U.N.-LIBYA: Libya Reserves Right to Defy U.N. Sanctions

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 10 1997 (IPS) - Libya says it has a moral right to defy U.N. sanctions as it transports its nationals to the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

“The Hajj pilgrimage is a religious duty for all Muslims, as explicitly stipulated in the Holy Koran,” says Ambassador Abuzed Dorda of Libya.

Millions of Muslims from all over the world participate annually in the pilgrimage, which culminates with the Hajj Festival Apr. 17 this year.

Current president of the U.N. Security Council, Ambassador Antonio Monteiro of Portugal, last week cited a Mar. 29 flight of a Libyan-registered aircraft from Tripoli to Saudi Arabia as “a clear violation” of U.N. sanctions imposed on Libya in 1992.

Calling the violation “totally unacceptable”, the Council drew the attention of member-states to their obligations not to permit Libyan-registered aircraft to land in their territories.

Under the embargo, U.N. members have been asked to deny permission to any Libyan aircraft to take off from, land in, or overfly their territory, unless that flight has been approved by the Security Council “on humanitarian grounds.”

The Council has asked Libya “to refrain from any further violations” of U.N. sanctions. Those sanctions also include an arms and air embargo and a reduction of Libyan diplomatic personnel serving abroad. A subsequent Security Council resolution approved a freeze of Libyan funds and financial resources in other countries and banned the provision to Libya of equipment for oil refining and transportation.

The sanctions were the result of charges that Libya was either directly or indirectly responsible for the destruction of a Pan Am 747 aircraft over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 and a UTA DC-10 over Niger in Sep. 1989. The two explosions resulted in the deaths of hundreds of passengers.

Libya violated the ban on air travel last year, by dispatching hundreds of pilgrims to Mecca. And Libyan leader Muammar el- Qaddafi last year flew out of Tripoli to attend an Arab summit meeting in Cairo, embarrassing host country Egypt which had chaired the very Security Council that had imposed sanctions on Libya.

Dorda said that the aircraft of the state-run Libyan Arab Airlines that flew to Mecca recently was on a religious mission.

“The Security Council should not have considered it otherwise and should not have given it a political dimension,” the Libyan envoy said in a letter to the Council issued Wednesday. “It was not, after all, a tourist flight or a commercial flight.”

The Libyan envoy said the Security Council should refrain from interfering in a “sensitive religious matter out of respect for the right of Muslims to perform their rites.” This, he said, would also avoid the complications “that might ensue from provoking the sentiments not only of Muslims in my country but also of Muslims in general.”

The Security Council’s Sanctions Committee last month approved an Egyptian request to operate 45 flights on Egypt Air from Cairo to Tripoli and Benghazi and onto Saudi Arabia for the purpose of transporting Libyan pilgrims. But Libya has reserved the right to transport its pilgrims in its own aircraft.

U.S. and British officials insist that two Libyan intelligence agents, accused of involvement in the Pan Am bombing, should be surrendered for trial in the United States or Britain.

U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson said last month that the Security Council had witnessed further evidence of Libyan efforts to flout the Council’s will. Richardson pointed out that in January this year, a Libyan aircraft flew to Accra, Ghana, on what Libyan news media described as “an official visit.”

“As a result of Libya’s continued intransigence, the Council has prudently decided to keep sanctions in place, unchanged, after its 15th review,” he added.

There were reports Wednesday that Iraq had also defied the Council by flying Hajj pilgrims to Saudi Arabia in violation of U.N. sanctions against Baghdad. The Sanctions Committee and the U.N. Legal Department are considering the charge.