UPDATE: TIMES – Jack Straw and the “link” to Megrahi release. NOTE – NOT TONY BLAIR!
Comment at end
29th August 2009
CHINESE WHISPERS IN THE SANDS OF TRIPOLI
It’s long been clear to me that the diplomacy and domestic requirements of political interchange often result in people hearing and taking different things from negotiations; usually what they WANT or NEED to hear for their own public’s consumption.
The Times’ analysis below articulates this. Tony Blair did what he wanted to do to secure trade agreements AND an end to Libya’s nuclear ambitions, but it is also clear that as far as some of the Libyans were concerned there was a nod and a wink over prisoner (Megrahi) release.
Mr Blair in fact, as so often before, handled the whole episode particularly well. Libya is no longer a nuclear threat, and has been brought in from the cold by Blair’s deft handling. Commercial interests have followed. If the SNP recently had to deal with any political fallout – well, that’s power for you, Salmond.
Viz – Gaddafi’s son says ‘Blair deal linked to Megrahi but not by name’.
Quite.
I did have to smile when I heard Alex Salmond say yesterday, “Sometimes in politics you have to take difficult decisions – to do what you think is right.”
Very Blair, as in his retirement speech to his constituency in May 2007 regarding the Iraq decision.
“But I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right.
I may have been wrong. That’s your call. But believe one thing if nothing else. I did what I thought was right for our country.”
Irritating, no doubt, for Salmond to have to come face to face with the responsibility of power as articulated so well by the man he sought for so long to destroy.
Times Analysis -
When truth about Britain’s dealings with Libya turns out to be a mirage
In the Libyan desert, across which Britain’s politicians and business interests have warily trodden similar routes over recent years, apparent truth can turn out to be a mirage.
What were the precise terms of the agreement that Britain reached with the US and Libya in 1999 that those convicted of the Lockerbie bombing would serve out their sentences in Scotland? Just what did Tony Blair say to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi when they met in 2004 and again, in the Libyan leader’s tent, in 2007? Exactly what was going on inside the heads of British and Scottish government ministers during the fraught negotiations in recent months over the fate of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi?
Both of Mr Blair’s trips coincided with the announcement of big trade agreements for Shell and then BP. The oil industry clearly resents media speculation that such deals were linked to politics. BP denies that the Libyans put pressure on it over the fate of al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, who until this month was languishing with terminal cancer in Greenock prison. Nor, says the company, did it lobby the British and Scottish governments over such issues.
Details of Mr Blair’s role in removing diplomatic obstacles to trade with the oil-rich Libyans were, however, slow to emerge from behind the sparkle of the huge BP oil deal in 2007. A passing reference to “judicial co-operation” turned out to be a plan for a prisoner transfer agreement with Britain.
The Scottish Government, by then controlled by the SNP, objected. There was clearly only one prisoner in whom the Libyans were interested — al-Megrahi. They asked for any agreement to preclude those convicted before the deal was done. The Libyans refused.
According to correspondence obtained by The Times, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, then the Lord Chancellor, wrote to Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, offering reassurance on June 22, 2007. “Libya agreed prior to al-Megrahi’s trial that anyone convicted of the Lockerbie bombing would serve their sentence in Scotland,” he wrote. “For this reason, any prisoner transfer agreement with Libya could not cover Mr al-Megrahi.”
The agreement to which he referred was one brokered between Britain and the US with the UN in 1999: the suspects would be tried on neutral ground in the Netherlands but serve any sentence in Scotland. According to a senior government adviser involved in those negotiations, the insistence of a Scottish jail was necessary before Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, could overcome strong US resistance to the deal from Madeleine Albright, the Secretary of State.
Mr Blair, when asked this week about his conversation in Colonel Gaddafi’s tent in 2007, said: “The Libyans were raising the case of al-Megrahi all the way along . . . We made it clear the only way this could be dealt with was through the proper procedures.”
Sources close to him suggested yesterday that discussions about a prisoner transfer were vague. Libya, however, clearly regarded the prisoner transfer agreement (PTA) with Mr Blair as having a direct bearing on al-Megrahi.
In an interview with the Glasgow Herald yesterday, Colonel Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, said: “It was part of the bargaining deal with the UK. When Tony Blair came here we signed the agreement . . . We signed an oil deal at the same time. The commerce and politics and deals were all with the PTA.”
Britain has repeatedly denied that trade deals were tied to negotiations over al-Megrahi.
When a transfer application was made this year, however, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office appeared to backslide on the force of its 1999 deal with the US. In a letter on August 3 to Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, Ivan Lewis, a Foreign Office minister, wrote: “While the US pressed us to provide a definitive commitment on the future imprisonment of the Lockerbie accused, the UK Government of the day declined … it did not wish to bind the hands of future governments.”
Mr MacAskill, having been lobbied by angry US officials, was convinced that it was more like a firm commitment — and rejected the application. He then decided to release al-Megrahi anyway on “compassionate grounds”.
Competing theories for why he did so include suggestions that he did not want to risk embarrassing the Scottish justice system with a retrial, Libyan pressure on the oil firms working the North Sea, or just old-fashioned liberal benevolence towards a dying man. Another truth lost, perhaps between the sands of Libya and the mists of Scotland.
RELATED
Secret delegation went batting for British interests in Tripoli
Polls say SNP AND Brown damaged by the Megrahi release and its handling
THE FINDINGS of the Scottish opinion poll source The Herald):
68% Gordon Brown’s reputation has been damaged
60% Decision by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to release Megrahi was wrong
74% Scotland’s reputation has been damaged by the release
52% UK Government was right not to intervene
68% Factors other than compassion involved
52% Prison visit by MacAskill was wrong
56% MacAskill should not resign
RELATED
Julie has also blogged on this here -
Lockerbie bomber’s release aka – Blair is the scapegoat-AGAIN
Tags: Alex Salmond, difficult decisions, do what you think is right, Gaddafi, jack straw, Libya, Lockerbie, Megrahi, Scotland, SNP, The Times, Tony Blair
August 29, 2009 at 2:22 pm |
alex salmond is now finding that being in government isn’t so easy as he first thought and perhaps now understands what was blair’s conundrum over Iraq but i doubt it. being in power is not the same as complaining about it and for salmond it has come full circle. what he did to blair is now being done to him and the rest of the anti blairs should take note.
August 30, 2009 at 7:13 pm |
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