Word: libyans
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
FOOTNOTE: *Besides the 37 on the Stark and the 241 in Beirut, these include two airmen killed during the Libyan raid, one downed over Syria, 19 killed in hostile action in Beirut, seven in Central America, 18 during the "rescue" mission in Grenada and six by terrorist acts directed against military personnel...
...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...
...important Pacific power last week decided to do something about the growing Libyan presence. In an unusually blunt announcement, Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke 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...
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...
...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 has been enlarging its Pacific fleet and trying to negotiate fishing agreements with a number...