{UAH} UNDERSTANDING HOW THE EU FACILITATES THE LIBYAN SLAVE TRADE (Photo)

As the European Union attempts to hide under the rag the full extent of its involvement in what is taking place in Libya today, here is a picture taken the day when Libya's Prime Minister Fayez Al-Sarraj (left with moustache) met European Union Council co-chair Mr. Donald Tusk VB (right) in Brussels. It was Thursday February 2nd 2017. During their meeting, Mr. Tusk reportedly proposed "extra concrete and operational measures" to curb migrant flows. What would ultimately become "Operation Sophia/EUBAM".

Ironically, EUBAM stands for EU Border Assistance Mission. It is under this policy program agreed and organized at the very top of the EU hierarchy, that funds are then channelled to "recipient countries" (in this case Libya) under the administrative guise of Foreign Aid.

During that same trip to Brussels, Libya's Prime Minister also met the President of the European Commission, Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker, and High Representative/EU Vice-President Federica Mogherini to discuss new ways of curbing migration to Europe from Libya.

And though the current Libya is known for sporadic acts of brutality against black people since the fall of Colonel Ghaddafi, including detention without trial, torture and murder, it is this EU operation Sophia/EUBAM that needs to be investigated so as to establish its full impact in what has resulted in more migrants being forcefully detained, harmed, killed and traded at a national scale in Libyan concentration camps, in a well coordinated manner.

An EU official reported that European Union Heads of State who attended the Feb 3rd 2017 Malta conference "discussed methods of blocking migrants from entering the European Union, rather than on establishing an alternate and legal migration pathway."

At around the same time, the news magazine New Europe reported that "an internal memo from the German foreign ministry on the torture and execution of migrants at detention camps in Libya was leaked on Jan. 31, 2017. These accounts concur with the December 2016 report from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN mission in Libya, which documented the malnutrition, forced labour, illness, beatings, sexual abuse, torture and other abuses at Libyan detention centres."

During the February meeting with the Libyan Prime Minister, the EU Council co-chair Mr. Donald Tusk reportedly said: "Now it is time to close down the route from Libya to Italy."

With Operation Sophia/EUBAM, the European Union has therefore played a role in faciliting/exacerbating the situation and created more favorable conditions for the expansion and growth of the Libyan slave trade.

EU leaders already knew all about the horrific detention conditions in Libya, and yet the same Europeans paid the Libyan government to expand the programme and contain the migrants in more Libyan concentration camps under "Operation Sophia/EUBAM" whose cruelty we see on TV news today.

Another article written in February, before the slave trade crisis, talked about the infamous agreement between the EU and Libya. It says: "Failing to stem the tide of refugees arriving in Europe, Italy and the rest of the European Union have agreed to pay Libya's Government of National Accord (GNA), to keep immigrants from arriving in Italy and instead put them into detention camps in Libya. The accord signed Feb. 3, provides for the EU to pay €220 million ($236 million) to Libya and provide training to help them catch the vessels—primarily rubber dinghies. The Libyan coast guard will be charged with sending the boats back to Libya and putting people into camps. The Feb. 3 agreement—as well as the US administration's attempt to ban refugees—underscores the lack of Western welcome faced by people fleeing war, poverty and instability in the Middle East and Africa. The detention centers in Libya have "no procedure" to handle an influx, and are simply warehouses managed by militias, where abuses are common."

So let it be clearly stated that the Libyan regime bares primary responsibility for all the heinous acts committed by it's fascist leaders, their criminal agents, and their Islamic extremist terrorists. Crimes against humanity far worse than anything ever done by the late Ghaddafi. Secondly, we are yet to hear a formal condemnation in the strongest terms from the White House and the political establishment in Washington. The big silence from the Canadian, New Zealand and Australian governments is alarmingly suspicious. But let it be known as fact that at the end of last year, the EU instigated an anti-immigration policy code-named Operation Sophia/EUBAM that in essence supports and funds the gruesome imprisonment and subsequent sale of African migrants in Libyan detention camps/torture centers.

According to the EU Observer news magazine (link below), in April 25th this year, two Libyan commanders were secretely taken to Brussels "to discuss migration with the European Commission as part of a broader effort to stop people from fleeing into Europe."

The article adds that "A senior EU commission official told MEPs on Monday that a "huge meeting" had been organised on their behalf by the EU's foreign policy branch, the European External Action Service".

Mr. Maciej Popowski, an EU Commission deputy-director.

Popowski said "discussions would revolve around the needs of the commanders and what the EU could offer in return."

The EU's own mission to Libya said in a confidential report leaked to a British NGO that the Libyan interior ministry was infiltrated "by militias and religiously motivated stakeholders".

The EU still decided to set aside some €90 million in April to help fund "migrant projects" inside the war-torn country.

The EU Observer then says "Not everyone has always been convinced of the EU schemes. At around the same April this year, the NGO 'Doctors without Borders' was already sounding the alarm bells.

"Migrants are big business in Libya, pumping more money into that system is actually going to make it worse," Doctors Without Borders' (MSF's) Libya programme manager, Annemarie Loof, reportedly told EU MPs."

The NGO had access to a handful of detention facilities in Tripoli and one in Misrata.

Loof described the conditions as "deplorable with some people having to toss their urine onto the walls for it to evaporate given the lack of toilets". She then openly told the EU MP's that " The migrants are sold, you can sponsor a migrant if you wish, which means you pay a certain sum of money and take somebody home," she said.

Also warning that "returning more people to already overcrowded detention centres will only aggravate the abuse and exploitation."

That was back in April. Why the EU did nothing in response to the warnings is a matter of grave concern. It alludes to possible EU collusion and complicity in the sad developments in Libya.

There are probably many people in EU corridors of power who are hoping that the gruesome treatment of migrants in Libya will discourage others from attempting to travel to Europe. It would be very disturbing to discover that the airing of the suffering endured by African migrants is the hidden part of Operation Sophia/EUBAM since it serves to scare any would-be migrant from travelling to Europe because of the dangers they might encounter.

However knowing the resilience and determination of decided Africans, these migrants might simply wait for the situation to cool down before starting their trek towards eldorado once again. What will Libya and the EU do this time?

We therefore have to think in the long term. What can we do to make Africans willingly remain in their own countries, get jobs and help build prosperous communities?

Last year German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a mysterious announcement about a Marshal Plan for Africa. One imagined that we were going to see large scale infrastructure development projects all over Africa thanks to the European Union. Something similar to the original Marshall Plan conducted by the US to rebuild Europe after World war II. Surely that would have been a long term solution to the migration problem since it would help develop Africa and benefit European companies involved in the projects.

It turns out Madame Merkel was just lying. Nothing has been said about her proposal ever since, and instead, we discover the EU preferring the cheaper solution of funding concentration camps in Libya.

Eight days ago the presidents of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger all summoned the Libyan ambassadors resident in their ccountries to explain what was going on in libya, while French president Emmanuel Macron called for an emergency security council meeting at the United Nations. At this juncture, I would therefore like to state that it is the duty of all morally upright individuals and people of goodwill around the world, including global institutions like the UN Human rights Commission, the African Union commission, the International Criminal Court, and the European Union Council on Human Rights, to formally establish the full extent of Libyan & European Union leaders' responsibility in knowingly fostering, aiding and abetting what French President Emmanuel Macron termed as "a crime against humanity", the slave trade of African migrants in Libyan concentration camps funded by the European Union.

By Hussein Lumumba Amin

12/06/2017

Kampala, Uganda

When Angela Merkel announced a Marshall Plan for Africa: rt.com/news/366524-germany-marshall-plan-africa/

EU Observer article on warnings by NGO MSF to EU MP's about abuse in Libya:euobserver.com/foreign/137672

Article on EU strategy against migrants here: www.qz.com/904026/europe-has-a-genius-new-strategy-to-deal-with-migrants-pay-war-torn-libya-to-detain-them/

More info on the history behind the sad EU policy in Libya here:

- www.e-ir.info/2017/07/25/the-european-union-immigration-agreement-with-libya-out-of-sight-out-of-mind/

- www.neweurope.eu/article/valletta-eu-leaders-will-try-talk-libyas-migration-route-issues/

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