Libya supplying arms to I.R.A.

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32941, 13 June 1972, Page 17

Libya supplying arms to I.R.A.

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) BEIRUT, June 12. The Lybian leader, Colonel Gadaffi, disclosed today that his Government was supplying weapons to Irish revolutionaries, and backing American blacks against the United States Government, as part of “a twofold plan to make imperialism pay for its treatment of the Arabs.”

The American and British Ambassadors to Libya walked out in protest against Colonel Gadaffi’s remarks, made to mark the second anniversary of the United States withdrawal from the Wheelus air base. Observers say that Colonel Gadaffi was obviously referring to the outlawed Irish Republican Army when he spoke of Libyan support for “Irish revolutionaries fighting for freedom from Britain.” “When we give weapons to the Irish revolutionaries, it is not to kill innocent children, but to gain the freedom of enslaved people,” he said in his broadcast speech. “We are doing this because

Britain has done much worse to the Arab nation, because Britain surrendered Palestine to the Jews and the Persian Gulf islands to Iran.” Colonel Gadaffi was referring to the strategic islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tumbs, in the Straits of Hormuz, at the entrance to the gulf, of which Iran took control last November. “Britain has given the Shah of Iran a portion of Arab territory to enable him to dominate the peoples of the Gulf,” Colonel Gadaffi said. “But the Arab nation has decided to shift from the defensive to the offensive. We have decided to fight Great Britain in her own backyard, and to make her pay twofold.” Colonel Gadaffi’s Governi ment seized British ! Petroleum assets in Libya

last year, because, he said, London had helped Iran take over the three Arab islands. As for the United States, Colonel Gadaffi said: “Since we liberated the Wheelus base from the American colonialists, the battle has moved to the heart of America. Libya today announced its support for the black movement in America. We stand today with 25 million black Americans. We stand with five million black American Moslems who are suffering from racialism. “In America they have the Bill of Rights and the Statue of Liberty, but under it is written, ‘Entry is forbidden to blacks and dogs’. What sort of freedom is that?” Colonel Gadaffi also offered to train and equip Arabs who wanted to right for the Palestinian guerrillas against Israel.

“Libya will open her gates to train volunteers, and provide them with weapons and equipment,” he said. “Those who want to volunteer should submit their names to the Libyan Embassies in their countries.”