Tony Okerafor
18 October 2009
analysis
Anyone can knock on your door." That is in part how someone high-up in the Libyan political establishment responded to reports recently emerging from the United Kingdom, U.K, that some victims of Irish Republican Army (I.R.A) bombings in that country now plan to pursue monetary compensations from the Libyan government. Saif Al Islam Qadafi is one of the seven sons of the Libyan leader, Col. Moammar El Qadafi, who until his recent departure from the public eye, used to be foreign policy face of the colonel's 40-year-old government.
Saif Islam's comments came hot on the heels of a promise by the Prime Minister of Britain, Gordon Brown, that he would be prepared to support families who wish to seek compensation from Tripoli, because the bombs used by the anti-British I.R.A, back in the 1980s and 1990s, to fight for the end of Protestant British rule in the province of Northern Ireland, were supplied by Libya.
How should those remarks attributed to Saif Islam be understood? Does it mean that Libya will resist any such demands for compensation? It may well be so: and were that to be the case, then the hint coming from the Libyan leader's son implies that the Libyan authorities may not accept the demand for compensation as legitimate. Crucially, he was later to add that the matter will be taken to court.
Reactions from other members of the Libyan government have since been heard or read, but, critically, they have been almost as measured as Saif Islam Qadafi's own pronouncement on the matter, just over a week ago. Although he serves no official capacity in his father's government, what he's had to say on the issue almost certainly reflects the official (government) position.
Saif Al Islam Qadafi runs a charity association inside Libya that was at the forefront of negotiations to previous compensation deals relating to other terror cases that Libya accepted responsibility for. One of such cases was the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which exploded and crashed over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988. In that incident, 259 passengers and crew, in addition to eleven people on the ground, were killed.
As part of a deal reached between Libya, on the one hand, and the British and United States governments, on the other, sometime in 1999, Tripoli accepted responsibility for the downing of the plane, handed over two men suspected to have masterminded the attack, and paid 10 million U.S. Dollars in compensation to the families of each of the 270 victims of the so-called Lockerbie bombing. In return, ten long years of punishing sanctions against Libya were lifted and the country's international isolation, ended.
Another incident wherein the Libyans agreed to pay compensation happened a year after the Lockerbie, when a TransWorld Airliner (French) crashed over Niger in West Africa, killing more than 180 passengers and crew.
Not quite long ago, the Libyan foreign minister rejected accusations that Tripoli provided semtex, a commonly used plastic explosive, to the I.R.A, which favours the unification of British-rule Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.
What about Minister Brown's declared backing to anyone inside the U.K. who seeks to be compensated over I.R.A. bombings? In recent years, ordinary Libyans have looked at monetary claims with a lot of cynicism, not least when they have been made for terror-related incidents. The I.R.A., in particular, has always been regarded in the small Magreb Arab country as a resistance movement, fighting to end the occupation of their country, rather than a terrorist group. In that line, Libyans view the I.R.A. in much the same way as they see other: liberation movements in the Arab World, such as, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas and Fattah (in the Palestinian territories), that were established to fight Israeli "aggression" and occupation, respectively.
There is a 64,000-dollar question here, to which only the Libyan government can provide the answer. Could Saif Al Islam Qadafi's pronouncement on recourse to the courts set a precedent for victims of civil wars in Africa, who believe that the Libyan state meddled in their countries affairs?
The answer is, probably, in the affirmative, because, in the event of any proceedings on this matter of I.R.A bombings and incidental demands for compensation against Libya being taken to court, it will be hard for prospective claimants on the continent not to want to pursue their own claims. For so long, Col. Moammar Qadafi's regime has been accused by many people in Africa and beyond of supporting terrorist groups or using its protégés across the continent to foment trouble in some places, often leading to bloody conflicts.
Two countries definitely stand out here: namely Sierra Leone and its neighbour, Liberia. Both West African countries belong to the Mano River Union (M.R.U). But, either country has experienced no less than a decade of civil conflict, leading to the death of thousands of civilians.
A report released by the United Nations (U.N), several years ago, not only indicted countries, like Burkina Faso and Mali of fuelling conflicts in the two M.R.U. states, but, also accused Libya for using its protégés in the region, such as, the former Liberian leader, Charles Taylor, the late Togolese president, Nyassingbe Eyadema, and the Burkinabe leader, Blaise Compaore, to lay hands on both countries' mineral deposits and to provide arms to warring factions that were in Tripoli's good books.
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