archive : s0metim3s

Speaking of the proliferation of ‘offshore’ migration processing and internment, below a report from action-2 on the recent November meeting in Tripoli, between European and African state representatives on migration management.

Their host Muammar Gaddafi, of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, opened the conference by telling the assembled ministers that the world should not try to restrict international migration because it is ‘inevitable’ and commanded by God.

Gaddafi failed to mention the Italian funded detention centers built for migrants at Gharyan near Tripoli or close to Kufra and Sebha, during his address to the assembly, nor did he mention the repatriation programs for irregular migrants in Libya, sponsored by its northern neighbours . The EU has also offered 1.5 million euros ($1.9 million) to Libya to back an Italian project to monitor the border with Niger.

The conference ended with a joint statement promising general measures to boost cooperation in controlling unauthorised migratory flows and to facilitate managed migration. The African states had pushed for a multi-billion dollar development fund to be provided by the EU, but in the end the EU states failed to set up the fund requested by African states. Instead the EU focussed on promised support for initiatives on labour matching, with the aim of coordinating the links between labour supply and demand and on developing ‘Migration Profiles’ of the migrants’ countries of origin. The British Minister Liam Byrne was especially keen to have a dialogue with his African colleagues on how to make it easier for them to take their nationals back quickly and to do away with unnecessary barriers to removing people ‘who do not have a right to be in the UK.’