Libya - The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi by Alison Pargeter

Author:Alison Pargeter [Pargeter, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300139327
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2012-06-27T07:00:00+00:00

Indeed, Qaddafi used the Lockerbie issue to portray himself as the wronged victim of Western aggression and the heroic champion of Arabs and oppressed peoples everywhere.

There was no way that the restless revolutionary was going to simply roll over and comply with Western demands to hand the suspects over. Taking the role of defender of the two men, Qaddafi declared: ‘the Libyan people would say, “these two men are our compatriots … You cannot take them and give them to another country … We are not sheep that he [Qaddafi] would dispose of us in this way, handing two, three or four of us out.” ’24 His comments were not far off the mark. For all that Libyans may not have supported Qaddafi, most were deeply uncomfortable with the idea of surrendering two of their countrymen to the US and Britain like lambs to the slaughter. Moreover, Al-Megrahi came from an important Libyan tribe – the Megraha – that had proved a loyal ally of the regime. The Megraha were also the tribe of Qaddafi's right-hand man, Abdelsalam Jalloud – something that only added to the pressures on Qaddafi to resist demands for the men to be handed over.

In the months that followed the November 1991 indictment, Libya, Britain and the US locked horns in a period of intense diplomatic wrangling.25 As Washington and London tightened the screws and talk of sanctions became increasingly commonplace, a desperate Qaddafi tried to avoid crisis by coming up with face-saving ways of making it look as though Libya was willing to cooperate. First, he proposed that Libya would try the two men itself – a suggestion that was quickly dismissed by Britain and the US. Then, in February 1992, terrified of the prospect of sanctions, the Colonel informed the UN that he would consider handing the two men over for trial in a third country, such as a fellow Arab state or Malta. He also made a series of conciliatory gestures: he announced that Libya would comply with French demands over the UTA affair, and that it would sever relations with terrorist groups that targeted innocent civilians. Tripoli even went as far as to share details of its past support for the IRA with the British government.26 Who could have imagined that the fiery world revolutionary of the early 1980s would have bent to such a degree?

But at that point Britain and the US were having none of it, and, along with France (which was still trying to get Libya to comply with its demands over the UTA bombing), brought the issue before the UN Security Council. On 31 March 1992, Qaddafi's worst fears were realized: the UN Security Council passed Resolution 748, which instructed member states to impose sanctions on Libya. The embargo covered a host of prohibitions: air links were to be cut, the supply of parts or servicing to Libyan aircraft was to be banned, and the provision of arms-related material, advice and assistance was to be prohibited. Member states

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