Below is a summation I requested from Mr. Patrick Haseldine of his persistent theory that elements of South Africa's Apartheid government carried out the 103 bombing. Beneath that are some counter-points by Robert Forrester and myself, not to this specific article, but from existing comments re: the South Africans theory (which no one but Haseldine supports, AFAIK). I still have no idea what "Wi" and "Wii" have to do with anything. (C.L.)
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Why Pan Am Flight 103? That’s the Wii
Officially
Why did the Libyans do it is the Wi question.
Libya’s motive in sabotaging Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988, according to one school of thought, was to avenge the death of Colonel Gaddafi’s daughter in the 1986 US bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi. In which case, PA 103 was Gaddafi’s second bite of the revenge cherry since he was alleged to have sponsored the September 1986 hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi, Pakistan, when 20 passengers were killed.
Former CIA head of counter-terrorism, Vincent Cannistraro, who had worked on the PA 103 investigation, was interviewed in the 1994 documentary film Maltese Double Cross, and offered another scenario. Cannistraro said he believed the Palestinian terror group PFLP-GC planned the attack at the behest of the Iranian government (in revenge for the July 1988 shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the US Navy). The Palestinians then sub-contracted it to Libyan intelligence after October 1988, because the PFLP-GC’s bomb-making cell in Neuss had been disrupted by the German police and could not complete the operation.
Officially, then, the Wi question remains open.
Why that particular flight and date is the Wii question.
The Wii question was never actually addressed during the trial in 2000 of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahiand Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah at the Scottish Court in the Netherlands. An explanation can however be divined from the Court Judgment, which states: “From the evidence which we have discussed so far, we are satisfied that it has been proved that the primary suitcase containing the explosive device was dispatched from Malta, passed through Frankfurt and was loaded onto PA 103 at Heathrow.”
So, it appears the official answer to the Wii question is that Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988 was sabotaged for a simple, mechanical reason: the bomb suitcase had been ingested as unaccompanied baggage atLuqa Airport in Malta, conveyed by Air Malta flight KM180 to Frankfurt International Airport, and transferred there to a connecting feeder flight PA 103A to Heathrow Airport, where it was put into the interline baggage container AVE 4041PA and loaded onto PA 103 in the forward cargo hold.
Alternatively
Why did the apartheid South African regime do it? (Wi)
The alternative answer is that the apartheid regime was motivated entirely by self-interest: economic and political.In December 1988, the United Nations was planning to take legal action against De Beers/Anglo American to enforce UN Council for Namibia (UNCN) Decree No 1, which prohibited the exploitation of Namibia 's natural resources - particularly diamonds and uranium. The UNCN Decree provided for the payment of damages to the future government of an independent Namibia . A former senior De Beers employee, Gordon Brown, has estimated that from 1967, when South West Africa (Namibia) became the responsibility of the United Nations, until the territory gained its independence in 1990, De Beers illegally removed diamonds valued at £11.0 billion ($18.7bn).
On 22 December 1988, the day after the Lockerbie disaster, apartheid South Africa was set to surrender control of Namibia to the United Nations upon signature of the New York Accords at UN headquarters, thus ending its illegal occupation of the territory in defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 435. Once Namibia was under UN control, De Beers and the apartheid State faced prosecution under UNCN Decree No 1.
Why that particular flight and date? (Wii)
The alternative answer to the Wii question starts with what former MP Tam Dalyell called a “Faustian agreement” whereby Washington agreed with Tehran to sacrifice one American aircraft in revenge for the Iranian airbus - rather than the ten demanded by Iran’s minister of the interior at the time, Ali Akbar Mostashemi (see Mail on Sunday, 16 August 2009, The truth about Lockerbie? That's the last thing the Americans want the world to know).
To prevent the awful truth about this agreement from emerging, Washington secretly delegated the 'eye for an eye' task to Pretoria which accepted, but on condition that it had a say on choosing the sacrificial aircraft. Thus, the apartheid regime’s newly-fledged Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB), having been assigned the task by the CIA, then selected Pan Am Flight 103 and 21 December 1988. That just happened to be the flight on which Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, was booked to attend the signing ceremony in New York and to take charge of Namibia. The CCB had ample time to plan and execute the crime since Bernt Carlsson’s movements and travel arrangements, dictated in part by De Beers in London, were known well in advance. At one stroke, PA 103’s destruction met the requirement of the “Faustian agreement” and, by targeting the UN Commissioner for Namibia, achieved the objective of apartheid South Africa: to stop him prosecuting De Beers for the illegal exploitation of Namibia's natural resources (see South Africa Inc: The Oppenheimer Empire, pages 117-121, and 'World in Action' documentary The Strange Case of the Disappearing Diamonds, which featured strong criticism of De Beers by Bernt Carlsson ).
Upshot
As at February 2010, there has been no criminal investigation into Bernt Carlsson’s murder. The decision not to investigate was taken by Scottish policeman, Detective Constable John Crawford, on the basis of information supplied to him by “a very helpful lady librarian in Newcastle ” (see "The Lockerbie Incident : A Detective's Tale", by John Crawford, pages 88/89).
- Patrick Haseldine
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Commentary by Robert Forrester (Quincey Riddle), Jan 30 2010
ONE STEP AT A TIME
I must confess that, academically speaking, I lack what some seemingly do not: a doctorate in Double Think. With regard to the Carlson angle specifically:
A: Without doubt the RSA government of the day would have been more than happy to have him 'removed'.
B: However, by blowing up a jumbo with 258 innocent bystanders on board in the process! To what end? To provide a cover and cast the blame on to a group of disaffected Arabs or Iranians?
C: Surely Pretoria had plenty of alternatives that could have achieved the same goal without all the 'collateral' (I believe is the appropriately sanitised term to express mass murder these days).
D: Let's not forget how much they had learnt from the results yielded via their investment in Project Coast.
E: In other words: why not simply do a Georgi Markov number on him?
F: After all, the progress made in the realms of DNA sequencing and biotoxins through Coast would have been sufficiently well advanced at the time to make discovery almost impossible unless the pathologists knew exactly what they were looking for.
Now then. I have an immense degree of respect for Tam Dalyell, however, when he refers to a Faustian pact whereby Washington subcontract the job to Pretoria, I am afraid I do not know in what context this statement was set. Was it, for example, one of: 'it is not beyond the bounds of credibility to imagine.......etc'? Or, was it an assertion? Mr Dalyell has also said, and here I paraphrase, that the only hope of discovering who committed the act probably lies in one of the perpetrators believing sufficiently strongly in God that there is a deathbed confession. I, therefore, cannot believe that any reference to a Faustian pact on Tam Dalyell's part was anything other than a nodding acknowledgement of the theory.
Nevertheless, on the grounds that it is not unknown for governments and their servants to indulge in apparently insane and overly complex subterfuge, where is the proof? The layman casting an eye over this can arrive at one of two equally valid conclusions:
1: The whole thing is so spectacularly convoluted as to render it credible on the grounds that it is precisely the type of machination that people dream up when they have something to hide.
2: The whole thing is so spectacularly convoluted as to render it incredible, particularly when we place its apparent sophistication beside the fact that Pik Botha was booked on to the same flight only for himself and his entourage to unbook themselves. But there again, some might argue that that slip up was a blind to make it look like RSA had no blood on its hands because they wouldn't have made such a stupid mistake, would they?
How far then does this take Saul along his journey to Damascus? Precisely nowhere in my view. Don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of crime fiction, and theories of this nature are most stimulating, but for me, until some tangible proof emerges, I am afraid they only serve as a form of intellectual exercise.
Furthermore, my principle motivation in the Lockerbie issue is the travesty of justice that was Zeist. Whatever I may think about who dunnit (and I do have my thoughts, prosaic though they may be), I am not interested in apportioning blame at this stage. What I am very much interested in doing though is righting a wrong. One step at a time, my friends.
Anyhow, just a couple of passing thoughts.
Toodle pip for the moment,
Robert Forrester (Justice for Megrahi Campaign committee member).
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Commentary by Adam Larson (Caustic Logic)
actually an exchange with Mr. H. Dec 22 2009
CL: So... (aplogies for any imprecisions on my part) Were the South Africans responsible for the $10 million transfer from Iran to the PFLPGC to blow up a plane with Americans as revenger for IA655? Did Botha have a hand in getting Khreesat's bombs made in Frankfurt? Or in smuggling one of them onto PA103 in London? Or is it just a coincidence that the South African method happened to so resemble a Khreesat bomb in blowing up 38 minutes after takeoff? And a coincidence the SA job so reflected the shoot-down of IA655? Why do you suppose the Iranians never got their revenge they paid for? Do you have a supposition at all on how they did it, or do you even care?
Also, why - when he was a supporter of Megrahi - was Nelson Mandella unable to expose his predecessors' true involvement?
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-9989557.html
Just asking questions. I'm sure you've got the answers somewhere or you wouldn't be so sure the SA folks did it. (If you can't provide answers, I will just flat ignore you for good)
And otherwise, I agree with your analysis.
PH: I don't pretend to know the full answers to the questions posed by Caustic Logic, but here are my preliminary suggestions:
a. South Africa's National Intelligence Service (NIS) was an integral part of Western intelligence;
b. Marwan Khreesat was a double/triple agent, and a CIA asset;
c. one of Khreesat's bombs might have been smuggled onto Pan Am Flight 103 at Heathrow (or it could have been a replica device made by a dedicated bomb-making section of the SADF's Directorate of Military Intelligence);
d. the Heathrow break-in on 20/21 December 1988 was a classic decoy operation, probably carried out by South Africa's Civil Cooperation Bureau;
e. thanks to South Africa, and with CIA support, Iran got their "revenge". (Whether the Iranians had to pay for it is another matter: there's no audit trail for the $10 million "transfer");
f. Gaddafi funded the ANC, and when Nelson Mandela was released from jail in 1990 (18 months before Megrahi and Fhimah were indicted), Libya was the first country he visited;
g. South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission established in 1996 was, I believe, precluded from investigating the regime's involvement in crimes committed overseas, unless amnesty had been applied for them. Since no-one applied to the TRC for amnesty over the Lockerbie bombing, it was not investigated. Lockerbie was however mentioned in the context of an amnesty granted to South African spy Craig Williamson for the 1982 bombing of the ANC offices in London (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Alberts_(lawyer)#Claim_to_fame ).
I could say a lot more, but that's probably enough for now.
CL:
Mr. Haseldine, thanks. That definitely forestalls "putting you on ignore." For what that's worth. (?) For the record a few notes on your thoughts here:
a- almost seems a counter-point, but okay...
b - I suspect tangential relationship - could a good chunk of a $10 million prize (plus genuine disgust with the IA655 incident) turn a single agent into a temporary double one?
c - may and may. Okay, but no specific supports. Duly noted.
d - Decoy? They specialize in cut-lock decoy ops more so than other groups?
e - Something tells me for revenge to work, one has to deliver the pain oneself, or on one's own orders. Your take seems that SA did this to kill Carlsson and, perhaps to claim Iran's prize at the same time? Otherwiise they didn't get their revenge if someone else did. They could as well predict 10,000 US flu deaths in the winter of 86 and call that more than enough revenge for their piddling 290.
f - yes, thanks. And he, as President, found no evidence of Botha et al's involvement to help get Libya off the hook? That definitely did not answer that important question.
g - Okay, that starts to answer it. Did anyone have reason to ask for that investigation? None that I've seen. The US drive against Libya as the villains of Lockerbie AND Mandella's presidency were both years old by 1996, and this question not entering the picture supports there being no such evidence.
The link just says ""If you look at the Lockerbie disaster - this is very similar. I think Britain would like to see these guys are prosecuted in England even though they get amnesty here." That reads to me as a comparison of jurisdiction and amnesty issues using a then-current high-profile case involving those sort of issues. It does nothing to support South African involvement in Lockerbie, whatever other heinous crimes they were guilty for.
Perhaps they're just really good at covering their tracks too. But some are perceptive enough to see the tracks anyway in the random jumble of the forest floor. Being able to make others see them is the tricky part though. No one else is seeing it, so maybe... it's not really a covered track? Just in case you hadn't considered that yet...
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18 comments:
I too have given a lot of thought to the SA angle.
I have rejected for the following two and a bit reasons.
Mr Pik Botha and his SA FM team were rebooked on PA 101 and only about 10 of the delegation of 30 could be uplifted on that flight which was full. The rest were sent back to SA. That seems to me credible proof that the South Africans had been told that the threat against Pan Am 103 was real. It also suggests that the threat against that single Pan Am flight was widely known in US SD. Virtually no US government officials died. A Pan Am flight near Christmas would have been nearly half full of US Government officials going States-side for their hols. That the SD had discounted the Helsinki warning by about 10 December, but no SD officials seem to take up seats on it, thereafter, tells it all. All Pan Am flights appeared to be full for but Pan Am 103 and the SD had been permitted to get its staff off. Points to a US not SA plot.
Then there's the curious matter that Carlsson is put on Pan Am 103 and the SA FM and team off. That suggests that SA is not in charge of the operation, for it would have been simpler to have bombed 101 rather than 103. The plane, after all, is not a target, its people, in any SA story.
Thirdly, I can find no account of large numbers of SA agents on the ground at Lockerbie. CIA were there, so why, if it were an SA job, were their SA equivalents not?
I am surprised that there has not been more anger from Pan Am veterans. They must have seen 103 was not fully loaded and someone may well have had some doubts about what was going on. There are lots of interesting questions going on here, such as how the plotters managed to get Mr McKee's suitcase and the bomb bag (if you wish) into the same container?
Were they threatened?
In response to Adam who asks for further elaboration on the two basic Why questions:
Wi is Why did they do it?, and
Wii is Why did they pick Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988?.
The commentaries posted by Adam and Robert Forrester pre-date my "comparative summation" and thus address neither the official nor the alternative Wi and Wii questions. And Charles' comment yesterday relates far more to Adam and Robert's commentaries than to the article itself.
If I may therefore, I should like to revert to Why Pan Am Flight 103? That's the Wii. Nowhere in the article is there a mention of Pik Botha and his party of 22 South African negotiators. That is because I have come around to Gordon Douglas Brown's point of view (expressed at The London Origin Theory thread) that Botha's party had never actually been booked on PA 103. Their inward South African Airways flight SA234 arrived at Heathrow at 7:20am on 21 December 1988, and they would therefore have been booked on the most convenient connecting flight which was PA 101 departing at 11:00am.
Incidentally, I am not alone in believing that apartheid South Africa/De Beers were responsible for targeting UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, on Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988. Gordon Brown is also a firm subscriber to that belief!
If Patrick Haseldine accepts the view that Pik Botha and party were never booked onto flight PA103 is there any truth in the claim that members of Botha's party could not be accomodated on flight PA101 and returned to South Africa rather than travel on flight PA103 or was it never intended that the full party would travel on to New York? Had they just come for a jolly in London perhaps?
I am obliged to Gordon Brown for letting me have the following chapter and verse on the booking of Pik Botha's flight from Heathrow to JFK on 21 December 1988:
"In answer to your e-mailed question of 22 February 2010, the [South African] member of parliament referred to is retired liberal opposition MP Colin Eglin of the Democratic Party (now well into his 80s).
"In a letter to a British Lockerbie victim’s family dated 18 July 1996, Mr Eglin wrote of questions he had put to South African Justice Minister Dullah Omar in the National Assembly in June 1996.
"On 5 June 1996, Mr Eglin had asked Mr Omar if Mr Pik Botha and his entourage 'had any plans to travel on this flight (Pan Am Flight 103) or had reservations for this flight; if so, why were the plans changed?'
"In reply in the National Assembly on 12 June 1996, Justice Minister Omar stated he had been informed by the former minister of foreign affairs (Pik Botha) that shortly before finalising their booking arrangements for travel from Heathrow to New York, they learned of an earlier flight from London to New York: namely, Pan Am Flight 101.
"They consequently were booked and travelled on this flight to New York.
"Mr Eglin went on to write in his letter to the Lockerbie victim’s family: 'Since then I have done some more informal prodding. This has led me to the person who made the reservations on behalf of the South African foreign minister Pik Botha and his entourage. This person assures me that he and no-one else was responsible for the reservations, and the reservation made in South Africa for the South African group was originally made on PA 101, departing London at 11:00 on 21 December 1988. It was never made on PA 103 and consequently was never changed. He made the reservation on PA 101 because it was the most convenient flight connecting with [South African Airways] flight SA 234 arriving at Heathrow at 07:20 on 21 December 1988.
"Mr Eglin gave the victim’s family the assurance that he had 'every reason to trust the person referred to' since he had been given a copy of 'rough working notes and extracts from his personal diary of those days.'
"In his letter Mr Eglin wrote: 'In the circumstances, I have to accept that an assertion that the reservations of the South African group were either made or changed as a result of warnings that might have been received, is not correct'."
The June 1996 reply by Justice Minister Dullah Omar directly contradicts the Reuters report of 12 November 1994, which stated: "Former South African foreign minister Pik Botha denied on Saturday he had been aware in advance of a bomb on board Pan Am Flight 103 which exploded over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988 killing 270 people. The minister confirmed through his spokesman that he and his party had been booked on the ill-fated airliner but switched flights after arriving early in London from Johannesburg."
It also conflicts with statements made by Oswald LeWinter and Tiny Rowland in the 1994 film The Maltese Double Cross. The film quotes Tiny Rowland as disclosing that Pik Botha told him that he and 22 South African delegates were going to New York for the Namibian Independence Ratification Ceremony and were all booked on the Pan Am Flight 103. They were given a warning from a source which could not be ignored and changed flights.
According to Dullah Omar, the whole 23-strong South African delegation were booked to travel on PA 101. Therefore none of them were stranded in London, as baz postulated above.
In an e-mail earlier this week addressed to Gordon Brown and me, Charles Norrie opined: "It raises the interesting questions of (a) why did it ever arise; (b) why as late as 1994; and, (c) did the planters of the story think that we are thicker than they take us for, and they can throw any sort of rubbish at us and we'll believe it?"
I'm afraid, Charles, the answer to (c) has to be yes!
PH:
"Wi is Why did they do it?, and
Wii is Why did they pick Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988?."
I got that, I don't know why you picked those letters to signify those questions. "Why is"? "Why is isn't"? Wii is of course a popular video game system at the moment, so it's incongruous and a little wiierd.
The full answer, Adam, harks back to my ancestors in Ireland, where an over-inquisitive child is often met with "That's the Why" from an exasperated parent.
I had considered using the title "Why Pan Am Flight 103? That's the Why", but decided against because it posed just one question, and the answer risked seeming too glib.
The popular video game system then sprang to mind as indicating more than one question and answer were involved, plus it made an intriguing title (which nonetheless needed explaining in the text).
I now look forward to seeing lots of comments focused upon the points raised in the article "Why Pan Am Flight 103? That's the Wii".
This afternoon I submitted the following petition to Prime Minister, Gordon Brown:
"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to launch a Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) investigation into the 1988 murder of Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson.
"Although the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General was the most high profile of the 270 Lockerbie disaster victims on 21 December 1988, Commissioner Carlsson's murder has never been investigated.
"Bernt Carlsson featured in the Granada TV documentary "The Strange Case of the Disappearing Diamonds" - broadcast on 28 September 1987 - in which he was highly critical of De Beers, the world's largest diamond mining company, for extracting gemstones worth an estimated £11 billion from Namibia. Decree No 1 of the UN Council for Namibia strictly prohibited such exploitation. Commissioner Carlsson was determined to institute proceedings against De Beers and apartheid South Africa, which had been illegally occupying Namibia for many years.
"On 22 December 1988, at UN headquarters in New York, the apartheid regime was poised finally to surrender control of the country to the United Nations.
Prior to boarding Pan Am Flight 103 at Heathrow on 21 December 1988, Commissioner Carlsson was described as 'stressed and nervous', having just come from an acrimonious meeting in London with De Beers (Jan-Olof Bengtsson, 'iDAG', 12 March 1990)."
Once approved by Number 10, the petition will be open for signature for two months until 28 April 2010.
Yesterday, the petition was rejected by Number 10 because: "It was outside the remit or powers of the Prime Minister and Government."
Additional information about this rejection: "This is a matter for direct communication with the Police."
On 17 February 2010, Gordon Brown was reported to have launched an investigation by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) into the alleged use by an Israeli hit squad of fake British passports. Did the PM exceed his powers when he launched this police investigation, one wonders?
Or, are we being fobbed off by Number 10 with an excuse not to investigate Bernt Carlsson's murder?
And what if Patrick now goes to the Police. They will say they are quite happy with the conviction of Mr Megrahi and have no intention of re-opening the case, We will only get somewhere when we have plugged on and embarrassed these people who take us for idiots into a PROPER INDEPENDENT PUBLIC INQUIRY LED BY AN UNIMPEACHABLE FOREIGN JUDGE WITH POWERS TO SUBPOENA WITNESSES.
I have now gone to the Police, and put the following seven questions to the Head of the FBI's Lockerbie Task Force and to Scotland's Senior Investigating Officer:
Subject: Awaiting answers from Richard Marquise and Stuart Henderson
From: patrick.haseldine@btinternet.com
Date: Friday, 26 March 2010
Dear Mr Marquise,
Lockerbie target: seven questions
On 15 March 2010, I asked you two questions:
1. Did the FBI 'establish antecedents' on Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson?
2. If so, will you publish the relevant FD402 report in full?
Earlier this week, I posed a further five questions for you and your Scottish counterpart, Detective Chief Superintendent Stuart Henderson, to answer:
3. Could you please tell us about the previous attack on Bernt Carlsson’s aircraft?
4. Could you please publish DC Crawford’s report on Bernt Carlsson?
5. Does the fact that in December 1988 the diamond mining and trading company De Beers was facing prosecution under the UNCN Decree for illegally exploiting Namibia’s gem diamonds over a 20-year period (estimated value $18.7 billion) make Bernt Carlsson a PA 103 target?
6. Does the fact that in December 1988 the owners of the Rössing uranium mine were facing prosecution under the UNCN Decree for illegally exploiting Namibia’s uranium oxide over a 14-year period (estimated value $1.2 billion) make Bernt Carlsson a PA 103 target?
7. Does the fact that the Rössing uranium mine is part-owned by the Iranian government, who were clandestinely receiving shipments of Namibian uranium oxide in 1988-1989, make it likely that Iran targeted Bernt Carlsson on PA 103?
Thanking you and DCS Henderson in anticipation of an early and full response to each of the seven questions,
Yours sincerely,
Patrick Haseldine
HM Diplomatic Service
(1971-1989)
UN MUST INVESTIGATE THE TARGETING OF BERNT CARLSSON ON PAN AM FLIGHT 103
On 31 July 2010, I posted the following comment on the New Statesman website:
@thinkov said: "I was on a train once Vanessa Redgrave was on it. She told me she reckoned the South Africans did it, anyone remember this theory?"
Vanessa Redgrave is quite right.
The highest profile passenger on Pan Am Flight 103 was Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson.
Commissioner Carlsson would have taken charge of Namibia on behalf of the UN on 22 December 1988 (the day after the Lockerbie disaster) and would then have proceeded to file billion-dollar compensation claims against companies and countries engaged in illegally exploiting Namibia's natural resources. See YouTube video "Bernt Carlsson and the Case of the Disappearing Diamonds Part 3" (World In Action documentary broadcast by Thames Television on 28 September 1987).
Commissioner Carlsson's death at Lockerbie meant that the apartheid regime's appointee (Administrator-General Louis Pienaar) remained in charge of the illegally occupied territory and that no UN compensation claims were ever made.
See Facebook page UN must investigate the targeting of Bernt Carlsson on Pan Am Flight 103 for more information.
Replaced above, again.
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Interesting new links and video. Vanessa Redgrave, huh?
I still it's one hell of an outlandish and unneccesary way to target one person, even prominent. If it'strue as you say, it has surprisingly few factual supports, and is curious in mimicking the known PFLP-GC plans just as perfectly as Libya's plot is said to mimic them. I hope you understand why I continue to come nowhere near buying it.
Coincidentally, Dr Jim Swire asked me a very similar question three weeks ago:
"How might those who wished to get Carlsson have acquired a PFLP-GC IED and infiltrated it into Heathrow for putting it on the 103 the following evening?
"As you probably realise, the PFLP-GC IEDs were all obligated to explode about 38 minutes after the wheels left the tarmac, no matter how long they had lain around at ground level; no user could modify that, and the group did not have the technology to extend the flight time with longer running timers, so except for the elaborate idea of someone mimicking the PFLP-GC devices, they look the likely instruments."
My rather deadpan reply to Dr Swire:
"A thorough investigation (preferably by a UN Commission of Inquiry) into the targeting of Bernt Carlsson on Pan Am Flight 103 is therefore a sine qua non. That investigation will doubtless reveal how a PFLP-GC type IED came to be installed on the aircraft at Heathrow, causing it to crash 38 minutes after take-off."
could and should have been more forthright.
I should have explained that Iran (sponsor of the PFLP-GC) is now firmly in the frame alongside apartheid South Africa.
Both countries are joint owners (with Rio Tinto Group) of the Rössing uranium mine in Namibia. In 1988-1989, Iran was clandestinely receiving shipments of Namibian uranium oxide and, like the apartheid regime, was therefore facing prosecution by Commissioner Carlsson for illegally exploiting Namibia's natural resources (in contravention of UNCN Decree No 1).
Thus, both countries had very good reason to target Bernt Carlsson.
The diamond mining conglomerate De Beers ensured that the target individual actually took that particular flight.
The Civil Cooperation Bureau organised the Heathrow break-in and the PFLP-GC supplied the IED that sabotaged the target aircraft on 21 December 1988 in retaliation for the downing on 3 July 1988 of Iran Air Flight 655.
Had I answered Dr Swire's question more fully in this way, it would have been glaringly obvious that the targeting of Bernt Carlsson on Pan Am Flight 103 was a joint SA/Iran enterprise, which mutually benefited the two "terrorist states".
Today, on my Facebook page, I shared this article Namibia: Rio Tinto Hails Uranium's Future (published on 5 July 2010) and commented:
NAMIBIA'S URANIUM "STOLEN" IN APARTHEID ERA
Two extracts from the Gulliver Report:
1. In 1980, SWAPO issued a press statement "... as the legitimate representative of the Namibian people," in which it regarded "the exploitation of Namibian uranium as theft, and, as is provided in Decree No.1 of the UNCN, SWAPO will claim compensation for it as the Government of an independent Namibia with the full authority of international law behind it."
2. Exploitation of Namibian uranium has had a "disastrous impact" on British foreign policy, and the relationship between Britain and many Third World countries. (A visit to the Rössing uranium mine paid by the country's prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, in early 1989, where she commented that the project made her "proud to be British" can only have deepened this sense of disillusionment and mistrust among Third World peoples). Moreover - and whether or not the mine's output has ever directly fed South Africa's nuclear plants - Rössing has certainly buttressed the apartheid state.
The Rössing uranium mine is owned 69% by Rio Tinto, 15% by the Government of Iran, 10% by the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa, 3% by the Government of Namibia and 3% by individual shareholders.
In the late 1980s, the UN Council on Namibia planned to claim compensation from the companies and countries that were involved the illegal exploitation of Namibia's uranium. Those plans were disrupted when UN Commissioner for Namibia Bernt Carlsson was murdered at Lockerbie on 21 December 1988.
Therefore, the UN must investigate the targeting of Commissioner Carlsson on Pan Am Flight 103.
By meekly supporting David Cameron's military ambitions in Libya, Ed Miliband indicates that he might be about to forgo the chance of toppling the Prime Minister tomorrow. Let's hope that Mr Miliband has the courage to grasp the opportunity.
Every Wednesday the Leader of the Opposition is allocated five PMQs. Usually the Prime Minister fends off the questions or otherwise avoids answering. But tomorrow promises to be uniquely different.
At Prime Minister's Questions, all Ed Miliband has to do is to ask David Cameron this series of five PMQs. The answers might be interesting but essentially do not matter (Hansard and the resultant publicity should do the trick and deliver the coup de grâce):
PMQ1. Can the Prime Minister confirm that he visited apartheid South Africa just three months after the 21 December 1988 Lockerbie disaster which killed United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson?
PMQ2. Does the Prime Minister share his ennobled Conservative predecessor’s view of the Rössing Uranium Mine in Namibia, which she visited in March 1989 and which she said made her “proud to be British”?
PMQ3. Is the Prime Minister aware that the Rössing Uranium Mine is owned jointly by the Rio Tinto Group and the Iranian Government, and in 1989 was supplying Iran with uranium in contravention of the UN law which prohibited the exploitation of Namibia’s natural resources?
PMQ4. Is the Prime Minister aware that UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, had warned prior to his death at Lockerbie that he intended to prosecute Iran and apartheid South Africa for illegally exploiting Namibia’s uranium and diamond gemstones?
PMQ5. Can the Prime Minister confirm that Bernt Carlsson was targeted on Pan Am Flight 103 of 21 December 1988 by Iran and by apartheid South Africa, and therefore that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, Muammar Gaddafi and Libya were wrongly accused of the Lockerbie bombing?
References:
1. Cameron’s freebie to apartheid South Africa
2. Lockerbie: Cameron’s Nuclear Secret
3. Bernt Carlsson and ‘The Case of the Disappearing Diamonds’
4. ‘No doubt’ Ayatollah Khomeini ordered Pan Am bombing, says ex-British diplomat
5. Lockerbie: Ayatollah’s Vengeance Exacted by Botha’s Regime
© Patrick Haseldine, Facebook, 11 March 2011.
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