Today’s quiet deal could be tomorrow’s headline.
To the list of industries undermined by the Internet, from music to the Yellow Pages, we can add another: diplomacy. By all appearances, the early release of the Libyan convicted of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland was part of a program of quiet diplomacy by the British government to appeal to Moammar Gadhafi. This favor turned out to be anything but quiet.
The freeing of the Libyan intelligence officer convicted of the 1988 bombing, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, is a case study in how people now expect a free and instant flow of information about what their politicians have done and how hard it has become to keep secret deals secret.
The release of the bomber was announced by the Scottish minister of justice as an act of compassion, citing Megrahi’s prostate cancer. But other murderers have been ill and died in Scottish prisons. Suspicions grew with the leak of a letter from the Foreign Office in London that had assured the justice minister there was no legal barrier to Megrahi’s early release. The letter expressed the “hope on this basis you will now feel able to consider the Libyan application.” The “judicial” decision was exposed as political.
Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and Seif al-Islam Gadhafi at an airport in Tripoli, Libya.
It didn’t help the British government that the Libyans didn’t play along, ignoring the ground rules of quiet diplomacy. Megrahi, who was released after serving only eight years of a 27-year sentence, got a hero’s welcome in Tripoli that included the flying of the Scottish and Libyan flags. Gadhafi thanked British Prime Minister Gordon Brown (“my friend Brown”) and others, including the queen, for “encouraging the Scottish government to make this historical and courageous decision.” Gadhafi’s son bragged that the release of the Libyan bomber was “always on the negotiating table” during discussions of “commercial contracts for oil and gas with Britain.”
Under further pressure, Downing Street released a letter Prime Minister Brown had sent Gadhafi urging a low-key welcome for the state intelligence officer who killed 270 people, mostly Americans. A “high-profile return would cause further unnecessary pain for the families of the Lockerbie victims,” the letter said. It also said, “You will be aware that the Scottish executive’s public announcement on Megrahi’s future is expected very shortly. I understand that their decision is to transfer Megrahi back to Libya on compassionate grounds,” contradicting earlier claims that the decision was known only when the Scottish minister announced it.
Reports then emerged that a procession of cabinet ministers had gone cap in hand to Libya in recent months and that Prince Andrew had even been scheduled to attend tomorrow’s celebration of the 40th anniversary of Gadhafi’s one-man rule. As these facts emerged, Chris Patten, a former chairman of the Conservative Party, pointed out that people would assume the next British company to win a contract in Libya was “all part of the payoff for complicity in an ill-judged decision.”
The Web made political sentiment easy to track. Comments on the BBC site last week included an American who wrote that he’ll boycott Scottish goods, including Scotch whisky. “As an American of Scottish descent, this is particularly painful, though not as painful as watching a mass murderer set free,” John from Washington wrote. “On the bright side, I will instead enjoy my Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whisky and Kentucky Bourbon, which will actually save me money.” Frank in Edinburgh posted, “I think the boycott’s a good idea. Alas, I shall not participate. As an Edinburgh resident, I would have to drive to Berwick [England] to buy my groceries and that’s not feasible.”
Polls found that twice as many Britons think the release had more to do with oil than with Megrahi’s health and that people in Scotland opposed the release by a margin of nearly 2 to 1. The Scottish Parliament begins hearings today, so expect further details of how this release happened.
We’ve come a long way from the days when a diplomatic wink and nod were the end of the discussion. It’s real progress that Libya, which out of caution stepped back from some of its activities following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, is now largely the focus of trade deals, but this doesn’t mean that people will ever forgive terrorism.
Indeed, one lesson for the U.S. is that politicians can’t avoid responsibility for anything to do with terrorism. The British government couldn’t blame a Scottish justice minister for releasing a terrorist. Likewise, a White House wouldn’t be able to escape political repercussions if a terrorist is freed because of the difficulties in trying these cases in criminal courts instead of as acts of war.
Diplomacy was once satirically defined as the patriotic art of lying for one’s country. This approach is hard to sustain in a world that demands transparency. For diplomats, there’s no negotiating around the fact that confidential deals today could be headlines tomorrow.
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Full article and photo: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204731804574382571184933610.html
