her successor is another Crown Office minion rather than an independent advocate or solicitor, the prospects will remain bleak.
Incidentally, Windhoek is not merely the capital of Namibia, it is the brand name of the county's best beer (brewed in accordance with the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot). Today I had to wade up to my knees through a seasonal river to sample a few pints of it. But it was well worth the effort.
What must now be hoped for is that Alex Salmond and the new SNP majority government, at long last, demonstrate sound judgment over the shameful Megrahi conviction and immediately institute an independent inquiry. The first indication will be who is appointed to the office of Lord Advocate to replace the disastrous Elish Angiolini QC. If her successor is another Crown Office minion rather than an independent advocate or solicitor, the prospects will remain bleak.
Incidentally, Windhoek is not merely the capital of Namibia, it is the brand name of the county's best beer (brewed in accordance with the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot). Today I had to wade up to my knees through a seasonal river to sample a few pints of it. But it was well worth the effort.
Thursday, 5 May 2011
Iain Gray accuses Alex Salmond of lacking judgement
[This is the headline over a recent report on The Telegraph website. The following is an extract:]
Iain Gray has delivered his most personal attack yet on Alex Salmond by arguing his handling of the banking crisis and release of the Lockerbie bomber exposed “fundamental flaws” in the SNP leader’s character and judgement.
The Labour leader said the other defining moment was when Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was released in August 2009 on the basis he had less than three months to live. However, the terrorist remains alive in Libya more than 20 months later.
“I think people should be wary of any politician who claims ‘moral authority’,” Mr Gray continued.
“The last time the SNP appealed to ‘moral authority’ was when they released the Lockerbie bomber. They were wrong about that and most Scots agree that was the wrong decision. That’s another example of poor judgement.”
[The following is a snippet from Peter Cherbi's blog A Diary of Injustice in Scotland:]
How about the Lockerbie case and the long running controversy over the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi’s conviction and release. Despite all the calls for independent inquiries, calls for, & half hearted attempts at the release of documents to answer the many inconsistencies in the case, nothing has changed other than the fact Mr Megrahi was released back to Libya on compassionate grounds by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, so conveniently avoiding any further progress in Mr Megrahi’s appeal at the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh, where the gritted teeth of the judges (one looked like he had bruxism) was much more obvious to most who saw the spectacle rather than any hope the court would turn its attention to matters at hand and quash a verdict which many around the world question. Last time I checked, this farce happened under an SNP administration.
[Any further posts on this blog between now and 10 May will be from internet cafes in the capital of Namibia, Windhoek.]
Iain Gray has delivered his most personal attack yet on Alex Salmond by arguing his handling of the banking crisis and release of the Lockerbie bomber exposed “fundamental flaws” in the SNP leader’s character and judgement.
The Labour leader said the other defining moment was when Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was released in August 2009 on the basis he had less than three months to live. However, the terrorist remains alive in Libya more than 20 months later.
“I think people should be wary of any politician who claims ‘moral authority’,” Mr Gray continued.
“The last time the SNP appealed to ‘moral authority’ was when they released the Lockerbie bomber. They were wrong about that and most Scots agree that was the wrong decision. That’s another example of poor judgement.”
[The following is a snippet from Peter Cherbi's blog A Diary of Injustice in Scotland:]
How about the Lockerbie case and the long running controversy over the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi’s conviction and release. Despite all the calls for independent inquiries, calls for, & half hearted attempts at the release of documents to answer the many inconsistencies in the case, nothing has changed other than the fact Mr Megrahi was released back to Libya on compassionate grounds by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, so conveniently avoiding any further progress in Mr Megrahi’s appeal at the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh, where the gritted teeth of the judges (one looked like he had bruxism) was much more obvious to most who saw the spectacle rather than any hope the court would turn its attention to matters at hand and quash a verdict which many around the world question. Last time I checked, this farce happened under an SNP administration.
[Any further posts on this blog between now and 10 May will be from internet cafes in the capital of Namibia, Windhoek.]
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Libyan leaders may face UN arrest warrants for war crimes
[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of The Guardian. It reads in part:]
Senior Libyan officials face international arrest warrants for crimes against humanity, the United Nations security council will be told today.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, is to brief the council about crimes committed by Muammar Gaddafi's forces since the Libyan uprising began in mid-February.
Western diplomats say the move is intended to ratchet up international pressure on Tripoli. Ocampo revealed that up to five warrants are likely to be issued in the next few weeks with the approval of the ICC's pre-trial chamber.
No names have been disclosed. But Al-Arabiya TV reported that the warrants could include Gaddafi himself and his son, the discredited reformist Saif al-Islam, who has strong UK links. It said others being targeted include Libya's former foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, who defected to the UK, and Abu Zeyd Omar Dorda, director general of the Libyan External Security Organisation.
[Both Moussa Koussa and Omar Dorda were heavily involved in the international manoeuvrings that led to the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist. At the time, Dorda was Libyan Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York and it was through him and the then UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs Hans Corell that problems arising from the terms of the August 1998 UK/US proposal for the Scottish Court in the Netherlands were ironed out. After the trial took place, Dorda played little part in Lockerbie affairs and, in particular, as far as I could see, had no role in the events leading up to Abdelbaset Megrahi's repatriation.
A report on the BBC News website can be read here.]
Senior Libyan officials face international arrest warrants for crimes against humanity, the United Nations security council will be told today.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, is to brief the council about crimes committed by Muammar Gaddafi's forces since the Libyan uprising began in mid-February.
Western diplomats say the move is intended to ratchet up international pressure on Tripoli. Ocampo revealed that up to five warrants are likely to be issued in the next few weeks with the approval of the ICC's pre-trial chamber.
No names have been disclosed. But Al-Arabiya TV reported that the warrants could include Gaddafi himself and his son, the discredited reformist Saif al-Islam, who has strong UK links. It said others being targeted include Libya's former foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, who defected to the UK, and Abu Zeyd Omar Dorda, director general of the Libyan External Security Organisation.
[Both Moussa Koussa and Omar Dorda were heavily involved in the international manoeuvrings that led to the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist. At the time, Dorda was Libyan Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York and it was through him and the then UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs Hans Corell that problems arising from the terms of the August 1998 UK/US proposal for the Scottish Court in the Netherlands were ironed out. After the trial took place, Dorda played little part in Lockerbie affairs and, in particular, as far as I could see, had no role in the events leading up to Abdelbaset Megrahi's repatriation.
A report on the BBC News website can be read here.]
When will they ever learn ...?
[What follows is from an editorial headed "Obama starts to emerge" in today's edition of The New York Sun:]
One of the encouraging aspects of the events of the past few days is the emergence of a new and more confident President Obama. This wasn’t always the prospect in the first two years of his presidency, in which he seemed indecisive and reluctant. (...)
Mr Obama is starting to emerge as the kind of war leader we had in mind — cool under fire, able to keep a poker face while golf and entertaining the press between high stakes briefings in the situation room, and sagacious in battle, as he surely was with his decision to send in the SEALs into the lair of Osama Bin Laden. His capacity for secrecy and unilateralism speaks well of him, and it happens that we agree also with his decision to dispose of bin Laden’s corpse at sea. And not to worry about it afterwards. (...)
We still have all our policy differences with Mr. Obama — on the economy, monetary and fiscal matters, on social issues, and in the realm of culture. But our own hope is that the events of these past few days will incent Mr Obama in dealing with communist Korea and Iran and no doubt other places where diplomacy has failed. Even as NATO warplanes are flying Libya, we continue to favor sending a team to Libya to fetch Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, and bring him to an American jail [to] serve his time for his role in the downing of Pan American Flight 103. It is our hope that the triumph we’ve saw in the last few days will as it humbles us all nonetheless embolden Mr Obama as a war leader, with his own growing appreciation for the possibilities of military and covert means in a twilight struggle in which our cause is just. If that happens it could be more important than the death that was brought to bin Laden.
One of the encouraging aspects of the events of the past few days is the emergence of a new and more confident President Obama. This wasn’t always the prospect in the first two years of his presidency, in which he seemed indecisive and reluctant. (...)
Mr Obama is starting to emerge as the kind of war leader we had in mind — cool under fire, able to keep a poker face while golf and entertaining the press between high stakes briefings in the situation room, and sagacious in battle, as he surely was with his decision to send in the SEALs into the lair of Osama Bin Laden. His capacity for secrecy and unilateralism speaks well of him, and it happens that we agree also with his decision to dispose of bin Laden’s corpse at sea. And not to worry about it afterwards. (...)
We still have all our policy differences with Mr. Obama — on the economy, monetary and fiscal matters, on social issues, and in the realm of culture. But our own hope is that the events of these past few days will incent Mr Obama in dealing with communist Korea and Iran and no doubt other places where diplomacy has failed. Even as NATO warplanes are flying Libya, we continue to favor sending a team to Libya to fetch Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, and bring him to an American jail [to] serve his time for his role in the downing of Pan American Flight 103. It is our hope that the triumph we’ve saw in the last few days will as it humbles us all nonetheless embolden Mr Obama as a war leader, with his own growing appreciation for the possibilities of military and covert means in a twilight struggle in which our cause is just. If that happens it could be more important than the death that was brought to bin Laden.
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
"Humanitarian intervention" in Libya
[The following are extracts from a long article by William Blum published yesterday on the Killing Hope website:]
Iraq: Let us not forget what "humanitarian intervention" looks like.
Libya: Let us not be confused as to why Libya alone has been singled out for "humanitarian intervention". (...)
In 2006, the UN special investigator on torture declared that reports from Iraq indicated that torture "is totally out of hand. The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein." Another UN report of the same time disclosed a rise in "honor killings" of women.
"It is a common refrain among war-weary Iraqis that things were better before the US-led invasion in 2003," reported the Washington Post on May 5, 2007. (...)
And this from two months ago [Washington Post, March 4, 2011]:
"Protesters, human rights workers and security officials say the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has responded to Iraq's demonstrations in much the same way as many of its more authoritarian neighbors: with force. Witnesses in Baghdad and as far north as Kirkuk described watching last week as security forces in black uniforms, tracksuits and T-shirts roared up in trucks and Humvees, attacked protesters, rounded up others from cafes and homes and hauled them off, blindfolded, to army detention centers. Entire neighborhoods ... were blockaded to prevent residents from joining the demonstrations. Journalists were beaten."
So ... can we expect the United States and its fellow thugs in NATO to intervene militarily in Iraq as they're doing in Libya? To protect the protesters in Iraq as they tell us they're doing in Libya? To effect regime change in Iraq as they're conspiring, but not admitting, in Libya?
Similarly Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria ... all have been bursting with protest and vicious government crackdown in recent months, even to a degree in Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive societies in the world. Not one of these governments has been assaulted by the United States, the UK, or France as Libya has been assaulted; not one of these countries' opposition is receiving military, financial, legal and moral support from the Western powers as the Libyan rebels are — despite the Libyan rebels' brutal behavior, racist murders, and the clear jihadist ties of some of them. (...)
So why is only Libya the target for US/NATO missiles? Is there some principled or moral reason? Are the Libyans the worst abusers of their people in the region? In actuality, Libya offers its citizens a higher standard of living. (The 2010 UN Human Development Index, a composite measure of health, education and income ranked Libya first in Africa.) None of the other countries has a more secular government than Libya. (In contrast some of the Libyan rebels are in the habit of chanting that phrase we all know only too well: "Allah Akbar".) None of the others has a human-rights record better than that of Libya, however imperfect that may be — in Egypt a government fact-finding mission has announced that during the recent uprising at least 846 protesters were killed as police forces shot them in the head and chest with live ammunition. Six similar horror stories have been reported in Syria, Yemen and other countries of the region during this period. (...)
Of all the accusations made against Gaddafi perhaps the most meaningless is the oft-repeated "He's killing his own people." It's true, but that's what happens in civil wars. Abraham Lincoln also killed his own people.
Muammar Gaddafi has been an Officially Designated Enemy of the US longer than any living world leader except Fidel Castro. The animosity began in 1970, one year after Gaddafi took power in a coup, when he closed down a US air force base. (...)
It was claimed as well that Libya was behind, or at least somehow linked to, an attempt to blow up the US Embassy in Cairo, various plane hijackings, a bomb explosion on an American airliner over Greece, the blowing up of a French airliner over Africa, blowing up a synagogue in Istanbul, and blowing up a disco in Berlin which killed some American soldiers.
In 1990, when the United States needed a country to (falsely) blame for the bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, Libya was the easy choice.
Gaddafi's principal crime in the eyes of US President Ronald Reagan (1981-89) was not that he supported terrorist groups, but that he supported the wrong terrorist groups; i.e., Gaddafi was not supporting the same terrorists that Washington was, such as the Nicaraguan Contras, UNITA in Angola, Cuban exiles in Miami, the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala, and the US military in Grenada. The one band of terrorists the two men supported in common was the Moujahedeen in Afghanistan. (...)
When widespread protests broke out in Tunisia and Egypt, could Washington have resisted instigating the same in the country sandwiched between those two? The CIA has been very busy supplying the rebels with arms, bombing support, money, and personnel.
It may well happen that the Western allies will succeed in forcing Gaddafi out of power. Then the world will look on innocently as the new Libyan government gives Washington what it has long sought: a host-country site for Africom, the US Africa Command, one of six regional commands the Pentagon has divided the world into. Many African countries approached to be the host have declined, at times in relatively strong terms. Africom at present is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. According to a State Department official: "We've got a big image problem down there. ... Public opinion is really against getting into bed with the US. They just don't trust the US." Another thing scarcely any African country would tolerate is an American military base. There's only one such base in Africa, in Djibouti. Watch for one in Libya sometime after the dust has settled. It'll be situated close to the American oil wells. Or perhaps the people of Libya will be given a choice — an American base or a NATO base.
And remember — in the context of recent history concerning Iraq, North Korea, and Iran — if Libya had nuclear weapons the United States would not be attacking it.
Or the United States could realize that Gaddafi is no radical threat simply because of his love for Condoleezza Rice. Here is the Libyan leader in a March 27, 2007 interview on al-Jazeera TV: "Leezza, Leezza, Leezza ... I love her very much. I admire her, and I'm proud of her, because she's a black woman of African origin."
[A version of the same article now also appears on the Consortium News website under the title 'Liberating' Iraq, Now Libya.]
Iraq: Let us not forget what "humanitarian intervention" looks like.
Libya: Let us not be confused as to why Libya alone has been singled out for "humanitarian intervention". (...)
In 2006, the UN special investigator on torture declared that reports from Iraq indicated that torture "is totally out of hand. The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein." Another UN report of the same time disclosed a rise in "honor killings" of women.
"It is a common refrain among war-weary Iraqis that things were better before the US-led invasion in 2003," reported the Washington Post on May 5, 2007. (...)
And this from two months ago [Washington Post, March 4, 2011]:
"Protesters, human rights workers and security officials say the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has responded to Iraq's demonstrations in much the same way as many of its more authoritarian neighbors: with force. Witnesses in Baghdad and as far north as Kirkuk described watching last week as security forces in black uniforms, tracksuits and T-shirts roared up in trucks and Humvees, attacked protesters, rounded up others from cafes and homes and hauled them off, blindfolded, to army detention centers. Entire neighborhoods ... were blockaded to prevent residents from joining the demonstrations. Journalists were beaten."
So ... can we expect the United States and its fellow thugs in NATO to intervene militarily in Iraq as they're doing in Libya? To protect the protesters in Iraq as they tell us they're doing in Libya? To effect regime change in Iraq as they're conspiring, but not admitting, in Libya?
Similarly Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria ... all have been bursting with protest and vicious government crackdown in recent months, even to a degree in Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive societies in the world. Not one of these governments has been assaulted by the United States, the UK, or France as Libya has been assaulted; not one of these countries' opposition is receiving military, financial, legal and moral support from the Western powers as the Libyan rebels are — despite the Libyan rebels' brutal behavior, racist murders, and the clear jihadist ties of some of them. (...)
So why is only Libya the target for US/NATO missiles? Is there some principled or moral reason? Are the Libyans the worst abusers of their people in the region? In actuality, Libya offers its citizens a higher standard of living. (The 2010 UN Human Development Index, a composite measure of health, education and income ranked Libya first in Africa.) None of the other countries has a more secular government than Libya. (In contrast some of the Libyan rebels are in the habit of chanting that phrase we all know only too well: "Allah Akbar".) None of the others has a human-rights record better than that of Libya, however imperfect that may be — in Egypt a government fact-finding mission has announced that during the recent uprising at least 846 protesters were killed as police forces shot them in the head and chest with live ammunition. Six similar horror stories have been reported in Syria, Yemen and other countries of the region during this period. (...)
Of all the accusations made against Gaddafi perhaps the most meaningless is the oft-repeated "He's killing his own people." It's true, but that's what happens in civil wars. Abraham Lincoln also killed his own people.
Muammar Gaddafi has been an Officially Designated Enemy of the US longer than any living world leader except Fidel Castro. The animosity began in 1970, one year after Gaddafi took power in a coup, when he closed down a US air force base. (...)
It was claimed as well that Libya was behind, or at least somehow linked to, an attempt to blow up the US Embassy in Cairo, various plane hijackings, a bomb explosion on an American airliner over Greece, the blowing up of a French airliner over Africa, blowing up a synagogue in Istanbul, and blowing up a disco in Berlin which killed some American soldiers.
In 1990, when the United States needed a country to (falsely) blame for the bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, Libya was the easy choice.
Gaddafi's principal crime in the eyes of US President Ronald Reagan (1981-89) was not that he supported terrorist groups, but that he supported the wrong terrorist groups; i.e., Gaddafi was not supporting the same terrorists that Washington was, such as the Nicaraguan Contras, UNITA in Angola, Cuban exiles in Miami, the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala, and the US military in Grenada. The one band of terrorists the two men supported in common was the Moujahedeen in Afghanistan. (...)
When widespread protests broke out in Tunisia and Egypt, could Washington have resisted instigating the same in the country sandwiched between those two? The CIA has been very busy supplying the rebels with arms, bombing support, money, and personnel.
It may well happen that the Western allies will succeed in forcing Gaddafi out of power. Then the world will look on innocently as the new Libyan government gives Washington what it has long sought: a host-country site for Africom, the US Africa Command, one of six regional commands the Pentagon has divided the world into. Many African countries approached to be the host have declined, at times in relatively strong terms. Africom at present is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. According to a State Department official: "We've got a big image problem down there. ... Public opinion is really against getting into bed with the US. They just don't trust the US." Another thing scarcely any African country would tolerate is an American military base. There's only one such base in Africa, in Djibouti. Watch for one in Libya sometime after the dust has settled. It'll be situated close to the American oil wells. Or perhaps the people of Libya will be given a choice — an American base or a NATO base.
And remember — in the context of recent history concerning Iraq, North Korea, and Iran — if Libya had nuclear weapons the United States would not be attacking it.
Or the United States could realize that Gaddafi is no radical threat simply because of his love for Condoleezza Rice. Here is the Libyan leader in a March 27, 2007 interview on al-Jazeera TV: "Leezza, Leezza, Leezza ... I love her very much. I admire her, and I'm proud of her, because she's a black woman of African origin."
[A version of the same article now also appears on the Consortium News website under the title 'Liberating' Iraq, Now Libya.]
Iain Anderson in conversation with Kenneth Roy and Robert Black QC
I have just discovered that a recording of the discussion session involving Kenneth Roy and myself and chaired by Iain Anderson at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow on 25 January 2011 is available online. It can be accessed here.
Incidentally, it was eleven years ago today that the trial of Abdelbaset Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah opened at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.
Incidentally, it was eleven years ago today that the trial of Abdelbaset Megrahi and Lamin Fhimah opened at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.
Monday, 2 May 2011
"The bravest political decision"
[What follows is a snippet from an article in yesterday's edition of The Observer by columnist Kevin McKenna, a former deputy editor of The Herald and executive editor of the Daily Mail in Scotland:]
The decision of Kenny MacAskill to free the only man found guilty of the Lockerbie bombing on compassionate grounds was the bravest political decision of the last session. Westminster correspondence since released by WikiLeaks has rendered most opposition to the decision dishonest and flawed. For that decision alone, which made me proud to be a Scot, I could justify voting for the SNP [in the Scottish Parliament election on 5 May].
[An editorial published yesterday on The Herald website contains the following:]
The Government’s most controversial action was the decision to free convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds. Regardless of whether you agree with that decision or not, the SNP have faced down their critics and emerged from the whirlwind with two strong moral arguments: first that this was a decision for the Scottish Government to take without outside interference; second, that the moral grounds for the release chime with Scottish values and indeed that those valued are enshrined in our laws. In contrast, other parties were left looking hypocritical, feigning public outrage at a decision they had previously signalled in private was in the national interest.
The decision of Kenny MacAskill to free the only man found guilty of the Lockerbie bombing on compassionate grounds was the bravest political decision of the last session. Westminster correspondence since released by WikiLeaks has rendered most opposition to the decision dishonest and flawed. For that decision alone, which made me proud to be a Scot, I could justify voting for the SNP [in the Scottish Parliament election on 5 May].
[An editorial published yesterday on The Herald website contains the following:]
The Government’s most controversial action was the decision to free convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds. Regardless of whether you agree with that decision or not, the SNP have faced down their critics and emerged from the whirlwind with two strong moral arguments: first that this was a decision for the Scottish Government to take without outside interference; second, that the moral grounds for the release chime with Scottish values and indeed that those valued are enshrined in our laws. In contrast, other parties were left looking hypocritical, feigning public outrage at a decision they had previously signalled in private was in the national interest.
Britain expels Libya ambassador
[This is the headline over a report published yesterday on The Guardian website. It reads in part:]
Britain has ordered the expulsion of the Libyan ambassador to London, Omar Jelban, in retaliation for an attack on the British embassy by a pro-Gaddafi crowd in Tripoli.
Jelban has been given 24 hours to leave the country.
"I condemn the attacks on the British embassy premises in Tripoli as well as the diplomatic missions of other countries," said the foreign secretary, William Hague. "The Vienna convention requires the Gaddafi regime to protect diplomatic missions in Tripoli. By failing to do so that regime has once again breached its international responsibilities and obligations. I take the failure to protect such premises very seriously indeed."
The statement went on: "As a result, I have taken the decision to expel the Libyan ambassador. He is persona non grata pursuant to article 9 of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations and has 24 hours to leave the country."
According to Foreign Office sources, the building housing both the British embassy residence and its chancellery was burned down by a mob early on Sunday. (...)
The Gaddafi regime appears to have mounted a symbolic attack on empty diplomatic residences and embassies in Tripoli. There are no British diplomats in the Libyan capital.
[During most of the run-up to the release of Abdelbaset Megrahi in August 2009, Omar Jelban was chargé d'affaires in the Libyan embassy in London. There had been no ambassador since the departure of Mohammed Bel Kassem Zwai (one of the officers who, along with Gaddafi, staged the coup against King Idris in 1969, and the only one who is still prominent in the regime). Jelban was not, in my view, a significant player in the 2008/2009 political manoeuvrings. On the Libyan side the big hitters were Moussa Koussa and Abdul Ati al-Obeidi.]
Britain has ordered the expulsion of the Libyan ambassador to London, Omar Jelban, in retaliation for an attack on the British embassy by a pro-Gaddafi crowd in Tripoli.
Jelban has been given 24 hours to leave the country.
"I condemn the attacks on the British embassy premises in Tripoli as well as the diplomatic missions of other countries," said the foreign secretary, William Hague. "The Vienna convention requires the Gaddafi regime to protect diplomatic missions in Tripoli. By failing to do so that regime has once again breached its international responsibilities and obligations. I take the failure to protect such premises very seriously indeed."
The statement went on: "As a result, I have taken the decision to expel the Libyan ambassador. He is persona non grata pursuant to article 9 of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations and has 24 hours to leave the country."
According to Foreign Office sources, the building housing both the British embassy residence and its chancellery was burned down by a mob early on Sunday. (...)
The Gaddafi regime appears to have mounted a symbolic attack on empty diplomatic residences and embassies in Tripoli. There are no British diplomats in the Libyan capital.
[During most of the run-up to the release of Abdelbaset Megrahi in August 2009, Omar Jelban was chargé d'affaires in the Libyan embassy in London. There had been no ambassador since the departure of Mohammed Bel Kassem Zwai (one of the officers who, along with Gaddafi, staged the coup against King Idris in 1969, and the only one who is still prominent in the regime). Jelban was not, in my view, a significant player in the 2008/2009 political manoeuvrings. On the Libyan side the big hitters were Moussa Koussa and Abdul Ati al-Obeidi.]
MacAskill adamant Megrahi release not an election issue
[This is the headline over a report in The Scotsman of 30 April. It reads in part:]
In Kenny MacAskill's constituency office the front page of a newspaper hangs on the wall.
"Mandela supports MacAskill decision" proclaims a headline that must have offered a good deal of comfort to the justice secretary amidst the opprobrium heaped on him after he released the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
When Abdelbaset al Megrahi left Scotland around 18 months ago, never in his worst nightmares could Mr MacAskill have imagined that he would still be alive going into the 2011 election.
The survival of Megrahi so far beyond his three-month life expectancy has provided plenty of ammunition for those who opposed Mr MacAskill's decision to release the UK's worst mass murderer.
But, according to Mr MacAskill himself, Lockerbie is not proving to be a big issue on the doorsteps as he defends his Edinburgh East seat, a marginal constituency balanced on a knife-edge.
Out canvassing, Mr MacAskill has come across the "odd individual" who opposed his decision. "Equally," Mr MacAskill said, "there is a great deal of support for me as an individual and a recognition that I had to make the decision."
Mr MacAskill argues that he came out of the decision with his "hands clean", unlike "charlatan and shameful" Labour who criticised the decision at Holyrood while at Westminster, government ministers were plotting for Megrahi's release.
"Is it an election issue?" Mr MacAskill asks. "Not that we've picked up," he adds, answering his own question.
In any case, Mr MacAskill's only serious rival for the seat is reluctant to make Lockerbie a defining election issue. For the Labour candidate Ewan Aitken, his reasons for playing down the Lockerbie controversy probably has more to do with his own beliefs than any embarrassment over his party's behaviour on the issue.
As a Church of Scotland minister, the Labour councillor is a strong proponent of "compassionate release", although he does have some reservations about how the decision to release Megrahi was arrived at.
Mr Aitken said: "Compassion is an all or nothing thing. There are clearly questions to be asked about the process in this case, but the principle of releasing somebody - no matter how heinous the crime - on compassion is one that I support. But I do ask questions about what happened in this case." He added: "This election here isn't about the life and death of an individual in Libya, it is about jobs."
[The readers' comments that follow the report are also worth reading.]
In Kenny MacAskill's constituency office the front page of a newspaper hangs on the wall.
"Mandela supports MacAskill decision" proclaims a headline that must have offered a good deal of comfort to the justice secretary amidst the opprobrium heaped on him after he released the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
When Abdelbaset al Megrahi left Scotland around 18 months ago, never in his worst nightmares could Mr MacAskill have imagined that he would still be alive going into the 2011 election.
The survival of Megrahi so far beyond his three-month life expectancy has provided plenty of ammunition for those who opposed Mr MacAskill's decision to release the UK's worst mass murderer.
But, according to Mr MacAskill himself, Lockerbie is not proving to be a big issue on the doorsteps as he defends his Edinburgh East seat, a marginal constituency balanced on a knife-edge.
Out canvassing, Mr MacAskill has come across the "odd individual" who opposed his decision. "Equally," Mr MacAskill said, "there is a great deal of support for me as an individual and a recognition that I had to make the decision."
Mr MacAskill argues that he came out of the decision with his "hands clean", unlike "charlatan and shameful" Labour who criticised the decision at Holyrood while at Westminster, government ministers were plotting for Megrahi's release.
"Is it an election issue?" Mr MacAskill asks. "Not that we've picked up," he adds, answering his own question.
In any case, Mr MacAskill's only serious rival for the seat is reluctant to make Lockerbie a defining election issue. For the Labour candidate Ewan Aitken, his reasons for playing down the Lockerbie controversy probably has more to do with his own beliefs than any embarrassment over his party's behaviour on the issue.
As a Church of Scotland minister, the Labour councillor is a strong proponent of "compassionate release", although he does have some reservations about how the decision to release Megrahi was arrived at.
Mr Aitken said: "Compassion is an all or nothing thing. There are clearly questions to be asked about the process in this case, but the principle of releasing somebody - no matter how heinous the crime - on compassion is one that I support. But I do ask questions about what happened in this case." He added: "This election here isn't about the life and death of an individual in Libya, it is about jobs."
[The readers' comments that follow the report are also worth reading.]
Friday, 29 April 2011
Should the Syrian ambassador ever have been invited to the Abbey?
[The following is the text of a letter by Dr Jim Swire submitted yesterday to The Scotsman but not (yet) published:]
I wish the young couple marrying today every imaginable happiness following their fairytale romance stemming from St Andrews. If they are blessed with children, may they all thrive and blossom too.
I am very relieved to hear that the invitation to the Syrian ambassador to attend the Abbey service has been withdrawn, presumably on the advice of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. But there are more profound reasons, much closer to home for Scotland than the present violence in Syria, as to why I believe it was imperative to exclude him.
Those who still believe that the origins of the Lockerbie bombing lay with the Libyan (Megrahi's) use of a conventional time bomb ingested at Luqa airport, Malta, have to live with two particularly amazing 'coincidences', as well as the damning indictment of the verdict from the UN's special observer Hans Koechler, and the findings of our own SCCRC that the verdict may have been a miscarriage of justice.
First the Lockerbie plane 'happened' to fly for just 38 minutes before exploding.
Second there had been a break-in to Heathrow the actual night before Lockerbie adjacent to where the bomb was loaded there the following evening. This was concealed from the court until after the verdict had been reached, though the investigating Scottish police must surely have known of it. The break-in offered the perfect position and timing for the introduction of a Syrian type bomb.
The court did hear unequivocal evidence that a member of Ahmed Jibril's PFLP-GC terror group in Damascus was the unique origin of bombs which were stable on the ground, but always exploded between 35 and 45 minutes from the take-off of an aircraft. Perfect for introduction the night before use.
The court chose to ignore the flight time, even though it did know that it matched the obligatory flight-time of these Damascus bombs.
The Damascus based PFLP-GC's bomb-maker was a Jordanian man called Marwan Khreesat, the evidence is that he was also an American intelligence asset and a triple agent. He was working, long term, for Ahmed Jibril, a one time member of the Syrian armed forces and head of the PFLP-GC in Damascus at the time of Lockerbie. According to MOSSAD, Khreesat had been implicated in the 1970 bombing of a Swissair plane in which 47 people died. There is also strong evidence that a Khreesat bomb had destroyed an El Al plane in 1972. That bomb consisted of 250 grams of explosive hidden in a radio and triggered by a barometric switch.
Sounds familiar?
His involvement in Lockerbie might, to say the least, have been an embarrassment for the USA, had it become known that one of their assets had made the lethal bomb, killing so many of their own citizens.
The Lockerbie court had also asked Damascus for evidential material requested by the defence, and was rejected out of hand. Nevertheless the court did hear that the timers for Khreesat's bombs were actually manufactured in a PFLP-GC facility in the suburbs of Damascus itself. Still the penny did not drop.
Unlike his father, the present President Assad of Syria may be impotent before the terror apparatus installed by his father, but I would still have found the presence of the current Syrian ambassador at the Royal wedding an insult to the memory of my daughter Flora, murdered, with 269 others, probably by a Syrian bomb, over Lockerbie.
All this remains speculation of course, until Scotland finds a way responsibly to review the Zeist verdict. We have waited for that to happen for 10 years so far: maybe whatever transpires on the 5th of May will help us and Scotland.
Meanwhile may today's festivities usher in a truly long and happy relationship, for Catherine and William, started within the ancient walls of St Andrews.
[Because of another busy long weekend in prospect at Gannaga Lodge, it is unlikely that there will be further posts to this blog before Monday.]
I wish the young couple marrying today every imaginable happiness following their fairytale romance stemming from St Andrews. If they are blessed with children, may they all thrive and blossom too.
I am very relieved to hear that the invitation to the Syrian ambassador to attend the Abbey service has been withdrawn, presumably on the advice of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. But there are more profound reasons, much closer to home for Scotland than the present violence in Syria, as to why I believe it was imperative to exclude him.
Those who still believe that the origins of the Lockerbie bombing lay with the Libyan (Megrahi's) use of a conventional time bomb ingested at Luqa airport, Malta, have to live with two particularly amazing 'coincidences', as well as the damning indictment of the verdict from the UN's special observer Hans Koechler, and the findings of our own SCCRC that the verdict may have been a miscarriage of justice.
First the Lockerbie plane 'happened' to fly for just 38 minutes before exploding.
Second there had been a break-in to Heathrow the actual night before Lockerbie adjacent to where the bomb was loaded there the following evening. This was concealed from the court until after the verdict had been reached, though the investigating Scottish police must surely have known of it. The break-in offered the perfect position and timing for the introduction of a Syrian type bomb.
The court did hear unequivocal evidence that a member of Ahmed Jibril's PFLP-GC terror group in Damascus was the unique origin of bombs which were stable on the ground, but always exploded between 35 and 45 minutes from the take-off of an aircraft. Perfect for introduction the night before use.
The court chose to ignore the flight time, even though it did know that it matched the obligatory flight-time of these Damascus bombs.
The Damascus based PFLP-GC's bomb-maker was a Jordanian man called Marwan Khreesat, the evidence is that he was also an American intelligence asset and a triple agent. He was working, long term, for Ahmed Jibril, a one time member of the Syrian armed forces and head of the PFLP-GC in Damascus at the time of Lockerbie. According to MOSSAD, Khreesat had been implicated in the 1970 bombing of a Swissair plane in which 47 people died. There is also strong evidence that a Khreesat bomb had destroyed an El Al plane in 1972. That bomb consisted of 250 grams of explosive hidden in a radio and triggered by a barometric switch.
Sounds familiar?
His involvement in Lockerbie might, to say the least, have been an embarrassment for the USA, had it become known that one of their assets had made the lethal bomb, killing so many of their own citizens.
The Lockerbie court had also asked Damascus for evidential material requested by the defence, and was rejected out of hand. Nevertheless the court did hear that the timers for Khreesat's bombs were actually manufactured in a PFLP-GC facility in the suburbs of Damascus itself. Still the penny did not drop.
Unlike his father, the present President Assad of Syria may be impotent before the terror apparatus installed by his father, but I would still have found the presence of the current Syrian ambassador at the Royal wedding an insult to the memory of my daughter Flora, murdered, with 269 others, probably by a Syrian bomb, over Lockerbie.
All this remains speculation of course, until Scotland finds a way responsibly to review the Zeist verdict. We have waited for that to happen for 10 years so far: maybe whatever transpires on the 5th of May will help us and Scotland.
Meanwhile may today's festivities usher in a truly long and happy relationship, for Catherine and William, started within the ancient walls of St Andrews.
[Because of another busy long weekend in prospect at Gannaga Lodge, it is unlikely that there will be further posts to this blog before Monday.]
Thursday, 28 April 2011
Significance of Lockerbie for Scotland's future leaders
[What follows is the text of a letter submitted by Dr Jim Swire on Tuesday to The Herald. It has not (yet) been published.]
Today we have confirmation, from Susan Stipp of the University of Copenhagen, that to have flown civil aircraft during the ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland might have endangered innocent lives. At the time Willie Walsh of British Airways actively sought to have the flight bans lifted. This from the CEO of the airline which in 1982 had come within a whisker of losing a 747 to the ash cloud from Mount Galunggung in Indonesia. There were 247 passengers plus the crew aboard that aircraft. A close match for the 259 aboard the Lockerbie flight.
In 1988, on the night before Lockerbie, we now know, though the Zeist trial court did not, that Heathrow airport was broken into, close to where the bags for the Lockerbie flight were assembled the following evening.
Although reported immediately in its night security log, the airport took no steps to find out the identity or motive of the intruder, nor to prevent any consequences. That would have entailed a costly suspension of outgoing flights on 21st December 1988. 16 hours later 270 people died at Lockerbie, thanks to a bomb loaded at that same airport, with bags assembled for the flight adjacent to the break-in point. Only then were outgoing flights suspended, pending investigation. It was not till after the verdict against Mr Megrahi that the break-in came into public view, despite 12 years of Scottish police investigation.
On 22 December 1988, in the House of Commons, Nicholas Soames MP asked Paul Channon, (Transport Secretary): 'May I ask my Right Honourable Friend to confirm that security at Heathrow and Gatwick is at a very high and sustainable level and will remain so?'
Paul Channon replied: 'I certainly confirm that the security arrangements at Heathrow and Gatwick are among the best in world. We intend to maintain them at that level, and if more needs to be done it will be done.' *
Yet during the night of 20/21 December the Heathrow night security logs had shown that a break in had occurred, about which no action was taken until after 7.03 the following evening of 21 December. Had Channon been informed? All we know is that Heathrow did know immediately but had failed to act, and that the Metropolitan police were actively investigating the break-in by January 1989. Therefore it is hard to believe that the Scottish police did not know throughout their more than a decade long marathon investigation.
The priorities of Mr Walsh and, far more culpably, of the Heathrow authorities, are expressions of the ethos of modern British capitalism.
In Scotland we investigated and tried two Libyans for causing the Lockerbie atrocity, then we set one free using the compassion built into our justice system. Of that last act, I believe, we should be proud.
However the manner of conducting the Lockerbie investigation and the trial of the accused are increasingly seen to have been deeply flawed, and thus far Scotland has proved incapable of re-examining what she has done: does this matter after all these years?
Of course it does to us relatives of the dead who still seek the truth. It should also matter to all who use Heathrow airport, and to all Scots.
However I was astonished when David Cameron, despite the lessons of recent history, took a lead in seeking to enforce regime change upon Libya (for that is what it has become). I have heard from credible insiders that the reason he did this was in part because he was incensed by the pictures he saw of the reception of Mr Megrahi, as a hero, at Tripoli airport, on transfer home from Scotland.
The Prime Minister again and again refers to Mr Megrahi as 'the Lockerbie bomber' yet there is available now sufficient evidence to show, at the very least, that Mr Megrahi should never have been convicted in the first place. Of course that neither exonerates nor implicates the regime for which he worked
It seems that to dislodge the perception of Mr Megrahi's guilt will require that the natural desire of Scottish authorities to protect their own reputations over this disastrous failure of investigation and justice, now so deeply ingrained, will require a strong and astute leadership in Scotland. That this be achieved ought to be of prime concern to all Scottish citizens: who knows when he may need accurate investigation or impartial justice?
Shortly we will be voting, I hope that the result will be strong and astute leadership, willing to concede the vital importance of re-assessing the Lockerbie case for Scotland's reputation and the well being of her citizens.
There is so much we could improve, and even as polling day approaches, the activities of 'the Old Firm's' hatreds also trumpet the need for a strong hand at Scotland's tiller. Democracy dictates that we all have a hand in the choice as to whose that hand should be.
Unless we take that difficult (and costly!) step we will be mimicking, and by association supporting, the complacent and dangerous nonsense heard in the Westminster Parliament on 22 December 1988.
* These quotations are taken from the booklet Lockerbie, a "Bum Rap" published by the late David Rollo of the SNP, dedicated to the support of Marina Larracoechea**, Tam Dalyell, John Mosey, Jim Swire, and Teddy Taylor, in their search for truth and justice.
** RB: A letter from the indefatigable Marina de Larracoechea appears today on the Spanish Deia website, responding to an article on 22 April about her views on the Lockerbie case and her reaction to current events in Libya. Well worth reading if you have some Spanish. Google Translate gives a flavour, but no more than 75 per cent accuracy.
[This post has now been picked up by Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. The relevant articles can be read here and here.]
Today we have confirmation, from Susan Stipp of the University of Copenhagen, that to have flown civil aircraft during the ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland might have endangered innocent lives. At the time Willie Walsh of British Airways actively sought to have the flight bans lifted. This from the CEO of the airline which in 1982 had come within a whisker of losing a 747 to the ash cloud from Mount Galunggung in Indonesia. There were 247 passengers plus the crew aboard that aircraft. A close match for the 259 aboard the Lockerbie flight.
In 1988, on the night before Lockerbie, we now know, though the Zeist trial court did not, that Heathrow airport was broken into, close to where the bags for the Lockerbie flight were assembled the following evening.
Although reported immediately in its night security log, the airport took no steps to find out the identity or motive of the intruder, nor to prevent any consequences. That would have entailed a costly suspension of outgoing flights on 21st December 1988. 16 hours later 270 people died at Lockerbie, thanks to a bomb loaded at that same airport, with bags assembled for the flight adjacent to the break-in point. Only then were outgoing flights suspended, pending investigation. It was not till after the verdict against Mr Megrahi that the break-in came into public view, despite 12 years of Scottish police investigation.
On 22 December 1988, in the House of Commons, Nicholas Soames MP asked Paul Channon, (Transport Secretary): 'May I ask my Right Honourable Friend to confirm that security at Heathrow and Gatwick is at a very high and sustainable level and will remain so?'
Paul Channon replied: 'I certainly confirm that the security arrangements at Heathrow and Gatwick are among the best in world. We intend to maintain them at that level, and if more needs to be done it will be done.' *
Yet during the night of 20/21 December the Heathrow night security logs had shown that a break in had occurred, about which no action was taken until after 7.03 the following evening of 21 December. Had Channon been informed? All we know is that Heathrow did know immediately but had failed to act, and that the Metropolitan police were actively investigating the break-in by January 1989. Therefore it is hard to believe that the Scottish police did not know throughout their more than a decade long marathon investigation.
The priorities of Mr Walsh and, far more culpably, of the Heathrow authorities, are expressions of the ethos of modern British capitalism.
In Scotland we investigated and tried two Libyans for causing the Lockerbie atrocity, then we set one free using the compassion built into our justice system. Of that last act, I believe, we should be proud.
However the manner of conducting the Lockerbie investigation and the trial of the accused are increasingly seen to have been deeply flawed, and thus far Scotland has proved incapable of re-examining what she has done: does this matter after all these years?
Of course it does to us relatives of the dead who still seek the truth. It should also matter to all who use Heathrow airport, and to all Scots.
However I was astonished when David Cameron, despite the lessons of recent history, took a lead in seeking to enforce regime change upon Libya (for that is what it has become). I have heard from credible insiders that the reason he did this was in part because he was incensed by the pictures he saw of the reception of Mr Megrahi, as a hero, at Tripoli airport, on transfer home from Scotland.
The Prime Minister again and again refers to Mr Megrahi as 'the Lockerbie bomber' yet there is available now sufficient evidence to show, at the very least, that Mr Megrahi should never have been convicted in the first place. Of course that neither exonerates nor implicates the regime for which he worked
It seems that to dislodge the perception of Mr Megrahi's guilt will require that the natural desire of Scottish authorities to protect their own reputations over this disastrous failure of investigation and justice, now so deeply ingrained, will require a strong and astute leadership in Scotland. That this be achieved ought to be of prime concern to all Scottish citizens: who knows when he may need accurate investigation or impartial justice?
Shortly we will be voting, I hope that the result will be strong and astute leadership, willing to concede the vital importance of re-assessing the Lockerbie case for Scotland's reputation and the well being of her citizens.
There is so much we could improve, and even as polling day approaches, the activities of 'the Old Firm's' hatreds also trumpet the need for a strong hand at Scotland's tiller. Democracy dictates that we all have a hand in the choice as to whose that hand should be.
Unless we take that difficult (and costly!) step we will be mimicking, and by association supporting, the complacent and dangerous nonsense heard in the Westminster Parliament on 22 December 1988.
* These quotations are taken from the booklet Lockerbie, a "Bum Rap" published by the late David Rollo of the SNP, dedicated to the support of Marina Larracoechea**, Tam Dalyell, John Mosey, Jim Swire, and Teddy Taylor, in their search for truth and justice.
** RB: A letter from the indefatigable Marina de Larracoechea appears today on the Spanish Deia website, responding to an article on 22 April about her views on the Lockerbie case and her reaction to current events in Libya. Well worth reading if you have some Spanish. Google Translate gives a flavour, but no more than 75 per cent accuracy.
[This post has now been picked up by Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. The relevant articles can be read here and here.]
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
The Lockerbie rationale for participation in the Libya war
[An article by Robert Parry published today on the investigative journalism Consortium News website contains the following:]
What’s also clear from the US news coverage is that the [New York] Times editors and other opinion-shapers are engaged in (...) building the “political will” for this new war and future occupation [of Libya] by excluding any serious questions about the wisdom of the desired course. (...)
Meanwhile, there has been zero reexamination of a key rationale for US participation in the war, Gaddafi’s alleged guilt in the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
“The blood of Americans is on [Gaddafi’s] hands because he was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103,” declared Sen John McCain, R-Arizona, after a recent trip to rebel-held Benghazi during which McCain joined the call for a larger US military role.
The Times and other leading US news outlets also treat Libya’s guilt as a flat fact, but the case actually remains murky.
In 2001, a Scottish court did convict Libyan agent Ali al-Megrahi for the bombing which killed 270 people. But the judgment appears to have been more a political compromise than an act of justice. One of the judges told Dartmouth government professor Dirk Vandewalle about “enormous pressure put on the court to get a conviction.” [RB: This was officially denied by the Public Information Officer for the Scottish Judiciary.]
Megrahi’s conviction assuaged the understandable human desire to see someone punished for such a heinous crime, albeit a possibly innocent man.
In 2007, after the testimony of a key government witness was discredited, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission agreed to [refer the case back to the High Court since the conviction possibly constituted] a grave miscarriage of justice. However, that review was proceeding slowly in 2009 when Scottish authorities released Megrahi on humanitarian grounds, after he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
Megrahi dropped his appeal in order to gain the early release, but that doesn’t mean he was guilty. He has continued to assert his innocence and an objective press corps would reflect the doubts regarding his conviction.
The Scottish court’s purported reason for finding Megrahi guilty – while acquitting his co-defendant Lamin Khalifa Fhimah – was the testimony of Toni Gauci, owner of a clothing store in Malta who allegedly sold Megrahi a shirt, the remnants of which were found with the shards of the suitcase that contained the bomb.
The rest of the case rested on a theory that Megrahi put the luggage on a flight from Malta to Frankfurt, where it was transferred to a connecting flight to London, where it was transferred onto Pan Am 103 bound for New York, a decidedly unlikely way to undertake an act of terrorism given all the random variables involved.
Megrahi would have had to assume that three separate airport security systems – at Malta, Frankfurt and London – would fail to give any serious scrutiny to an unaccompanied suitcase or to detect the bomb despite security officials being on the lookout for just such a threat.
As historian William Blum recounted in a Consortium News article after Megrahi’s 2001 conviction, “The case for the suitcase's hypothetical travels must also deal with the fact that, according to Air Malta, all the documented luggage on KM180 was collected by passengers in Frankfurt and did not continue in transit to London, and that two Pan Am on-duty officials in Frankfurt testified that no unaccompanied luggage was introduced onto Pan Am 103A, the feeder flight to London.”
There also were problems with Gauci’s belated identification of Megrahi as the shirt-buyer a decade after the fact. Gauci had made contradictory IDs and had earlier given a physical description that didn’t match Megrahi. Gauci reportedly received a $2 million reward for his testimony and then moved to Australia, where he went into retirement.
In 2007, the Scottish review panel decided to reconsider Megrahi’s conviction after concluding that Gauci’s testimony was unbelievable. And without Gauci’s testimony, the case against Megrahi was virtually the same as the case against his co-defendant who was acquitted.
However, after Megrahi’s conviction in 2001, more international pressure was put on Libya, which was then regarded as the archetypal “rogue” state. Indeed, it was to get onerous economic sanctions lifted that Libya took “responsibility” for the Pan Am attack and paid reparations to the victims' families even as Libyan officials continued to deny guilt.
Yet, despite these doubts about the Pan Am 103 case, the US news media continues to treat Libya’s guilt as a flat fact.
Earlier this month, there was some excitement over the possibility that Gaddafi would be fingered as the Pan Am 103 mastermind by a high-level defector, former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa, who was believed to be in charge of Libyan intelligence in 1988.
Moussa Koussa was questioned by Scottish authorities but apparently shed little new light on the case and was allowed to go free after the interview. Very quickly the press interest over Moussa Koussa faded away.
Yet, as the clamor now builds in Official Washington for an escalation of US participation in the war – and as the Pan Am 103 case is cited over and over as justification – there has been no serious reexamination of the mystery, only the repetition of Libya’s assumed guilt.
Looking across the landscape of the US news media, it is hard to find any major voice suggesting peace negotiations with Gaddafi’s government or even advocating that the sincerity of its acceptance of the African Union’s plan for a cease-fire and democratic reforms should be put to the test.
Instead, virtually all the talking heads are armchair warriors, with the neoconservative editors of the Washington Post and the New York Times again leading the way by condemning Obama’s decision to minimize US military participation.
[A similar line is taken in an article by Ramzy Baroud headlined US rethinks strategy: war as opportunity in Libya on the Middle East Online website.]
What’s also clear from the US news coverage is that the [New York] Times editors and other opinion-shapers are engaged in (...) building the “political will” for this new war and future occupation [of Libya] by excluding any serious questions about the wisdom of the desired course. (...)
Meanwhile, there has been zero reexamination of a key rationale for US participation in the war, Gaddafi’s alleged guilt in the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
“The blood of Americans is on [Gaddafi’s] hands because he was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103,” declared Sen John McCain, R-Arizona, after a recent trip to rebel-held Benghazi during which McCain joined the call for a larger US military role.
The Times and other leading US news outlets also treat Libya’s guilt as a flat fact, but the case actually remains murky.
In 2001, a Scottish court did convict Libyan agent Ali al-Megrahi for the bombing which killed 270 people. But the judgment appears to have been more a political compromise than an act of justice. One of the judges told Dartmouth government professor Dirk Vandewalle about “enormous pressure put on the court to get a conviction.” [RB: This was officially denied by the Public Information Officer for the Scottish Judiciary.]
Megrahi’s conviction assuaged the understandable human desire to see someone punished for such a heinous crime, albeit a possibly innocent man.
In 2007, after the testimony of a key government witness was discredited, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission agreed to [refer the case back to the High Court since the conviction possibly constituted] a grave miscarriage of justice. However, that review was proceeding slowly in 2009 when Scottish authorities released Megrahi on humanitarian grounds, after he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
Megrahi dropped his appeal in order to gain the early release, but that doesn’t mean he was guilty. He has continued to assert his innocence and an objective press corps would reflect the doubts regarding his conviction.
The Scottish court’s purported reason for finding Megrahi guilty – while acquitting his co-defendant Lamin Khalifa Fhimah – was the testimony of Toni Gauci, owner of a clothing store in Malta who allegedly sold Megrahi a shirt, the remnants of which were found with the shards of the suitcase that contained the bomb.
The rest of the case rested on a theory that Megrahi put the luggage on a flight from Malta to Frankfurt, where it was transferred to a connecting flight to London, where it was transferred onto Pan Am 103 bound for New York, a decidedly unlikely way to undertake an act of terrorism given all the random variables involved.
Megrahi would have had to assume that three separate airport security systems – at Malta, Frankfurt and London – would fail to give any serious scrutiny to an unaccompanied suitcase or to detect the bomb despite security officials being on the lookout for just such a threat.
As historian William Blum recounted in a Consortium News article after Megrahi’s 2001 conviction, “The case for the suitcase's hypothetical travels must also deal with the fact that, according to Air Malta, all the documented luggage on KM180 was collected by passengers in Frankfurt and did not continue in transit to London, and that two Pan Am on-duty officials in Frankfurt testified that no unaccompanied luggage was introduced onto Pan Am 103A, the feeder flight to London.”
There also were problems with Gauci’s belated identification of Megrahi as the shirt-buyer a decade after the fact. Gauci had made contradictory IDs and had earlier given a physical description that didn’t match Megrahi. Gauci reportedly received a $2 million reward for his testimony and then moved to Australia, where he went into retirement.
In 2007, the Scottish review panel decided to reconsider Megrahi’s conviction after concluding that Gauci’s testimony was unbelievable. And without Gauci’s testimony, the case against Megrahi was virtually the same as the case against his co-defendant who was acquitted.
However, after Megrahi’s conviction in 2001, more international pressure was put on Libya, which was then regarded as the archetypal “rogue” state. Indeed, it was to get onerous economic sanctions lifted that Libya took “responsibility” for the Pan Am attack and paid reparations to the victims' families even as Libyan officials continued to deny guilt.
Yet, despite these doubts about the Pan Am 103 case, the US news media continues to treat Libya’s guilt as a flat fact.
Earlier this month, there was some excitement over the possibility that Gaddafi would be fingered as the Pan Am 103 mastermind by a high-level defector, former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa, who was believed to be in charge of Libyan intelligence in 1988.
Moussa Koussa was questioned by Scottish authorities but apparently shed little new light on the case and was allowed to go free after the interview. Very quickly the press interest over Moussa Koussa faded away.
Yet, as the clamor now builds in Official Washington for an escalation of US participation in the war – and as the Pan Am 103 case is cited over and over as justification – there has been no serious reexamination of the mystery, only the repetition of Libya’s assumed guilt.
Looking across the landscape of the US news media, it is hard to find any major voice suggesting peace negotiations with Gaddafi’s government or even advocating that the sincerity of its acceptance of the African Union’s plan for a cease-fire and democratic reforms should be put to the test.
Instead, virtually all the talking heads are armchair warriors, with the neoconservative editors of the Washington Post and the New York Times again leading the way by condemning Obama’s decision to minimize US military participation.
[A similar line is taken in an article by Ramzy Baroud headlined US rethinks strategy: war as opportunity in Libya on the Middle East Online website.]
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