Libya trip wrangle

Accusations fly in Libya trip wrangle

The secretary-general of the Vanua’aku Party, Mr Barak Sope, ac cused Australian authorities of preventing a party of ni-Vanuatu from flying to Libya.

The group of 8 men, which included an Irian Jayan and a Kanak from New Caledonia were turned back at Sydney airport in mid-November.

The group had flown into Sydney from Port Vila via New Caledonia and were due to fly to Libya via Singapore and Athens.

A spokeswoman from Aus tralia’s Department of Immigra tion and Ethnic Affairs said the men were turned back after the Australian airline Qantas re fused to carry them as passen gers since their travel arrange ments were not complete.

With the airline refusing to carry them, the passengers could not be issued with transit documents for Australia, the spokeswoman said.

This was a “complete lie”

Sope said, arguing that the group had correct tickets through to Athens and pre-paid ticket advice (PTA’s) for the flight to Tripoli.

Sope said the tickets had been issued by the Qantas agent in Port Vila,(Air Pacific) and that “the Australian Gov ernment interfered to prevent the men flying to Libya”. He said use of PTAs was normal for travel to Libya.

The group was returned to Port Vila and flew to Libya eight days later by the same route using the same tickets without hindrance.

Sope, who had organised the voyage, criticised media reports that the men went to Libya for “terrorist training” and said the trip was for educational pur poses.

In a statement released in Port Vila after the group was

turned back Prime Minister Walter Lini declared that Vanuatu would never become a communist or terrorist state.

He said that Vanuatu’s rela tions with Libya were in line with his government’s policies of non-alignment, and accused the Western media of waging a deliberate propaganda cam paign against Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi and countries that have relations with Libya.

Sope told PIM; “We’ve had Libyans coming here, we’ve been over there for confer ences. This group is going mainly to look at their political system, and later they will come and see how the Vanua’aku Party works.

“Some of the group will receive journalism training over there. In a short time Libya will establish a People’s Bureau in Port Vila.

“If we wanted to do it (this trip) secretly nobody would have known and we wouldn’t have come through Australia.

We’re not terrorists and no-one is on this trip for terrorist training. ”

Sope said Vanuatu had a lot of diplomatic co-operation with Libya at the UN and in the Non-Aligned Movement.

“We have similar ideals, of helping countries who fight for their independence, which are quite important to us. We also think we can have economic gain from having diplomatic relations with Libya ... as a small but very rich country they provide aid to many African countries why not to Vanuatu?”

Sope said Vanuatu had a policy of independence and diversification in its foreign rela tions and aid. “If Australia can have diplomatic relations with Libya and Russia, why not us?” he asked.

“There are countries like South Africa that we don’t have diplomatic relations with but Australia and all the others have relations with them yet for them what South Africa is doing is wrong, so we can’t under stand.

“It’s never been proved to us that a country like Libya ex ports terrorism, but it has been proved to us that France ex ports terrorism, that the United States supplies arms to try and overthrow the government in Nicaragua.” Australia and everybody has diplomatic rela tions with South Africa, which helps to keep blacks under the thumb.”

Sope accused a former Radio Vanuatu reporter, Mr Kau Tau Yeong, who he said was linked with an opposition party and the French government, of circulating stories about terrorist training and Libya as part of an opposition campaign against him. Helen Fraser.

Prime Minister Uni ... no communists here.