'It's been a long 10 years' 

By LINDY WASHBURN 
Staff Writer 

 For the family of Gretchen Dater, the Ramsey art student killed when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Scotland in 1988, the past 10 years have mixed grief and grace. So when they gathered Sunday with friends and other victims' families, they marked not only all they had lost, but also all they had gained in a movement that has transformed the handling of airline crashes the world over. 

 The ceremony, as the Dec. 21 anniversary approaches, held everything this decade has come to mean to them: a glimpse of international diplomacy, talk of the movement of lawmakers and commissions to make air travel safer, and a classmate's appreciation of her first lesson in mortality. 

 Her father drew laughter as he told of Gretchen's expulsion from a soccer game on a fall day not so long ago, yet achingly distant. 

And a solitary soprano sang "Amazing Grace." 

 For Gretchen's parents, who patted blue memorial stickers onto their coats and led a march from the service at St. Paul Roman Catholic Church to a show of their daughter's artwork, the push for justice continues. 

 "It's been a long 10 years," said Joan Dater, Gretchen's mother, and a spokeswoman for the Victims of Flight 103 group. "It's a very painful thing to have to live with: the scope of it, the complexity, the international elements. What we do not have is justice." 

 This year, however, she and her husband, Thomas Dater, may be closer to it than ever before. 

 A United Nations Security Council resolution passed on Aug. 24 proposes to lift the international economic sanctions against Libya if Libya turns over the two bombing suspects for trial in the Netherlands by Scottish judges, according to Scottish law. 

 Locating the trial in a neutral country had been a condition of the Libyans, who announced in August that they would comply with the resolution. The two suspects, Abdel-Basset Ali Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhiman, are under house arrest in Libya. 

 But a sticking point has emerged over where the men, if convicted, would serve their prison time. Scotland has no death penalty, and the punishment in such cases typically runs 30 years, without possibility of parole before 20 years. 

 Libya insists that the time not be spent in the United Kingdom, a condition the United States and Britain say is non-negotiable. 

 "Libya should be mindful that our patience is not unlimited," Bruce Rogers of the State Department's counter-terrorism office told the gathering on Sunday. "We now look for a positive response from Libya." 

 Without such a response, he added, the Security Council will reconvene in mid-December to consider even harsher penalties against Libya. 

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, who has met with the families many times, pledged to push on with this approach, in a letter that Rogers read to the gathering. 

"I have not wavered in my determination that justice must be served," Albright wrote. "We owe no less to Gretchen, to the others on Pan Am 103, and to all the other innocent victims of terrorism." 

 The legacy of the Pan Am victims' families is great, said Frank Duggan, a Washington lawyer who served on the staff of President George Bush's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism. 

 There have been changes in the way planes are flown and baggage handled, for instance. And a set of recommendations has been developed about how airlines, lawyers, law enforcement officials, and governments should deal with victims' families. Those recommendations were called into use following the recent crash of a Swissair flight off Nova Scotia. 

 "You have no idea what impact you had," he said, citing the senior class at Ramsey High School, who as third-graders cut out white paper doves and sent them to the commissioners' offices. The doves, strung around meeting rooms and office cubicles, reminded each member of the human faces of those who had died. A few now are stored in the archives of the commission, he said. 

 Ramsey High School's senior class president of a dozen years ago was also present. "Gretchen taught the Class of 1986 about mortality," said Rebecca Hall Burton, recalling the winter night when classmates clung to their families as they heard of the tragedy over Scotland. 

 "Ten years later, we understand the true value of life. . . . Let us not feel guilty about this joyful awakening," she said. 

 Looking back, said Joan Dater, "nobody chose this. . . . But we all do this work in Gretchen's spirit, to make the world a better place."