Within hours of Pan Am Flight 103 exploding over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, killing a total of 270 people Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet ruled out a public enquiry according to recently released secret official papers. Conservative ministers suggested an independent investigation would “serve no useful purpose”. Why?
Twenty one years later Gordon Brown also ruled out an official enquiry. Why?
An excellent precise expose of the events surrounding Pan Am Flight 103 can be found here and there is no need to rake over ground already covered. Something very toxic exists within the walls of power by its very nature. One thing of which we can be certain is that either a British government was closely involved in the bombing over Lockerbie or they (and governments since) are hiding/protecting those ultimately responsible. The nature of international politics demands collusion, corruption and illegality. Whereas the voter and/or citizens mostly prefer the opposite.
What about the families though? Rarely do they get given the the reality in incidents such as these. Dr Jim Swire, who daughter Flora was one of those who died, said: “One of the things this (refusal to hold an independent inquiry) indicates is the entrenched view among ministers that they should limit the public’s access to the truth about what happened.”
Dr Swire, who believes that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was wrongly convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, has argued that an independent inquiry became “increasingly important” after it emerged that statements about a break-in at Heathrow Airport before the disaster were kept by police until 1999.
It therefore begs the question ‘what are they hiding and why?’ It is no wonder the world is full of ‘conspiracy theories’ when the vacuum left by governments is so huge. We fill it because they don’t. When they do we don’t believe them and the pre existing cynicism becomes more entrenched. All we want is the truth. If they believe we cannot handle it then they should change their behaviour so it becomes less scary.
Alternatively we ignore them and do our thing. Actually scrub trying to change them. Let’s ignore them and DIY and then they can see how it feels.
Douglas James
