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Security Council Delays Considering End to Libyan Sanctions
Developing nations on the UN Security Council want to end, not just suspend, sanctions against Libya, saying Tripoli cooperated fully with the trial of the two men accused of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, but the 15-nation body delayed considering the draft, a U.N. spokesman said here Friday.
Manoel de Almeida e Silva, the U.N. spokesman, said, "The draft resolution's sponsors plan to discuss the text at a later stage, but the Security Council did not schedule any consultations for today."
The draft was introduced by Martin Andjaba, the Namibian permanent representative to the United Nations, who said that it was time the embargoes were ended, not just suspended.
The Namibian ambassador Thursday voiced his hope to see a vote on the draft Friday. Jamaica, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Mali and Tunisia joined Namibia in cosponsoring the draft resolution.
However, Britain and the United States said they would oppose the measure until the trial of the two Libyan suspects, charged with blowing the Pan Am airliner out of the sky, had ended.
All 259 people aboard the Boeing 747 as well as 11 others on the ground were killed, and the majority of the victims were Americans.
The sanctions were suspended in April 1999 after the suspects were extradited to face a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands.
An air and arms embargo and a ban on some oil equipment were imposed in 1992 and 1993 to force Libya to surrender the two suspects for trial. The suspects, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and al- Amin Khalifa, had been indicted by London and Washington.
Since the hand-over of the two suspects, Libya and other Arab nations have insisted that Libya had not only handed over the accused, but also complied with other Security Council demands such as cooperating with the trial.
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