Libya, 1998

Allow me at the outset to congratulate

Mr. Opertti on his accession to the presidency of the

General Assembly at this session. His election is a tribute

to his friendly country and an expression of confidence in

his ability to shoulder this great responsibility.

I also take this opportunity to express our deep

appreciation to Mr. Hennadiy Udovenko for his skilful

guidance of the deliberations of the previous session of

the General Assembly. Furthermore, I would also like to

express my country?s high appreciation to Secretary-

General Kofi Annan for his initiatives, which have helped

ease tensions in a number of regions, and for his efforts

in making a series of serious proposals for the reform of

the United Nations and to reactivate its role, thereby

allowing it to perform the functions entrusted to it by the

Charter.

The United Nations is the only Organization which

enjoys universal membership. That is why it is the sole

forum qualified to deal with urgent international, political,

economic and social problems. To address these questions

effectively, it is essential, first and foremost, to observe

the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, which

must govern both the work of the Organization and the

conduct of its Members. Our commitment to the

principles of sovereign equality, non-interference in the

internal affairs of States and abstention from the threat or

use of force requires us to oppose the ambitions and

practices of certain countries that seek to impose their

hegemony and influence and to monopolize privileges.

The mandated powers of the General Assembly, in

particular, should be expanded to allow it to play its

rightful role, which is based on equality among all its

members and on the fact that they all deliberate on an

equal footing, including in their consideration of questions

of international peace and security. It would be helpful in

this respect to establish a mechanism to enable the

Assembly to oversee the work of other organs, including

the Security Council, and to hold them accountable to it.

Any wealthy country in arrears that cares about the

United Nations should pay those arrears immediately and

unconditionally, because they are to blame for the

17

financial deterioration affecting the activities of the

Organization.

The reform of the United Nations will remain

incomplete without reforming the Security Council to

eliminate the privilege of the veto power. Historically and

in terms of justice, equality and democracy, there is no

longer any justification for that power. My country was the

first to call for the abrogation of the veto power in the

second half of this century. Moreover, it is essential to

remove the current imbalance in the membership of the

Security Council, not by granting certain countries

permanent membership, but through an increase in the

number of its members, based on the principle of full

sovereign equality among States and the application of the

principle of equitable geographical distribution in both

categories of Council membership: permanent and non-

permanent. The reform of the Council should, first and

foremost, respond to the needs of the developing countries,

which constitute the majority of the United Nations

membership, and to the need to avoid selectivity.

Despite the efforts of African countries and their

Organization, conflict is on the rise and economic

conditions are further deteriorating on that continent.

Whatever development or increase in income they achieve

goes to servicing debts that weigh heavily on them all. In

his report on the situation in Africa, the Secretary-General

explains that this situation is the result of the policies

adopted by the colonial Powers at the 1885 Congress of

Berlin to partition the continent. These policies remain the

root cause of conflict in Africa. The report further indicates

that Africa?s problems, including political instability in

some parts and economic underdevelopment in most of the

continent, were caused by those who drew the political

borders of African countries. We call for the cancellation of

Africa?s debts and for the continent to be dealt with on new

and fair bases, not just as a source of raw materials and a

market for the consumption of manufactured goods.

The responsibility for all that has happened and is still

taking place on the African continent falls to those who

caused it in the first place. Therefore, it is high time for the

States that colonized Africa, exploited its resources and

enslaved its peoples to apologize to the continent and to

pay full compensation for all the losses it has incurred as

a result of colonialism.

The imposition of restrictions on international trade

and the legislation of extraterritorial laws require serious

action on our part to confront and put an end to them.

Member States are called upon to support and vote in

favour of the relevant draft resolution to be submitted to

the General Assembly at this session and not to recognize

such unilateral laws, which undermine the lofty principles

of the United Nations Charter, flagrantly violate the rules

of international law, encroach on the sovereignty of

Member States and blatantly interfere in their internal

affairs.

The question of Palestine is still awaiting a solution.

All developments, past and present, serve only to confirm

what my country has repeatedly stated: Occupation by

force and the dictation and imposition of surrender can

never lead to peace. No support for the occupation and

the settlement policy or undermining of the balance of

power will help to establish peace. The displaced

Palestinians living outside their land are far more

numerous than those who live on Palestinian territory.

What kind of peace is it that prevents a people from

returning to their territory, their homeland?

The continued occupation of the Syrian Golan since

1967, the occupation of southern Lebanon, and the way

in which the Security Council has been prevented from

implementing its resolution 425 (1978) are further proof

of the weakening of the United Nations as a result of the

intervention of the major Powers. In this respect, we

would ask: Why does the Security Council insist on the

implementation of some and not all of its resolutions? So

long as the United Nations remains paralysed by the

blatant interference of the powerful, who exploit it only

to serve their own interests and prevent it from acting

when there is a question of deterring or repulsing

aggression by their allies, this glaring injustice will

continue to push the Middle East towards the abyss.

The achievement of the universality of the Treaty on

the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the

expansion of nuclear-weapon-free zones are facing major

obstacles. In the Arab East, the rulers of Tel Aviv still

refuse to adhere to the NPT. They refuse to place their

nuclear facilities under the control regime of the

International Atomic Energy Agency. They continue to

develop their nuclear capabilities with the financial and

technical support of the United States, the very country

that, under the pretext of saving the world from chemical

weapons, threatens to attack any Arab country, including

my own, merely for building a pharmaceutical plant. The

recent destruction of the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory

under such flimsy pretexts, later proven false, is still fresh

in our minds.

18

Nobody should be deceived by the utterings of the

rulers of Tel Aviv to the effect that the Arabs and their

weapons are a source of danger. Neither Libya nor any

other Arab State constitutes a threat to the peace of the

region, let alone the whole world. These are countries that

neither produce nor export weapons. Washington has

destroyed the weapons that Iraq once had and has imposed

embargoes on other countries to prevent Iraq from

importing arms. The real danger to security in the region

and the entire world comes from the Israelis, who possess

hundreds of nuclear warheads. So long as nuclear weapons

and other weapons of mass destruction are not destroyed in

all the countries that possess them, any lesser effort will

represent a great attempt to deceive the whole world.

Since the dawn of time, humanity has been afflicted

by a phenomenon that has been exacerbated in modern

times: national and international terrorism. The annals of

history record terrorist acts, their victims and their

perpetrators. If we peruse these records, much is revealed.

They show that those self-styled fighters against terrorism

were the first to perpetrate terrorism. By posing as fighters

of terrorism, they are trying to cover the terrorist crimes

they have committed and still commit against other

countries and peoples. Their history is no more than a

series of terrorist acts against other peoples, which have

reached the stage of total annihilation of entire peoples.

These self-styled fighters of terrorism have attempted

to brand movements of liberation and the struggle for

freedom and against occupation as terrorist. They still

describe all fighters for freedom and independence as

terrorists. But they fail miserably when most fighters for the

freedom and independence of their countries eventually

triumph. Suddenly, those who fought against these freedom

fighters and backed those who enslaved them are ready to

roll out the red carpet for them, organize the greatest

receptions and award them the highest medals. This General

Assembly embraces a number of such leaders every year

and, only a few days ago, gave the fighter and leader

Nelson Mandela an outstanding reception.

Libya is proud to have been among the countries that

supported these leaders during their struggle. Libya takes

pride in their victories. Libya took that position at a time

when those who now claim to fight terrorism used to

describe those leaders as terrorists. Libya knows that the

change in these countries? attitudes following the triumph

of revolutionaries and freedom fighters neither reflects

principled morality, nor aims at atoning for past mistakes.

It is due to a desire to preserve their interests and to gain

greater political and economic advantages.

When we talk of terrorism, we should know our

subject. Our talk must be objective and we need to agree

on a single definition of terrorism. We should apply the

same criteria and the same rules and laws. We must also

implement the same measures and procedures. We cannot

condemn terrorism and fight it when it hits a certain

country, then turn a blind eye when it hits other countries

or other peoples. The occupation of Lebanon, the

surrounding of its capital and the attack on Qana were

acts of terrorism. The aggression against Libya in 1986

and earlier was terrorism. The invasion of Grenada was

terrorism. The kidnapping of a head of State is terrorism.

Maintaining military bases on other peoples? territory is

terrorism. Navies? threats and attacks against peoples and

violation of their territorial waters — this is terrorism.

Attempts on the lives of national leaders are terrorism.

The downing of a Libyan civilian airplane over Sinai was

terrorism. The downing of the Iranian airplane in the Gulf

was terrorism. Forcing the Security Council to react to a

missile that fell in the sea and preventing it from reacting

to missiles that were intentionally launched against a

pharmaceutical plant in a peaceful city, Khartoum, and

from sending a mere fact-finding mission — this is

terrorism. In this respect, we forcefully support Sudanese

demands for investigation and compensation and condemn

this terrorist aggression.

Are we supposed to condemn terrorism only when

it touches a certain country or countries? Should we turn

a blind eye and a deaf ear to what is being committed by

that country or those countries against humanity as a

whole? This, too, is terrorism. Terrorism will be

eradicated only when its causes, not just its results, are

addressed; not by committing similar terrorist acts. We

cannot fight terrorism with terrorism. As one Arab poet

says:

“Practise what you preach. Great shame on you if

you do not.”

We in Libya condemn terrorist acts, their

perpetrators, their sponsors and those who finance them.

We are ready to cooperate with all countries that truly

want to put an end to terrorism. Libya, in a letter to the

Secretary-General dated 9 January 1992 (document

A/46/840), was the first to call on the United Nations to

convene a special session of the General Assembly to be

devoted to international terrorism.

In this respect, we wish to note that some people

insist, in and out of context, on linking Islam and

Muslims to terrorism. This in itself is another kind of

19

terrorism. The very name of Islam is derived from the word

salaam, which means “peace”. A person is considered a

Muslim when others are safe from his words and his deeds.

The greeting of Muslims, when coming or going, is

assalamu alaikum, meaning “peace be upon you”, and the

answer is “and the same to you”.

It seems believable that, as has been demonstrated in

some works and studies, certain people can determine their

own identity only by identifying their enemy. Now that the

ideological enemy, embodied for several decades in the

communist ideology, has disappeared, they have chosen

Islam as their new alternative adversary. Upon the

disappearance of the international opponent, the former

Soviet Union, they chose the Muslims to be the new

enemy.

At this juncture, let us ask the following questions,

though we know in advance that they will go unanswered.

First, who recruited, transported, financed, trained and

armed those who fought in Afghanistan during the presence

of Soviet troops there? Secondly, who called these people

mujahidin when they fought against the Soviets in

Afghanistan? And who now calls them terrorists? How and

why did yesterday?s mujahid become today?s terrorist?

Thirdly, where do the leaders of the organizations which

plan and supervise the implementation of terrorist actions

in their homelands live? Sisterly Algeria is not the only

example. Fourthly, who protects these people? Who

finances them? Who arms them? Who trains them? Where?

And Why?

These and other, similar questions will not be publicly

acknowledged by the parties concerned, but that does not

mean that there is no answer. Islam is the victim. Muslims

are the targets and victims of terrorism, alongside the rest

of third world peoples. God Almighty addresses his Prophet

and Messenger in the Koran by saying:

“We sent thee not, but as a mercy for all creatures.”

(The Holy Koran, XXI:107)

Verily spoke God. The Prophet of mercy preached the

religion of mercy, not terrorism.

My country has always sought to make the

Mediterranean a region of security, cooperation and peace.

It is a source of satisfaction that in July this year we issued

a joint statement with Italy which eliminated many aspects

of the legacy of the past and laid down a solid basis for

cooperation to serve the interests of both countries and

peoples and contribute to the strengthening of peace and

stability in that strategic part of the world. We believe

that this is a model that should be emulated in other

arrangements, including European and Mediterranean

partnerships. Among the issues on which the peoples of

the Mediterranean should cooperate and act in solidarity

is the foreign military presence in the region. We in

Libya would again like to express our concern about this

presence. We again call on foreign States to dismantle

their military bases around the Mediterranean and

withdraw their fleets from its waters. Their presence

poses a danger to the peoples of the region.

The world is still witnessing a continuation of old

disputes and conflicts such as those in Cyprus,

Afghanistan, Angola and Somalia. These conflicts have

persisted for too long, despite all the efforts made to

resolve them peacefully. The international community

should increase its efforts to settle these disputes and end

the suffering of their peoples.

The people of Iraq are suffering from international

sanctions which are unprecedented in their severity and

cruelty. These sanctions have resulted in human tragedies

which could never be accepted by principled human

beings. Other countries have exploited these sanctions in

order to achieve their own selfish political purpose of

destroying Iraq, violating its territorial integrity and

breaking up its unity. This will have disastrous

consequences sooner or later. Furthermore, it is a

violation of the Charter, the principles of international law

and all international norms.

In the Horn of Africa the situation in Somalia is still

a source of great concern. My country has consistently

made efforts to assist the competing Somali factions solve

their differences. We will continue those efforts with a

view to reaching a solution to ensure Somali national

reconciliation that is satisfactory to all Somalis. The

Jamahiriya, which has the honour of presiding over the

group of Sahel and desert countries, has submitted a

serious initiative for the settlement of the dispute between

Ethiopia and Eritrea. This initiative, which enjoys full

recognition, remains the best framework for the solution

of the border dispute between the two countries and the

normalization of relations between their two peoples.

I should now like to provide an account of the latest

developments in the dispute between my country and the

United States and the United Kingdom over the Lockerbie

question. In this regard, I shall deal with the latest, not

the oldest, of these developments. On 21 July the media

announced that the United States and the United Kingdom

20

were considering the possibility of accepting the two

suspects for trial in a third country, which may be the

Netherlands.

Libya contacted the President of the Security Council

and most of its members, as well as the Secretary-General,

Mr. Kofi Annan, to welcome this development in the event

that it became an official position. To prove and confirm its

seriousness, Libya suggested to them that the Secretary-

General should look into the matter once it became an

official position and contact all the parties to seek to reach

a practical and serious formula that would respond to the

interests of all the parties and could gain their approval.

Our intention was that if such a formula were submitted to

the Security Council, its approval would be assured and its

implementation would thereby be a foregone conclusion.

At the time, Libya expressed a number of fears and

concerns to which it drew attention and warned against the

Security Council approving any formula that did not

address such fears and concerns in its enthusiasm of feeling

that there was a positive development on the issue.

At that time — the last week of July — we drew

attention to the fact that Libya was concerned that the other

party might have taken its approach for certain short-term

reasons: first, to circumvent the two Judgments of the

International Court of Justice; secondly, to pre-empt the

decision taken at the Ouagadougou summit; thirdly, to

forestall a potential resolution at the Durban summit;

fourthly, to continue the sanctions imposed on Libya;

fifthly, to distance between the international community and

support for Libya by misleading it into believing that the

other party had already accepted the proposals of regional

and international organizations; and sixthly, to take the

whole question back to its starting point.

At that time, before the official position of the two

countries was made public and as a test of the seriousness

of the other party, Libya stressed the need for certain

considerations. First, we requested a guarantee that the two

suspects would not be handed over or moved to either the

United States or the United Kingdom. Secondly, we asked

for a guarantee of their legal, religious, social, personal and

health rights throughout the various phases of the trial.

Thirdly, we requested that the Libyan judicial authorities

and the defence of the two suspects should handle all

technical, legal questions relevant to the legal aspect of the

trial. We were now talking about a legal and not a political

matter. The legal and judicial authorities of the countries

concerned had done so with regard to their side of the

question.

Our intuition proved right and our suspicions were

confirmed. On Monday, 24 August 1998, the United

States and the United Kingdom addressed a joint letter to

the Secretary-General to which they attached the text of

a draft agreement between the Government of the

Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Government of the

United Kingdom, together with the text of a bill which

the United Kingdom intended to enact as law to enable

the Scottish Court to conduct the trial in the Netherlands.

On Tuesday, 25 August, the two countries submitted

a draft resolution to the Security Council. On Wednesday,

26 August, the draft resolution was formally submitted to

the Council. On Thursday, 27 August, as we expected, the

Security Council approved the draft resolution, motivated

by a feeling that it was a positive development, without

pausing to discover the poison that was slipped

surreptitiously into the honey.

The letter sent to the Secretary-General, together

with its detailed and complicated legal attachments, was

approved without giving even the members of the

Security Council a chance to study them. Libya then

requested the Council to postpone acting on the resolution

because it and its attachments required consideration by

the competent Libyan judicial authorities. These

documents had not at that time reached Libya and had not

even been translated into Arabic.

The adversary and the arbiter in the Council

prevented the Council from responding to Libya?s request.

During the review session last March, the same adversary

and the same arbiter prevented the Council from studying

the Judgments of the International Court of Justice,

officially referred to it by Libya, under the pretext that

these Judgments needed to be studied by legal experts in

their two countries. This stark contradiction in positions

and criteria we leave to the judgement of the Assembly,

and we have no doubt that it will reach the right

conclusions.

Security Council resolution 1192 (1998), adopted on

27 August 1998, suggests that the Libyan Arab

Jamahiriya has not implemented the requirements of

Council resolutions, as in paragraph 1 it

“Demands once again that the Libyan

Government immediately comply with the above-

mentioned resolutions.”

This refers to resolutions 731 (1992), 748 (1992), 883

(1993). It also suggests that Libya has done nothing in

21

that connection, whereas Libya has responded fully to all of

these resolutions.

Paragraph 4 of resolution 1192 (1998) states that

“the Libyan Government shall ensure that any

evidence or witnesses in Libya are, upon the request

of the court, promptly made available at the court in

the Netherlands for the purpose of the trial”.

To ask Libya to provide evidence and witnesses

contradicts logic and law. It is not Libya that has accused

the two suspects. It is the United States and the United

Kingdom that claim to possess evidence which justifies

their suspicions. They alone have the responsibility to

provide the evidence and the witnesses for the prosecution

in order to prove their case. This demand in itself proves

that those two countries have no evidence to support the

accusation of our two citizens. On what, then, is this

suspicion based? It is a suspicion still in search of evidence

and witnesses. The best quotation we can cite in this

respect is the statement made by the freedom fighter and

leader, President Nelson Mandela, last week in Washington:

“I know of no system of jurisprudence anywhere in the

world where the accused is required to produce witnesses

for the prosecution.”

On the whole, in the text to which I have been

referring, Libya sees interference in the work and

procedures of the court, a limitation on the rights of the

accused to defend themselves, and an abrogation of Libya?s

legal rights guaranteed under international law and custom

governing procedures and the provision of proof.

Security Council resolution 1192 (1998) referred to the

joint letter dated 24 August 1998 from the Governments of

the United Kingdom and of the United States, contained in

document S/1998/795, to which is annexed the text of the

intended agreement between the Governments of the

Kingdom of the Netherlands and of the United Kingdom.

In its article 16 (2), that agreement refers to the

“transfer [of] the accused from the premises of the

Scottish Court [in the Netherlands] to the territory of

the United Kingdom ...,

“(a) ... for the purpose of trial by jury in

Scotland”. (S/1998/795, annex II)

However, the initiative adopted by the Security Council,

which in essence is a political initiative, is based on what

was adopted by the regional and international organizations

whose letters were cited in the preambular part of

Security Council resolution 1192 (1998). Here we would

like to refer in particular to the content of the joint letter

from the Secretaries-General of the League of Arab States

and of the Organization of African Unity, annexed to

document S/1997/497. Any text that would make it

possible to transfer the two suspects to any place other

than the Netherlands, under any circumstances, runs

counter to the regional initiatives accepted by the Libyan

Arab Jamahiriya. That is only some of the poison in the

honey: the world has heard that the United Kingdom and

the United States have agreed to have a trial in the

Netherlands. Now they talk about Scotland, the United

Kingdom and the United States. We shall clarify this

presently.

The letter then states, in paragraph 4, that, “If found

guilty, the two accused will serve their sentence in the

United Kingdom”. Moreover, the intended agreement

states in article 16 (2) (b) that the accused would be

transferred to the United Kingdom “for the purpose of

serving a custodial sentence imposed by the Scottish

Court following the conviction of the accused”.

That contradicts the initiative; I cannot believe that

anyone understood the initiative to mean anything other

than that the trial would take place in a third country.

This provision runs counter to the general understanding

of the initiative, that the purpose of the trial of the two

suspects is to reveal the truth in the tragic incident of Pan

Am flight 103, and not to exact revenge on two Libyan

citizens who are merely suspected, without evidence. It is

the understanding also that the ultimate venue of all the

trial procedures would be in a third country: in the

Netherlands, and not anywhere else. The agreement by

the various parties to the holding of the trial in the

Netherlands is a political solution that came about as a

result of political action. The place where the sentence

should be served, if, God forbid, they are convicted,

should be the same place as the trial. This is part of the

political solution.

They claim that Scottish law stipulates that sentences

should be served in Scotland, because Scottish courts sit

in Scotland. But this court will sit outside Scotland, so

any sentence should also be carried out outside Scotland.

The court is, exceptionally, sitting in another country, so

the sentence must be served in the country where the trial

takes place, not in Scotland.

Paragraph 8 of Security Council resolution 1192

(1998) reads in part that the Council

22

“decides that the aforementioned measures shall be

suspended immediately if the Secretary-General

reports to the Council that the two accused have

arrived in the Netherlands for the purpose of trial

before the court described in paragraph 2 or” — and

here pay attention to this new poison in the honey —

“have appeared for trial before an appropriate court in

the United Kingdom or the United States”.

In a dispute that has lasted for more than seven years, this

is the first time that the Security Council has adopted a

resolution asserting that the trial can take place before a

court in the United Kingdom or the United States. I have

addressed a letter to the Secretary-General indicating that

the proposal of the League of Arab States and the

Organization of African Unity regarding a trial under

Scottish law, before a Scottish court, at the International

Court of Justice in The Hague defines an “appropriate

court”. But the resolution says

(spoke in English)

“an appropriate court in the United Kingdom or the United

States”, not an appropriate British or United States court.

(spoke in Arabic)

For the first time, the resolution refers to such a venue.

There is no need for the addition of a reference to an

“appropriate court in the United Kingdom or the United

States” — unless the purpose is to transfer the two suspects

to the Netherlands as a transit station before transferring

them to one of the two countries mentioned in that

paragraph. If that is the case, it can be qualified only as

institutional piracy condoned by Security Council

resolution. The world is unaware of this situation. I know

that members are busy with their own concerns, but I

remind them that I am citing the text of the new Security

Council resolution.

Along with the rest of the international community, we

have agreed to a trial before a Scottish court sitting in a

third country, which could be the Netherlands. We have

agreed to a Scottish court, to Scottish law and to Scottish

judges, in the Netherlands. Those are the terms described

in the decisions of the regional organizations. But what

does that paragraph mean?

But Libya never subscribed to these new terms, and

the regional organizations never agreed that a trial should

take place in the United States or in the United Kingdom.

To suggest that this is the “appropriate court” referred to in

paragraph 16 of resolution 883 (1993) is to attempt to

deceive the international community, and is yet another

example of the poison in the honey. The Council was

misled into accepting this because of the existence of a

feeling that there was a change in the position of the two

countries.

Another meaningless reference came in paragraph 8

on the relations between the Libyan Government and the

French judicial authorities, relevant to the explosion of

Union de Transports Aériens flight 772. This question has

nothing to do with the subject of the initiative upon which

resolution 1192 (1998) is based. Moreover, it is well

established in the Security Council that Libya has done all

that has been required of it by the French judge in this

respect and that the French authorities have expressed

their total satisfaction, and this was endorsed by the

Security Council.

Libya believes that the optimal, pragmatic and

prompt solution lies in conducting negotiations among all

parties with a view to reaching an agreement on the

practical procedures for the application of the option of

trying the two suspects before a Scottish court in a neutral

country — the Netherlands — as called for by the summit

of the Non-Aligned Movement held in South Africa at the

beginning of September 1998.

Should direct negotiations prove impossible due to

the opposition of the United States and the United

Kingdom, these negotiations can be conducted through the

Secretary-General. The proposed agreement should

determine all practical measures, the commitments of

each party and the rights and guarantees to be accorded

the two suspects and their defence team. It should also

precisely state what all the parties are required to do so

that the trial of the two suspects will be the final phase of

the implementation of Security Council resolutions, not

the first phase. This should lead to the lifting of the

sanctions imposed on Libya and put an end to any

attempts to change positions or otherwise circumvent the

situation under the pretext that Libya has not fully

complied with Security Council resolutions — because

Libya has fully done what it has been required to do.

Even the exchange of goods is governed by

agreements and contracts that regulate and explain the

responsibilities of various parties, suppliers and exporters.

Goods are insured and reinsured against all risks. These

are people, human beings we are talking about here. They

are not going to the Netherlands for tourism; we?re not

going to bid them farewell, have a nice trip. Having said

23

that, we wonder what is meant by electing to hold the trial

in a military base used by the Americans in the

Netherlands? Is the base that the Americans use as

members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization the only

place in the Netherlands where the trial can take place?

What is this?

Following are some of the questions that the Libyan

Arab Jamahiriya deems it necessary to resolve and reach an

agreement on. First, there is a need to agree on listing,

clarifying and determining, in advance, the witnesses

needed — not only from Libya, but from all parties. The

defence team should have the right to receive and peruse all

evidence and cross-examine all witnesses. Secondly, there

needs to be agreement on the place where the suspects

would spend the time of their sentence in case of

conviction, either in the Netherlands or in Libya. Thirdly,

we need guarantees that the two suspects will not be

extradited or transferred to either the United States or the

United Kingdom for any reason whatsoever at any phase of

the trial. Fourthly, there needs to be an agreement on the

security, legal, personal, social, health and religious rights

of the two suspects during the various phases of the trial.

We need to conclude an agreement between the

Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Libyan Arab

Jamahiriya specifying how the two suspects will be

transferred to the Netherlands and guaranteeing their

security and safety, during their transfer, stay and their

return at the end of the trial. Such an agreement should be

endorsed by the Security Council and implemented under

the supervision of the Secretary-General of the United

Nations.

In conclusion, I would like to reaffirm that the Libyan

Arab Jamahiriya has accepted a trial of the two suspects

before a Scottish court in accordance with Scottish law,

presided over by Scottish judges, that would sit in the

Netherlands, but we will not accept the setting of any

conditions in relation to the implementation of that

proposal. Libya is ready to take this exceptional road in

order to reach a solution to the dispute that would satisfy

the interests of all parties and in order to settle the

outstanding legal issues through direct negotiations or

through the Secretary-General.

Libya has not interfered in the agreements concluded

by the other parties for the purposes of the trial. Also, it

has not authorized anyone to decide on her behalf matters

relating to her citizens, because this is its constitutional

right and duty. The United Kingdom and the Netherlands

can conclude an agreement; this has to do with the

Netherlands court and because the Netherlands is the seat

of the court, but as far as the Libyan citizens are

concerned, we never authorized anyone to conclude any

agreements on our behalf. We are responsible for our

citizens, the suspects included. They have a team of

lawyers to defend them. We do not interfere in other

States? affairs, nor do we want anyone to interfere with

our affairs either.

We would like to confirm our seriousness, our desire

and our willingness to close the file of this case and other

files as well, and open a new chapter in our relations with

the countries concerned based on mutual respect and non-

interference in internal affairs.