Lawmaker Vows To Keep Gadhafi Out Of Englewood, NJ

The mere rumor that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was planning to pitch and sleep in a Bedouin tent on Libyan-owned property in Englewood, NJ during a September visit to the United Nations in New York was enough to send shockwaves of outrage sweeping through northern New Jersey.

The families of some victims of the 1988 Pan Am 103 Lockerbie bombing live in the area, a bombing which killed 277 people and to which Libya accepted blame. So there was lingering anger toward Gadhafi even before he and other Libyans gave convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrah, a hero's welcome last week his release from prison by Scottish authorities last week because of terminal cancer.

 

That anger has led Rep. Steven Rothman, a New Jersey Democrat who represents Englewood, to draw a rhetorical line in the sand.

Rothman told All Things Considered host Melissa Block of restrictions he successfully lobbied the Reagan Administration to negotiate with the Libyans in 1982 that restricted the Englewood mansion's occupancy to the Libyan ambassador and his family.

The idea was to keep Gadhafi out of Englewood where he wasn't wanted. Even before Lockerbie he was widely known to have innocent blood on his hands because of his sponsorship of terrorism.

This was a case where an exception was obviously made to the right of private-property owners, presumably even Libyans, to use their land as they see fit within reason, a right that was fairly important to Reagan conservatives.

It isn't just that Gadhafi was an odious character to New Jerseyans who have a higher tolerance than a lot of folks elsewhere to such characters, judging from corruption and other problems.

Rothman was concerned then and now that the security necessary to protect a foreign head of state just isn't possible in a city like Englewood. He raised the risk of innocent New Jerseyans getting caught in the "cross-fire."

You kind of get the sense that if it was the Canadian prime minister who wanted to visit Englewood, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Anyway, Rothman it was clear Rothman intends to go to the mat on the this one.

He belongs in New York where there are the resources to protect him and the people around him, Americans and others from harm and that was our position 26 years ago which was sustained by the Reagan administration and I'm certain that that will be the position adopted by the Obama Administration.

Unless of course in the next handful of days the Libyans voluntarily "agree to be so limited" which I expect them to do. But if they don't we have the legal tools and the political precedent to see that happen and I'll tell you this, I will not take no for an answer. And the people of my region won't and that's the way it's going to be resolved.