By Ibrahim Nafie * Against an intensified focus on the interconnected crises in the Middle East the US and Great Britain officially declared their approval for holding the trial of the two Libyans accused of downing the Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie before a Scottish court in the Hague. Washington and London asked UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to inform the Libyan leadership that their initiative is a short-term offer and that, if Tripoli refuses, they will appeal to the Security Council to intensify sanctions against Libya to include a comprehensive oil embargo. The offer is, in essence, a concession to a Libyan proposal that Washington and London had formerly rejected. In a press conference, held simultaneously with her British counterpart, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said that Washington intended "to call Libya's bluff." She added that the offer was non-negotiable and that Libya could either accept it as it is or not at all. The US-British initiative is a positive step towards bringing the Lockerbie crisis to a close. It has been a long stand-off. When investigations into crash pointed to two Libyans, Libya refused to yield to US and British demands to hand them over for trial in the UK or the US. Its refusal resulted in the UN Security Council resolution imposing an international air and military embargo on Libya, sanctions which have been periodically renewed since then. In response Libya, in coordination with the Arab League, the OAU, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and the Non-Alignment Movement, has campaigned to put forward alternatives to US and UK demands so as to safeguard its sovereign right to protect its citizens and ensure a fair trial for the suspects. Its efforts resulted in an Arab League-OAU initiative, announced at the closing session of the meeting of the OAU Ministerial Council in 1997, proposing three alternatives: firstly, to try the suspects in a third country selected by the Security Council, secondly, to try them in the International Court of Justice in the Hague in accordance with Scottish law and before Scottish judges and, thirdly, to study the possibility of creating an international criminal court to try them. The US and the UK, however, stuck to their guns, exposing their resolve to breach that nation's sovereign rights, rights upheld by the Montreal Protocol of 1972. According to this agreement, three parties have the jurisdiction to investigate and try cases involving terrorist crimes committed against airliners and their passengers and crew: the country in whose airspace the crime was committed (which, in the Lockerbie case, is Scotland), the country in which the airplane was registered (US), and the country in which those accused of perpetrating the crime are located (Libya). The US and the UK have consistently refused to acknowledge Libya's equal rights to jurisdiction in accordance with the Montreal Convention and have persisted in their hopes that sanctions against Libya would sooner or later force it to cave in to their demands. The question that remains is why the US and UK came up with their initiative at this particular time. One of the most compelling reasons relates to the announcement of the OAU, at last June's Burkina Faso summit, declaring the intention of members to break the embargo should the US and UK refuse to review the sanctions and to accept the OAU's proposal to try the Libyan suspects in the International Court of Justice. The OAU declaration added force to the International Court of Justice's ruling of March 1998 asserting its jurisdiction over the Lockerbie case and upholding the 1972 Montreal Convention as the legal authority in the case. Indications that the OAU's position was shared by the members of the Non-Aligned Movement threatened a collective demonstration of opposition to the sanctions imposed on Libya. Even if it were not implemented in practice, any resolution to this effect would deal a devastating blow to US policy and underscore the risks of persisting in a policy of "dictating its will" regardless of international opinion. The US could not possibly take action against every country refusing to abide by the sanctions against Libya, signalling the first manifestation of the limits to US dominance in the post Cold War period. A second factor contributing to the timing of the US-UK initiative has been what observers describe as a sharp division of opinion among the families of the Lockerbie victims. While some families continue to insist that the suspects be tried in the US or Scotland, others have expressed their willingness to accept Libya's compromise solution. The announcement of the US-UK initiative closely followed the bombing of American embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es-Salam and the mounting threats against US interests as a result of retaliatory strikes against Sudan and Afghanistan. In this regard, the US-UK initiative may be seen as an attempt to defuse at least one of the many crises in the Middle East. If the US-UK offer is to bear fruit, however, efforts must be made to generate a suitable climate. As a first step towards this end Tripoli must be allowed to have a say with regard to the arrangements for the trial. These arrangements entail many details and it is only fair for Libya to be able to reassure itself of the integrity of the procedural measures surrounding the trial of two of its citizens. Libya must therefore be party to any contractual arrangements regarding the trial, and this requires contacts between Libya and the US, the UK and Holland, either directly or through the auspices of the UN Secretary-General. Secondly, the US and the UK must tone down the language of intimidation. The threat to step up sanctions against Libya if it does accept their proposals is at odds with the spirit of the initiative. Their demand that if the Libyan defendants are found guilty their sentence should be executed in Scotland looks like a case of jumping the gun. All attempts must be made to keep the focus on the case rather than on political point scoring. Immediately following Libya's acceptance of the US-UK initiative, the Security Council issued a resolution compelling Libya to produce any Libyan witnesses called for by the court. This new stipulation has aroused suspicions in Tripoli that the US and the UK may be seeking to conduct a witch hunt of Libyan officials, even if there are no specific accusations directed against them, in order to undermine the Libyan regime. It is our hope that the US and British governments respond to Libya's legitimate demands and avoid all actions that might abort the initiative. It would do well for officials in the two western capitals to realise that it is in their interests as much as it is in the interest of Libya and the Libyan people to close the Lockerbie file. Such a development would go at least some way to deflating the accusations of double standards which the Arabs and most peoples of the Third World level against the US. * The writer is Chairman of the Board of Al-Ahram Organization and Editor-in-Chief of Al-Ahram.
