Sarah Layden Staff writer
At Syracuse University Tuesday, British Consul General Tom Harris carefully placed a wreath at the Place of Remembrance, the memorial to the 35 SU students killed in the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
Across the ocean in the Netherlands, the trial of two Libyans accused of causing the explosion is to resume Tuesday. The trial began in May.
"I wanted to do this not only as a mark of our respect for the students who were killed in this appalling atrocity and for their families, but also to underscore the British government's continued determination to ensure that justice is done," Harris said.
The 35 SU students, a Clay couple and three other Central New York college students were among the 270 people killed when Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie.
"This marks the end of a 10-year diplomatic stalemate and justifies the initiative the British government launched in 1998 for a trial under Scottish law in a third country," Harris said.
Harris, who is based in New York City, met with SU Chancellor Kenneth Shaw and Vice President for Undergraduate Studies Ron Cavanagh to discuss SU's Remembrance Scholars and Lockerbie Scholars programs. He is an expert on trade issues and spent part of the day studying the area's economic development before heading to Buffalo.
He was joined by colleague Ray Raymond, a political officer with the British Consulate General. Raymond proposed the wreath ceremony because of a link he feels with the school. He occasionally lectures on British life at SU's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, and in spring 1988 he spoke to the students who died on the flight in December of that year. The students were in an overseas- study program.
"I feel very personally connected to this," Raymond said. "I remember I was in the car when I heard the news on the radio."
At the ceremony, Harris and Shaw mentioned the connection that Syracuse and Lockerbie share.
"At a personal level, this was the most remarkable example of two bereaved communities coming together," Harris said. "Somebody deliberately placed a bomb on an aircraft packed with young people. We must never, ever forget the wickedness of terrorism."
Harris remembers in a personal way: He bears scars on his right hand, a result of glass shards from a car bombing outside his London office in 1972.
Shaw said the overseas-study program continues to be successful. He also mentioned the two communities' shared love of lacrosse. Since the explosion, the SU men's lacrosse team has traveled annually to Scotland to play and teach lacrosse. Shaw presented Harris and his two aides with long-sleeved lacrosse T-shirts that were used to raise money for the SU team's trip.
"We share much with the people of Great Britain," Shaw said. "Most significantly, we share the tragedy of Lockerbie."