Following fast on Libya’s official acceptance last week of responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie and $2.7 billion in compensation to victims’ families, the UK and Bulgaria have tabled a draft resolution at the UN Security Council to end sanctions against the country. The United States, the target of the bombing, has said that it will not veto the motion, although for the moment it will continue to maintain its own embargo on Libya.
Behind closed doors, a deal has clearly been done. The road to extremely profitable ties with Libya will be open — something of great interest to business in the West. It stands to make a lot of money in Libya. The country needs to invest massively in economic redevelopment and is eager to buy Western products and services.
But now France is rocking the boat. It threatens to veto the resolution on the grounds that Tripoli’s payment to the families of the victims of flight UTA 772, shot down over Niger in 1989, was paltry in comparison to the Lockerbie deal.
Paris’ irritation is mercenary, albeit understandable. It dresses up its objections in high moral terms, accusing Washington and London of ignoring the UTA victims, who included Americans and Britons, but this is all about money. France is annoyed that the US has got a better deal than the one it hammered out with Libya last year — just $190,000 for the UTA victims’ families compared to $10 million for those of the Pan Am victims. In any event, France has no grounds to veto the removal of sanctions; they were imposed purely in response to the Lockerbie bombing, nothing else.
The French did a deal with Libya last year. If they got it wrong — as they clearly did — that is their fault. That is what the veto threat is all about. The French government does not want to admit to its public that it miscalculated. It is under enough pressure as it is over the catastrophic heat wave and the way the health services responded.
What does President Chirac think he can gain with this sideshow? Does he expect Libya to send a check for a further $1.67 billion? One sympathizes deeply with the families of the UTA victims; no amount of money is going to ease their pain, just as no amount — despite being more than 50 times the French compensation — will ease that of the Pan Am relatives. But Paris should not have been willing to settle for so little. They did so for mercenary reasons — the hope of future business deals with Tripoli. Playing now to the domestic public gallery with threats of a veto merely highlights the original error. It will not win France any future business favors in Tripoli either.
