I AM looking at the man who murdered my husband — and he’s in the city we loved and lived in together.
I never thought I would live to see this day.
Here I was in Midtown Manhattan, less than a mile from the United Nations, watching Moammar Khadafy address this world body one month almost to the day after his agent, a convicted mass murderer, was released from a Scottish prison and flown home to a hero’s welcome.
It’s a scandal.
Tony Hawkins, my late husband who died on Pan Am Flight 103, was born in London but lived the last 16 years of his life in Brooklyn.
In an audiotape letter that he mailed to his father in the 1970s, he spoke about his passionate love for Brooklyn and New York City. He even told his father how he liked listening to the sounds of fire engines!
We went to the theater all the time; Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Museum, New York Harbor.
My son, Alan, was 6 years old when his father was killed. Tony never saw his son graduate from school, become a fine photographer just like him, or grow up to enjoy cycling as much as he did.
This megalomaniac is addressing the very body that condemned and sanctioned him for not handing over the two indicted Libyans to stand trial for murdering 259 people on the plane, as well as 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland.
Khadafy has never acknowledged or accepted responsibility for this crime.
And now, watching him stand on the podium at the United Nations, it’s obvious to me why he thinks he doesn’t need to. Your crimes are apparently absolved when you show up in Turtle Bay.
The only part of the speech that got me excited happened before it began, when members of the United Nations refused to come to order. For a brief moment, it looked like Khadafy wouldn’t have the attention he so craves.
Too bad it didn’t last. The members came to order, and the tyrant’s boring tirade began.
As I looked at the TV, I thought, “Here is somebody from across the globe who has never met me, but has personally affected my life.”
On Dec. 21, 1988, I felt like the bomb had dropped on my house in South Midwood.
Does Khadafy realize that he has come to the city where most of the Americans on Pan Am 103 lived in, near or around?
Of course, he didn’t refer to that. He claims Libya had nothing to do with it.
After an hour watching his rambling tirade on TV, I’d had enough. I stopped watching.
The best part of my day had come hours earlier, when I joined with other Flight 103 family members outside the United Nations to protest the man who gave the orders to kill our loved ones.
We stood side by side with Libyan dissidents who traveled here from all over the world.
I met the brother of Fathi Eljahmi, a staunch critic of the Khadafy regime who died after being tortured in prison for seven years. His crime? Calling for free elections and reforms.
Mohamed Eljahmi told me, “We can’t bring our dead back. We can make sure they didn’t die in vain.”
If the United Nations wants to let Khadafy speak, then it’s our job to never forget. That’s all we can do.
Helen Engelhardt Hawkins, of Brooklyn, is an independent pro ducer of audio books and an active member of the group Victims of Pan Am Flight 103.