Posted on 08/16/2003 3:29:34 PM PDT by Pikamax
Libya Rules Out More Compensation for French Jet Victims Sat August 16, 2003 05:15 PM ET LONDON (Reuters) - Libya on Saturday ruled out paying more compensation to families of victims of the 1989 bombing of a French airliner despite the possibility of France spoiling a $2.7 billion deal on the Lockerbie bombing. Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Abderrhmane Chalgam told CNN television that Tripoli would not accept what he called "any kind of extortion" from France.
"That file is completely closed," Chalgam said. "We had an agreement with the French and it is completely settled. Any kind of extortion or blackmailing, we're not going to accept that."
Libya accepted responsibility on Friday for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in a step toward closing the book on the mid-air explosion that killed 270 people and made Tripoli a pariah to much of the West.
In a letter to the U.N. Security Council, Libya said it "accepts responsibility for the actions of its officials" in the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988, an admission it long resisted despite international condemnation and economic sanctions.
Assuming the $2.7 billion payment is made -- which a U.S. official said could happen as early as Tuesday -- the United States and Britain made clear that they regarded Tripoli as having met the conditions needed to permanently lift U.N. sanctions imposed on Libya in 1992.
Libya delivered the letter despite signs France may block the Lockerbie settlement to try to get more money for the 1989 downing of the French airliner, a development that has infuriated U.S. officials and Lockerbie family members.
France wants to persuade Libya to raise the roughly 30.5 million euros ($34.3 million) in compensation that the French government accepted for the bombing of UTA Flight 772 over the West African state of Niger.
The head of a group representing the UTA victims said that of around 1,000 parties eligible for compensation for that bombing, 313 people received payments of between 3,000 euros ($3,380) and 30,000 euros ($33,780).
I don't understand something here. A deal is a deal; the French did accept it, so what is this bitching about?
These are people who just let 3,000+ of their elderly citizens die from heat-related causes, because their adult children and the government doctors wouldn't cut their vacations short to try to help the seniors out. And of course, being the French, who do they blame for this? Why, George W. Bush and the United States of course, because if Bush had just signed the Kyoto treaty and if we would give up our SUVs and start riding bicycles to work, the heat wave would have never happened! No way would the French even consider taking a long hard look in the mirror.
There simply aren't sufficiently profane words in the English language to properly describe how despicable and beneath contempt the French are. Even if the French all magically disappeared tomorrow, it would take generations to purge human society of the sleaze and rot they have foisted on us all.
Right - but only as insufferable as those little wet flies that bite you in the eyes around dusk down here in sub-tropical Maryland. In the great scheme of things, the death of 200 or so frogs in an UTA jet is approximately equal to the death of one NYC fireman or cop on Nine Eleven, or the murder of one Israeli teenage girl by a palislamofascist bomber - strike that, make that 2000 frogs, no, pick a number, a very high number.
You do have to give the French some credit, though - it really takes some doing to come up second-best when being compared to the friggin' Libyans .
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