Posted on 10/16/2003 7:26:26 PM PDT by Shermy
PARIS (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son said in an interview to be published on Friday there would be no further payout for victims of the 1989 bombing of a French UTA plane without Libya getting something in exchange.
Saif al-Islam, chief Libyan negotiator in compensation talks with the families of the 170 bombing victims, said in Le Figaro daily that discussions now were at crisis point.
They have dragged on since August and failed to reach a deal by an October 11 deadline.
Libya has never acknowledged responsibility for the UTA bombing, but it agreed after a French court convicted six Libyans in absentia in 1999 to pay the families $34 million between them.
The French reopened the case for more compensation after Libya agreed to pay $2.7 billion to families of the 270 people killed in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am plane over Scotland.
Al-Islam said that in the latest negotiations France was ignoring a "secret document" he said was drawn up in September between the Libyan delegation and the French government.
The French Foreign Ministry has denied the existence of any secret agreement.
"The French tell us they do not want to hear anything about the confidential document drafted in September. Now, for us, this document is the basis of any accord," al-Islam told Le Figaro in the interview made available to Reuters.
"Now we are back to square one. What else can we do but return home," he told the newspaper by telephone from London.
French President Jacques Chirac urged Libya on Saturday to reach a deal on a UTA payout or face the consequences.
On Tuesday, Libyan envoys began fresh talks, only to break them off hours later. French negotiator Guillaume Denoix de Saint Marc, whose father was killed in the mid-air attack, said they cited reasons independent of the talks themselves.
LIBYA WANTS COMPENSATION FOR PILOTS
Al-Islam said that in return for extra money for the UTA families, Tripoli wanted compensation from Paris for three Libyan pilots killed in the 1980s in Chad by the French army.
"Until all this is cleared up, we can't restart negotiations," Denoix de Saint Marc told France 2 television on Thursday evening.
Denoix told Reuters: "These declarations, which only express Saif al-Islam's personal view, fall outside the framework of the negotiations and are detrimental to them. We are working with some members (of the Libyan delegation) to calm things down."
Al-Islam told Le Figaro: "We want financial compensation for the families of the three Libyan pilots killed by the French army. At the time we were not at war with France but with Chad."
"We also want to resolve the problem of the six Libyans France condemned in absentia (for the UTA bombing)," he added. "Their innocence must be recognized. For too long, France has teased us with idea of improved bilateral relations, only to go into reverse."
An interim UTA deal was reached in September, as a condition for France agreeing to end U.N. sanctions on Libya imposed after the Pan Am bombing.
Al-Islam said the maximum payout in a definitive deal would be an extra million dollars per family, and said he would lose all support in Libya if he struck a deal without getting something in return.
"The French must understand: if they want extra compensation, they must give us something in exchange. After all, we have in our possession an official French document telling us that this affair is wrapped up," he said.
Whatever it says, it appears that Chirac agreed a Frenchman is worth roughly 12% of an American.
The survivors of the 270 Pan Am victims got $2.7 billion -- or $10 mill per passenger.
The survivors of the 170 UTA victims got $34 million, or $200,000 per death, and Chirac seems to have made a deal for another mill apiece.
I wonder what he got for himself...
I'm not sure how much leverage Chirac has once Libya has settled its conflict with the US. It seems to me that France's best shot at a big payout was when Libya had no friends. Now that we are prepared perhaps to let bygones be, I suspect its too late, the ship has left the pier.
The US is the power Khadafi has to deal with in Chad at least, not France. Furthermore, Libya and France are competitors in Africa, not allies. I think Chirac has nothing to threaten Libya with.
Chirac probably got something in Swiss Francs the first time around. But this time I bet he only got the shaft.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.