U.N. Assembly Censures U.S. for Libya Raid

The General Assembly voted 79 to 28 on Thursday to condemn the United States for its bombing raid on Libya in April. There were 33 abstentions.

The resolution was sponsored by 27 countries, mostly Arab and Soviet Bloc states. Its opponents, in addition to the United States, were most of Washington’s Western allies, Japan, Israel and a few Third World nations. Greece and Turkey, both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, abstained.

The non-binding resolution said the raid violated international law, called on the United States to refrain from threatening or attacking Libya again and said Libya is entitled to compensation for the “material and human losses inflicted upon it.”

In April, Libya asked the 15-member U.N. Security Council to condemn the raid, but the measure was vetoed by the United States, Britain and France.

Security Council censure would have carried more political weight than the General Assembly condemnation.

Irene Payne of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations said that the resolution passed Thursday “failed to address the central issue of importance, which is Libyan terrorism.”

U.S. officials have said the April 15 raid on Tripoli and Benghazi were retaliation for Libyan-directed acts of terrorism, including the West Berlin nightclub bombing that killed two American soldiers and a Turkish woman.