A DEADLY MISUNDERSTANDING:

A Congressman’s Quest to Bridge the Muslim-Christian Divide

By Mark D. Siljander. From Chapter 8, “MY APOLOGY” , P. 90-96

“I have no doubt that Colonel Qaddafi will take this as a slight and be offended. But if you want to go, we’ll provide all the arrangements, just as planned.” It angered me that State had muscled my friend this way, and it annoyed me that they had done an end run, calling him on the eve of our trip rather than coming and speaking directly to me. But I was determined to salvage our mission if at all possible. I told President Kerekou the plan was a go; Doug and I left for Cotonou, by way of Paris, the following morning.

Colonel Qaddafi wasnot only offended, he was furious. Livid. He saw our delegation as a flagrant bait-and-switch - which, truthfully, is exactly what it was, though not by our in­tention - and as Mathieu and I had both feared might happen, he refused to see us. If our head of state would not deign to keep the appointment, why should theirs? If we were coming only with Benin’s foreign minister, then it would be Dr. Omar al­Montasser, Libya’s foreign minister, who would meet with us, and not the colonel himself. It was a bad footing to start on, but at least we were seeing someone very highly placed in the colo­nel’s inner circle.

In Benin, at the appointed hour, the colonel’s private plane ar­rived on the tarmac at Cotonou Cadjenou Airport. The markings on the jet’s exterior (in English and Arabic) said “ambulance” - but the only medicinal thing on board was the cognac. Under the cloak of night the three of us flew, one of us with passport and two of us without, to keep our date in Tripoli. The meeting in Libya began on a difficult note. Dr. al-Montasser ignored Rev. Zannou and raged at the two of us Americans. He said he knew we were there to heckle him about the Lockerbie suspects and he wasn’t interested in talking about it. We told him that was not our intention. Yes it was, he insisted, and he launched into another tirade.

A second time, we denied having this agenda, and a third time he lit into us about it. We had lied about coming with Presi­dent Kerekou, and now we were lying about the purpose of our mission. “Our countries are the worst of enemies, yours and mine,” al­Montasser bellowed, “and this is why: you are all liars who lie about everything!”

“Our countries may be enemies,” I ventured, “but those of us in this room are not enemies. We have never met you before, and we are here right now with only one purpose.” He glared at me and waited for me to go on, ready to pounce on whatever foolish lie I might next try to put across. “Our entire objective here is friendship. That’s all. We’re here to pursue a new relationship, based on the teachings of Isa—”

That was it. I might as well have tossed a stick of dynamite into his lap. Dr. al-Montasser leapt to his feet and started scream­ing at us. “What do you think, we’re all Christians here?! What kind of American arrogance do you think—”

“I’m sorry if I’ve offended you,” I interjected, “but Christian­ity doesn’t have 100 percent ownership of Jesus—I was referring to Isa al-Masih, the Isa of the Qur’an.”

“The Qur’an?” he yelled at me. “What do you Christian Americans know of the Qur’an?”

When I’d visited Togo and Nigeria with Jim Inhofe, I’d had a moment of genuine terror. Togo’s president, Gnassingbe Eyadema, who was then the longest-running African president in modem history, was the absolute stereotype of the ruthless African dictator, maintaining his autocratic rule (and absurdly luxurious lifestyle) through sheer force. He was said to be quite free with torture; according to rumors, he had some of his oppo­nents fed alive to crocodiles. Not your friendliest head of state. A few days later, when Jim and I met with Sani Abacha, the un­speakably corrupt ruler of Nigeria, there was a moment when Abacha sent all his aides out of the room and I wondered if I was ever going to see Nancy and my four kids again, or if we were going to end up in a Nigerian lake—if Abacha had bor­rowed a few of Gnassingbe Eyadema’s crocodiles, to eat the an­noying Americans.

This was worse. Nobody officially knew we were there. We had no passports; we had not flown a commercial flight. We could disappear pretty easily here—as others actually have— and here was Qaddafi’s right-hand man, inches from my face, Screaming at me, demanding to know what I thought I knew about the Qur’an.

Despite the intensity, even the urgency, of the situation, his challenge struck me to the core. Time slowed down, and I found myself momentarily lost in self-reflection. What did I really know? I had professed to be carrying a mes­sage of reconciliation. But how genuine was this? I certainly was sincere about wanting to offer our friendship—but out of what motives? With what state of mind? With all my talk about Jesus and love, did I still secretly harbor the thought that my friends and I were morally superior to this man standing before me? That Qaddafi and his henchmen were the bad guys, and we the good guys? Was I standing in judgment, driven still by a rem­nant of that old, deeply ingrained impulse to go for the “conversion”?

“Surely not all I should,” I said, doing my best to convey a calm I did not feel. “But I am striving to learn more of your holy book. I know that sura 60:7, for example, says, ‘Allah will put friendship between you and those who have been your enemies. Allah is mighty, forgiving and merciful.’ And sura 42:40 tells us, ‘Whoever forgives and amends, he shall have his reward from Allah.”’

Dr. al-Montasser turned red and a vein stood out on his neck; I was sure he would either have a stroke or strangle me with his bare hands, whichever came first. “So,” he screamed into my face, “you come to ‘forgive’ us? Is that your position? You have the audacity to come here and on our own soil—”

“No,” I interjected, “not to offer our forgiveness—to ask you for yours.”

The place fell as silent as a tomb. Al-Montasser stared at me. He opened his mouth, then slowly closed it again without making a sound. I was sure that if I said another word, he would explode-but I had to go on. “What I’m saying is, in the spirit of these and other suras of the Qur’an, and in the spirit of the teachings of Isa, I am asking your forgiveness for our country’s killing of Colonel Qaddafi’s daughter Hanna. The bombing raid that took her life happened during my service in Congress, and I feel complicit in this terri­ble event. I am so sorry.” He stared at me, mute and gaping. Had he not heard me? “I want to offer my sincere apologies,” I repeated. “And I hope you will convey them to the colonel as well.”

The color drained from his face. He slumped back into his chair, still staring at me in disbelief. Without turning his head, he quietly barked a command to one of the aides stationed behind him. The man left the room and returned with a tray bearing a pot of tea and four cups. We had been parched upon arrival, yet up until this moment we had not been offered so much as a sip of water—an abso­lutely extraordinary breach of diplomatic etiquette, and one clearly intended to send a message. I was never so grateful to see a cup of tea, and for more reasons than my thirst alone.

When Dr. al-Montasser began speaking again, his tone and demeanor had completely shifted. The manner in which our en­counter unfolded from that point on was astonishing to witness. We spoke further about the Qur’an and about Islam, about the teachings of Jesus and the centuries of grave misunderstanding and mistrust between the different cultures of the world. We did not speak of politics or international dealings, not even for a single syllable.

At the end of an hour or so, we knew our audience was draw­ing to a close. Doug, who had contributed so many inspired comments during the meeting, offered to pray, and unbelievably, Dr. al-Montasser accepted, as if we had been colleagues and prayer partners for years. We stood with clasped hands and prayed. At the end of our audience, as Dr. al-Montasser walked us to the door, he leaned toward me and quietly said, “You will have good news in ten days.”

I glanced at him in surprise. “Whatever you do is completely up to you,” I replied. “Just know that we are here to establish a small island of friendship in a sea of mistrust.” He nodded, and that was the end of our encounter.

Ten days later, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, the Lockerbie suspects, were handed over for transport to the Netherlands to stand trial. Court proceedings began in May of the following year and concluded in February 2001 with the conviction of al-Megrahi, who is still serving a life sentence, and the acquittal of Fhimah.

A few months after our trip, a friend with connections to the intelligence community confided to me that we had been under surveillance the entire time we were traveling to Tripoli. We should have suspected as much. “At first,” my friend told me, “we thought you were crazy—in fact, we almost stopped you. We were afraid you were going to screw up all the work we’d put in on the Lockerbie Two for all these years. We thought. ‘What the hell are these crazy bastards doing, thinking they can sneak in there in the middle of the night like James Bond and not make a mess of everything?”’

He paused just long enough to give me a chance to defend myself, in case I wanted to. I didn’t even try. What could I say? He was right: we really had no idea what we were doing. All we had done was trust in the message we had to bring and in the impulse to offer friendship, with no strings attached. And at the height of a difficult encounter, I had apologized and asked for forgiveness. But I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I just waited to see what else he had to say. “But,” he went on, “when they released Fhimah and Megrahi for extradition, our attitude changed. We stopped saying, ‘What the hell did these guys think they were doing?”’

“Yeah?” I replied. “What did you say instead?”

He paused for a moment before replying and shook his head. “What the hell did these guys do?” After our midnight flight to Tripoli, strange things happened in Libya. Later that year, Qaddafi pledged Libya’s commitment to help fight al-Qaeda, and offered to voluntarily open his weap­ons program to international inspections. In fact, Qaddafi changed course rather dramatically, earning a reputation as a moderating figure, African elder statesman, and—of all things — humanitarian who has done much to improve the lives of poverty-stricken sub-Saharan Africans. He has been praised by—of all people—his longtime friend Nelson Mandela. Fol­lowing the events of September 11, 2001, the fearsome Colonel Qaddafi made one of the first and strongest public condemna­tions of the attacks by any Muslim leader.