Libya Fails in U.N. Bid to Condemn U.S. Raid

Libya was able to rally a roster of speakers to condemn the United States in Security Council speeches Wednesday, but it was unable to muster the nine votes necessary to pass a resolution condemning the United States for its bombing attack.

Despite strenuous efforts over the past two days by Libyan representative Rajab Azzarouk and Libya’s Arab and Soviet allies, no draft resolution was presented to the 15-member council in the second day of debate.

“There is apparently no majority,” Security Council President Claude de Kemoularia of France told reporters at the midday break.

Condemnation Sought

Azzarouk and other Arab delegates have demanded that the council condemn U.S. aggression. U.S. delegates and their allies have been equally firm in opposing such a resolution.

Danish Ambassador Ole Bierring, speaking outside the council chamber, said his government could never support a resolution that did not also chastise Libya for its sponsorship of international terrorism, something which would be unacceptable to the Arab and Soviet bloc.

Soviet Bloc envoys from Poland to Mongolia, most of them not members of the Security Council, attacked the Reagan Administration for what they called a violation of the U.N. Charter ban on the use of force in international disputes and rejected U.S. claims of self-defense.

A survey of council members showed at most seven members in favor of a draft resolution that has been circulated by Azzarouk, calling for condemnation of U.S. “military aggression” against Libya. These seven would be United Arab Emirates, the only Arab member of the council, the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, the Congo Republic, Ghana and Madagascar, along with China as an outside chance, although the Chinese are more likely to abstain. Most observers believe that the Libyans would prefer to drop the issue rather than accept a more moderate resolution which could attract a majority vote.

Cuban Statement Hit

France, despite its refusal to allow the attacking U.S. planes to fly over its territory, is not expected to support a measure condemning the United States.

De Kemoularia briefly stepped out of his role as the council’s president to denounce as “inadmissible” a Cuban statement Tuesday calling U.S. leaders the “legitimate heirs of the Hitlerian clique.”

“As a representative of France, a country which was one of those most afflicted by the Nazi barbarism, I have to express on the contrary our recognition of the great American democracy which in helping to defeat that barbarism permitted my country to recover its liberty and dignity,” he said.

Didn’t Seek Permission

U.S. Ambassador Vernon A. Walters, who traveled to Europe last weekend in an attempt to win allied support for the U.S. reprisal against Libya, told a news conference Wednesday that he has not actually asked French President Francois Mitterrand or Premier Jacques Chirac to approve an overflight of French territory by U.S. bombers on their way to Libya from their stations in Britain.

“Sometimes when you know the answer, you don’t ask the question,” he said.

As Walters spoke to reporters at the Foreign Press Center in Manhattan, an unidentified man telephoned United Nations security officials to say a bomb had been left in a briefcase in the Security Council chamber. The room was evacuated for 15 minutes while guards searched. They found nothing.