“So Resolution 731 was adopted. Everyone at the Security Council knew it was wrong. Everyone knew that Libya had nothing to do with the Lockerbie bombing, and that Libya had once again been made a scapegoat by the United States.”

Francis Boyle
International Law professor

January 21 2023 — On January 21 1992, after recalling UN Resolutions 286 (1970) and 635 (1989) which condemned acts of terrorism, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 731. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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“There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.”

The Security Council expressed its concern over the results of investigations into the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and UTA Flight 772 over the Ténéré desert, Niger, which implicated officials from the Government of Libya.

This story has been so distorted by the MSM that it is a gargantuan task to correct all the lies!

Lockerbie — Three Decades of Lies: J’Accuse…!

QUICK NOTES — To make it easier for the readers to retrieve various chapters of my book, I have created a special page  “Lockerbie” where all the links to the chapters will be listed with a brief description. You can access that page directly as it appears at the far right of the top bar of this blog.

Lockerbie — Three Decades of Lies: J’Accuse…!

How the US & UK MSM distorted the story

Although all MSM reported that the UNSC 731 requests the extradition of Megrahi and Fimah, the Resolution does not make such demand.

As no extradition Treaty exists between any of these three countries and Libya, it would have been obviously illegal to demand the extradition of Libyan citizens.

What really happened?

On 27 November 1991 the governments of both the USA and the UK issued a joint declaration demanding that Libya surrender for trial those charged with the crime, accept responsibility for the actions of Libyan officials, disclose all it knows of this crime, allow full access to the evidence and pay appropriate compensation.

At this date, the USA and the UK were already working on the preamble for a resolution in the UN Security Council.

On 17 January 1992 Libya addressed the UK and the USA in two letters, reminding them of the Montreal convention, the general rule of jurisdiction in case of claims to extradite nationals, as well as asking for arbitration according to Article 14/1 of the Montreal Convention.

On 21 January 1992 the UN Security Council adopted resolution 731/1992 calling on Libya to cooperate in the implementation of the provisions of that resolution and to commit itself to renounce and condemn terrorism.

The resolution was based on the British and American demands put forward on the 27.11.1991.

However, the resolution did not oblige Libya to extradite the two national suspects.

Libya declared, that it had fully cooperated in the case according to international jurisdictions, thus already having fulfilled the demands of the resolution.

How the US & UK avoided a “bloc vote”

On January 4 1992, the New York Times published an interesting story:  U.S. and Allies to Seek U.N. Support Against Libya.

Today the United States, France and Britain sent their United Nations representatives to explain their position to the new United Nations Secretary General, Boutros Ghali, who is said to be worried that a new crisis is developing over the Libyan issue.

The three allies deliberately postponed their campaign against Libya until this month after calculating that changes in the roster of Security Council members effective January 1 [1992] would make the body more sympathetic to their plans.

Cuba and Yemen, which voted against many of the gulf war resolutions affecting Iraq, have left the Council after completing two-year terms, as have the Ivory Coast, Zaire and Romania.

Their places have been taken by Venezuela, Japan, Morocco, Cape Verde and Hungary.

Now that Japan has assumed one of the seats reserved for African and Asian states, the number of Council members belonging to the so-called non-aligned movement has fallen from seven to six.

That means the non-aligned nations can no longer prevent the adoption of resolutions by the 15-member Council by voting as a bloc.

[Intel Today : Only nine votes are needed to adopt a resolution.]

“To get the Chinese vote, Bush senior agreed to have his infamous meeting in New York with premier Li Ping, the Butcher of Beijing, the official in charge of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.”

Francis Boyle
International Law professor

How the US bought the UN votes

Francis Boyle — International Law professor — has written about this case and provided very clear explanations as to how the US bought the key votes.

“The security Council has no authority to demand anyone’s extradition. (…) Nevertheless, Bush senior got the votes.

The key vote was China.

To get the Chinese vote, Bush senior agreed to have his infamous meeting in New York with premier Li Ping, the Butcher of Beijing, the official in charge of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.”

After the passage of Resolution 731, US Ambassador Thomas Pickering declared that countries supporting terrorism will no longer be able to hide behind international law.

Who needs George Orwell?

As International Law Professor Michael P. Scharf wrote long ago, achieving justice was never the main objective.

“U.S. officials saw the indictment itself as a diplomatic tool that would help them persuade members of the Security Council to impose sanctions on Libya, thereby furthering their goal of isolating a rogue regime.”

Indeed, deflecting attention from the truth and obtaining a UN Resolution were the real goals of the ‘Lockerbie Solution’ from the very beginning. 

PS — The Lockerbie case is a complete fiasco. Thirteen judges have managed to find a man guilty of a crime that never occurred in the first place!

On November 2 2016, the UK Government [Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS)] decided to withhold all Lockerbie air accident investigation reports [dating from 1990 Jan 01 to 1992 Dec 31] until at least 2026, and possibly indefinitely.

Who knows? Maybe, in 2026, we will finally learn that that no bomb was involved in the disintegration of Pan Am Flight 103.

REFERENCES

United Nations Security Council Resolution 731 — Wikipedia

Professor Francis Boyle — Official webpage

The Lockerbie Legality — What went wrong in international criminal law ? By Safia Aoude

Boeing and a “Long Decade” in US-China Relations from 1989–2001

Before global supply chains and indigenous innovation became leading issues, bilateral economic relations in the 1990s were often dominated by contentious debates in Washington over Beijing’s “most favored nation” (MFN) status, an issue that thrust Boeing into the limelight as a major force in US-China relations.

MFN status meant that the United States would give China trade advantages equal to the best that it gave any of its other trading partners—the vast majority of which already had MFN status. In practice, this approval meant that a country avoided the punitive Smoot-Hawley tariffs imposed during the Great Depression.

(…)

Due to Tiananmen, Washington embargoed $700 million in arms sales to China, ended joint military planning and weapons development, and suspended trade and development assistance. These new frictions drew Boeing deeper into the domestic politics of US foreign policy as the company had to work delicately with the administration to exempt a scheduled $200 million delivery of four B757s to China from military sanctions.

The need for the US president to renew China’s MFN status each year provided another means for Congress to punish China. Proponents argued that the United States should use denial of MFN status as “leverage” against Beijing because China wanted access to US markets, foreign investment, and “prestige meetings” with American officials.

The George H.W. Bush administration, however, renewed China’s MFN status every year and vetoed bills that attempted to revoke MFN or link it to human rights. Even though Democratic leaders in Congress and an “eclectic alliance of anti-Communists, human rights advocates, and protectionists” believed Bush’s approach was wrong, they could never override his veto.

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On This Day — United Nations Security Council Adopts Resolution 731 (January 21 1992)