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Should Libya pay compensation?

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William Crawley | 11:00 UK time, Tuesday, 8 September 2009

gordon-brown-and-col-gadaffi-pic-getty-557229828.jpgA delegation will be travelling to Tripoli in the for the IRA victims. The Stormont minister Jeffrey Donaldson, MP, will be part of that delegation, and and will now associate itself with the efforts to secure a compensation package. Not everyone thinks this plan is the best way forward for drawing Libya back into full membership of the international community. Yesterday, I heard one person describe the idea as 'ludicrous', and they offered the following analogy to make plain the silliness of the plan: it's like asking a car manufacturing company to compensate the victims of an accident. I've heard this moral analogy suggested a number of times in the public debate about compensation, but it really ought not to be allowed on logical grounds. If a car manufacturing company gave a car to a customer with the full knowledge that this person intended to use the car to run down a third party, then the family of that third party would have a pretty strong case, in court, when they demanded compensation from the company. In fact, that company would be considered accomplices to the crime. There may be other political and diplomatic issues at play in this current debate, but perhaps we can agree that the analogy of the car manufacturing company should be quickly retired. There's a vast and obvious moral difference between Semtex and a saloon car.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    Maybe Libya could be forced to pay compensation to the victims of the IRA but then, why should they when the US based groups that openly funded the IRA are not being pursued for the same thing???

  • Comment number 2.

    Mr. Crawley:

    ...Should Libya pay compensation?....

    Yes, the Libyan government should pay the compensation for their *alleged* involvement in the I.R.A. troubles.....

    =Dennis Junior=

  • Comment number 3.

    Rather than giving a long winded explanation have a look at this link and do some research on the subject if you like.



  • Comment number 4.

    Good point JCAbuDhabi, Irish Americans who raised funds for the IRA and who posted weapons through the post to the IRA are as culpable as the Libyan regime,both have blood on their hands. Further more, those American politicians who encouraged the Irish Republican movement,and who courted them, must bear some responsibility for those that the IRA murdered and butchered in UK.

  • Comment number 5.

    William:

    You say: 鈥淚f a car manufacturing company gave a car to a customer with the full knowledge that this person intended to use the car to run down a third party, then the family of that third party would have a pretty strong case鈥 (for compensation from the car company).

    Suppose that we are talking of weapons sales to other governments. They are sold by UK (USA, Russia etc) companies/government to foreign governments in the knowledge that at least some of these weapons will be used to kill people. Should the relatives of any victim anywhere in the world be entitled to sue the companies/governments of the country which produced the weapons that killed their loved ones? Are these governments not 鈥榓ccomplices in the crime鈥?

    Who should it be okay to sell these weapons to governments (e.g. Libya) but not to sub state groups such as the IRA when morally these governments may be just as 鈥榖ad鈥?

    Halabja is an interesting case. The UK and the USA sold weapons to Saddam Hussein, who then used some of them on his own people, and they continued in this knowledge to trade with him. At Halabja in 1988 there was a major poison gas atrocity for which Saddam Hussein was assumed to be guilty. Did this stop the arms sales from the UK and the USA? On the contrary, sales, including chemical weapons, were INCREASED to Iraq by both countries after 1988. Then, when he became an enemy, the moral outrage became audible and Halabja became solely his atrocity, even though an increased suspicion developed that it was Iranians who were responsible, or that at any rate they were the target in the town (or did the USA and the UK believe all along that Iran was responsible and armed Saddam further in response?).

    Clearly, moral indignation at killing is highly selective and usually depends on which side you are on.

  • Comment number 6.

    Brian -- I'm not myself making the case for compensation; I'm simply challenging the analogy above, since it's been getting an airing in the past couple of days. The arguments for an against compensation should be made, but without recourse to that analogy (in my view). Your comments here add further to the complexities of an already complex issue. And you make a strong case for asking more questions about moral responsibility when the industry of war is involved.

  • Comment number 7.

    The point about NORAID is well founded, and logically the principle has to be the same, however as always realpolitik doesn't always leave room for the logical.
    Looking at it from a slightly different angle however - what questions does this Libya issue raise in relation to the payments to victims proposed (and then dropped) by the Eames Bradley report?
    Surely the fact that compensation is being sought, with strong support from main political parties in this instance, shows the Eames Bradley proposal should have been given more consideration than it was?
    The fact that it was a proposal put to Eames Bradley from victims themselves shows there is more support out there for the idea of victims patyments than was reflected in political parties' press releases and mainstream media.
    Ofcourse the circumstances with the issue of Libyan compensation are different but the issue of financial remuneration in this instance has to have some wider reverberations when looking at the now defunct Eames Bradley proposal.


  • Comment number 8.

    Its not compulsory to pay the compensation.

  • Comment number 9.


    OK, a question. We're all on pre-moderation, right?

    So, how did post #8 get through?

  • Comment number 10.


    If I might put it this way, it may "not be compulsory to pay the compensation" but the advertisement published in #8 on a 成人论坛 website is offering 50% discount on insulation.

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