Port Moresby: Declassified intelligence documents reveal that Libya under the late leader Muammar Gaddafi sought to extend its influence into the South Pacific during the 1980s, offering support to independence movements, including the Free Papua Movement (Organisasi Papua Merdeka, OPM).
A secret report by the Papua New Guinea National Intelligence Organization (NIO), leaked and published by United Press International in April 1987, details Libya’s efforts to forge ties with dissident groups across the region. The report states that “Libya has established its contact with the dissident groups in the Pacific and … is certain to actively interfere with the affairs of the region.”
The document highlights Libya’s outreach through diplomatic channels, particularly following Vanuatu’s establishment of formal relations with Tripoli. “The decision by Vanuatu to enter into diplomatic relations with Libya should overcome this problem,” the report noted, referring to Libya’s prior lack of a regional base.
Central to the operation was Ibrahim Sagar, then information officer at the Libyan People’s Bureau in Canberra. According to the report, Sagar visited OPM members in Port Moresby in the mid-1980s, engaging in discussions that included the provision of arms. The intelligence assessment observed that Sagar told the movement’s representatives it was “too fragmented to warrant assistance,” though the Libyan leader had assured former OPM leader Seth Rumkorem, then exiled in the Netherlands, that Libya would provide arms if the group unified.
The report further indicated that the Libyan Peoples Bureau in Malaysia had been used to channel assistance to fundamentalist groups in Southeast Asia, including the Moro separatists in the Philippines. It warned that “if Tripoli can channel funds and arms through its Peoples Bureaus to diplomats in other parts of the world, then there is no doubt that Libya will not hesitate to do the same for the OPM or for other radical groups for that matter in the South Pacific region.”
The intelligence files suggest that Libya’s engagement extended beyond West Papua. The report identified Kanak separatists in New Caledonia as potential recipients of Libyan support, noting that Tripoli had maintained ties with the movement since at least 1984, providing financial and other assistance through Vanuatu. Independence groups in French Polynesia and the Fretilin faction in East Timor were also cited as possible beneficiaries of Libyan aid.
The NIO report contextualised these activities within the broader geopolitical landscape of the Cold War era, when independence movements across the Pacific and Southeast Asia drew attention from global powers. The Indonesian province of Irian Jaya, occupying the western half of the island of New Guinea, was and remains a focus of separatist activity, while Vanuatu’s recognition of Libya was seen as a strategic opening for Tripoli to extend its influence.
While the precise scale of Libya’s support to the OPM remains unclear, the documents provide evidence of direct engagement and promises of material aid. Historical analyses corroborate that Gaddafi’s foreign policy consistently sought to back anti-colonial and revolutionary movements worldwide, positioning Libya as a champion of Third World causes.
Sources: [United Press International, “Libya may try to expand contacts with dissident groups,” April 23, 1987; Papua New Guinea National Intelligence Organization, 1986–1987, declassified report; Minbar Libya, “CIA files: Gaddafi’s efforts to build a South Pacific United Revolutionary Front,” 2017; Heritage Foundation, “The USSR and its proxies in the volatile South Pacific.”]
