Diplomacy Washing Libya Out of Their Hair

By Howard G. Chua-Eoan

The 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.

One 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 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'aku Party reportedly plans to send 70 political activists to Tripoli for paramilitary training. Two smaller groups have already made the trip. When Vernon Walters, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, arrived in Port-Vila a month ago during a South Pacific tour, security men were alarmed to find the two Libyans registered at the same hotel as the ambassador.

Why 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 has been enlarging its Pacific fleet and trying to negotiate fishing agreements with a number of Pacific countries.

Vanuatu's Lini, one of the few leaders in the region who defend Libya, argues that Gaddafi merely wants to send economic aid to the impoverished island states and help the Kanak independence movement in New Caledonia, a cause endorsed even by Australia. Nonetheless, Hawke plans to make the Libyan threat a topic of discussion at this weekend's meeting of the 13-nation South Pacific Forum, and has dispatched a representative to brief member governments on the need to send Gaddafi's men packing.

With reporting by Adrian Dunn/Melbourne