Inside the West's Cynical Plan to Keep Refugees out of Europe by Trapping Them in Libya

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Western countries are willing to funnel arms into a war-torn country to keep refugees out of Europe.

By Sarah Lazare / AlterNet May 21, 2016

Western countries’ callous response to the greatest crisis of human displacement since World War II has reached new heights with the latest push to fashion—and arm—a Libyan state in part so that it can help trap refugees in that country and prevent them from reaching European shores.

European heads of state have already unleashed a brutal crackdown on people fleeing war and poverty, including through the EU’s “Operation Sophia” military force in the Mediterranean, which was established last May to prevent refugees stranded in Libya from journeying to the continent in search of sanctuary.

In other words, politicians and the figures behind Operation Sophia argue that intercepting and destroying refugee boats in international waters is not, in fact, preventing displaced people from attempting the voyage. In order to offshore the Libyan crisis from Europe, they insist, refugees must be prevented from leaving that country’s waters, and that requires an effective state.

This evaluation sheds light on the new international push, led by western nations, to arm Libya’s “Government of National Accord,” which may or may not actually exist.

Western countries’ callous response to the greatest crisis of human displacement since World War II has reached new heights with the latest push to fashion—and arm—a Libyan state in part so that it can help trap refugees in that country and prevent them from reaching European shores.

Funneling Arms Into a Humanitarian Crisis

In a joint communique released Monday following a ministerial meeting in Vienna, world powers declared their intention to carve out an exception to the United Nations arms embargo on Libya, which has been in place since 2011.

In public statements, U.S. officials have dubiously claimed that this initiative will help defeat ISIS. “The international community will support the [Libyan] Presidency Council as it seeks exemption from the U.N. arms embargo to acquire those weapons and bullets needed to fight Daesh [ISIS} and other terrorist groups,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters at a press conference on Monday.

In fact, NATO’s military intervention in 2011 played a critical role in unleashing the conditions that led to ISIS’s rise in Libya. Yet, the U.S. has continued its failed military intervention with a new wave of bombings and troop deployments. There is no evidence that funneling arms into Libya will somehow help stem the violence and chaos that western military campaigns have helped create.

In other words, the U.S. is planning to help arm a Libyan faction that has not emerged as a legitimate government—and is instructing Libyan people to embrace that non-existent state. It is doing so in a country that it has already inflicted profound harm upon through a wrong-headed military intervention.

What It Means to Trap Refugees in Libya

While it is not apparent exactly what form western collaboration with a Libyan faction to tackle migration would take, all of the available evidence suggests that the plan is aimed at preventing displaced people from journeying across the Mediterranean.

This amounts to trapping refugees in dire conditions in Libya, which has no domestic refugee laws or asylum procedures. In an international briefing published last May, Amnesty International outlined the abuses that refugees stranded in Libya are forced to endure, from rape to torture to slave labor:

Torture and other ill-treatment in immigration detention centers have remained widespread. In many cases, migrants and refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea have been subjected to prolonged beatings in such facilities following their interception and arrest by the Libyan coastguard or militias acting on their own initiative in the absence of strong state institutions. Women held in these facilities, which lack female guards, are vulnerable to sexual violence and harassment.

… Research conducted by Amnesty International reveals that migrants and refugees are increasingly exploited and forced to work without pay, physically assaulted and robbed in their homes or in the streets. Religious minorities, in particular Christian migrants and refugees, are at highest risk of abuses, including abductions, torture and other ill-treatment and unlawful killings, from armed groups that seek to enforce their own interpretation of Islamic law and have been responsible for serious human rights abuses. They also face widespread discrimination and persecution from their employers, criminal groups and in immigration detention centers. In some cases, the detention and abuse of foreign nationals, in particular sub-Saharan Africans, have been motivated by a fear of illnesses, which was exacerbated by last year’s outbreak of Ebola.

To keep the refugee crisis away from Europe’s shores, western states are willing to funnel arms into a war-torn country to shore up a government whose stablity is suspect at best. Behind the potentially catastrophic gambit lies a plan to trap survivors of violence and poverty in deplorable conditions. If those refugees manage to escape from the conflict zone, they will be met not by humanitarian relief, but by hostile military patrols. Beyond the walls of Fortress Europe, a vast, aquatic graveyard may soon expand.

Full article: http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/wests-cynical-plan-offshore-refugee-crisis-will-flood-libya-more-weapons?akid=14286.44541.f7473B&rd=1&src=newsletter1057021&t=12