Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3: It's me James today and I am lucky to be
Speaker 3: joined again by Mick. We're going to talk today about Libya,
Speaker 3: and just like right off the top, this is going
Speaker 3: to be a sad episode. Not much good happens to
Speaker 3: migrants in Libya. A lot of bad stuff happens. And
Speaker 3: if you someone who prefers not to hear about like
Speaker 3: violence or sexual violence or incarceration, it's probably some other
Speaker 3: stuff I'm overlooking. This might not be the episode for you,
Speaker 3: and that's fine.
Speaker 2: But Mick, how you doing.
Speaker 4: Hi James, I'm goods. I'm goods.
Speaker 3: That was an uplifting intro, wasn't it. I felt like
Speaker 3: that was a really positive way to start the show.
Speaker 4: Yes, definitely, definitely, but probably very warranted because it's not
Speaker 4: going to be a fun episode. Like, there's torture, there's imprisonments,
Speaker 4: there's some slave months. It's horrible. Yeah, Libya is probably
Speaker 4: one of the worst countries in the world to be
Speaker 4: a migrant at the moment, if not the worst.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I and you have a whole industry, a whole
Speaker 3: part of their economy that is predicated on enslaving migrants.
Speaker 3: Lately selling people and all of the other kinds of
Speaker 3: violence that come from that.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 4: There's I think over twenty or thirty different facilities with
Speaker 4: varying degrees of government involvement in those facilities, and it's
Speaker 4: very hard to pinpoint exactly like where does the government
Speaker 4: and where does this human trafficking business begin? Right, It's
Speaker 4: similar to like early mid Soviet Union, where there was
Speaker 4: so much organized crime happening within the government that it
Speaker 4: was also impossible to distinguish, like where one began and
Speaker 4: where the other ended.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like which was which exactly.
Speaker 4: It was under breast nev I think, but don't don't
Speaker 4: quote me on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, so give us a lad only.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, maybe I guess if people have
Speaker 3: been not listening, why are we talking about Libya?
Speaker 4: Well, on May eighth, that was reported that the Trump
Speaker 4: administration was considering sporting migrants to this North African country,
Speaker 4: which is a new low. Yeah, like the bar is
Speaker 4: buried and these motherfuckers just grabbed the shovel. I don't
Speaker 4: think it's possible to exaggerate just how cruel this would
Speaker 4: be if it were to happen. As I said earlier,
Speaker 4: Libya is probably the worst country in the world to
Speaker 4: be a migrant at the moment. And to illustrate that,
Speaker 4: I'm going to briefly quote from this twenty twenty two
Speaker 4: and it's the International article Men, women and children returned
Speaker 4: to Libya returned in this case meaning that they tried
Speaker 4: to cross the Mediterranean and were picked up by the
Speaker 4: Libyan coast guards. Returned to Libya face arbitrary detention, torture,
Speaker 4: cruel and inhumane detension conditions, rape and sexual violence, extortion,
Speaker 4: forced labor, and unlawful killings. Instead of addressing this human
Speaker 4: rights crisis, the Libyan Government of National Unity now called
Speaker 4: the GMU, continues to facilitate further abuses entrench impunity, as
Speaker 4: illustrated by its recent appointment of Mohammed al Koha as
Speaker 4: Director of the Department for Combating Illegal Migration, which we
Speaker 4: will be referring to as the DCIM from now on.
Speaker 4: To make that entire list. Somehow worse, there has been
Speaker 4: extensive documentation from human rights groups that strongly suggest that
Speaker 4: the DCIM works together with non governmental militias, making the
Speaker 4: latter responsible for at least six unofficial detention centers. Although
Speaker 4: it is reasonable to assume that there might be more.
Speaker 3: So reporting out of Libya is hard to understate it. Yes,
Speaker 3: Sally Hayden has an excellent book called My Fourth Time
Speaker 3: We Drowned that Like, one of the things I like
Speaker 3: about it is it explains like her journalistic process, and
Speaker 3: it's people who are detained in places where they can't
Speaker 3: get out clubbing together to get one message out on
Speaker 3: the one phone that one person smuggled in in part right,
Speaker 3: use someone had the battery, someone had the screen or whatever,
Speaker 3: and someone else had a SIM card and like that
Speaker 3: way they could they could get a message out. But
Speaker 3: it's everything that we hear about. We can assume that
Speaker 3: there is probably a lot more of it happening that
Speaker 3: we haven't heard about, or at least some more of
Speaker 3: it happening that we haven't heard about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the worst part about this is that it's knowing
Speaker 4: that it's probably worse and it's probably more extensive than
Speaker 4: we know. Because Yeah, as you said, Livia is a
Speaker 4: hard country to do this kind of reporting, and I
Speaker 4: am assuming that it's not very safe for a journalists
Speaker 4: to just go there and go talk to people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, And like at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: you're not just as I'm sure you'll explain, You're not
Speaker 3: just fucking with the Libyan government. You're fucking with the
Speaker 3: European Union is absolutely complicit in this and like they
Speaker 3: ain't coming to save you.
Speaker 4: We'll get to that how work. The EU is complicited
Speaker 4: in both funding and in actions. Yeah, so let's first
Speaker 4: get this onto the proper context. We're going to dive
Speaker 4: for bits into the history of Libya because that plays
Speaker 4: a major part in how this situation is right now.
Speaker 4: So we'll start by talking about the former dictator Muamar Kadaffi.
Speaker 4: He took control of Libya through a military kudetta and
Speaker 4: ruled it from nineteen sixty nine up until he faced
Speaker 4: mob justice in the Libyan Civil War in twenty eleven.
Speaker 4: He is or was accused of human rights violations and
Speaker 4: cracking down heart on this scent and opposition. Initially was
Speaker 4: on the list of states which sponsored terrorism, but from
Speaker 4: two thousand and four onwards he slowly began can to
Speaker 4: rekindle ties with a number of countries, with one of
Speaker 4: the main champions for rehabilitation being Italy, the former colonial
Speaker 4: power that had occupied Libya. To no one's surprised we're
Speaker 4: bringing in colonialism here. Now, James, you get three guesses
Speaker 4: as to what one of the cooperations was between Libya
Speaker 4: and Italy.
Speaker 3: Well, I can get many things. Ray, there's some stories
Speaker 3: about good Affi and Berlusconi, but we won't talk about this.
Speaker 3: Was it preventing migrant crossing the Mediterranean Sea?
Speaker 2: Yes, that is true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, something the Italians love to do.
Speaker 4: It was happening back then as well. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 4: really weird relationship between Italy and Libya. That's also kind
Speaker 4: of fascinating. But then we're going to get all the
Speaker 4: way off topic if we dive into that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, somewhere between two thousand and four and two thousand
Speaker 4: and five, Libya was supplied with money and equipment to
Speaker 4: help stem the flow of illegal migration coming from Africa.
Speaker 4: Kadaffi himself said in twenty ten that this was to
Speaker 4: prevent the loss of European cultural identity to a new
Speaker 4: black Europa, after Libya was paid fifty million euro for
Speaker 4: this purpose that same year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, based anti colonial Yes, I'm sure that's a
Speaker 3: Gadaffi did nothing wrong movement that exists on some corner
Speaker 3: of Reddit that I haven't Oh, got that plumitted into yet,
Speaker 3: but yeah, this guy was a third.
Speaker 4: I cannot find a stick long enough that I would
Speaker 4: touch that community with, to be honest. That's also something
Speaker 4: that plays in here, and that I think, like you
Speaker 4: read a lot of human rights reports, you come across it.
Speaker 4: But there's also like a distinct form of racism for
Speaker 4: Sub Saharan or like Eastern African people. Definitely, Yeah, that's
Speaker 4: also going to play into this. It's just a smorgas
Speaker 4: board of bad stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean for people who perhaps grew up in
Speaker 3: the United States, you know for their were and received
Speaker 3: verio education in school about African geography and politics like
Speaker 3: this can be hard to grasp, right, Like Africa is
Speaker 3: sometimes perceived as a country, not a continent in sort
Speaker 3: of discourse in the United States. And that's again like
Speaker 3: it's not people's fault, like it's it's in nature of
Speaker 3: our education system failing people. But yeah, if you're not familiar,
Speaker 3: rarely view it's called in North Africa, and like great
Speaker 3: replacement style racist conspiracies absolutely exist in North Africa about
Speaker 3: people from Sub Saharan Africa. Either that the parts of
Speaker 3: Africa that are beneath the Sahara desert and in the
Speaker 3: which you could find by looking at them that. But
Speaker 3: yet like just because this is in Africa, like racist
Speaker 3: shit is absolutely going down. No.
Speaker 4: I think it was highlighted a bit when the president
Speaker 4: or Prime Minister of Tunisia was cracking down on migration
Speaker 4: that there was also like a very distinct racism against
Speaker 4: against sub Saharan Africans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it is.
Speaker 3: It's a global thing where because racist is a social
Speaker 3: construct and it's not like an inherent thing that that
Speaker 3: You'll hear this a lot. You know, I've worked in
Speaker 3: Hispaniola a lot, Right, the island that contains hating Dominican Republic,
Speaker 3: the island which receives millions of dollars from the United
Speaker 3: States to reinforce the border between the two nations that
Speaker 3: make it up. You will hear this reference to Haitian
Speaker 3: people as black from Afro Caribbean Dominican people, right, And
Speaker 3: this idea that there's this racial distinction between the two,
Speaker 3: that it's a nature of race, right, it's quite social
Speaker 3: construct between mobilized to create a power dynamic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a whole other topic of discussion, because I
Speaker 4: identity and race are so intermingled but also so fluid. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you could talk for hours about it, but that's not
Speaker 4: why we're here. Yeah, a warming up ties with Libya
Speaker 4: was a pragmatic approach from the EU, as it lies
Speaker 4: just on the doorstep of Fortress Europe, but also marked
Speaker 4: the start of set fortress to start externalizing its borders
Speaker 4: into Africa, slowly working towards ki migrants and refugees from
Speaker 4: setting food on European soil, which would entitle them to
Speaker 4: apply for asylum. So even that step that's encoded in
Speaker 4: European law, we're trying to like circumvent by just making
Speaker 4: sure that they don't cross the Mediterranean.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So sometime later, when the civil war began during the
Speaker 4: Art Spring, Yeah, Libyan dissidents got rid of the sex
Speaker 4: best that was more mar Kadaffi. So the world became
Speaker 4: a slightly better place after that. Currently, there are two
Speaker 4: major factions fighting over power in Libya, although there are
Speaker 4: numerous other groups involved. To dive into this would probably
Speaker 4: take up most of the episodes, so I will leave
Speaker 4: that aside. Yeah, the first of the major factions is
Speaker 4: the GNU, the Government of National Unity, led by Prime
Speaker 4: Minister Abdul Ahmit de Deba even fills the north west
Speaker 4: of Libya, including the capital Tripoli. The other faction is
Speaker 4: led by US Libyan national Khalifa Hafta, who commands the
Speaker 4: Libyan National Army or LNA, who expressed loyalty to the
Speaker 4: elected governments and are therefore often referred to as the
Speaker 4: ho R the House of Represented Sentatives. I will try
Speaker 4: to be consistent with the sacronyms, but no guarantees. Unsurprisingly,
Speaker 4: after I was mentioned in accusations made in twenty three
Speaker 4: for his militia's treatment of migrants, with some reports indicating
Speaker 4: that they or he may be profiting of the smuggling SAM.
Speaker 4: We pretty much got a warlord over there with an
Speaker 4: army at his disposal who's not disincentivized not treat migrants
Speaker 4: as things for his own profit.
Speaker 2: Yeah right.
Speaker 4: Another fun fact that reveals how absolutely fucked up the
Speaker 4: situation is the capture and subsequent release of infamous warlord
Speaker 4: Osama Ala Mustri by Italy. Almasri had outstanding of warrants
Speaker 4: from the International Criminal Court due to him having the
Speaker 4: TRIPLEI branch of detention centers backed by the Special Defense Force,
Speaker 4: both of which are used of atrocities and war crimes
Speaker 4: during the Civil War. He was captured in Turin after
Speaker 4: a soccer match. The ICC requested he be arrested, but
Speaker 4: they turn based tribunal declined to approve the prove it,
Speaker 4: after which Almasriios res niece back into Libya Jesus.
Speaker 2: So yeah, right, we.
Speaker 4: Love our ICC and then not following through on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, Like the ic C does not in fact
Speaker 3: have an army that it can send out to people
Speaker 3: who completely ignore it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a body that doesn't have any power to
Speaker 4: really enforce decisions. I know that the current Dutch Prime
Speaker 4: Minister said of Benjaminett and Yahoo that they could just
Speaker 4: ignore the outstanding warrant for his arrest, that Yao could
Speaker 4: just visit the Netherlands, which, like, I don't even know
Speaker 4: what to say about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this is the nature of what you're
Speaker 3: talking about in an extent, right, like the ICC's rulings
Speaker 3: and all human rights only exist insofar as they are
Speaker 3: convenient to the powerfuls as in the world.
Speaker 4: It's very much a rules for d but not for
Speaker 4: me kind of attitudes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I find it extremely disheartening and I feel myself
Speaker 4: growing more cynical because of this world that I grew
Speaker 4: up in, and I'm slowly seeing that all the rules
Speaker 4: and all the great things that I was taught in
Speaker 4: school are kind of not rules but more like guidelines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and that only applied to certain people.
Speaker 3: It's really heartbreaking to see, Like I mean, I've heard
Speaker 3: it a lot from people, right, but especially from Burmese people.
Speaker 3: They really educated themselves an international law when they were
Speaker 3: going out to protest. At first, they talk about the
Speaker 3: r twop, like the responsibility to protect, which is it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter to concept in international law, but I've allowed
Speaker 3: someone to intervene, and like they thought, this is the
Speaker 3: international law, it's the world law, so someone's going to
Speaker 3: do it, and like no, you know, over the months
Speaker 3: that they were in the streets, over the thousands of
Speaker 3: deaths that they've seen, now they've come to realize that
Speaker 3: that law isn't there to protect them, that there's no
Speaker 3: one who's coming to save them, and that's led to
Speaker 3: them building a very unique and beautiful revolution. But at
Speaker 3: the same time, it costs thousands of innocent lives, and
Speaker 3: it's heartbreaking to see their faith being misplaced in this institution.
Speaker 3: It doesn't care about it.
Speaker 4: We can talk very high and mighty about all these
Speaker 4: laws and whether in war or whether about refugees, but
Speaker 4: in the end, very often they just seem worth as
Speaker 4: much as the paper they're written on. Yeah, exactly, It's
Speaker 4: okay to become cynical after that realization.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, while the conditions for migrants were getting noticeably more
Speaker 4: horrible in the aftermath of the twenty eleven intervention by NATO,
Speaker 4: it was, as we said earlier, by no means the
Speaker 4: start could definitely very much used migration as leverage to
Speaker 4: gain concessions and standing among European governmental bodies. Exploitation of
Speaker 4: migrants was already reported by human rights ruts back in
Speaker 4: two thousand and nine. A similar vein the fact that
Speaker 4: the Libyan Coast Guard routinely picks up migrants in the
Speaker 4: international waters to return them to Libya has also been
Speaker 4: documented as early as two thousand and nine. How Frontex
Speaker 4: is involved with that will get to that later. These
Speaker 4: processes and dynamics were very much already in play prior
Speaker 4: to Cadelphie meeting his maker. This kidnapping of migrants, because
Speaker 4: I don't think there's a better or a harsher word
Speaker 4: for it is an explicit violation of international European and
Speaker 4: Italian law. Non refolment, which is the principle in these laws,
Speaker 4: means that no refugee shall be returned or expelled to
Speaker 4: a territory against their will where their freedoms and life
Speaker 4: are threatened. From January first, twenty nineteen to June thirtieth,
Speaker 4: twenty twenty, Libya received sixty one point six million euros
Speaker 4: as part of the European Union Integrated Border Management Assistance
Speaker 4: Mission Mandate, with an explicit focus on establishing state security
Speaker 4: structures in the country. Funding is meant to help stem
Speaker 4: migration to Europe through strengthening the border management, law enforcement,
Speaker 4: and criminal justice systems of Libya. Emphasis is placed on
Speaker 4: disrupting the networks that operate the smuggling and trafficking of persons.
Speaker 4: We already discussed these institutions are directly or indirectly contributing
Speaker 4: very often to the exploitation and enslavement of refugees. So
Speaker 4: that's sixty one million euros that has indirectly gone through
Speaker 4: those very systems that enslave and torture people.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So when many liberal authorities often have direct links to
Speaker 4: militias or organized crime groups that engage in these practices.
Speaker 4: Authorities in the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Interior,
Speaker 4: the Department to Combat Irregular Migration, the Libyan Coast Guard,
Speaker 4: and the Special Deterrence Force has all been implicated. It
Speaker 4: has got so bad that even the Ministry of Defense
Speaker 4: employs Coast Guard units that are made up of militias
Speaker 4: who profit from these human rights abuses.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's fastical to think that like you could throw
Speaker 3: some money at this problem and not just like more
Speaker 3: empower these people.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's even I think when we talked last year
Speaker 4: about this, I think Rows from Migrant mentioned it. But
Speaker 4: the Libyans get paid twice because first they get paid
Speaker 4: to make sure that to return these migrants back to Libya,
Speaker 4: but then they can also get paid for selling them
Speaker 4: into slavery.
Speaker 2: Do you what do you even say to that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's genuinely unfavorable for a lot of
Speaker 3: people than twenty twenty five. People are absolutely being captured
Speaker 3: and sold into slavery. That is occurring.
Speaker 4: Yes, I've read some Human Rights Watch accounts of people
Speaker 4: who were imprisoned for sometimes in years and then made
Speaker 4: to work in one way or another for whoever ran
Speaker 4: that particular detention center and the one that I'm thinking
Speaker 4: of right now, after six years, I think that person
Speaker 4: was able to buy himself away from the authorities than
Speaker 4: his boat was captured within thirty minutes after he got
Speaker 4: off the boat, Libya got back to a different attention
Speaker 4: center where he spent four days, and I think after
Speaker 4: that he got another chance on the boat, and I
Speaker 4: think he was rescued by the volunteer or human rights
Speaker 4: organizations who are also patrolling the sea north of Libya.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we interviewed some of them talking of patrolling the seas.
Speaker 3: Maybe this is an advert for a boat.
Speaker 4: Yes, there will be a front TACs ad right now
Speaker 4: for all the European listeners.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, all right, we are back.
Speaker 4: So we left off with just briefly mentioning how the
Speaker 4: Libyan state functions as part of this more than organized
Speaker 4: crime syndicateive profits from the abuse of innocent people. And
Speaker 4: this is in a way not really surprising. Back in
Speaker 4: eighty five, academic Charles Tilly already argued that the states
Speaker 4: as a form of social organization, it's pretty much indistinguishable
Speaker 4: from an organized crime group. Yeah, I'll make sure that
Speaker 4: the sources in the description below if anyone is interested,
Speaker 4: But for those who don't want to read it, in
Speaker 4: very short, they're both major organizations over which you have
Speaker 4: very little control, and if you don't pay them the
Speaker 4: taxes or protection money that they want, then people will
Speaker 4: show up to break your legs. That's the two sentence
Speaker 4: explanation of that article.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 4: After the principle of non refoulment has been violated, refugees
Speaker 4: are brought to detention centers in theory under the supervision
Speaker 4: of the DCIM. In practice, this does not hold up.
Speaker 4: There are no official or verified numbers of how many
Speaker 4: centers there are or how many people are even health captive.
Speaker 4: They Libyan numbers just somewhere between seventeen to thirty five
Speaker 4: facilities holding over seven thousand people. Human rights groups have
Speaker 4: questions these numbers and argued that the number is likely
Speaker 4: between ten thousand and twenty thousand people being held captive.
Speaker 4: The reality is that we simply don't know. Yeah, we
Speaker 4: don't know exactly how many cent facilities there are to
Speaker 4: hold these people, and we don't know how many people
Speaker 4: are in them. Human rights watchers or UN delegates often
Speaker 4: don't get the full picture even if they go there
Speaker 4: to visit and inspect the places. There was one part
Speaker 4: of what I read where they would only be allowed
Speaker 4: during the day, but then at night is when most
Speaker 4: of the horrible stuff happens. Yeah, So still there's very
Speaker 4: much a process of trying to not show what is
Speaker 4: being done there. People in these detention centers are held
Speaker 4: indefinitely and lack any sort of legal processes or procedures
Speaker 4: to determine their state. In fact, according to a twenty
Speaker 4: nineteen RUN report, there is no official procedure to assess
Speaker 4: asylum status in Libya, meaning that in the legal sense,
Speaker 4: this category is absolutely meaningless.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: On top of that, there's also a lack of a
Speaker 4: process for exiting entertainment, so that that's an entire procedure
Speaker 4: that is just done at the whim of whoever happens
Speaker 4: to control like that particular facility.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that could be someone who has just like
Speaker 3: seized it by arms from whoever controlled it last, right, exactly.
Speaker 4: There's sometimes facilities are abandoned and they can become official.
Speaker 4: There's also been reports of the government rating like unofficial centers,
Speaker 4: but then recapturing those people and put them in official centers.
Speaker 2: Great, that'll make it better.
Speaker 4: It would be funny if it wasn't so fucking horrible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's bleak.
Speaker 4: The DCM closed down five centers that had a history
Speaker 4: of human rights violations. This act, however, had little effect
Speaker 4: on halting abuses. Reports of beatings and torture continued as
Speaker 4: some official centers closed by the DCIM quickly became unofficial
Speaker 4: sites reopened and operated by militias. For example, the Buisa
Speaker 4: official Attention Center in Saweya was ordered to close due
Speaker 4: to reports of sexual abuse taking place. He reopened a
Speaker 4: day later and operated under a new name managed by
Speaker 4: armed groups. Dtaee explanation was seamlessly transferred from official to
Speaker 4: unofficial banners, helping empower militants and criminal actors in the region.
Speaker 4: So we're now going to take a deeper look at
Speaker 4: these centers. I found an amazing article by Nadia aldayon
Speaker 4: Aaron Anfinson and Graham Anfinson in there, and James that
Speaker 4: this Israel the Journal of Human Trafficking, which is an
Speaker 4: actual academic journal that exists.
Speaker 3: Jesus, Yeah, I mean, I guess, yeah. If there's the
Speaker 3: thing someone has written their PhD. This station about it,
Speaker 3: it makes sense.
Speaker 4: I imagine this journal is just one or two articles
Speaker 4: and for the rest it's just pictures of Jeffrey Epstein
Speaker 4: and Andrew Tate, just back to back to back, because
Speaker 4: ah yeah again, would would be funny if.
Speaker 3: It wasn't so fu Yeah, yeah, I can't. I can't
Speaker 3: imagine working as an editor at the Journal of Human Trafficking.
Speaker 3: Is the job that like you have that is like
Speaker 3: the like the special force selection cause of mental health. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like you you are facing all the challenges that can
Speaker 3: be thrown in a person.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I'm sure there's like a psychologist like on
Speaker 4: standby at the journal just to make sure like that
Speaker 4: that the people running guitar all right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So these academics distinguished between three types of centers, official
Speaker 4: meaning they are run by the states in so far
Speaker 4: as that means anything, of course, then there are the
Speaker 4: two unofficial types, which I will call semi official and officious.
Speaker 4: Semi official centers are those run partially by state forces
Speaker 4: in cooperation with local groups, militias, or other non state actors.
Speaker 4: Officious centers are those run entirely by non state forces,
Speaker 4: while conditions in official centers are air quotes better than
Speaker 4: the latter two. It's by no means a good place
Speaker 4: to be. None of these free categories are exempt from
Speaker 4: all the violence being done to people. All three have
Speaker 4: been named and implicated in abuses and violations. According to
Speaker 4: the authors, there are about twenty one official sites, twelve
Speaker 4: semi official and twenty two officious sides, with one reportedly
Speaker 4: being run by ISIS in Naphalia back in twenty to fifteen.
Speaker 4: Cool ISIS had a stronghold in Libya back in the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And the fact that ISIS might have been involved
Speaker 4: in human trafficking is the least surprising thing here.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean they were trafficking people into the Islamic State,
Speaker 3: into their what are their so called Cali right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is progressed, and now trafficking people away from it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: this is a small victories. Of all these sites that
Speaker 4: I just mentioned, a remarkable amount is intriqually, the capital
Speaker 4: of Libya. Sometimes these sites overlap with areas with known
Speaker 4: prostitution rings. The researchers found at least nine such networks,
Speaker 4: with the majority of the sex slaves being from sub
Speaker 4: Saharan regions and to east Africa, they are mostly women,
Speaker 4: but it also happens to men. Libya has no laws
Speaker 4: or procedures to criminalize male sex trafficking while men are
Speaker 4: still the minority. I do think it's worth mentioning. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 4: that is also something that happens and most likely underreported on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's something you'd really struggle, Like the
Speaker 3: nature of masculinity and like its toxicity makes it hard
Speaker 3: for people to come forward to you and say this
Speaker 3: is happening to.
Speaker 4: Me, right exactly, And it makes that that process becomes
Speaker 4: even harder if there is no legal framework to stand on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, there's like there's nothing to say, like this
Speaker 3: is that at least you can say what's happening to
Speaker 3: you is wrong. It's perceived as a crime, right, Like,
Speaker 3: if that's not there, it says no, like how can
Speaker 3: I support this person?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Who do you direct that person to? Like exactly, anybody
Speaker 3: who has been trafficked and forced into sex work, like,
Speaker 3: and I've spoken to migrants for whom that has been
Speaker 3: the case. Like there's a great deal of stigma they
Speaker 3: have to overcome, which they shouldn't have to, Like, it's
Speaker 3: not none of what's happened to them is their choice,
Speaker 3: but it's very difficult for them to talk about it,
Speaker 3: and it's very unlikely for them to really be able
Speaker 3: to get any form of accountability for the people who
Speaker 3: did this to them. And that's in settings outside of Libya,
Speaker 3: like in Libya. Fucking good luck, I imagine, Like.
Speaker 4: I think that's just a problem in general, not just
Speaker 4: in Libya. Yeah, it's arguably much worse than Livia. But yeah,
Speaker 4: even in countries that we're much more familiar with, this
Speaker 4: is happening, and it's still very hard to obtain the
Speaker 4: accountability from the perpetrators that any better world would be happening. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So I am now going to quote for the article
Speaker 4: for the next batch of horrors for women and girls,
Speaker 4: various degrees of sexual violence were commonplace. Facilities that did
Speaker 4: allow some angio access barred visitations at night, which is
Speaker 4: when many severe abuses occurred. Detention center operators performed systemic
Speaker 4: rape on women and teenage girls on a nightly basis.
Speaker 4: Those that resisted were threatened with death. Others were killed
Speaker 4: by severe sexual assault and rape. Impregnations by detention center
Speaker 4: of officials also occurred. So, yeah, I'm going to briefly
Speaker 4: cite the accounts of someone who has been for that Afni,
Speaker 4: which is a pseudonym. An eighteen year old Somali woman
Speaker 4: told me, very softly that she was gang raped by
Speaker 4: smugglers multiple times the end of the two years she
Speaker 4: spent confined in a smuggler warehouse in Kufra, released from
Speaker 4: the warehouse and dispatched the Tripoli defend for herself. When
Speaker 4: she became pregnant, Ofne gave birth to a little girl,
Speaker 4: depending on handouts and help from strangers to survive. She
Speaker 4: told me that when she decided to attempt the sea
Speaker 4: crossing with her daughter, they ended up in another night
Speaker 4: marriage smuggler warehouse, where one of the smugglers refused to
Speaker 4: find food for her baby unless Afne had sex with him.
Speaker 4: Her daughter died when she was seven months old.
Speaker 2: God, oh, what a fucking leak thing.
Speaker 4: Yes, the entire article that that quote was frob is
Speaker 4: like a rife with crimes like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, is horrific stuff.
Speaker 4: I'll make sure that it's in the notes below if
Speaker 4: you would want to read that. Yeah, and absolutely no
Speaker 4: shame with people don't want to read.
Speaker 3: This because it is fucked Yeah, yeah, you didn't have
Speaker 3: to expose yourself to all this. You don't have to
Speaker 3: know every detail of it to care about people like,
Speaker 3: it's okay not to read it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, ah, so I want to close this particular censu
Speaker 4: budget brutally driving this point home. But like women and
Speaker 4: teenage girls are being raped to death over there on
Speaker 4: a systemic level. Yeah, and I'm fucking disgusted with the
Speaker 4: fact that the EU is still sending money there that
Speaker 4: is indirectly facilitating this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've mean fucking well, it gets on it's high
Speaker 3: horse about like gender and quality and women's rights and
Speaker 3: such things, and then like unless it's the inconvenient gender
Speaker 3: equality of migrants, right, or that the rights of migrants.
Speaker 4: Which yeah, I need a cigarette now.
Speaker 2: Fuck.
Speaker 3: It's the fucking worst thing that I deal with talking
Speaker 3: to people about work. It's like people who have survived
Speaker 3: sexual violence, or like people who can reasonably expect to
Speaker 3: encounter it and making this journey because they think that
Speaker 3: it's there only option anyway.
Speaker 4: Yeah, It's it's not that people who undertake this journey
Speaker 4: to a batel life that they once are unaware of
Speaker 4: the risks. It's despite the risks that they're just doing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the same in the Americas, Rightly, people understand
Speaker 3: that the you know, I mentioned this in my Darien
Speaker 3: Gap episode, but very young children are subject to sexual violence,
Speaker 3: which also sometimes results in their death. Yeah, and like
Speaker 3: they understand that that world is at such an exaggerated
Speaker 3: level of inequality that people are willing to take those
Speaker 3: risks because that's the way the only way that they
Speaker 3: feel they can secure a safe future for their children.
Speaker 4: Yeah. It is a level of courage that I cannot fathom. Yeah,
Speaker 4: me need that. The best I could do was just
Speaker 4: acknowledge that I can't fathom it. But that's also like
Speaker 4: a very bitter built to swallow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is like I uh, you know, I attend
Speaker 3: wars for work sometimes. And the women who take on
Speaker 3: the migration, especially when not that men are not so
Speaker 3: back to sexual violence, say ah, but it's probably more
Speaker 3: likely for women to experience it. The women who take
Speaker 3: on the migration journey alone or with their children, like
Speaker 3: those people's bravery, Like I can't fathom being that brave.
Speaker 3: I can't imagine how one can be that courageous a
Speaker 3: dedicated to one's child. And we talked in our podcast
Speaker 3: recently about Primrose who came with her daughter. Like that's
Speaker 3: someone I'm still like just in awe of, you know,
Speaker 3: like you don't see that kind of courage and dedication
Speaker 3: and just like ability to push through things that are
Speaker 3: horrific with this goal in mind of reaching the United States,
Speaker 3: Like it's and it continues to be something that I
Speaker 3: struggled to find words to express, obviously, but it's really something.
Speaker 2: I want to say.
Speaker 4: Something just speechless, Yeah, not much to say.
Speaker 2: Uh, you know who else should be speechless?
Speaker 3: Is it the products and services to support this podcast?
Speaker 2: I sure hope. So just two minutes of silence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hopefully it will just be a little moment for
Speaker 3: quiet contemplation for all of you out there.
Speaker 2: All Right, we're back.
Speaker 3: We've we've had a glass of water, and we're going
Speaker 3: to keep doing the podcast anyway.
Speaker 2: Yes, rehydrates a bit. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So in terms of like explicit accounts, that was it. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 4: So if someone had to skip over that part, that
Speaker 4: part of the episode should be done. You can start
Speaker 4: listening again. So as of this recording, They're Missing Migrants Project,
Speaker 4: who tracks migrant depths and those who become missing. Between
Speaker 4: our quotes, approximately thirty two thousand people are either dead
Speaker 4: or missing and presumed death in the Mediterranean that I
Speaker 4: have been confirmed Jesus. The overwhelming majority of these people
Speaker 4: drowned while attempting the crossing. Two five hundred and eighty
Speaker 4: two of these cases were registered in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: Last year, roughly seventy thousand people attempted a crossing, according
Speaker 4: to statistics from the European Commission. This may not appear
Speaker 4: as a lot of deaths compared to the crossings, but
Speaker 4: this figure does not take into account deaths on the
Speaker 4: journey towards the crossing. I was not able to verify
Speaker 4: how the number of seventy thousand was made up, as
Speaker 4: the EO website I got it from is a collection
Speaker 4: of data from different countries and agencies who register it.
Speaker 4: What do you think is safe to assume, and let
Speaker 4: me emphasize assume here is that people captured by Italian
Speaker 4: multice cypriots or Libyan co authorities is included in this number,
Speaker 4: so that those are people who've attempted the crossing and
Speaker 4: then are taken back to Libya, possibly undertaking the journey again.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, because yeah, I know you've stressed this a
Speaker 4: few times. But a number one does not mean that
Speaker 4: it's just a single person. It can be the same
Speaker 4: person who tries to cross multiple times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, people will will peak crossings. I think we
Speaker 3: reach a point where the numbers are not and not
Speaker 3: that every point of these people is a person, right,
Speaker 3: But like I would be any less pissed off if
Speaker 3: it was fifty thousand.
Speaker 4: Like after a certain amount, it just becomes a number
Speaker 4: because we just can can't imagine how many people that is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like we shouldn't ever have to conceive the thirty
Speaker 3: two thousand people drowning, right, that it's not a thing
Speaker 3: that in the twenty first century we should allow to
Speaker 3: happen as a society, Like, yeah, this shit, Like, you know,
Speaker 3: I've participated meat Day along the border and very familiar
Speaker 3: with death at the border, But the scale of this
Speaker 3: is unfathomable, even to someone who's spent a decent amount
Speaker 3: of time across the migrant trails of the America. Is
Speaker 3: that two thousand and five hundred two deaths in a year.
Speaker 2: Like that's a small village.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, absolutely the other yearly basis, Yeah, it's a
Speaker 4: decent size city. If you take that thirty two thousand number.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a mid sized music festival of people
Speaker 3: who didn't need to die.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 4: I checked the websites called info Migrants, and they estimate
Speaker 4: that the Libyan Coast Guard alone has returned again. Air
Speaker 4: quotes around twenty one thousand migrants are caught during a
Speaker 4: crossing attempt, So the vast majority of these people end
Speaker 4: up back in the detention centers we discussed earlier, So
Speaker 4: that's around one for every three and a half people
Speaker 4: being captured.
Speaker 2: Jesus. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: There was at some point a video making the rounds,
Speaker 4: and it was this African woman on a boat, filmed
Speaker 4: with like a mobile phone, and she was just crying
Speaker 4: and was just saying like, Hey, if the Libyan Coast
Speaker 4: God shows up, I'm jumping overboard. No way am I
Speaker 4: going back there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen that.
Speaker 4: That is one of those statements that I will immediately believe.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people have self immolated in those detention centers like
Speaker 3: Suich just dead misery and their desire for the world
Speaker 3: to see them. I guess I can understand why someone
Speaker 3: would just rather stop being.
Speaker 4: So the little calculation I just made that leaves us
Speaker 4: with forty nine thousand people making the crossing, of which
Speaker 4: eighty two diets resulting in forty six thousand, four hundred
Speaker 4: people entering Europe through the Libyan roots. Again, these are approximations.
Speaker 4: More exact numbers will never know. Yeah. I tried to
Speaker 4: track money and expenditures a tiny bit to see how
Speaker 4: the EU is dealing with this. It's not one of
Speaker 4: my strong suits. I want to be upfront with that.
Speaker 4: I was able to find that between twenty twenty and
Speaker 4: twenty twenty three, THEE granted at least one hundred and
Speaker 4: five million euro under the European Integrated Border Management Assistance Mission.
Speaker 4: This is money that is directly going to Libya for
Speaker 4: assistance in managing our border. This number does not include
Speaker 4: money directly or indirectly given to Libya from individual member
Speaker 4: states or from the budget of the EU's Border Agency FRONTACS.
Speaker 4: The latter has seen an absolute massive increase in their budgets. Yeah,
Speaker 4: from around two hundred and fifty billion in twenty sixteen
Speaker 4: to over eight hundred and forty billion in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: God, yeah, that's a vast increase.
Speaker 4: Yes, And what's relatively recently been happening is that rather
Speaker 4: than have their own vessels in the sea. They are
Speaker 4: using air reconnaissance in the form of drones or other
Speaker 4: airborne vehicles spot spot boat boats or thingies with migrants
Speaker 4: and then they give that information to the Libyan coast
Speaker 4: Guard they can pick them up, right. And this is
Speaker 4: where the EU is I would say, directly complicit in
Speaker 4: like the abuse that that that's happening in Libya.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a perfectly reasonable thing to say.
Speaker 4: Because we know what it is likely to certainly going
Speaker 4: to happen to the people that are picked up by
Speaker 4: the Libyan coast Guard.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And if you're saying that Haley beIN coasted Alcaemy pick
Speaker 3: up these people, you know what's going to happen to
Speaker 3: those people, like and it's not good. And they keep
Speaker 3: doing it despite it being more than a decade of
Speaker 3: evidence at this point abusive migrants.
Speaker 4: Italy, in particular, as the country receives a lot of
Speaker 4: migrants from metaty Iranian crossings, is keen on helping Libya
Speaker 4: in terms of training, material and funding additional agreements between
Speaker 4: the two countries. At another uncomfortable light on the dynamic,
Speaker 4: there was first the EU Libya slash Italy Libya Memorandum
Speaker 4: of Understanding signed in twenty seventeen. It saw an enhanced
Speaker 4: enhancement of military insecurity related to trying to prevent migrants
Speaker 4: from making a crossing advertently or inadvertently trying to make
Speaker 4: Libya their final stop and trap them there under the
Speaker 4: conditions that we just discussed. That agreement is a continuation
Speaker 4: of the Treaty on Friendship, Partnership and Corporation that was
Speaker 4: signed by Libya and Italy back in twenty eighth which
Speaker 4: described the corporation in detail visv combating illegal migration from
Speaker 4: Libya to the EU. We also have the Multi Declaration
Speaker 4: from twenty seventeen which only strengthened unbacked governmental organs within
Speaker 4: the EU, as well as a commitment to further assist
Speaker 4: Libya in training, in providing funding and technical assistance. Those
Speaker 4: are the main purposes of disagreements, which is to prevent
Speaker 4: people from passing the prestigious gates of Fortress Europe because politically,
Speaker 4: we'd rather add them to the mortar with which those
Speaker 4: walls are built.
Speaker 2: Jesus.
Speaker 4: And it is these conditions that Washington Ghules thought would
Speaker 4: be a suitable place to send migrants to who do
Speaker 4: not speak the language know the people have legal representation
Speaker 4: or assumably even have the money to do anything. We've
Speaker 4: barely spoken of the civil war that is still going
Speaker 4: on there, Yeah, with like fighting in the capital of
Speaker 4: Troopoli happened like two weeks ago. We haven't spoken about
Speaker 4: any legal or law related issues that these people would
Speaker 4: invariably run into were they to be deported to Libya.
Speaker 4: It's the umpteen for example, of colonialism, military and from states,
Speaker 4: war wandering, and the transfer of problems to another place
Speaker 4: or to another generation. Very much like climate change, actions
Speaker 4: such as these will have immense direct and ripple effects
Speaker 4: that our children, anchorant children will learn the consequences of.
Speaker 4: And the last bit I've added because let's hope that
Speaker 4: no one is going to be sent Olivia from the States.
Speaker 4: But I can very much imagine that those people will
Speaker 4: face the same horrors that they will have to create
Speaker 4: their own little communities just to be able to get by. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I can imagine some people might might run into ISIS
Speaker 4: over there and become radicalized. We could also get like
Speaker 4: small pockets of people who just write a survived but
Speaker 4: are still stuck there and grow resentment there is no
Speaker 4: real way to estimate what the consequences are going to
Speaker 4: be of deporting pepeople there other than that like the
Speaker 4: cruelty is happening that Washington rules are aiming for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: I think that the point is to hurt these people
Speaker 3: as much as possible at the moment, and then there
Speaker 3: isn't really much of a long term thought process beyond that. Like,
Speaker 3: I guess I would like to say that people were
Speaker 3: enraged at the thought of the United States sending migrants
Speaker 3: to Liby, and they should be. I'm glad that they were,
Speaker 3: but they should also be in rage at the reality
Speaker 3: of the European Union doing it every single day. Yes,
Speaker 3: way more than twelve people, and like you should care
Speaker 3: about that too, especially if you're in Europe, Like you know,
Speaker 3: obviously I am a person from Europe. I think it's easy,
Speaker 3: like for people to get this kind of smug social
Speaker 3: democracy kind of like, oh, look at the Americans, they're
Speaker 3: so fucked up. Not saying things aren't fucked up here,
Speaker 3: they are, but like the EU is doing some fucked
Speaker 3: up shit to migrants, and like people in Europe should
Speaker 3: be in the streets about that too.
Speaker 4: Definitely, like this is just the biggest of all the issues.
Speaker 4: But there's also abuses and human rights violations happening in
Speaker 4: the Balkans for the people who take that crossing, there's
Speaker 4: people who try to cross from a Rocco to Spain. Yeah,
Speaker 4: who also encounter again, not as bad as the things
Speaker 4: we just talked about, but by no means it's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely shouldn't be happening.
Speaker 4: I don't even want to use words like good or
Speaker 4: bad because like they tend to lose all meaning. Yeah,
Speaker 4: like less bad doesn't necessarily mean good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really doesn't.
Speaker 4: It means less worse. And yeah, there are there are
Speaker 4: places to make that crossing that are less worse than Libya.
Speaker 3: But still, yeah, that doesn't mean any of it is desirable, yeah,
Speaker 3: or like that we should accept any of it.
Speaker 2: No, No, people should be fucking mad about all of this.
Speaker 4: And I also I would like to have to go
Speaker 4: back a little bit about what you said about like
Speaker 4: this buck European the social democracy. Yeah, like that's definitely
Speaker 4: attitude that's not uncommon among Europeans. But then again, we
Speaker 4: very often fail to look into our own backyards. And
Speaker 4: also Europe just tends to be politically a few years
Speaker 4: behind the US, but we've also seen a rise in
Speaker 4: autocratic regimes like Victor Orbonn Yeah, massive example. Maloney in
Speaker 4: Italy is another one. But also in my own country
Speaker 4: of the Netherlands, they try to bypass parliament in order
Speaker 4: to make an emergency law to make sure that migrants
Speaker 4: wouldn't enter the Netherlands, and as we speak, they're threatening
Speaker 4: to stop the government formation if no stricter measures against
Speaker 4: migrants are being taken.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So it's these little seeds of autocracy that are almost
Speaker 4: more worrying because it's these little step that happened and
Speaker 4: before you know it, things are getting worse quick.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Like, anyone who pays attention to the US can see
Speaker 3: that the vehicle on which fascism was delivered to us
Speaker 3: is being delivered to us in a better way of saying,
Speaker 3: it is anti micro sentiment, right, Like that is how
Speaker 3: this country built the toolkit that is now being used.
Speaker 3: And you know, the rest of the world should pay
Speaker 3: attention to that, I hope.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we should see it as a warning sign, not
Speaker 4: as a manual.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's a good weapon, it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Unfortunately it's being used as a manual by certain
Speaker 4: European governments.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so thank you for sharing that traumatic piece for
Speaker 3: reporting with I think that's that's rough.
Speaker 4: I would say you're welcome if it wasn't a fucking
Speaker 4: grim to say that at the end of all that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, I'm happy that I read a lot and put together.
Speaker 4: I'm also going to have to find a puppy and
Speaker 4: cuddle the puppy for a few hours.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah, that's all I have for now. Great, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's all I got to you. Thank you very much.
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