Industry | 2009.08.30
The dodging ministers have made their own Libyan bed | Jackie Ashley
Freeing the Lockerbie bomber could have been a time for open debate. Instead, Labour invited suspicion on itself
It\'s a morality tale about modern government, truth-telling and hard choices. But it now looks as though the release of the terminally ill, convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to Libya won\'t just be a grim footnote to a long and bloody mystery. No, it will be a full-scale political crisis to greet Labour MPs when they return from holiday.
There are two things to say about the decision to release Megrahi before turning to its darkest aspects. First, Scotland does not deserve the extreme expressions of anger from America . The letter by Robert Mueller, the FBI boss who earlier led an investigation into the bombing, to Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice minister, was moving, detailed and powerful. There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of his outrage. But successive US administrations have applauded the release of Irishmen found guilty of terrorism, in the wider interests of peaceful resolution.
They were probably right to do so. But the US does not have a monopoly on deciding what spurs terrorism and what prevents it. Through the disgrace of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay and through the savage mistakes of the Iraq war, Washington has stirred up huge anger and resentment of a kind which, it can be argued, does spur terrorism. Does the US really have the moral authority to harangue the Scots? Threatening to boycott whisky and the Highlands is pathetic; it\'s as if at some level Americans think they own little Scotland.
Second, however distasteful it might seem, there is at least a case for releasing a dying man early, both on compassionate grounds, and in order to create jobs and improve diplomatic relations. How do you balance the need to do business and draw a cautiously reforming one-time rogue state into the political mainstream, with the moral demands of crime and punishment?
The anguish of relatives, the doubts about what really happened and the frustrations of police and lawyers who toiled for years to bring someone to justice, should be taken into account. But they don\'t end the need to make political choices about the future. Governments have morally complex questions to answer, and this was, if nothing else, a very difficult one. I think the Scottish government made the wrong decision, but it was a rational and difficult choice.
What may well have happened is that British ministers, trying to take a realpolitik decision to benefit British industry, bungled it badly: if the backlash in the US against Scotland is so great, the economic benefits of trading with Libya will presumably be swamped.
In another political world, we could have had a serious debate about all this, and learned some lessons. The foreign secretary David Miliband might have pointed out the advantages of promoting Libyan reformers, and asked whether it isn\'t better to do deals than threaten or go to war against enemies. He might have reminded the US how pleased they were that Libya changed direction during "the war on terror".
Lord Mandelson might have pointed out how many British jobs are still being lost, and talked of the responsibility to protect major companies. Bereaved Lockerbie relatives would then have hit back, expressing their outrage about a possible early release. Both sides have a case to argue – at least there would have been an open and honest exchange.
Sadly that open debate didn\'t and can\'t happen because of the dodging ministers still seem to think is good politics. There are a number of allegations that need answers: if, as Miliband says, it is a slur to say the British government had anything to do with Megrahi\'s release, then why did Tony Blair negotiate the prisoner transfer deal with Colonel Gaddafi in the first place? Did the Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis write to MacAskill confirming there was no legal block to the release and saying he hoped the SNP minister would feel able to "consider the Libyan application", and if so, why?
Why did Gordon Brown feel able to write to the Libyan leader after meeting him six weeks ago expressing the hope that if Megrahi returned to Libya, it should be a private occasion, not a public celebration? Why did Gaddafi thank the British government, rather than the Scottish one? Why did the Libyan leader\'s son publicly reassure Megrahi that "you were on the table in all commercial, oil and gas agreements … in all British interests"? Why did Mandelson have a "fleeting" discussion on Corfu with Saif Gaddafi , the son of the Libyan leader, on the same subject?
Saif Gaddafi may be a serious-minded reformer, someone it is right to have dialogue with. But, as with earlier possible defences of the release of Megrahi, it doesn\'t matter any more. Public suspicion about what has happened is sweeping all that aside. And ministers have only themselves to blame.
If you were a bad political satirist, you would have said that Brown would go to ground, rather than rushing to give his views on the decision. You would have found a connection between the trendy Saif Gaddafi, Mandelson and a few jetsetting friends and you would have set the scene in a super-rich Mediterranean enclave.
You might also, if you were a little more sophisticated, have speculated that Labour would think it a fine wheeze to dump all the ordure on the SNP, utterly confusing everyone in the outside world, who thought Britain was still one country in which the ultimate government\'s views might count a little.
All this has happened, and now the media and opposition have a string of leads to follow up, and any rational ministerial explanation won\'t get heard. When Mandelson says there was no agreement between the British and Libyan governments, we have been schooled to ask: what is an "agreement" and what is a nose-tapping "understanding"? When he says that "people are reading far too much into this", he is talking about the British public, who have learned to read between the lines of bland governmental reassurance.
Yes, we are cynical. Yes, we know the difference between a formal instruction and a helpful nudge. Yes, we think we are governed by those who use the subtlest forms of words to avoid a direct lie. Yes, we suspect there are little cliques of super-rich chums doing deals around the world. But whose fault is that?
Today MacAskill will have to face the recalled Scottish parliament and try to explain himself. I have a suspicion that won\'t be the end of the story; and that any Labour gloating about how they have left the Scots holding the ball, will be premature.
jackie.ashley@guardian.co.uk
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]mbing-release-gadafy-mandelson
