For John Zwynenburg, the Security Council's vote to lift UN sanctions on Libya on Friday was neither a triumphant moment nor an angry one.
"It's another burial of my boy," he said quietly, as the 13 aye votes and two abstentions, by the US and France, were tallied inside the lofty chamber.
His son, Mark, a 29-year-old investment banker with Goldman Sachs, was killed along with 269 other people on Dec. 21, 1988, when a Libyan bomb blew Pan Am Flight 103 apart over Lockerbie, Scotland. Until the destruction of the World Trade Center, that bombing was, for most Americans, the signature act of international terrorism.
Zwynenburg, of West Nyack, New York, sat in the Security Council gallery with about 30 other family members of Pan Am 103 victims. Like witnesses at a courthouse sentencing, they gazed sternly ahead as resolution 1506, lifting the sanctions, was made official.
"I was here when the original resolution was adopted in 1992," Zwynenburg said. "My son was involved in the model UN in college." His whisper grew softer as he then said he was burying his son again.
The families of the victims have lobbied for years, first for fixing responsibility, then for punishing the guilty. The UN sanctions against Libya were suspended after Tripoli, in 1999, turned over two suspects to a Scottish court. One, a military intelligence official, was convicted and the other, a Libyan airline executive, was acquitted.
"Would I have preferred military action immediately after it happened? Yes," said Kathleen Flynn of Montville, New Jersey, who lost her 21-year-old son, J.P. Flynn. After the vote, she repeated words of vindication that have become a mantra among the families: "We brought the Libyan dictator to his knees." That was a reference to the Libyan leader, Lt. Col. Muammar Qaddafi.
The vote, originally expected three weeks ago, was postponed in the face of a French veto threat. The French ambassador, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, said this week that Paris was pressing the Libyans to increase their payments to the families of 170 people aboard a French airliner destroyed by a Libyan bomb over Niger.
The French said that a deal was reached on Thursday between the families of those victims and the Qaddafi Foundation, named for the Libyan leader. De la Sabliere explained after the vote that he had abstained to ensure Libyan commitments were "rapidly implemented."
Complying with UN demands, Libya took responsibility last month for the actions of its officials and agreed to pay US$2.7 billion, which will mean up to US$10 million to the families of each Pan Am victim.
James B. Cunningham, the deputy US ambassador, said that Washington would not block the resolution and the resulting financial awards. But he said the US had abstained because of Libya's "poor human rights record," and "its history of involvement in terrorism, and -- most important -- its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery." Washington's sanctions against Libya, he said, remain "in full force."
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