[This is the headline over a Reuters news agency report from this date in 1998, as published on Safia Aoude’s Pan Am 103 Crash Website. It reads as follows:]
Arab League foreign ministers are expected to throw their diplomatic weight behind Libya this week in their first meeting since Britain and the United States agreed to hold the Lockerbie trial in a neutral country.
“The Lockerbie issue is on the front burner,” said an Arab official of the two days of talks starting on Wednesday.
“It is a priority based on the degree of attention which will be given not only in the official work of the council but on the sidelines as well.”
The Arab official said the Arab League was expected to call for clarification through UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
“The Libyans are worried Holland might be used as a conveyor belt,” he said.
“There is already an environment of mistrust and the language of take-it-or-leave-it is not helpful.
“So the work of the League will focus on supporting Libya's legitimate rights to seek more clarification and guarantees. We believe this will strengthen the Libyan position,” he said.
In their last talks in March, the foreign ministers of the 22-member League renewed support for Libya's call for an end to the UN sanctions imposed on Libya after it refused to give up for trial the suspects in the bombing which killed 270 people.
But Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi apparently wants more than lip service this time.
On Sunday, the Libyan news agency said Libya had abolished its ministerial portfolio charged with promoting Arab unity and emphasised that Libya belonged to the African continent.
The last task for Libya's Unity Affairs Minister Jomaa al-Fezzani will be to attend this week's Arab League meeting. Diplomats saw the move as timed to pressure the Arab League into backing up words with deeds, as African states have done.
The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in May [RB: actually June] called for an end to the sanctions and this month seven African leaders broke the embargo by flying into Libya without UN permission.
No Arab country has followed suit. Asked to comment, the Arab official said: “I would understand sometimes it's frustrating, but we are not competing with the OAU and Arabs cannot violate UN resolutions collectively. It should be decided country by country,” he said. “We have given strong collective diplomatic support to Libya.”
Reading this blog I just find it tragic how much my views have changed in the last decades. Call me unusually naive, but there was a time I felt certain that
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- UN was a respected association of countries of the world to work for fairness on a fair basis, and
- it's resolutions would have weight and importance
- The international trials delivered justice
- The Lockerbie-bomber was convicted by a western trial he could at least quite safely be regarded as guilty
- Sanctions were a peaceful and not-too-harmful way of changing things
- USA landed on the moon in '69.
The only belief I still have left - the moon landing - is unfortunately the one that matters least of them all.
I don't think I ever believed most of that. But then I've been exposed to Lockerbie-trial scepticism since day 1.
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