US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, bowing to pressure from the US Congress, on 24 November renewed the 20-year old ban on travel by American citizens to Libya. Although relatives of passengers killed in the Lockerbie air disaster hailed her decision, State Department officials denied any connection between the ban and the trial at a Scottish court in The Netherlands of two Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing. The officials said Mrs Albright had made her decision on the grounds of “imminent danger” to American travelers – taking into account violence in the Middle East, as well as reports of anti-US demonstrations and other domestic violence in Libya. Even as the State Department denied any link to the trial, however, one of its spokesman nonetheless said “Libyan cooperation throughout the trial will be an important indicator whether Libya is serious in its claims of having renounced terrorism.” Senator Edward M Kennedy, who has backed Congressional legislation against the lifting of the ban, made the link explicit. “Secretary Albright has made the right decision,” he said, adding that “the trial of the suspects of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 is still taking place and the travel ban should remain in place as well.”

The travel ban, first imposed by President Ronald Regan in 1981 and annually renewed by each US Administration ever since, is based solely on the judgment of the State Department that American travelers are at risk or in “imminent danger” in Libya. (For further details of US policy toward Libya, see the article by David Mack on page D5). In April of this year speculation mounted that the travel ban might be lifted when a State Department delegation which visited Libya in March reported that American travelers actually faced “no imminent danger” there. But that view was quickly contested by three US Senators who, citing concern for families of victims of the Lockerbie air disaster, introduced a bi-partisan resolution rejecting the State Department’s apparently changed view and calling for a continuation of the ban on the grounds of “imminent danger.”

“I urge the Senate to approve this resolution, which Senator Helms, Senator Lautenberg and I introduced on the travel ban and other US restrictions on contacts with Libya,” Senator Kennedy said on 27 April. “I have been in contact with many of the families of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103, and they are extremely upset by the timing of this [State Department] decision,” Senator Kennedy said. “They are united in their belief that the US delegation should not have been sent to Libya and that it would be a serious mistake to lift the travel ban before justice is served.” Senator Kennedy added that the families “question how much information the State Department was able to obtain by spending only 26 hours in Libya.” Given the brevity of the visit, he said, “there is no reason to believe that the situation in Libya has changed since November 1999, when the travel ban was last extended on the basis of imminent danger to American citizens.” He concluded that “the resolution the Senate is now considering states the Sense of the Senate that Libya’s refusal to accept responsibility for its role in terrorist attacks against United States citizens suggests that the imminent danger to the physical safety of United States travelers continues.” The full Senate agreed, passing the resolution on 27 April.

The State Department responded to the Senate resolution on 4 May by sending Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ronald E Neuman to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs. “There has been intense press speculation and some Congressional interest about possible changes to travel-related restrictions,” Mr Neuman said. “In March, the Secretary authorized a consular trip to Libya for the specific, limited purpose of assessing whether there continues to be an ‘imminent danger’ to US travelers. An ‘imminent danger’ was the factual, legal basis for imposing a restriction on the use of a US passport for travel to, in, or through Libya in 1981. Based on all reports, we believed it was appropriate to assess the situation on the ground for ourselves.” While suggesting the possible need of the State Department to revise its view of “imminent danger” in Libya, Mr Neuman did not mention any change in that view. “The Department is still reviewing the trip findings as well as other relevant information, including reports from European diplomats, our Protecting Power, and travelers to Libya,” he said, adding that “speculation about this review would be premature.” Recognizing the terms of the Senate resolution – which calls on the Administration to consult fully with Congress in considering policy toward Libya – Mr Neuman concluded his testimony by assuring the subcommittee that the State Department would “continue to stay in close contact with you on this issue.” But the views of the State Department delegation regarding the “imminent danger” in Libya were never publicly debated.

The trial of the two Libyan suspects in connection with the Lockerbie air disaster has very clearly served as the rationale for continuing the travel ban – a very thin rationale if legal experts are to be credited. Robert Black, the British barrister who originally proposed the idea of the Scottish court in the Netherlands, doubts whether the prosecution has made its case at all. On 25 November, Mr Black wrote in the Mail on Sunday, one of Britain’s most widely read newspapers, that “the crucial allegation that must be proved beyond reasonable doubt for the men to be found guilty is that, on December 21, 1988, the two Libyans – both of whom worked or previously worked for Libyan Arab Airlines at Luqa airport – placed the case on board an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt. That case – tagged so it could be transferred through Heathrow Airport in London onto a flight bound for John F Kennedy Airport in New York – allegedly contained high-performance plastic explosive hidden in a Toshiba radio cassette recorder programmed to be detonated by electronic timers. The prosecution has failed to prove that single, key allegation. They said the case was handled at Frankfurt luggage station shortly after the arrival of a flight from Malta. In theory it could have come off that flight though there is no record of it having been on board. No other evidence was led to prove that Malta was the bomb’s starting point rather than it being loaded on board in Frankfurt or London.” According to Mr Black, the lack of any evidence linking the Libyans to the bomb would justify the defense attorney in calling for a dismissal of the case. “His request is likely to be refused,” Mr Brown wrote, “but many observers watching this astonishing trial unfold believe the judges will be merely postponing the inevitable.”

As the prosecution’s case against the Libyans weakens, so too does the rationale for the continuation of the US travel ban or sanctions against Libya. Unless Congress decides to renew the 1996 Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, it will expire at the end of its five-year statutory life in August, 2001. That will leave only the 7 January 1986 Executive Order imposed by President Ronald Regan, who declared a national emergency to deal with “the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the US” posed by “the policies and actions of the Government of Libya” (For text and discussion of President Regan’s Executive Order, see MEES, 13 January 1986). Whether that Executive Order will be lifted by the incoming US Administration or left in place remains to be seen. But there can be little doubt about the diminished status of the “unusual and extraordinary threat” posed by the Libyan Government, a point stressed by Mr Neuman in his testimony before the US Senate. “On our key concerns – terrorism, opposition to Middle East peace, and regional intervention – Libya no longer poses the threat it once did,” he said. Ever mindful of the Senators before him, though, and especially of their concerns over the Lockerbie bombing, Mr Neuman stressed the importance of the trial, the integrity of the proceedings, and the credibility of the trial’s outcome. “The Scottish trial in the Netherlands will be a genuine criminal proceeding, conforming with the rules and traditions of Scottish jurisprudence, and the prosecution will follow the evidence wherever it leads.” But neither Mr Neuman nor the US Senators seem to have contemplated just where the prosecution’s lack of evidence might leave US policy toward Libya.