What Mandela has really been up to, rather than writing to Thomas Friedman. Macdonald ******** Mandela to Continue Mediating in Lockerbie Affair Panafrican News Agency (Dakar) April 9, 2001 Posted to the web April 9, 2001 Ali Dellali Tripoli, Libya The Libyan leader Col. Moammar Kadhafi and the retired South African President Nelson Mandela on Sunday evening held lengthy discussions in Tripoli on the latest developments in the "Lockerbie affair." Addressing a news conference after the talks, Mandela pledged to continue efforts aimed at making the other parties to abide by the agreement the two sides had reached on the affair. While he was still President, Mandela had helped in breaking the deadlock over the Lockerbie affair by negotiating the surrender of two Libyans suspected of masterminding the mid-air explosion of a Pan Am airliner killing 270 people over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988. On 30 January this year, a Scottish court at Camp Zeist in The Netherland handed a life sentence to one of the suspects, Abdelbasset al-Meghrahi but acquitted his colleague, Al-Amine Khalifa Fihima. After this ruling, Mandela had criticised the United States and Great Britain for refusing to lift sanctions against Tripoli. He said that the two countries had broken a promise they had made in order to obtain the extradition of the two Libyans. On Sunday evening, Col. Kadhafi offered a banquet in honour of Mandela, who later met with Abelbasset Al-Megrahi's family at his hotel in Tripoli. "I implore you as a great African statesman to continue your efforts for the eventual release of my son. I would like to see him before I die," said the weeping Haja Fatma (77), Abdelbasset's mother, as she shook hands with Mandela. Her grandchildren accompanied her. They were Ghada (18), Khaled (15), Mohamed (8), Ali (6) and Motassem (2) and Abdelbasset's wife who did not speak. Mandela promised to continue his efforts until an acceptable settlement is found. "I discussed the latest developments of the affair with Colonel Kadhafi and I hope to meet the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on 28 April", he added. The former South African President described his meeting with Kadhafi as "very fruitful" adding that the Libyan leader had made a major contribution towards the settlement of the Lockerbie affair. In a brief interview, one of Abdelbassat's brothers told PANA: "We only want one thing, the evidence of our brother's guilt. The condemnation of an innocent person on purely political grounds causes us a lot of pain." ------------------------------------------- Macdonald Stainsby Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion. http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/rad-green ---- Leninist-International: Building bridges in the tradition of V.I. Lenin. http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international ---- In the contradiction lies the hope. --Bertholt Brecht _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
