Blood money and blackmail
Libya this week secured the lifting of UN sanctions imposed on the country in 1992 -- but at what price, asks Rasha Saad
Click to view caption |
Hailing reconciliation? Security Council members at the United Nations headquarters vote on Friday 12 September to lift sanctions that were imposed against Libya for its alleged involvement in the bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988
|
Hundreds of Libyans danced and sang in the streets of Tripoli until the morning hours on Saturday as the country celebrated the lifting of more than a decade of UN sanctions. Holding portraits of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and waving flags, scores of young people gathered in the central Green Square to welcome the formal end of the sanctions.
The UN Security Council voted on Friday to lift sanctions slapped on Libya in 1992 as punishment for the 1988 bombing of a PanAm airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland. The long awaited measure was seen as a landmark step towards ending Libya's international isolation. The move has also cleared the way for an initial Libyan payment of up to $10 million per victim (totalling $2.7 billion) to the families of the 270 people killed in the downing of US PanAm flight 103. The vote passed 13-0 with abstentions from the United States and France. The US is still keeping its own sanctions on Libya, which were imposed in 1989 and which ban American oil companies from doing business with the north African country.
France's abstention, on the other hand, was motivated by fears that Tripoli might fail to live up to its commitment to pay compensation for the bombing of a French airliner. Paris had initially threatened to block the vote unless Tripoli paid more money to the relatives of the 170 passengers who were killed in 1989 when a UTA plane blew up over Niger, and for which Libya was blamed. In 1999, Tripoli paid some $34 million in compensation after a French court found six Libyans guilty in absentia for the attack.
Libya's state television hailed Friday's decision as a victory for the Libyan people, while the official JANA news agency said "the Libyan people and its leader lead the battle [to lift the sanctions] with wisdom."
However, many Arab observers believe that Libya paid a rather heavy price for the lifting of UN sanctions. Analyst Rashid Khashana wrote in the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper that after remaining defiant for 30 years, the Libyan leader has now found himself coming to terms with America, but with a huge delay and at an exorbitant financial and political price. "The irony is that this price will be paid to the worst US administration with the worst positions on Arab issues," he wrote.
Indeed, the financial price that Libya paid has been quite steep. Lockerbie's $2.7 billion settlement is regarded as one of the highest compensations ever paid in similar incidents, not to mention the compensation it still has to pay to the families of the victims of the UTA airliner. Sources close to the recent talks between the victims' families and Tripoli say that a sum of between $500,000 and $1 million per family was discussed.
Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University and an expert on the Lockerbie issue, believes that the political price paid by Libya is even higher than the financial one. Nafaa contends that a deal was struck between Libya and the US in which Libya vowed to change its political stance, especially regarding the Palestinian and Iraqi issues, in return for saving Gaddafi's regime. "The Libyan regime has chosen to accept responsibility despite years of denial and paid money to secure its survival and avoid the fate of Saddam Hussein. However only the future will tell whether this is guaranteed or not," said Nafaa.
Nafaa, however does not believe that the lifting of sanctions will end the Libyan-American saga. "The US will continue to blackmail Libya," he said.
