Opinion

The hidden side of the Lockerbie Bombing that is never talked about

December 26, 2024

MEMO

Some of the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 after it crashed onto the town of Lockerbie in Scotland, on 21st December 1988. [Photo by Bryn Colton/Getty Images]

by Dr Mustafa Fetouri
MFetouri


On 15 April 1992, I and my future wife took a flight from Tripoli to Cairo to spend few days before heading back to school in Athens. Midnight of that day was a milestone because the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 748 would come into effect, banning all civilian flights to and from Libya. Seven long years would pass before flights were allowed again.

It all started when Pan AM Flight 103 en route from London to New York exploded on the night of 21 December 1988, killing 270 innocent people including 11 on the ground in the Scottish town of Lockerbie, making the sleepy town a household name albeit for the wrong reason.

An army of investigators first accused Iran and later a Palestinian group before ultimately “correcting” themselves and settled for Libya, indicting two of its citizens who were described as intelligence agents which was erroneous. Demands were later made for their extradition to stand trial not in Scotland where the attack happened or under United Kingdom jurisdiction, of which Scotland is a part, but to the United States. In the end the two accused were tried in a special Scottish court set up in The Netherlands based on an idea proposed by Professor Robert Black, an authority on Scottish constitutional law. The rest was history.

What is not yet history are two things: one who was behind that terrible human tragedy and why? 36 years have passed since the skies over Lockerbie rained human corpses, suit cases, personal items and children’s toys and we are not any closer to the truth simply because the UK government have been hiding the truth about the Lockerbie Bombing by banning the release of certain documents related to the tragedy.

The second issue that is not yet history is how did Libya and its people cope with the entire world looking suspiciously at them while the UNSC sanctioned almost every aspect of their daily lives by imposing a regime of tyrannical sanctions against them. Moreover, why countries did not oppose the sanctions at the time and help the ordinary Libyans go about their lives like taking flight to Malta, supposedly the starting point of the whole tragedy, less than an hour from Tripoli?

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Too much has been written about the Lockerbie Bombing over the last 36 years and lots of ink have been spilled every anniversary. We have learned, maybe more than we should have, about the lives of those killed, their professions, and their families with little regard for their privacy. In almost every report or article Libya was always described as the top world terrorist state, worse than any other the world has seen. Its government was oppressive and “in love with terror” for terror’s sake and would not hesitate to perpetrate such a horrendous act. Much of that, of course, was propaganda meant to emphasise its guilt over Lockerbie.

Sadly, too little was said about the affects the sanctions on daily lives of over four million people who did not necessarily support the government of the day nor accepted labelling it as a “terrorist” government.

Precise data about the affair is lacking because much of the documents were lost during the 2011 upheaval in Libya, a former Libyan deputy foreign minister anonymously told me. He said “steps were taken to “document” the overall losses Libya incurred because of the UNSC sanctions. As to why other countries did not intervene to help the Libyans? My interlocutor said most countries were afraid because all Lockerbie-related UNSC resolutions were adopted under UN Chapter VII, which means all UN member states were obliged to uphold them.”

Another former Gaddafi-era minister who was responsible for the Lockerbie losses file, speaking anonymously from outside Libya, said “we had everything including the number of deaths” as people drove to nearby countries to travel further or seek medical treatments. Because of the sanctions, people wishing to leave Libya had to drive to Djerba in Tunisia for example and take a flight from there. Those going to Libya had to fly to Djerba and continue in a car to Tripoli. The former minister said the government wanted to have the file ready to present to the US, UK governments and the UNSC “in the appropriate time” to discuss the possibilities of compensating Libya for its losses.

There are some estimated numbers indicating Libya’s huge losses because of the sanctions. Between 1992 and 1999, when sanctions were lifted, the oil sector lost between $18 billion and $33 billion both as lost opportunities and lost revenue since UNSC Resolutions 748 and 883, in particular, targeted Libya’s oil. At the time, Libya had an estimated $8 billion of its assets frozen abroad denying it the cash needed to buy all kinds of equipments, expertise, machinery, food and medicine.

READ: US charges Libyan in 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270

It is believed that the aviation sector which was the top target of sanctions lost an estimated $30 billion over the sanction years. The healthcare sector lost an estimated $92 million while transportation over $900 million and agriculture and industry nearly $10 billion. The sanctions also resulted in the rise of deaths because most people had to travel overland. Different sources put the number of deaths around nine thousands and thousands more injured.

At the everyday level, prices of daily food stuff increased by an estimated 40 per cent while medicines shot up by an estimated 30 per cent, despite the fact that most medicines were available free of charge but the government did not have enough hard currency to import them in adequate quantities.

By the time the UNSC sanctions were lifted in 1999, after an agreement was reached over the Lockerbie Bombing, the Libyan state accumulated nearly $100 billion of different losses. On top of that, Libya paid $2.7 billion as compensation to the victims and to have the sanctions lifted.

Hardly any western media did ever focus on the Libyan side of the Lockerbie tragedy.

The irony here is that another Libyan is due to go on trial in Washington next May accused of being the bomb maker despite the fact that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted in the case in 2001. Libya and the US, in August 2003, signed what is called “CLAIMS Settlement Agreement” ending all claims against each other including all claims arising from the Lockerbie disaster.

36 years on, Dr Jim Swire whose daughter Flora was killed in the disaster, conceded that the conviction of Al-Meghrahi was itself wrong. To him the upcoming trial of Abu Agila Masud is nothing but mockery of justice. In recent comment on the case which he pursued for the last 36 years, he called on the UK government to publish everything it knows about the atrocity.

It has been a fact of the case that the UK government continues to deliberately hide documents that recognise Libya and Al-Meghrahi are innocent. If such documents are published or passed to Mr Masud’s defence in May he will not be convicted.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.