24 تشرين الثاني 2000
Ranwa yehia
Daily Star staff
Libya was again held responsible Thursday for Imam Musa Sadr's disappearance, with Higher Shiite Council President Mohammed Mehdi Shamseddine requesting that the controversial case be taken to the International Court of Justice.
"Imam Sadr and his two comrades are the victims of the Libyan system, and their case is the responsibility of this system. They entered Libya upon an official invitation and never came back," said Shamseddine, whose speech was read by his deputy, Sheikh Abdel-Amir Qabalan.
Shamseddine demanded that the government present the missing Amal founder's case to the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
"We demand that the international justice take action to uncover the fate of Imam Sadr," he said.
Qabalan spoke for Shamseddine at the opening session of the Fifth Common Terms conference at the Marriott.
It was organized by the Imam Sadr Center for Research and Studies and the Iranian Center for Foreign Studies. The three-day conference is expected to conclude with a high-profile conference at the Higher Shiite Council attended by Speaker Nabih Berri and Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
The fifth annual conferences aimed at scrutinizing the works and ideology of Imam Sadr. This year's conference focused on Imam Sadr's views in terms of the resistance, thus the title: "Resistance and the Unyielding Society: A Closer Look into Imam Sadr's Path."
The conference joined together representatives of major Muslim and Christian religious leaders in the country, who described Imam Sadr as a national figure who worked relentlessly to maintain the country's unity in the face of sectarian threat.
Shamseddine's calls were repeated by Imam Sadr's sister Rabab, who has been active since her brother's disappearance in 1978.
Although Sadr did not mention Libya, she did question what has actually been done to solve her brother's case.
"Now that the liberation has happened, what about Imam Sadr, who is from all of Lebanon and for all of Lebanon? What stage is his case in now?" Sadr asked. "What have we done for him and his two comrades?"
She urged that her brother's case be further investigated, saying: Doesn't he deserve our sleep to be insomnia, our whispered noise and our calm movement until he returns?"
Sadr urged participants of the conference to come up with a "decision" rather than mere recommendations in the concluding statement. The repeated calls for uncovering the fate of Sadr came following heightened tensions in Lebanese-Libyan relations.
Tension between Lebanon and Libya accelerated after Libya recalled its ambassador from Beirut to protest Parliament's failure to invite him to the government's vote of confidence session last month.
Speaker Nabih Berri, who heads the Amal Movement, has intentionally excluded Libyan Ambassador Ali Maria from official functions that Berri leads.
The action infuriated Libya, which recalled Maria, decided to stop relations with Lebanon, and threatened to deport the almost 15,000 Lebanese living there.
Prime Minister Rafik Hariri attempted to soothe the tense relations during a meeting with Libyan leader Moammar Ghadafi in Tripoli on Monday. While Hariri convinced Ghadafi to retract his decision, which could have threatened the livelihood of Lebanese in Libya, the sensitive issue of Imam Sadr's fate was not very deeply discussed. Hariri was able to convince Ghadafi to separate business from politics, thereby preventing a potential crisis for Lebanese expatriates doing business in Libya.
Libya on Monday repeated its call to establish a Lebanese-Libyan committee to uncover the fate of Imam Sadr.
A similar committee was established following Sadr’s mysterious disappearance in 1978 Investigations could not determine whether Libya’s claim that Imam Sadr boarded a plane from Tripoli to Rome were true.
Italy has denied that Sadr ever arrived in Rome and Sadr’s family, Berri, and Amal supporters continue to blame Libya for Sadr’s disappearance.
Libya has maintained it was not responsible for Imam Sadr’s disappearance and has resented the Lebanese government for not calming criticisms or responding to the allegations against Libya.
