The Troubling Gifts of Gadhafi

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ^ | 6/22/02 | Konrad Schuller

[Ranger]

BERLIN. In the 1980s, when Libya sent parcels to Europe, the contents were often lethal: Plastic explosives from Czechoslovakia and detonators from Switzerland to rip apart French passenger planes, or bullets to hit British police officers. In Berlin, a bomb planted by the Libyan secret service killed three visitors to the La Belle disco and wounded 250 others.
 

Today, the parcels sent by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi have more conciliatory contents. An exhibition at the Staatsratsgebäude in Berlin presents a number of contemporary paintings (by artists including Mr. Gadhafi's son, Saif al Islam), as well as 30 sculptures, mosaics and vases from ancient Libya's Greco-Roman colonies. A bust of the emperor Septimius Severus, who was born there, looks across at a prize amphora from the pan-Athenian games. The message of this ensemble reads: Libya has always been part of the West, it regrets its aberrations and has now returned to the family of civilized peoples.
 

Against Mr. Gadhafi's will, however, his ancient peace greeting now also threatens to have an explosive impact. At first, all Berliners were not prepared to consider the opportunity of viewing a planeload of artworks as sufficient payment for Libya's crimes. For this reason, as soon the exhibition opened, a representative of the survivors and the bereaved of the 1986 La Belle attack, Berlin lawyer Andreas Schulz, asked a court in the city to have the sculptures seized as compensation for the victims.
 

A second stage detonated during the defusing of the first. Although the court dismissed the victims' appeal for seizure, its reasoning included an argument that is highly controversial in political terms. The judges may not have questioned Libya's guilt concerning the La Belle attack, but they were not prepared to claim this as grounds for liability under civil law. Their reason was that if the perpetrator of a deed is not a normal mortal, but a state that pursues its political goals "by all available means, even terrorist ones," then one can "rightly ask whether this is not a sovereign act." And according to the current legal interpretation, civil courts are not entitled to intervene over "sovereign acts." If the court verdict is upheld, it will mean that the terrorist state of Libya is protected by the principle of state immunity. According to the conventions of international law, states are not subject to foreign jurisdictions.
 

Following this reading, conflicts are resolved by political or diplomatic means, and if necessary by war. Taken to its logical conclusion, this means that although Germany can take part in a military campaign against the terrorist Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the German legal system cannot seize a single cent in Libyan assets. Foreign states can commit crimes in Germany without being liable to prosecution under civil law.
 

The La Belle victims have filed a complaint against the ruling, but their chances are not good. Under current international law, a spokeswoman of the German Justice Ministry says, there is "little hope of success."
 

Outside of Germany, several countries have already prosecuted other sovereign states for state crimes. In the United States, for example, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act provides for damage claims against terrorist regimes in cases of murder, hostage-taking and similar offenses. Following the bombing on an American passenger airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, Libyan assets worth about $500 million were frozen, and the American La Belle victims managed to file a lawsuit in Washington.
 

Germany itself recently found out that state immunity does not offer failsafe protection from prosecution for crimes. The threatened seizure of the Goethe Institute building in Athens to pay for Nazi crimes would also violate the principle of state immunity as it is usually understood. And Germany's rejection of the move could be defended using the same words used by the Berlin regional court, that even "terrorist" acts are "sovereign actions." And in this case, too, precisely this wording was dismissed by a Greek court.
 

This case demonstrates the extent of Germany's interest in saving the protective shield of immunity from damage. If state terrorism or war crimes could be prosecuted under civil law, then as the legal successor to the Third Reich, the Federal Republic of Germany might have to face claims from Norway to Sicily. In Germany, there are no plans for legislation to match the American Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.
 

As a result, Mr. Gadhafi has no need to worry about his bust of Severus. The legal system protects these testimonies to his European ambitions, and the political system nods its approval. In any case, reestablishing contacts with an allegedly reformed Libya counts among the projects of Foreign Minister Joseph (Joschka) Fischer. Some time ago, the head of the criminal law department at the Foreign Ministry advised the victims, in a letter concerning their dealings with the state that wounded, maimed and killed their family members, to "avoid any annoyance that might have a negative impact on their own cause."
Jun. 21

[BeAllYouCanBe]

"terrorist" acts are "sovereign actions

This is really scary. The EuroNuts are letting their civilization fall into a period of anarchy that no doubt well be their demise. Not condemning evil was how World War II was able to consume the continent.

There is no doubt that Libya sees the opening and is trying to exploit it!