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Who Blew Up Pan Am 103?
Plus: Other tales of those who cannot remember the past
by Bob Harris
March 2, 1999
Who blew up Pam Am flight 103?
The U.S. and Great Britain accuse two Libyan nationals of responsibility for
the December 1988 explosion over Lockerbie, Scotland.
They've given Libya 30 days to turn over the men to stand trial.
Or else.
Actually, or else what is still up in the air.
Sanctions aren't really a bargaining tool. The U.N. Security Council already
passed a resolution to suspend existing sanctions against Libya once the two
guys are handed over.
Libya says they want the sanctions lifted permanently (as opposed to merely
suspended) as part of the deal. But that's a minor distinction, since
reimposing sanctions would require nine votes out of fifteen on the council
and unanimous consent from the five permanent members, which ain't likely.
So Libya's concern about sanctions is mostly just static. Much more
importantly, they simply don't trust the U.S. and Britain to give their
citizens a fair trial. As a Libyan foreign minister explained, "The Great
Jamahiriyah cannot accept that its two nationals appear in court before
reaching final agreement on the arrangements that would guarantee them
justice."
("The Great Jamahiriyah," by the way, is not the name of a reggae-singing
stage magician who can dunk. Although it should be. It's how the Libyan
government refers to itself as synonymous with the people of Libya.
"Jamahiriyah" doesn't translate into English very well, but it refers to
Qaddafi's notion of an ideal condition of free and unbureaucratic self-
governance. It's a term hip Libertarians (if such a thing existed) would
groove on, except it applies to Libya about as much as "people's republic"
applies to China, "democracy" applies to Kuwait, or "musician" applies to
Britney Spears.)
Cool name aside, Libya is a place where independent human rights monitors are
banned, political opposition is forbidden and sometimes punished by death,
freedom of religion doesn't exist, and all media is controlled by the state.
And that all sucks.
But none of that means Libyans blew up Pan Am 103, or that the two accused
will actually get a fair trial.
The U.S. press generally presumes their guilt, but the evidence is actually
pretty dopey. Much more likely suspects were identified long ago and ignored
for political reasons, as we'll see.
The prosecution theory, as William Blum points out in the current issue of
Covert Action Quarterly, is essentially this:
Libyan Airlines employees Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah
allegedly placed a suitcase bomb on an Air Malta plane in Malta, cleverly
conspiring to cause Pan Am 103's destruction by putting baggage transfer tags
on the bomb so it would eventually explode while on a flight from London to
New York.
Seriously.
>From Malta, the bag proceeded unaccompanied on flight KM180 (even though Air
Malta insists there was no unaccompanied baggage on the flight) to Frankfurt,
where it was transferred unaccompanied again onto Pan Am flight 103A to London
(even though the 1995 FBI report on the subject found "no concrete evidence"
that this ever happened), then allowed to pass unaccompanied a third time to
Pan Am 103 to New York (even though international rules require all
unaccompanied bags to be X-rayed or searched), before finally detonating in
Governor Connally's thigh and rolling off a stretcher intact in Parkland
hospital.
Sorry, I get my bullshit cover stories confused sometimes.
Anyhow, except for the part about Governor Connally, that's the official
version.
And the two defendants supposedly just sort of guessed that the bomb could
evade security in three countries and make three different connecting flights
with no further help. In fact, they counted on it.
Excuse me? I know fully-grown human beings who can't make a single flight
without a map, two stewardesses, and a nurse.
Supporting evidence for this theory? Damn near none. No fingerprints. No
witnesses. Not even hearsay or a coerced confession. The evidence consists of
stuff like:
a) Investigators once claimed that the timing device for the bomb was only
sold to Libya, but that's not even true. Actually the manufacturer also sold
the timers to East German intelligence, which in turn had contact with groups
throughout the mideast, including a PLO splinter faction called the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC). We'll get to
them in a second here.
b) Investigators say that the clothes in the bomb's suitcase were traced to a
particular clothing shop in Malta, and the shopkeeper has identified al-
Megrahi as the purchaser. Uh, not quite. The shopkeeper has actually fingered
several different people over the years, so the identification means next to
nothing.
c) There's an entry in Fhimah's diary which mentions "taggs" sic. Well,
whoopty do. The entry doesn't refer to the bombing any more clearly than
Tinky-Winky's triangular headgear refers to gay sex.
and other crap like that.
So what's the deal?
Actually, until Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of 1990, the Syrian-funded PFLP-
GC was widely considered responsible for the bombing.
With good reason. Thanks to electronic intercepts, police raids against PFLP-
GC activities in Germany, and evidence gathered in the arrest of a known PFLP-
GC bomber, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and intelligence agencies from Israel,
West Germany, and Scotland firmly believed -- often on the record,
surprisingly -- that the PFLP-GC brought down Pan Am 103 at the behest of
Iran, as revenge for the U.S. warship Vincennes' idiotic July 1988 shootdown
of an Iranian passenger plane, killing 290 innocent people.
As to how the bombing took place, in simple terms, the conclusion was this:
Baggage handlers in Frankfurt -- two of whom failed polygraph examinations
about switching baggage -- were already routinely switching bags as part of a
drug-running operation, and the PFLP-GC managed to substitute a bomb for the
protected shipment of heroin, tricking a Palestinian drug courier named Khalid
Jaafar (identified by name by the FBI) to his doom.
Thus the big kabang.
The only problem with pursuing this version, supported by hard evidence
gathered by intelligence agencies in every single country concerned? Political
inconvenience.
After August 1990, George Bush wanted Syria and Iran to support his coalition
against Iraq. But blaming them for the deaths of 270 innocent people,
including many Americans, wasn't going to help. And Libya wasn't playing ball
anyway.
So, bingo, in October 1990, suddenly Libya was behind the bombing. Syria and
Iran were not. Ta-da!
Within days of the eventual indictment of two Libyans, clearing Iran of any
culpability in the tragedy -- despite reported NSA and Israeli intercepts
indicating Iran had paid for the bombing -- five Western hostages held by
Iranian allies in Lebanon were released.
Ever since, Libya bombed Pan Am 103, evidence be damned. That's their story,
and they're sticking to it.
Look, I'm not fond of agreeing with Qaddafi on anything beyond a taste for
stuffed grape leaves, but it's indeed doubtful that the impending trial --
which will be held, under Scottish law, with no jury -- is really about
getting to the truth of the matter.
Consider this: when Pan Am's lawyers, trying to find out what the hell
happened, subpoenaed the CIA, DEA, FAA, FBI, NSA, and possibly the NBA by
mistake, the government flatly refused to turn over a single document, citing
"national security." That's not the way you act when you want to get to the
absolute truth of something.
If two guys in Malta and a magic bag took our Pan Am 103, the "national
security" explanation makes no sense whatsoever.
If the PFLP-GC did it, then it does.
And even leaving all that aside: ten years after the event, and after waiting
eight years since the defendants were first accused, and given the goofiness
of the evidence, it's hard to believe the U.S. and Britain seriously intend to
go through with this.
Maybe the State Department, which presumably knows the score, just wants to
embarrass Qaddafi again in an effort to rationalize calls for further
sanctions.
Then again, if there's a lesson the Arab world has learned, it's this: when
the U.S. says or else, duck. So maybe the State Department figures Qaddafi
will decide it's worth submitting two of his people for a show trial to keep
the Sixth Fleet out of the Gulf of Sidra.
If not, and the situation escalates, the irony couldn't be more clear. The
U.S. says a couple of Libyans bombed a bunch of people. So to make sure Libya
turns them over for trial, the U.S. might soon threaten to begin... what?
Nobody's saying yet. Surely not bombing a bunch of people...
P.S. -- Last week's issue of Counterpunch reports that at the funeral in
Jordan for King Hussein, George Bush wandered over and glad-handed Qaddafi's
son, whose sister was killed in the 1986 Reagan/Bush aerial bombing of his
family's compound.
Dude was not impressed.
The chat was short.
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--
Bob Harris is a radio commentator, political writer, and humorist who has
spoken at almost 300 colleges nationwide.
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