ENGLEWOOD, N.J. — When Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi comes to the United Nations next month, he wants to pitch his special air-conditioned tent on a lawn in New Jersey, a proposal that has angered neighbors and added insult to injury in a state that lost 33 residents in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
Residents of the New York suburb are riled by reports that Gadhafi may stay in a Bedouin tent on a Libyan-owned estate there, and they would prefer that he set up shop elsewhere, said Rep. Steve Rothman, whose congressional district includes Englewood.
"Gadhafi is a dangerous dic-tator whose hands are covered with the blood of Americans and our allies," Rothman said, promising there would be "hell to pay" if the State Department violated a deal barring the dictator from staying at the Libyan estate.
However, international agreements may preclude the city or U.S. government from barring Gadhafi, U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters Monday in Washington. The agency has been in touch with authorities in New York City, which denied Gadhafi permission to pitch the tent in Central Park, and with the U.N to address concerns over the visit, Kelly said.
Mayor Michael Wildes said he doesn't think he can derail Gadhafi's plans to pitch a Bedouin tent on the property owned by Libya's New York mission. He expects local anger won't soon abate over last week's triumphant Libyan homecoming of Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi.
"The president of Libya showed us his exact colors this past week when he embraced a known terrorist and gave him a hero's welcome," Wildes, 44, a Democrat and immigration attorney, said in an interview. "I'm disappointed as a Jew. I'm embarrassed as an American. I will not allow this to happen as a mayor unless there is no choice here."
Wildes, who lost a family friend who was traveling on business, said Englewood also lost eight members in the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attack.
"Embracing a known terrorist, then coming to U.S. soil and to my city, is not something I want to see happen," he said.
A bomb placed by Libyan intelligence blew Flight 103 out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing all 259 people aboard and 11 more on the ground. The cancer-stricken architect of that attack received a compassionate release from a Scottish prison last week.
Rothman was mayor of Englewood 26 years ago when the city learned the Libyan mission to the United Nations had bought the Palisade Avenue estate. Local officials worked out a deal with the State Department limiting its use to the recreational activities by the ambassador and his family, Rothman said. The Libyans don't pay taxes on it.
Taxpayers in Englewood, a bedroom community 13 miles from Times Square, will likely pay for added law enforcement during the visit, Wildes said.
Gadhafi's coming U.N. appearance culminates a years-long effort to rehabilitate the Libyan strongman's international image, which includes denouncing weapons of mass destruction. He has ruled the oil-rich North African nation since 1969.
"This is what happens when you have the path of appeasement," Susan Cohen, a resident of Cape May Court House whose 20-year-old daughter died in the Pan Am bombing. "He's getting everything he wants, and I guess that includes a trip to the state of New Jersey, which certainly doesn't need this."
Nicole DiCocco, spokesman for the Libyan Embassy in Washington, confirmed that the Englewood estate is a possible site for Gadhafi to stay. She said that he would use the tent for entertainment, not live in it, but that it hasn't been confirmed where he'll actually stay.
Gadhafi pitched his tent in a Rome park in July when he visited Italian Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. In December 2007, he erected a heated tent in Paris for a visit with Nicolas Sarkozy.
"I am troubled by reports that Colonel Gadhafi may visit New Jersey next month," said U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat from nearby Cliffside Park. "Colonel Gadhafi can be assured that he is not welcome here."
Lautenberg in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked her to restrict Gadhafi's travel to U.N. headquarters during the visit. He said he was "disappointed" by Gadhafi's embrace of Al-Megrahi.
In April 1986, President Ronald Reagan ordered Gadhafi's tent bombed in retaliation for the country's sponsorship of terrorist attacks against U.S. targets.
Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Lee and Kimberly Hefling of The Associated Press and by Terrence Dopp and Janine Zacharia of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 1, 6 on 08/25/2009