Word: gaddafis
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...tropical islands of the South Pacific may be half a world away from the desert sands of Libya, but distance has not deterred Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi from making a number of peculiar Pacific overtures. In the past year Gaddafi's agents have offered arms and cash to rebels in Papua New Guinea, encouraged an aboriginal separatist movement in Australia, shipped weapons to dissidents in New Caledonia and tried to open an office in the island republic of Vanuatu...
...ordered that the Libyan embassy, or People's Bureau, in Canberra be closed. There was "compelling and incontrovertible evidence," said Hawke, that the embassy was "serving to facilitate Libya's destabilizing activities." Hawke was especially concerned about Libyan attempts to stir up trouble among Australia's 170,000 aborigines. Gaddafi last month reportedly offered funds to help establish a separate aboriginal nation, a charge he has since denied. Said Hawke: "Libya's record of subversion and terrorism justifies the gravest concern...
Libya's South Pacific activities are extensive. In New Caledonia, indigenous Melanesians, who are known as Kanaks, have received Libyan weapons, which could be used in their struggle against the French colonial administration. Officials in Papua New Guinea complain that Gaddafi is wooing rebels along that country's Indonesian border with promises of arms and financial assistance. In Vanuatu last month, two Libyan agents were discovered searching for space to set up a People's Bureau in Port-Vila, the capital, apparently without the permission of Prime Minister Walter Lini's government. Not that Lini dislikes Libya. Indeed, his Vanua...
...Libya would want a foothold in the distant South Pacific remains unclear. "There's no plausible explanation in terms of geography or legitimate national interest," a suspicious Hawke said last week. One possible explanation is that Gaddafi simply wants to irritate the U.S. and France, his chief Western enemies, and at the same time deflect attention from domestic economic troubles and the defeat of Libyan troops in the African country of Chad. Some Western observers, however, believe a Libyan presence in | the Pacific may foreshadow a larger political offensive by its ally, the Soviet Union. In recent months Moscow...
Once a port of call for NATO warships, Malta under Labor increasingly turned to the Soviet Union, North Korea and Libya for economic and military aid. So close were security ties with Libyan Strongman Muammar Gaddafi that Maltese officials tried to warn Tripoli minutes before last year's U.S. air raid on Libya...