Fatou Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), briefs Security Council members during the open video conference in connection with the International Criminal Court and the situation in Libya. Courtesy: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, May 6 2020 (IPS)

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday highlighted crimes against humanity and grave mismanagement of the law in Libya during a release of their latest report on the North African nation. 

Fatou Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, said enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, hate speech, and severe maltreatment of detainees remains a massive concern in the country that’s been caught in a civil war since 2014 with administrations in its capital Tripoli pitted against Benghazi. 

Bensouda warned of serious violence due to armed conflict in the region, resulting in a large volume of civilian casualties from air-strikes and shelling operations. She also called on “serious and urgent reforms” regarding the prison situation across the country.

“Arbitrary detention and serious mistreatment of detainees affects not only migrants and refugees but also thousands of other people detained in prisons and detention centres across Libya,” she said during the May 5 virtual briefing.

“Many people are detained without lawful basis or denied their fundamental procedural rights,” she said. 

Furthermore, those detained – many of whom are women and children – are put at risk for abuse such as murder, torture rape and other forms of sexual violence, she said. 

This is further strengthened by testimony from formal detainees who have claimed they were subject to “brutal methods of torture”.  

Many have died after being subject to torture and not being given access to timely medical care. 

She also noted that, “derogatory and dehumanising language” have permeated both traditional and social media. 

“This is cause for concern,” she said. “This type of language generates both hatred and fear in the community and deepens divisions within society. It sows the seeds of crimes against targeted groups of individuals and foments conditions in which mass atrocity crime can occur.”

“Leaders and prominent members of the community have a special responsibility to lead by example to refrain from hate speech,” she added. “Anyone who incites fear, hatred and division in the community causes harm not only to those targeted but also to society as a whole.”

Shortly following the ICC’s briefing on Tuesday, Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, said the U.N. Support Mission for Libya (UNSMIL) “remains concerned at the continued fighting in the country and reiterates its call for a cessation of hostilities during the holy month of Ramadan”. 

Dujarric added that the UNSMIL’s acting special representative Stephanie Williams remains engaged in outreach efforts with mediators as well as other international partners, including those involved with the Berlin Conference, in order to ensure that Libya can return to proper political process. The main objectives of the Berlin Conference, held in January, was to find consensus among concerned member states on the Libyan crisis.  

“It’s important that all the parties involved, whether Libyan or those who have influence over those parties, move in the same direction, and that is towards political talks,” Dujarric told the Associated Press at the briefing. 

The report came a little after the first anniversary since the Libyan National Army (LNA), a rebel group led by defected general Khalifa Haftar, orchestrated an attack to seize the Libyan capital Tripoli from the U.N.-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA).  

Since the coronavirus pandemic has become a priority for governments around the world, experts fear this may be putting the crisis in Libya on the backseat of international diplomacy and in turn giving way for the crisis to continue, according to recent analysis by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). 

“As European officials shy away from the Libyan dossier to tackle the pandemic at home, there are concerns that efforts to secure a political solution to the conflict will be severely weakened,” ACLED said in an analysis shared in April.  

At the end of March, the Secretary-General had appealed for a global ceasefire in all conflict areas as communities — especially those who are in transit or in conflict — are at graver, more complicated risks of the coronavirus. 

Over a month later, Haftar announced a “truce” as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began. However, GNA forces reportedly said they would not adhere to this temporary ceasefire as they did not trust him to keep his word.

On Tuesday, as the report was being released, Al Jazeera reported an attack by the GNA on an airbase under the control of Haftar’s leadership, ensuing in heavy fire exchange between forces on both sides. The airbase was reportedly a key facility that was used to attack GNA forces, according to the report.

One month after the attack on Tajoura, Libya which killed 53 detainees and injured more than 87 others, little has been done to help the incarcerated migrants in the turbulent country. Many sub-Saharan Africans migrants go to Libya hoping to make it to Europe and a better life. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 1 2019 (IPS)

It is almost one month since an airstrike on a detention centre in Libya killed and injured scores of migrants and refugees locked up inside, many of whom were detained for doing nothing worse than fleeing instability or seeking better lives in Europe.

This week, it looked like world powers were finally making an effort to persuade Libya’s United Nations-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) to come good on its promise to free the thousands of refugees in lockups under its control.

At a U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday, diplomats were “concerned by the situation of refugees and migrants” in Libya, and were poised to take action, last month’s council president and Peruvian envoy Gustavo Meza-Cuadra told reporters afterwards.

Earlier, diplomats heard from the U.N.’s envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salame, who said the Jul. 2 bloodbath at the facility in Tajoura, a suburb of Libya’s capital, Tripoli, should prompt officials to close such centres once and for all.

“What is required is that they be shuttered,” Salame said via a video link from Tripoli.

“I urge the council now to call upon the authorities in Tripoli to take the long-delayed but much-needed strategic decision to free those who are detained in these centres.”

One month after the attack on Tajoura, which killed 53 detainees and injured more than 87 others — mostly sub-Saharan Africans who were seeking better lives in Europe — little has been done to help the incarcerated migrants in the turbulent country.

Despite GNA pledges to close Tajoura, officials instead filled the bombed-out hangar on a military base with some 200 new migrants and refugees since the late-night air strike that caused chaos and carnage in eastern Tripoli.

To make matters worse, new detainees include migrants who were picked up by Libya’s coast guard after their vessel capsized in the Mediterranean on Jul. 26 — a catastrophe that saw as many as 150 passengers drown.

Some 5,000 refugees and migrants are detained in facilities under the control of or linked to the GNA, Salame said. Some 3,800 of these were on the front lines of fighting in the North African country’s civil war.

The Lebanese diplomat also criticised the European Union (EU) for funding a scheme that sees Libya’s coast guard intercept migrant boats at sea before returning them to Libya and detaining them in places like Tajoura. 

Likewise, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and other campaign groups have criticised the 28-nation bloc for bemoaning Libya’s ill-treatment of migrants while at the same time backing schemes that lead to abuse.

Amnesty has decried the “utterly inhumane” conditions inside Libya’s migrant lockups, where detainees have “little access to food, water or medical care” and endure “brutal treatment, torture, rape – and even being sold”.

John Dalhuisen, a regional expert with the European Stability Initiative, a think-tank, said the EU was complicit in abuses by making it harder for refugees and migrants to exit Libya and cross the Mediterranean.

“The EU has backed a policy that essentially amounts to containment. It has invested and trained the Libyan coast guard and reduced its own rescue services in a very successful effort to stop migrants reaching Europe,” Dalhuisen told IPS.

“It made some effort to improve conditions in Libyan detention facilities and secure access to them for international agencies, but with very modest results.”

An EU spokesperson told IPS that it backs Libya’s coast guard in an effort to stop refugees and migrants from perishing at sea, but that the 28-nation bloc was strongly against locking them up back on Libyan soil.

U.N. bodies, including the refugee agency UNHCR and the International Organisation for Migration, have assisted detained migrants and even arranged for some to be released and sent back to their countries of origin.

Some have been assessed and gained refuge in Europe; others have been settled elsewhere, such as Niger. But these schemes have only affected a tiny proportion of the estimated half-million refugees and migrants in Libya.    

Judith Sunderland, an associate director for HRW, said “space is limited” in UNHCR resettlement schemes and there are logjams, with few “longer-term solutions” for settling refugees after temporary stops in Niger.

“The UNHCR’s programme to evacuate asylum seekers and refugees from Libya is severely handicapped by the low number of resettlement pledges by European countries and the slow pace of actual resettlement of the few that are processed,” Sunderland told IPS.

The situation is complicated by turbulence across Libya, which has seen little but violence since the 2011 uprising that killed president Muammar Gaddafi and saw the nation collapse into a civil war that continues today.

The airstrike that devastated Tajoura occurred after renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar and his self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) launched an offensive in early April to seize control of Tripoli. The GNA blames the LNA for the deaths, which the LNA denies.

Elinor Raikes, a regional director for the International Rescue Committee, an aid group that operates in Libya, said that locking up migrants was not a problem only in North Africa, but part of a global anti-immigrant phenomenon.

“Arbitrary detention is not a just response to seeking safety, but countries across the world, including in Europe and the United States, are taking part in what is a deeply concerning trend,” Raikes told IPS.

“Detention has become a form of border management, and this has meant that thousands of people are intercepted at sea and on land and then detained in inadequate living conditions, often in overcrowded cells at risk of disease and infection.”

African migrants in Libya. Libya is one of the main departure points for African migrants, fleeing poverty and war, to try to reach Italy by boat. Some 3,800 migrants and refugees are held in government-run detention centres in Tripoli and elsewhere in Libya in what human rights groups and the U.N. say are often inhuman conditions. A military strike on a detention centre for migrants in Libya claimed dozens of lives on Tuesday. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS.

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 4 2019 (IPS)

A military strike on a detention centre for migrants in Libya that claimed dozens of lives on Wednesday Jul. 3 has reignited a debate over the poor treatment of the mainly African people who transit through the turbulent country.

The United Nations has called for an investigation into the strike on Tajoura detention centre, which held some 600 people in a suburb of the Libyan capital Tripoli — part of a global chorus condemning the attack, which killed at least 44 people and injured 130 others.

But the strike followed repeated warnings about the vulnerability of migrants in guardhouses near Libya’s hotspots, and raises tough questions about whether it was necessary to lock them up in the first place.

“This is not the first time that migrants and refugees have been caught in the crossfire, with multiple airstrikes on or near detention centres across Tripoli since the conflict started in the city,” said Prince Alfani, a coordinator for the humanitarian medical group Médecins Sans Frontières.

“What is needed now is not empty condemnation but the urgent and immediate evacuation of all refugees and migrants held in detention centres out of Libya.”

By one estimate, some 3,800 migrants and refugees are held in government-run detention centres in Tripoli and elsewhere in Libya in what human rights groups and the U.N. say are often inhuman conditions.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called for a war crimes probe into the strike, while condemning the “overcrowding” in Libya’s lockups for migrants and the rape and other violations that occur inside them.

“I also repeat my call for the release of detained migrants and refugees as a matter of urgency, and for their access to humanitarian protection, collective shelters or other safe places, well away from areas that are likely to be affected by the hostilities,” said Bachelet.

Libya is one of the main departure points for African migrants, fleeing poverty and war, trying to reach Italy by boat. But many are picked up and brought back by the Libyan coastguard, in a scheme backed by the European Union.

Two U.N. agencies — the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and UNHCR, the U.N.’s Refugee Agency — said they had relocated 1,500 refugees from lockups in Libya’s hotspots to safer areas in recent months.

“Including those victims at Tajoura, some 3,300 migrants and refugees remain arbitrarily detained inside and around Tripoli,” the two agencies said in a statement. “Moreover, migrants and refugees face increasing risks as clashes intensify nearby. These centres must be closed.”

In May, UNHCR had already called for the Tajoura centre to be evacuated after a projectile landed some 100 metres away, injuring two migrants. Shrapnel from that blast tore through the lockup’s roof and almost hit a child.

This week’s strike was the highest publicly reported toll from an air strike or shelling since eastern forces under Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive three months ago to take Tripoli, the base of Libya’s internationally-recognised government.

The U.N. Security Council was expected to condemn the attack late Wednesday,  Jul. 3, though it remained unclear whether it was the fault of Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) force, the U.N.-backed Tripoli-based government’s forces or another group.

Haftar’s LNA, allied to a parallel government based in eastern Libya, has seen its advance on Tripoli held up by robust defences on the outskirts of the capital, and said it would start heavy air strikes after “traditional means” of war had been exhausted.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres was “outraged” by the “horrendous incident” and called for an “independent investigation” to prosecute those responsible for what many onlookers call a war crime, said his spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

“This incident underscores the urgency to provide all refugees and migrants with safe shelter until their asylum claims can be processed or they can be safely repatriated,” Dujarric told reporters Wednesday.

Haftar’s bid to capture Tripoli has derailed U.N. efforts to broker an end to the mayhem that has ravaged the hydrocarbon-producing North African country since the brutal, NATO-backed overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

New arrivals receive assistance in Senegal. Credit : IOM/Lucas Chandellier

By Issa Sikiti da Silva
DAKAR, Mar 29 2018 (IPS)

Bouba Diop looks in delight at his uncle’s newly refurbished food canteen in the poor township of Keur Massar on the outskirts of the Senegalese capital Dakar.

Since returning to Senegal from Algeria and Libya, where he was working in the construction sector, he has been wondering how to rebuild his life after spending two years in North Africa trying to get to Europe by sea. But now, his uncle has given him back his manager job.“We have to tackle the roots and ask ourselves the question: why are we ready to lose our lives to find work elsewhere?" --Florence Kim of IOM

Home sweet home

“I’m happy to be back after living in the North African hell, but I’m angry with myself for not making my dream come true. Well, it’s destiny. Now I must look forward to the future,” Diop, a 22-year-old man who attended a Darra (religious school), added.

While Diop reflected on what he called a shattered dream, at the same time in Kolda in southern Senegal, another returnee from Niger, Ibou, pondered his future, which he described as uncertain and complicated.

Unlike Diop, who has found solace in his uncle’s shop, Ibou is wondering what to do next after selling all his livestock to hit the road, crossing the Sahara desert on his way to the European El Dorado. But he never made it even to war-torn Libya.

“I was robbed in Niger of all my money (2,800 dollars) and belongings by people posing as smugglers who promised to take me to Tripoli, and finally to Italy,” the 25-year-old man said, adding that he was stranded for several months in Agadez (northern Niger, ‘door of the Sahara’), where he almost died of hunger and malaria.

“Somehow, I’m ashamed to return because I have become another burden on my family. I was born in a poor family. They all pinned their hopes on me, thinking that I would reach Europe and get a well-paying job to start sending them money,” he said emotionally.

Sad tales

Diop and Ibou’s stories are just the tip of the iceberg in Africa, where hopeless young sub-Saharan Africans, including unaccompanied children, leave their poverty-stricken or war-torn homelands to travel to North Africa in the hope of getting a job to fund their onward and dangerous journey to Europe.

While 150,982 ‘lucky’ migrants – from Africa and elsewhere – managed to reach Europe in 2017 by the Mediterranean Sea, more than 15,000 have died trying since 2014 (3,139 last year), according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

However, for those who, for whatever reasons, were stranded either in Niger or Libyan jails (20,000 last year) or sold as ‘modern slaves’ in Libyan markets, the only way to solve the crisis seems to be assistance for voluntary return to their home countries.

New arrivals receive assistance in Senegal. Credit : IOM/Lucas Chandellier

Assistance for voluntary return

IOM said that in 2017 it assisted 3,023 Senegalese migrants stranded in Libya and Niger to return thanks to the European Union Trust Funds.

Florence Kim, IOM regional media and communications officer for West and Central Africa, told IPS that in Senegal, assistance to returnees has been a major focus since the establishment of the office in 1998.

“In the absence of legal migration channels, assistance for voluntary return is one of the only options that can help migrants in distress whose fundamental rights are at risk of being violated,” she explained. “More than 23,000 people have since received return assistance and were assisted on their arrival.

“This assistance is part of the IOM assistance provided globally to return voluntarily. This assistance may take the form of direct assistance on arrival, educational or medical care, or individual, collective or community reintegration.”

Welcome back to society

“Returnees should no longer be perceived as a burden on communities but rather as an advantage,” Kim said, adding that one of the innovative approaches of the new EU Trust Funds project consisted of including communities of origin in the reintegration project.

“Whereas before we were going to work with the returnees, this time we are working to integrate those who have not left so that they can benefit from the activities that were initially offered to the returnees.”

IOM said in a report that most of the Senegalese returnees assisted in 2017 came from the region of Kolda (30%), Tambacounda (16%), Dakar (15%), Sédhiou (12%) and Kaolack (6%), while others (22%) came from other regions.

The report also said that only 2.5% of these assisted returnees in 2017 were women.

Voluntary return: lasting solution?

Kim, who noted that the EU gave an additional 95 million dollars to the IOM this month to complete the operations, said  voluntary return alone was not a lasting solution.

“If it is not accompanied by reintegration into the country of origin, and if nothing is offered on return, people will risk their lives again… We are on the right track. Our priority is to shelter thousands of stranded migrants and ensure that there is enough to ensure the sustainability of the solutions they are offered.”

It is widely believed that the UN migration agency has been offering a ‘stipend’ to help returnees resettle in their communities.

Kim clarified: “We only give pocket money that differs according to the countries of the region. However, this money – the only one given – is only used to cover immediate needs and transportation once they have arrived in their country from the airport to their homes.

“It is certainly not a salary or a larger sum of money. We do not want them to go home with money. If they come back and ask to be assisted, it is for other reasons than money. What helps them to reintegrate is the implementation of projects, and income-generating activities.

“All the work starts when they arrive in the country so no, we do not say they’re gone, they’re gone. Yes we have been monitoring and monitoring to make sure that what we put in place lasts.”

Leaving for economic reasons

Unlike sub-Saharan Africans from countries such as the DRC, Ethiopia, Central African Republic, Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia, to name only a few, who leave their homelands to escape conflict, war and massive human rights violations, Senegal’s Diop and Ibou could be classified as economic migrants.

William Assanvo, a West Africa-based expert for the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), told IPS, “If economic considerations are at the origin of the phenomenon, the answers must be economic. These involve the implementation of regional development plans, which involve investments in the education, health, agriculture or livestock sectors. The development and support of private entrepreneurship is also to be strengthened.”

Assanvo said some programs have already been set up by international partners, notably the European Union or France, to “fix” young Senegalese by providing support for the implementation of projects.

However, he said the question remains whether these initiatives were successful in achieving the goal and whether the effects were sustainable.

“They (often) fail to take into account the thousands of young people in search of a better socio-economic being. So these programs, while useful, are limited in the impact they may have.”

Valuable lessons

As with all major and daring humanitarian operations, the IOM seems to have learned some valuable lessons.

Kim said: “We have to tackle the roots and ask ourselves the question: why are we ready to lose our lives to find work elsewhere? Also, if there were legal migration routes it would be less dangerous for people.

“They would not need to leave on fortune ships, be tortured, and so on. There are legal mechanisms, but the general atmosphere at the moment in so-called host countries is not conducive to openness. The rise of populism and the fear of the other are present and our work also involves raising awareness and changing perception.

“It must be remembered how much migration is needed for the economy of host countries in an aging Europe,” she concluded.

Nazir (left) and Usman both returned to Ghana from Libya in 2011, among some 19,000 Ghanaians who fled back home. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

By Kwaku Botwe
KWAME DANSO, Ghana, Feb 6 2018 (IPS)

Thirty-year-old Nazir Mohammed sits on one of the two sofas in his single room in Kwame Danso, a small town about 290 kilometres north of Ghana’s capital Accra, reflecting on life back in Libya.

“Libya offers great economic opportunities to West African migrants, but the human rights abuse, especially of dark-skinned Africans, is real. I will not advise even my enemy to go to Libya,” Mohammed says.“My mom was crying because she thought they were going to kill me. But I assured her that everything would be okay if the money comes.”

He is among some 19,000 Ghanaians who were repatriated from Libya about seven years ago. Mohammed left home at 23 after completing high school. Having lost his father a few months before, he felt the responsibility of taking care of his mother and four other siblings naturally fell on him as an older male child.

“I just heard that if I get about 500 cedis (about 100 dollars) I would be able to get to Libya. And that meant a lot of hard work. So I did some construction work to gather that money,” he said. “My mom and family only got to know of my intentions when I called and told her. I was already halfway on my journey. She cried but later prayed for me since there was nothing she could do.”

Most young people set off on the trip without telling family members, anticipating they wouldn’t be supportive because of the risks.

Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, Niger and Cote d’Ivoire all have a large number of their citizens among the almost one million migrants trapped in Libya. Mohammed’s home region, Brong Ahafo – which is in the middle belt of Ghana – has the highest number of people migrating to Libya. Most, like Mohammed, hope to use Libya as a transit point to Europe.

The Back Story

The history of Ghana–Libya migration dates back to the 1980s when the Ghanaian government signed a bilateral agreement with its Libyan counterpart to send some 200 Ghanaian teachers to teach English in Libya, according to researchers at the Centre for Migration Studies at the University of Ghana, Leander Kandilige and Geraldine Adiku.

This arrangement was also necessitated by the mass expulsion of illegal immigrants, mostly from West African countries, including about two million Ghanaians, from Nigeria in 1983. In the initial stages, the Libyan authorities offered employment to only highly skilled Ghanaian immigrants.

But the availability of job opportunities for other low-skilled migrants attracted many more Ghanaians who entered Libya through informal routes such as the Sahara Desert. As a result, the Libyan authorities clamped down on illegal migration amidst forced repatriations.

Before the 2011 Libyan political crisis, the Libyan authorities were already dealing with illegal immigrants and concomitant attacks, especially on black migrants. In 2006, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) set up a voluntary return program to arrange for the return of stranded undocumented migrants from Libya to their countries of origin.

Statistics at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration indicate that on Oct. 8, 2000, the first group of 238 Ghanaians fleeing attacks arrived in Ghana, with harrowing tales of gross human rights abuses. The influx has continued. Last year, 565 people returned with similar stories.

But the biggest evacuation of migrants happened in 2011 in the heat of the Libyan crisis, when IOM figures show that about 19,000 Ghanaians were evacuated back to Ghana. Many migrants attributed this exodus to increased hostility against black Africans. The political instability and challenge to the authority of Muammar Qaddafi offered a prime opportunity for some Libyan nationals – who see the Libyan leader as a shield for black Africans and have accused Qaddafi of using them as mercenaries – to attack dark-skinned people.

“It was very dangerous to be spotted as a black African,” said Mohammed. He said a lot of migrants left properties behind and several months of salary arrears from companies they worked for. Nazil says it is common practice for companies to pay migrant workers about two months’ salary after they have worked for six months. This means migrant workers always have their unpaid monies with the companies.

“I was lucky because I got help from a soldier friend whom I used to teach English to. He drove me and my friend all the way from Benghazi to neighboring Egypt where evacuation planes were. When I got to Ghana I had only 500 cedis left on me, but I had left about 7,000 cedis worth of money with my company, and that was very painful,” he added with bitterness.

A lack of job opportunities for young people in Kwame Danso, Ghana has led many to attempt the risky migration to Libya. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

The Journey

Most migrants from West Africa use the desert as an illegal route to enter Libya, and this leaves them vulnerable to human traffickers. Mohammed says thugs meet them at the border and take them to places which have now been dubbed slave camps. Once at the camps, migrants are held captive, fed just enough to keep them alive, and subjected to various forms of inhuman treatment in a bid to extort money.

Mohammed, who had hardly any money, was ordered to call his family and pressure them for a ransom.

“My mom was crying because she thought they were going to kill me. But I assured her that everything would be okay if the money comes.”

Mohammed says his stepfather coughed up 300 cedis and he was released. But he added that some captives had to pay more, sometimes thousands.

Once out of the slave camp, the next difficulty is gathering enough money to pay to be smuggled to the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Making it to Tripoli is crucial for those who have hopes of reaching Europe because of the proximity the capital offers to Italy.

“I was engaged in very dangerous jobs such as lifting overly heavy concrete. I sneaked back to the ghetto [slave camp] and tipped some of the inmates for a place to sleep,” he recalled.

Mohammed says the journey to Tripoli was a nightmare as migrants were packed “like sardines in the back of a pick-up” covered with a tarpaulin tied down with a rope and driven on a hot, bumpy desert road for many kilometers.

“When we got to Tripoli I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t feel my legs and I thought I had sunstroke,” he said.

When he couldn’t find a decent job in Tripoli, Mohammed left for Benghazi, where he shuffled between jobs with hopes of gathering enough money to pay for the perilous trip on a packed-to-the-brim boat across the Mediterranean Sea. But his hopes of making it to Europe were dashed when the civil war broke out.

The story of migrants being sold at slave camps, first exposed by CNN, has been denied by Libyan authorities who accuse the media of wrongly portraying Libya as a racist country. Asked whether he believes in the slave trade story, Mohammed said he wouldn’t doubt it.

A year after their repatriation in 2011, IOM offered training and other forms of support, including equipment, for some returnees in three districts in the Brong Ahafo region, the region with the highest number of returnees, to help them integrate into their communities.

Anita Jawadurovna Wadud, Project Manager for the Returns, Protection and Direct Assistance to Vulnerable Migrants Unit of IOM, said the UN agency carries out various activities in Brong Ahafo, including awareness raising and sensitization of the risks of irregular migration in communities including in schools, a Migration Information Centre in Sunyani, livelihood projects for returnees and potential migrants, as well as reintegration activities for Ghanaian returnees who return to the region through IOM’s assisted voluntary return and reintegration (AVRR) programmes. IOM has been assisting Ghanaian returnees since 2002.

“Reintegration provides returnees with an opportunity to support their socio-economic reintegration, through counselling, psychosocial and medical support if needed, vocational/skills training and micro-business support,” she explained.

Mac Simpson, a Ghanaian teacher in Libya and expert on migration and human trafficking based in Tripoli, says out of the about 2,000 Ghanaian migrants who have died at sea in the past four years trying to make it to Europe, 1,600 are from the Brong Ahafo region.

Some advocates have used social media to share videos of maltreatment of migrants in Libya with the hope of discouraging hopefuls. But Simpson, who himself embarked on the deadly voyage more than two decades ago and has written three books about the migrant situation in Libya, says such videos have very little impact.

He says youth will continue to take the risk as long as they cannot find sustainable jobs in Ghana and Libya offers some hope.

“To convince someone from the Brong Ahafo Region not to go to Libya, you need to work some magic. My NGO went to the region to talk to some youth who had returned and when we asked what would make them stay, one said give me a taxi. So we got him one and as we talk he’s still in the country working as a taxi driver.”

Mac, who is currently in Ghana to engage in advocacy work, says he’s liaising with the Ministry of Education to adopt one of his books, The Cemetery Without Graves, among schoolchildren as he believes getting the message to people at a younger age can have some impact.

Finding something to do seem to be the factor that has kept Mohammed in Ghana. Even though his district wasn’t among those selected for intervention by IOM, he and other friends who returned to the Kwame Dano area have found their own ways back into society.

“I had good grades after Senior High School so I enrolled in a teacher training college. I’m now employed as a teacher in a junior high school… The pay isn’t too good but we are surviving,” he said, adding that since they came back, “some of us haven’t had any form of support from the government or anybody”.

Mohammed hopes to enter into politics where he believes he could influence policy and perhaps help to address this age-old Ghana-Libya migration canker. Until then, he believes a lot of uninformed youth will be making that treacherous journey in search of a better life.

Refugees from the Choucha camp in Tunisia. Credit: Alberto Pradilla/IPS

By Daan Bauwens
FOLLONICA, Italy, Nov 9 2017 (IPS)

As countless refugees arriving on Italy’s shores report torture, extortion and forced labour in Libyan detention centers, many say they never intended to make the journey to Europe until the chaos in Libya left them no other choice.

“We were still working on the construction site when I was taken apart from the others. The guard pulled his gun, aimed it at me and told me he’d shoot if I tried to walk away. After ten minutes of trembling with fear, a truck arrived and I was ordered to get in. We drove to a beach where a crowd was being kept at gunpoint by other guards in uniforms. They forced us to board a Zodiac and pushed us into the open sea. The second day we were saved by a European ship.”

Amidou Kone (23) now lives in Follonica, in a refugee center that used to be a tourist campsite in Tuscany. He is one of the 113,722 refugees who made the passage from Libya to Italy, the deadliest crossing in the world with a total of 2,714 fatalities from the start of the year up until now.

Amidou left his home country of the Ivory Coast after his entire family was killed during a raid in the 2011 war. After passing through Burkina Faso and working as a shepherd for a farmer in Niger, he is certain he was sold to Libyan militias after a business trip with his boss to Libya.

“They wanted me to call my family for ransom,” he says, “but didn’t want to believe that everyone had died so they started torturing me.” Amidou shows the scars on his head, caused by blows with Kalashnikov stocks. He points at the blank spots around his right index and right ankle. “They tried to cut off my finger with a knife and then they wanted to beat my foot with a flashlight. Why so much cruelty? I don’t have the faintest idea.”

Kidnapping industry

For over two years, the cruelty of detention in Libyan detention camps has been widely reported and denounced but with no immediate end in sight. Two months ago, the head of MSF Joanne Liu wrote an open letter calling the Libyan detention system “rotten to the bone”, “a thriving enterprise of kidnapping, torture and extortion.” She accused Europe of being complicit in the situation as the Union, “blinded by the single-minded goal of keeping people outside of Europe”, funds Libya to help stop the boats from departing.

Bai, 19 years old from Mali, arrived on the Sicilian coast in early September. He remembers several mass kidnappings. “There was forty of us living in a house in the city,” he says. “One eventing two men with Kalashnikovs came in, started shouting. They told us to get aboard vehicles waiting in the street. We were locked up, they beat us with sticks and chains. We had to call home. Anyone who could convince their family to send money was allowed to go. My family agreed, but I was caught by another group the following week. There wasn’t any more money left so they put me to work to pay my trip to Europe.”

Under laws passed with Europe’s encouragement during the reign of Muammar Ghadaffi, immigration is illegal in Libya and the country does not offer asylum. Every undocumented migrant is therefore liable for detention.

Various rival governments and militias run networks of detention centers. UNHCR can only enter 29 of them, run by the department to counter illegal migration (DCIM), headed by the Serraj government, the government Europe chose to recognize. The total number of camps is unknown and international funding for “official” camps has ignited a battle for control over these camps by armed groups looking for money or international legitimacy.

Forced to cross

In the meantime, both DCIM officials and militias rent out detainees to local employers for personal profit. Amidou and Boi also fell victim to forced labour while detained. “Two years as a mason,” Amidou tells, “without payment. In those two years, I’ve seen nothing but water and bread.” When he was eventually found to be too weak for work, he was taken to the boat.

“Refugees are nothing but commodities,” says Anaspasia Papadopoulou, senior policy advisor at the European Council for Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) in Brussels. “Militias use them to make a profit. When they are no longer useful, they need to get rid of them.”

Amidou’s forced crossing is echoed in the stories told by countless other migrants. In fact, many of them them didn’t come to Libya to cross to Europe but turn out to have lived and worked in the country for years.

Balde Tcherno (37) from Guinea-Bissau was a shoe salesman for five years, making the trip home once every year to be with his family. On his last trip back in 2011, he was arrested and forced, at gunpoint, to board a boat to Italy. Rockson Adams (27) from Ghana arrived in Libya after the removal of Ghadaffi and got a lucrative job in construction, but after two years he was kidnapped and forced to pay ransom. After killings in his circle of friends and explosions in his area, he decided to pay a smuggler to cross over.

“The refugee flow from Libya is clearly a mix,” says Anaspasia Papadopoulo. “There’s people who already lived in the country and who went there because until a few years back, it was still a rich country. Then there’s the internally displaced Libyans. And of course there’s the Sub-Saharan Africans, Bangladeshis and Syrians who’ve come to Libya with the intention of crossing. Many fall victim to exploitation and into the hands of traffickers instead of smugglers.”

According to some analysts, the situation is making it hard to separate “economic migrants” from “refugees” as many who travelled to Libya for work become victims of exploitation and violence.

The flags of UN observer states the Vatican and Palestine. Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak.

By Lyndal Rowlands
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 14 2017 (IPS)

The failed appointment of former Palestinian-Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as the UN’s peace envoy to Libya has shown that divisions over Palestine still run deep at the world body.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ pick as his Special Representative in Libya, was quickly vetoed by U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley on Friday 10 February.

Haley said on Friday that the United States was “disappointed” to see a letter indicating Fayyad would be appointed for the role.

By Monday Fayyad was no longer under consideration

In Dubai on Monday, Guterres described the turn of events as a “loss for the Libyan peace process,” describing Fayyad as “the right person for the right job at the right moment.”

Guterres also noted the importance of appointment given the ongoing instability in Libya.

“Let’s not forget that Libya is not only relevant in itself, Libya has been a factor of contamination to the peace and stability in a wide area, namely in Africa, in the Sahel, and to bring an end to the conflict in Libya is in everybody’s interest.”

However few if any conflicts have remained on the UN’s agenda as long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Indications that the Palestinian question – as it is referred to in UN Security Council meetings – may become a source of tension between the United Nations and the Trump – Republican administration began before Trump had taken office.

On December 22, the United States under then President Barack Obama allowed Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements to pass by abstaining – the resolution was supported by the 14 other Security Council members, including U.S. allies such as New Zealand, the United Kingdom and France.

The resolution stated that “Israel’s establishment of settlements in Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, had no legal validity.”

In an apparent break from protocol for a President-elect, Donald Trump appeared to respond to the vote on December 23 with a Tweet stating: “As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20^th.”.

Haley later described the resolution as “a terrible mistake,” in her confirmation hearing for the role of U.S. Ambassador to the UN.

Following the vote Israel passed a law on 6 February retrospectively recognising Jewish Settelements built on confiscated Palestinian land in the occupied territories.

Kofi Annan, Chair of The Elders and former UN Secretary-General, described the law as “highly damaging” to “prospects for peace.”

“Prime Minister Netanyahu should show leadership to overturn this law, paying heed to the objections of Israel’s Attorney General, broad segments of Israeli society, and members of his own Likud Party,” said Annan.

The United States has remained Israel’s closest ally both for strategic reasons as a partner in the Middle East and due to domestic support for Israel. This support comes in part from America’s Jewish population. While the current administration supports Israel, their support for Judaism is less clear, after the White House failed to refer to Jews or Judaism in its statement issued on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Meanwhile support for Israel also comes from groups such as Christians United for Israel who say on their website that they have over 3 million members. The group’s website homepage also includes a pop-up campaign calling to defund the United Nations.

The United States provides 22 percent of the UN budget, making it the largest single member state contributor.

There is yet to be any concrete indication from either Trump or Haley that the U.S. intends to reduce U.S. funding to the UN other than through a leaked draft Executive Order published by some media outlets.

However some Republican lawmakers have been more open in their opposition to the UN’s seeming sympathy towards Palestine, presenting a bill, which has not yet passed, to withhold U.S. funding to the UN until Resolution 2334 has been repealed.

Palestine has been a non-member observer state at the UN since 2012. In a symbolic gesture, the UN began flying the Palestinian flag in September 2015, alongside the Holy See – Vatican – which is also an observer state.

By Johan Galtung
OSLO, Jan 12 2016 (IPS)

Baher Kamal, in … And All of a Sudden Syria!: “The “big five,” the United Nations veto powers, have just agreed United Nations Resolution 2254 of 18-12-2015, time to end the Syrian five-year long human tragedy; they waited until 300,000 innocent civilians were killed and 4.5 million humans lost as refugees and homeless at home, hundreds of field testing of state-of-the-art drones made, and daily U.S., British, French and Russian bombing carried out.” No Chinese bombing.

Johan Galtung

One term in the resolution, road map, already spells failure. There is another reason: missing issues. But something can be done. Roads twist, turn and may be far from straight. Traveling a road is a linear, one step or mile-stone after another, process, by the map. The West loves linearity; as causal chains, (falling dominoes,) from a root cause; as deductive chains from axioms; as ranks from high to low.

However, is that not how the world is, moving in time, causes-effects, axioms-consequences, rank, power, over others? Are roads not rather useful? They are. Is there an alternative to a road map? There is.

One step after the other in time is diachronic. An alternative would be synchronic; at the same time. Let us call it a cake map.

A cake is served, cut in slices, each party takes a slice, waits till all are served to start together. By the road map, first come first served first to eat. Or, highest rank eats first, down the line. The cake map stands for togetherness, simultaneity, shared experience. Not necessarily good: it was also used by the West to carve up Africa.

The cake is an issue; the slices are aspects. How it is defined, how it is cut, who are invited is essential. Basic to the cake map is equality among parties and slices: all get theirs at the same time.

For the Syria issue the Resolution lists the aspects on the road:
• 25 January 2016 (in two weeks) as the target date to begin talks;
• immediately all parties stop attacking civilians;
• within one month: options for a ceasefire monitoring mechanism;
• within 6 months “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance”;
• within 18 months “free and fair elections–by the new constitution”.

Kamal mentions many actors and crucial problems with this agenda. The focus here is on the linearity: ceasefire-governance-constitution-free and fair elections. Why stop attacking civilians who can become or are combatants? Why should actors agree to a ceasefire before their rights are guaranteed in a constitution? Why non-sectarian “governance” in a sectarian country? Each step presupposes the next. The “peace process” can be blocked, at any point, by any one party. Like a road.

Proposal: On 25 January, appoint four representative commissions– one for each of the four aspects–with mechanisms of dialogue for all six pairs and plenaries. Then report on all aspects on the agenda.

Back to the cake, “Syria.” Does “Syria” exist? Once much of the Middle East, the name was used for the French “mandate” carved out of the vast Ottoman Empire from 1516 to 1916 when ended by Sykes-Picot. A commission on the Ottoman period, exploring millets for minorities, is indispensable. So is a commission on the Sykes-Picot trauma, also with Turkey as a member; hopefully with UK-France-Russia apologizing.

We have seen it before. The US was a major party to the conflict and the UN conference manager 2013-14. There are now more parties: Jordan has identified up to 160 terrorist groups (Kamal), probably not counting state terrorists. And today the UN is the conference manager.

This column at the time (27 Jan 2014) identified seven Syria conflicts:
1 Minority/majority, democracy/dictatorship, Assad/not Assad in Syria;
2 Sunni/Shia all over, also with “Sunni Islamic State Iraq-Syria ISIS”;
3 Syrians/minorities “like Turks and Kurds, Maronites and Christians”;
4 Syria/”those who, like USA and Israel, prefer Syria fragmented”;
5 Syria/Turkey with “neo-Ottoman expansionist policies”;
6 USA-UK-France/Russia-China “determined to avoid another Libya”;
7 Violent perpetrators of all kinds/killed-bereaved-potential victims.

All seven are still there. They have become more violent, like the second, between Saudi Arabia–also financing IS–and Iran. But the resolution focuses on the first and the last. All parties mentioned should be invited or at least consulted publicly. Last time Iran was excluded, defined as the bad one; this time IS(IS), today called Daesh.

A process excluding major process parties is doomed in advance.

However, imagine that the cake is defined as, “the conflict formation in and around Syria”; that the slices are the seven conflicts indicated with one commission for each; that around the table are the actors mentioned, some grouped together. The Resolution aspects are on their agendas; with commissions on the Ottoman Empire and Sykes-Picot.

What can we expect, what can we reasonably hope for, as visions?

“Mandate”, “colony”: there is some reality to Syria (and to Iraq). The borders are hopeless and should be respected, but not for a unitary state. For something looser, a (con)federation. Basic building-blocs would be provinces from Ottoman times, millets for smaller minorities, and cantons for the strip of Kurds along the Turkish border. The constitution could define a national assembly with two chambers: one territorial for the provinces, and one non-territorial for nations and faiths with some cultural veto in matters concerning themselves.

There is also the Swiss model with the assembly being based on territorially defined cantons, and the cabinet on nations-faiths: of 7 members 3 speak German, 1 Rheto-roman, 2 French and 1 Italian (4 Protestant and 3 Catholic?). Not impossible for Syria. With the Kurds as some kind of Liechtenstein (that is where con-federation enters).

In addition to parallel NGO fora. There is much to articulate.

Assad or not? If he is excluded as punishment for violence, there are many to be excluded. A conference only for victims, and China?

Better see it as human tragedy-stupidity, and build something new.

The violent parties will not get what they want. The victims can be accommodated peacefully in this looser Syria. Moreover, the perpetrators should fund reconstruction proportionate to the violence they wrought in the past four years. As quickly as humanly possible.

Syria offered a poor choice between a minority dictatorship with tolerance and a majority dictatorship–democracy–without. Violence flourished, attracting old suspects for proxy wars. “Bomb Syria” was the panacea, after “bomb Libya”. What a shame. Bring it to an end.

*Johan Galtung’s editorial originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 11 January 2016: TRANSCEND Media Service – TMS: Syria (Minding the Minds II)

Excerpt:

The “big five” – i.e., the most military powerful states on earth (US, UK, France, Russia and China) have just agreed that it would be about time to end the Syrian five-year long human tragedy.

Baher Kamal

Before reaching such a conclusion, they waited until 300,000 innocent civilians were killed; tons of bullets shot; 4.5 million humans lost as refugees or homeless at home; hundreds of field testing of state-of-the-art drones made, and daily US, British, French and Russian bombing carried out.

So, with these statistics in hand, they on 18 December 2015 adopted United Nations Resolution 2254 (2015) endorsing a “road map” for peace process in Syria, and even setting a timetable for UN-facilitated talks between the Bashar al Assad regime and “opposition” groups.

They also set the outlines of a “nationwide ceasefire to begin as soon as the parties concerned had taken initial steps towards a political transition.”

“The Syrian people will decide the future of Syria,” the Resolution states.

The UN Security Council also requested that the UN Secretary-General convenes representatives of the Syrian Government and opposition to engage in formal negotiations on a political transition process “on an urgent basis”, with a target of early January for the initiation of talks.

“Free and Fair Elections”

The “big five” then expressed support for a Syrian-led political process facilitated by the United Nations which would establish “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance” within six months and set a schedule and process for the drafting of a new constitution.

Furthermore, the Security Council expressed support for “free and fair elections, pursuant to the new constitution, to be held within 18 months and administered under United Nations supervision,” to the “highest international standards” of transparency and accountability, with all Syrians — including members of the diaspora – eligible to participate.

And they requested that the UN Secretary-General report back on “options” for a ceasefire monitoring, verification and reporting mechanism that it could support within one month. They of course also demanded that “all parties immediately cease attacks against civilians.”

The road-map says that within six months, the process should establish a “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance,” with UN-supervised “free and fair elections” to be held within 18 months.

The whole thing moved so rapidly that the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan di Mestura, has already set the 25 January 2016 as the target date to begin talks between the parties.

All That Is Fine, But…

… But the resolution gives no specific answer to a number of key questions:

To start with, the Syrian National Coalition (SCN) has dismissed the whole idea as “unrealistic,” Deutsch Welle reported. The Coalition objects to a fact that the Security Council’s Resolution carefully “omits”: what future President Assad has.

According to Deutsch Welle, the SNC expressed annoyance that the UN language talked of ISIS terrorism but not of the “terrorism” of the Assad government. Russia has called for the transition to leave the question of governance up to the Syrians, while France and at times the US have demanded Assad’s immediate ousting as a condition of the deal.

If so, which “opposition” should sit to talk with the Syrian regime? While the US, UK and France support what they decided to consider as “rebel” or “opposition” groups, Russia, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia would have different criteria.

In this regard, it was decided to work out a mechanism for establishing which rebel groups in Syria will be eligible to take part in the peace process. For this purpose, Jordan, which was tasked with listing terrorist organisations in Syria, has reportedly presented a document that includes up to 160 extremist groups.

Even though, would President Bashar al-Assad be able to run for office in new elections?

How will the UN monitor the requested ceasefires, and control so many different sides involved in the armed fighting, including the US, UK, France and Russia? And what if the ceasefires do not work? More Syrian civilians to die, flee, migrate? How to control DAESH and so many diverse terrorist groups operating there? What to do with those millions of Syrian refugees, scattered in the region, mainly in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey, while hundreds of thousands of them are being “trafficked” by organised crime bands, reportedly including DAESH itself?

And last but not least, which Syria will exist at the end of the 18 months which has been fixed as a target to hold free, fair elections?

Will it be the current Syria or a new, refurbished one after cutting part of it to establish a brand new “Sunni-stan” that US neo-con, neo-liberal, Republican “hawk” and former George W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, has recently recommended to create on the territories to be “liberated” from DAESH in Syria and Iraq?

Too many key questions without and clear answers. And too may gaps for this road-map to gain credibility. Unless the idea is to implement a Libyan-style solution, that’s for another Western-led military coalition, under NATO’s umbrella, to attack Syria, let Assad be murdered, and leave the people to their own fate. Exactly what happened in Libya in 2011.

(End)

Of the 69 journalists who died on the job in 2015, 40 per cent were killed by Islamic militant groups like Al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Startlingly more than two-thirds were targeted for murder, according to a special report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in its annual report that nine of those killings took place in France, second to Syria as the most dangerous country for the press in last year.

Globally 69 journalists were killed due to their vocation, including those slain for their reporting and those caught in crossfire or in conflict. The total for 2015 is higher than the 61 journalists killed in 2014.

The CPJ says it is investigating the deaths of a further 26 more journalists during the year to determine if they too were work-related.

In 2012, 2013, and 2014, those killed in Syria exceeded those than anywhere else in the world. But the fewer number this year dying on the job in Syria only means it is so dangerous that there are fewer journalists working there, said the report. Many international news agencies chose to withdraw staff anf local reporters were forced to flee, said the CPJ.

The report cited difficulties in researching cases in conflict including Libya, Yemen and Iraq. CPJ went on a research mission to Iraq last year investigating reports that some 35 journalists from the Mosul area had gone missing, were killed or being held by Islamic State.

The militant group has a grip on the city so the CPJ said it could only confirm the deaths of a few journalists. The committee’s report said it had received reports of dozens of other journalists killed but could not independently confirm the deaths or if indeed, journalism was the reason. It said several of these journalists are currently on CPJ’s missing list.

A mural for Avijit Roy in Dhaka, one of four bloggers murdered by extremists in Bangladesh this year. Credit: AP/A.M. Ahad

The Charlie Hebdo massacre that took place in Paris last January was claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Eight journalists at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were targeted.

Islamic State in October murdered two Syrian journalists living in exile in Turkey, Fares Hamadi and Ibrahim Abd al-Qader. Abd al-Qader was given CPJ’s 1015 International Press Freedom Award as he was an early member of Raqaa is Being Slaughtered Silently, a Syrian citizen journalist group.

“In Bangladesh, members of an Al-Qaeda affiliate or another local extremist group, Ansarullah Bangla Team, were suspected in the hacking or stabbing murders of a publisher and four bloggers, including U.S.-Bangladeshi writer Avijit Roy, who was attending a book fair when he was killed,”said the report.

The Taliban in Pakistan claimed responsibility for the shooting of Zaman Mehsud, president and secretary-general of the Tribal Union of Journalists’ South Waziristan chapter and reporter for the Urdu-language Daily Ummat and Daily Nai Baat newspapers.

A security officer investigates the murder of Somali journalist Hindia Haji Mohamed, who was killed by a car bomb in December. Credit: AFP/Mohamed Abdiwahab

In Somalia, Hindia Haji Mohamed, a journalist and the widow of another murdered journalist, was killed in December when a bomb blew up her car in an attack claimed by the Islamic militant group al-Shabaab.

Governments around the world were jailing at least 110 journalists on anti-state charges. This is out of 199 total jailed, according to CPJ’s most recent annual prison census.—It shows how the press is being cornered and targeted by terrorists and also squeezed by the squeezed by authorities saying there were committed to fighting terror as well, it said.

More than two thirds of the journalists killed in 2015 were targeted and murdered as a direct result of their work.

The report said about one third of journalists’ deaths worldwide were carried out by criminal groups, government officials, or local residents who were, in most cases, drug traffickers or those involved in organized crime. They included Brazilian Gleydson Carvalho, shot dead by two men while he was presenting his afternoon radio show. He was often critical of politicians and police Brazil had six killings last year, the highest since CPJ began keeping records in 1992.

But Brazilian judicial authorities have made headway in combating impunity by getting six convictions in murder cases in the last two years, said the report.

South Sudan registered for the first time on CPJ’s index of slain journalists when unidentified gunmen attacked an official convoy killing five journalists traveling with a county official. The motive is still unknown but there have been various accusations. Some say this could have been the result of the power struggle between former Vice President Riek Machar and President Salva Kiir which set off the civil war in 2013.

The murders of the five landed South Sudan on CPJ’s Global Impunity Index, which highlights countries where journalists are murdered and there is no one held responsible so their killers go free.

South Sudan, Poland and Ghana appeared on CPJ’s killed database for the first time. In Poland, Łukasz Masiak, was fatally assaulted in a bowling alley after telling colleagues he feared for his life. He was the founder and editor of a news website and reported on crime and drugs and pollution. In Ghana, radio reporter George Abanga, was shot dead on his way back from covering a cocoa farmers dispute.

CPJ cites these trends from its research:

• Seventeen journalists worldwide were killed in combat or crossfire. Five were killed on a dangerous assignment.
• At least 28 of the 47 murder victims received threats before they were killed.
• Broadcast reporting was the most dangerous job, with 25 killed. Twenty-nine victims worked online.
• The most common type of reporting by victims was politics, followed by war and human rights.

CPJ, in 1992, began compiling detailed records on all journalist deaths. If motives in a killing are unclear, it is possible that a journalist died in relation to his or her work and CPJ classifies the case as “unconfirmed” and continues to investigate. CPJ said its list does not include journalists who died of illness or natural causes or were killed in car or plane accidents unless the crash considered hostile action.

(End)

By Emma Bonino
ROME, Dec 31 2015 (IPS)

The appalling crisis ravaging the Middle East and striking terror around the world is a clear challenge to the West, but responses are uncoordinated. This is due on the one hand to divergent analyses of the situation, and on the other to conflicting interests.

Emma Bonino

The West has historic alliances with the Gulf area, but apparently nothing has been learned from the 3,000 deaths caused by the attack on the Twin Towers in New York. Turkey plays by its own rules, while Russia does not hesitate to resort to any means to recover its position on the global stage, and is only now showing concern about the so-called foreign combatants that Turkey is allowing into Syria. In truth, there is very little common ground.

Consequently, all reactions are inadequate, including the bombing of territory occupied by the Islamic State – whether motivated by emotion or based on reason with an eye to the next elections – by countries like France or the United Kingdom, which wants to demonstrate in this way to the rest of Europe that it is an indispensable part of the EU. Bombings take place, only to be followed by public recognition that aerial strikes are insufficient because there are no more targets to be hit from the sky without guidance from troops on the ground.

The fact is that while the impossibility of achieving victory by air attacks alone is repeated like a mantra, the bombings continue. At the same time, every Arab medium complains daily that these are acts of war waged, once again, by the West against the Arab world.

Doubtless for this reason, the British government has not only increased its military budget but also given the BBC more funding for Arabic language services. The battle in hand is above all a cultural one; arguments are needed over the medium and long term, in addition to attempts at overcoming the contradictions.

The first step is to admit that there is no magical solution; only partial and complex solutions exist. The first measure must be to oblige Sunni Muslims, the Gulf monarchies and the Muslim Brotherhood – the sources of funds and material support for Islamic State combatants – to assume responsibility for their roles. Secondly, we in Europe must take serious measures to address our own shortcomings, by reinforcing our security.

EU counter-terrorism coordinator Gilles de Kerchove recently appealed for an agreement to unify the intelligence services of European countries, to no avail. European governments do not want a common intelligence service, they do not want a common defence system, and they do not want a common foreign policy. Some are only willing to commit their air forces to the fray.

In the meantime, we lurch from one emergency to another, managing only to agree on improvised, temporary measures. For instance, now we have forgotten all about the immigrants, as if they had ceased to exist. Vision is lacking, not only for the long term but even for the medium term.

Now European governments are focused on Syria, leaving aside the conflicts in Libya and Yemen, and are not giving needed help to our Mediterranean neighbours threatened by serious crises: Tunisia, Morocco and Jordan. Lately, oil facilities in the Islamic State are being bombed and the tanker trucks used for black market oil exports are being attacked. As is well known, during the first Gulf War bombing of oil wells brought about an ecological disaster and history is repeating itself in the territories occupied by the Islamic State. Meanwhile the attacks on ground transport are blocking supplies of provisions to Syria, where food is already scarce.

For its part, Italy has done well in choosing not to participate in military interventions that risk being counterproductive and that no one believes are effective, as shown by other scenarios from Afghanistan to the Lebanon. But this does not exempt Italy from making greater efforts toward a common European intelligence service and a broader and more efficacious immigration policy.

In a nutshell: the European Union should formulate and apply its own foreign policy in line with its own interests and reality, and dispense with the policies of the United States, Russia, or other powers.

Translated by Valerie Dee

Excerpt:

The migrants photographed here were being loaded on to a cargo plane in Kufra, located in southeastern Libya. Credit: Rebecca Murray/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 3 2015 (IPS)

The military conflicts and political instability driving hundreds of thousands of refugees into Europe were triggered largely by U.S. and Western military interventions for regime change – specifically in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria (a regime change in-the-making).

The United States was provided with strong military support by countries such as Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Spain, while the no-fly zone to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was led by France and the UK in 2011 and aided by Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Canada, among others.

“[European leaders] stay silent about the military intervention and regime change in which Europeans were major actors, interventions that have torn the refugees’ homelands apart and resulted in civil war and state collapse.” -- James A. Paul, former executive director of the New York-based Global Policy Forum
Last week, an unnamed official of a former Eastern European country, now an integral part of the 28-nation European Union (EU), was constrained to ask: “Why should we provide homes for these refugees when we didn’t invade their countries?”

This reaction could have come from any of the former Soviet bloc countries, including Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia or Latvia – all of them now members of the EU, which has an open-door policy for transiting migrants and refugees.

The United States was directly involved in regime change in Afghanistan (in 2001) and Iraq (in 2003) – and has been providing support for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad battling a civil war now in its fifth year.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who says he is “horrified and heartbroken” at the loss of lives of refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean and Europe, points out that a large majority of people “undertaking these arduous and dangerous journeys are refugees fleeing from places such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.”

James A. Paul, former executive director of the New York-based Global Policy Forum, told IPS the term “regime change refugees” is an excellent way to change the empty conversation about the refugee crisis.

Obviously, there are many causes, but “regime change” helps focus on a crucial part of the picture, he added.

Official discourse in Europe frames the civil wars and economic turmoil in terms of fanaticism, corruption, dictatorship, economic failures and other causes for which they have no responsibility, Paul said.

“They stay silent about the military intervention and regime change in which Europeans were major actors, interventions that have torn the refugees’ homelands apart and resulted in civil war and state collapse.”

The origins of the refugees make the case clearly: Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan are major sources, he pointed out.

Also many refugees come from the Balkans where the wars of the 1990s, again involving European complicity, shredded those societies and led to the present economic and social collapse, he noted.

Vijay Prashad, professor of international studies at Trinity College, Connecticut, and the George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History, told IPS the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention was dated.

He said the Covenant “was written up for the time of the Cold War – when those who were fleeing the so-called Unfree World were to be welcomed to the Free World”.

He said many Third World states refused this covenant because of the horrid ideology behind it.

“We need a new Covenant,” he said, one that specifically takes into consideration economic refugees (driven by the International Monetary Fund) and political (war) refugees.

At the same time, he said, the international community should also recognize “climate change refugees, regime change refugees and NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] refugees.”

The 1951 Convention guarantees refugee status if one “has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”

Asked about the Eastern European reaction, Prashad said: “I agree entirely. But of course one didn’t hear such a sentiment from Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and others – who also welcomed refugees in large numbers. Why say, ‘Why should we take [them]?’ Why not say, ‘Why are they [Western Europe and the U.S.] not doing more?’” he asked.

While Western European countries are complaining about the hundreds of thousands of refugees flooding their shores, the numbers are relatively insignificant compared to the 3.5 million Syrian refugees hosted by Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon – none of which invaded any of the countries from where most of the refugees are originating.

Paul told IPS the huge flow of refugees into Europe has created a political crisis in many recipient countries, especially Germany, where neo-Nazi thugs battle police almost daily, while fire-bombings of refugee housing have alarmed the political establishment.

The public have been horrified by refugees drowning in the Mediterranean, deaths in trucks and railway tunnels, thousands of children and families caught on the open seas, facing border fences and mobilized security forces.

Religious leaders call for tolerance, while EU politicians wring their hands and wonder how they can solve the issue with new rules and more money, Paul said.

“But the refugee flow is increasing rapidly, with no end in sight.  Fences cannot contain the desperate multitudes.”

He said a few billion euros in economic assistance to the countries of origin, recently proposed by the Germans, are unlikely to buy away the problem.

“Only a clear understanding of the origins of the crisis can lead to an answer, but European leaders do not want to touch this hot wire and expose their own culpability.”

Paul said some European leaders, the French in particular, are arguing in favour of military intervention in these troubled lands on their periphery as a way of doing something.

Overthrowing Assad appears to be popular among the policy classes in Paris, who choose to ignore how counter-productive their overthrow of Libyan leader Gaddafi was a short time ago, or how counter-productive has been their clandestine support in Syria for the Islamist rebels, he declared.

Paul also said “the aggressive nationalist beast in the rich country establishments is not ready to learn the lesson, or to beware the “blowback” from future interventions.”

“This is why we need to look closely at the ‘regime change’ angle and to mobilize the public understanding that this was a crisis that was largely ‘Made in Europe’ – with the active connivance of Washington, of course,” he declared.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

North African immigrants near the Italian island of Sicily. Credit: Vito Manzari from Martina Franca (TA), Italy. Immigrati Lampedusa/CC-BY-2.0

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 30 2015 (IPS)

As tens of thousands of refugees continue to flee conflict-ridden countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, Western European governments and international humanitarian organisations are struggling to cope with a snowballing humanitarian crisis threatening to explode.

Hungary is building a fence to ward off refugees.  Slovakia says it will accept only Christian refugees, triggering a condemnation by the United Nations.

“We have to remember [refugees] are human beings. Often they have no choice but to leave their homes. And they must have unhindered access to basic human rights, in particular the right to protection and health care." -- Francesco Rocca, President of the Italian Red Cross
The crisis was further dramatized last week when the Austrians discovered an abandoned delivery truck containing the decomposing bodies of some 71 refugees, including eight women and three children, off a highway outside of Vienna.

Sweden and Germany, which have been the most receptive, have absorbed about 43 percent of all asylum seekers.

But in Germany, despite its liberal open door policy with over 44,000 Syrian refugees registered this year, there have been attacks on migrants, mostly by neo-Nazi groups.

The crisis is likely to get worse, with the United Nations predicting over 3,000 migrants streaming into Western Europe every day – some of them dying on the high seas.

The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says more than 2,500 refugees have died trying to cross the Mediterranean into Europe this year.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has come under fire for dehumanizing migrants as “a swarm of people coming across the Mediterranean, seeking a better life, wanting to come to Britain”.

Harriet Harman, a British lawyer and a Labour Party leader of the opposition, shot back when she said Cameron “should remember he is talking about people and not insects” and called the use of “divisive” language a “worrying turn”.

The three countries with the largest external borders – Italy, Greece and Hungary – are facing the heaviest inflow of refugees.

The 28-member European Union (EU) remains sharply divided as to how best it should share the burden.

While Western European countries are complaining about the hundreds and thousands of refugees flooding their shores, the numbers are relatively insignificant compared to the 3.5 million Syrian refugees hosted by Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon

The New York Times Saturday quoted Alexander Betts, a professor and director of the Refugees Studies Centre at Oxford University, as saying: “While Europe is squabbling, people are dying.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the EU is facing one of its worst crises ever, outpacing the Greek financial meltdown, which threatened to break up the Union.

In a hard-hitting statement released Friday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he is “horrified and heartbroken” at the latest loss of lives of refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean and Europe.

He pointed out that a large majority of people undertaking these arduous and dangerous journeys are refugees fleeing from places such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

“International law has stipulated – and states have long recognized – the right of refugees to protection and asylum.”

When considering asylum requests, he said, States cannot make distinctions based on religion or other identity – nor can they force people to return to places from which they have fled if there is a well-founded fear of persecution or attack.

“This is not only a matter of international law; it is also our duty as human beings,” the U.N. chief declared.

Meanwhile, international organisations, including the United Nations, have been calling for “humanitarian corridors” in war zones – primarily to provide food, shelter and medicine unhindered by conflicts.

Francesco Rocca, President of the Italian Red Cross, told IPS: “On our side, we ask for humanitarian corridors, respect for human dignity and respect for Geneva Conventions [governing the treatment of civilians in war zones] for reaching everyone suffering.”

Regarding people on the move – and people fleeing from these conflicts – “we have to remember they are human beings. Often they have no choice but to leave their homes. And they must have unhindered access to basic human rights, in particular the right to protection and health care,” he said.

Rocca said these people don’t want to escape; they love their homes, their teachers, their schools and their friends.

“But these are terrible stories of people who have been driven from their homes by violence in Syria, Sudan and other conflicts. For almost three years we have asked for humanitarian corridors,” but to no avail, he said.

“I strongly support the Red Cross EU Office position on migration and asylum in the EU, which clearly recommends respecting and protecting the rights of migrants whatever their legal status, respecting the dignity and rights of all migrants in border management policies, sharing responsibility in applying a Common European asylum system.”

As far as the Italian Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) are concerned, he said: “We urge for a humanitarian approach to tackling the vulnerabilities of migrants, rather than focusing on their legal status.”

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Calling for an end to “an epidemic of kidnapping blighting” Libya, Amnesty International has faulted the International Criminal Court (ICC) for failing to undertake any investigations into crimes under international law committed by armed groups in the last four years.

Amnesty, a global movement of more than 7 million people fighting injustice and defending human rights, has urged the international community to increase its support to the ICC to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in Libya.

Launching a campaign digest, ‘Vanished off the face of the earth’: Abducted civilians in Libya, Amnesty said rampant abductions by armed groups had become a part of daily life in Libya since 2011 when Muammar Gaddafi was deposed after four decades of authoritarian rule.

“More than 600 people have gone missing between February 2014 and April 2015 according to the Libyan Red Crescent Society (LRCS), and the fate and whereabouts of at least 378 remain unknown, though the real numbers are likely to be much higher,” Amnesty said in a press release on Aug 5.

Said Boumedouha, Acting Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, said: “Civilians in Libya are living on a knife edge. Widespread lawlessness and chaos have been exacerbated by routine abductions, as armed groups tighten their stranglehold on the country.”

Hundreds of civilians had been abducted on a whim simply because of where they were from, or because they were believed to support a rival political group, he added. In many cases, they were kept hostage to pressure an armed group into a prisoner exchange or to coerce the family to pay a ransom.

“The collapse of central authority and the absence of law enforcement and a functioning justice system in Libya has created an atmosphere of pervasive impunity which has allowed perpetrators of such abductions to evade prosecution and accountability,” Boumedouha said.

Amnesty pointed out that those abducted by armed groups were routinely tortured or otherwise ill-treated in detention.

“Many are beaten, threatened with death, held blindfolded for several days, verbally and physically assaulted and often tortured with electric shocks or forced into stress positions. Several have died after being tortured or were summarily killed – their bodies later dumped on the side of the road,” the global human rights organisation said.

Those abducted include activists, public officials and other civilians seized by unknown assailants based on their political affiliations or in relation to their work. Among them, Amnesty said, were 71-year-old former General National Congress member, Suleiman Zobi, and Abdel Moez Banoun, a political rights activist and blogger. He was kidnapped from a parked car near his home after speaking out against the presence of militias in Tripoli and organizing protests on this theme, according to Amnesty.

Banoun is reported to have been missing for more than 300 days. His brother said he had “vanished off the face of the earth”. Nasser al-Jaroushi, a prosecutor, was abducted after investigating the murder of human rights activist Salwa Bugaighis as well as looking into criminal drug gangs.

Humanitarian aid workers Mohamed al-Tahrir Aziz, Mohamed al-Munsaf al-Shalali and Waleed Ramadan Shalhoub were abducted on June 5 as they were on their way to distribute supplies to towns affected by fighting in southwest Libya.

Others who face abductions, according to Amnesty, include migrant workers, foreign consular staff, and members of the Tawargha community who were displaced from their hometown in 2011.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Mohammed (left) and Ahmed, two Somali migrants who survived crossing the Mediterranean and are now hosted in one of Syracuse’s first aid and reception centres, although they are not planning to remain in Italy for long. Credit: Silvia Giannelli/IPS

By Silvia Giannelli
AUGUSTA, Syracuse, Italy , May 11 2015 (IPS)

Not even a month has passed since over 700 hundred migrants lost their lives in their attempt to reaching the shores of Italy and the media spotlights have already faded on the island of Sicily, Italy’s southern region and main gateway to Europe.

Yet, the migration flows have not stopped.

Five days ago, on May 3, 300 people arrived in the port of Augusta, in the province of Syracuse, and among them were 19-year-old Ahmed and 22-year-old Mohammed.“That boat trip was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I’m here, I’m OK and it will get better now” – Mohammed, a Somali migrant who survived crossing the Mediterranean to reach Italy

Both come from Somalia but they met in Libya, where they had worked for several months in order to save enough money to pay the smugglers running the traffic in migrants across the Mediterranean.

Ahmed and Mohammed are now hosted in one of Syracuse’s first aid and reception centres, but they are not planning to remain in Italy for long. Ahmed wants to go to Belgium, where some of his relatives already live, while Mohammed hopes to continue his trip towards Germany.

Crossing the Mediterranean was frightening, but they seem to have left all of their fears on the Libyan shores and their eyes are full of hope for the future.

“The sight of the sea from Libya was so scary, but when I look at it from here, it’s beautiful again,” says Ahmed, who is hoping to be able to study in Europe and become a doctor.

For Mohammed, “that boat trip was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I’m here, I’m OK and it will get better now.”

Before leaving Libya, Ahmed had heard about the tragedy of the 700 who lost their lives, but that did not stop him because, he says, the risks are higher in Somalia than on the boats.

“The weather has been bad these days, but look how calm the sea is today,” a carabiniere standing in front of the centre told IPS. “We are getting ready for many, many more to arrive.”

Despite the fact that more than 25,000 migrants have already made it to Italy this year, the actual ‘migration season’ is just about to start. Meanwhile, Europe is lurching to answer southern European states’ request for help.

Currently, the Mediterranean is patrolled under Operation Triton, a border security operation conducted by Frontex, the European Union’s border security agency, which aims to deter migrants. Operation Triton replaced Operation Mare Nostrum, which had been a broader Italian search and rescue initiative.

During an extraordinary European summit on the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean held on Apr. 23, E.U. leaders agreed to triple funding for rescue operations in the Mediterranean, but this is far from being the ‘European solution’ to the migration crisis.

“Of course more capacity and more boats and early detection by planes increase the possibility of saving more people,” the Frontex press officer in Catania, Ewa Moncure, told IPS.

“But even with the best efforts, if people are put on these boats and sent to sea with no safety equipment, with not enough water, then nobody can guarantee that they will be found on time and that the rescue services will save everybody, because that would be simply a lie.”

While E.U. leaders continue to discuss possible naval blocks off Libyan territorial waters and southern European states try to open a debate on quotas of refugees to be shared among all member states, local authorities and Sicilian citizens are left with the task of handling the first aid and reception operations.

Augusta, a town of around 40,000 inhabitants, is one of the main bases of the Italian Navy in Sicily and it served as the headquarters of the Mare Nostrum operation, until it ended in October 2014.

Between April and October 2014, the town also hosted an emergency centre for unaccompanied minors, raising concerns and complaints of around 2,000 people who signed a petition to move the centre somewhere else and to propose naval blocks at the departure ports.

“This petition suggested exonerating from the allocation of migrants those municipalities that already suffer from economic insolvency and high unemployment levels, as is the case of Augusta,” Pietro Forestiere, local spokesperson for the right-wing Fratelli d’Italia party and one of the initiators of the petition, explained to IPS.

“The logic behind it is that you cannot ask someone who is already struggling to deliver proper services to its citizens to take care of migrant reception as well.”

The emergency centre of Augusta was eventually closed in October, but its example could be easily extended to the whole region, which suffers from the highest levels of poverty and the second highest unemployment rate in the whole of Italy.

Yet, despite the voices calling for strong action against immigration, it is very common to hear people in Augusta sympathise with the migrants, especially when it comes to refugees.

“They are made of flesh and blood, just like us. We simply can’t let them drown,” Alfonso, who owns a stand in the fish market, told IPS. “They are escaping war and poverty. If we can’t prevent them from coming, once they approach the coast, we must help them.”

Most citizens in Sicily do not appear to fear future arrivals. The problem is rather the feeling of being abandoned in handling the situation, as a customer at the market pointed out:

“This is a port, we have always been used to seeing foreigners around. The impact on our daily life is quite limited. Yet, something needs to be done, not so much for us but rather to help them, and we can’t do it on our own. This is a European – if not global – issue, and Europe must act.”

Edited by Phil Harris   

By Prem Shankar Jha
NEW DELHI, May 10 2015 (IPS)

President Barack Obama’s Nowroz greeting to the Iranian people earlier this year was the first clear indication to the world that the United States and Iran were very close to agreement on the contents of the nuclear agreement they had been working towards for the previous 16 months.

In contrast to two earlier messages which were barely veiled exhortations to Iranians to stand up to their obscurantist leaders, Obama urged “the peoples and the leaders of Iran” to avail themselves of “the best opportunity in decades to pursue a different relationship between our countries.”

Prem Shankar Jha

This moment, he warned, “may not come again soon (for) there are people in both our countries and beyond, who oppose a diplomatic solution.”

Barely a fortnight later that deal was done. Iran had agreed to a more than two-thirds reduction in the number of centrifuges it would keep, although a question mark still hung over the timing of the lifting of sanctions against it. The agreement came in the teeth of opposition from hardliners in both Iran and the United States.

Looking back at Obama’s unprecedented overtures to Iran, his direct phone call to President Hassan Rouhani – the first of its kind in 30 years – and his letter to Ayatollah Khamenei in November last year, it is clear in retrospect that they were products of  a rare meeting of minds between him and  Rouhani and their foreign ministers John Kerry and Muhammad Jawad Zarif that may have occurred as early as  their first meetings in September 2013.

The opposition to the deal within the United States proved a far harder obstacle for Obama to surmount. The reason is the dogged and increasingly naked opposition of Israel and the immense influence of the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) on U.S. policymakers and public opinion.

Both of these were laid bare came when the Republican party created constitutional history by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address  a joint session of Congress  without informing the White House, listened raptly to his diatribe against Obama, and sent a deliberately insulting letter to Ayatollah Khamenei in a bid to scuttle the talks.

Obama has ploughed on in the teeth of this formidable, highly personalised, attack on him  because he has learnt from the bitter experience of the past four years what Harvard professors John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt had exposed in their path-breaking  book, ‘The Israel lobby and American Foreign Policy’ in 2006.“Quietly, and utterly alone, Obama decided to reverse the drift, return to diplomacy as the first weapon for increasing national security and returning force to where it had belonged in the previous three centuries, as a weapon of last resort”

This was the utter disregard for America’s national interest and security with which Israel had been manipulating American public opinion, the U.S. Congress and successive U.S. administrations, in pursuit of its own security, since the end of the Cold War.

By the end of 2012, two years into the so-called “Arab Spring”, Obama had also discovered how cynically Turkey and the Wahhabi-Sunni sheikhdoms had manipulated the United States into joining a sectarian vendetta against Syria, and created and armed a Jihadi army whose ultimate target was the West itself.

Nine months later, he found out how Israel had abused the trust the United States reposed in it, and come within a hairsbreadth of pushing it into an attack on Syria that was even less justifiable than then U.S. President George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq.  And then the murderous eruption of the Islamic State (ISIS) showed him that the Jihadis were out of control.

Somewhere along this trail of betrayal and disillusionment, Obama experienced the political equivalent of an epiphany.

Twelve years of a U.S. national security strategy that relied on the pre-emptive use of force had  yielded war without end, a string of strategic defeats, a  mauled and traumatised army, mounting international debt and a collapsing hegemony reflected in the impunity with which the so-called friends of the United States were using it to serve their ends.

Quietly, and utterly alone, Obama decided to reverse the drift, return to diplomacy as the first weapon for increasing national security and returning force to where it had belonged in the previous three centuries, as a weapon of last resort. His meeting and discussions with Rouhani and Iranian foreign minister Zarif gave him the opportunity to begin this epic change of direction.

Obama faced his first moment of truth on Nov. 28, 2012 when a Jabhat al Nusra unit north of Aleppo brought down a Syrian army helicopter with a Russian man-portable surface-to-air missile (SAM).

The White House tried to  pretend that that the missile was from a captured Syrian air base, but by then U.S. intelligence agencies were fed up with its suppression and distortion of their intelligence and  leaked it to the Washington Post that 40 SAM missile batteries with launchers, along with hundreds of tonnes of other heavy weapons had been bought from Libya, paid for by Qatar, and transported to the rebels in Syria  by Turkey through a ‘rat line’ that the CIA had helped it to establish, to funnel arms and mercenaries into Syria.

A day that Obama had been dreading had finally arrived: heavy weapons that the United States and the European Union had expressly proscribed, because they could bring down civilian aircraft anywhere in the world, had finally reached Al Qaeda’s hands

But when Obama promptly banned the Jabhat Al Nusra, he got his second shock. At the next ‘Friends of Syria’ meeting in Marrakesh three weeks later, not only the   ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels that the United States had grouped under a newly-formed Syrian Military Council three months earlier, but all of its Sunni Muslim allies condemned the ban, while Britain and France remained silent.

Obama’s third, and worst, moment of truth came nine months later when a relentless campaign by  his closest ‘allies‘, Turkey and Israel, brought him to the verge of launching an all-out aerial attack  on Syria in September 2013 to punish it for “using gas on rebels and civilians in the Ghouta suburb of Damascus.”

Obama learned that Syria had done no such thing only two days before the attack was to commence, when the British informed him that soil samples collected from the site of the Ghouta attack and analysed at their CBW research laboratories at Porton Down, had shown that the sarin gas used in the attack could not possibly have been prepared by the Syrian army.

This was because the British had the complete list of suppliers from which Syria had received its precursor chemicals and these did not match the chemicals used in the sarin gas found in the Ghouta.

Had he gone through with the attack, it would have made Obama ten times worse than George Bush in history’s eyes.

Hindsight allows us to reconstruct how the conviction that Syria was using chemical weapons was implanted into policy-makers in the United States and the European Union.

On Sep. 17, 2012, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the highly-reputed German magazine Der Speigel, had learned, “quoting several eyewitnesses”, that Syria had tested delivery systems for chemical warheads   at a chemical weapons research centre near Aleppo in August, and that the tests had been overseen by Iranian experts.

Tanks and aircraft, Der Speigel reported, had fired “five or six empty shells capable of delivering poison gas.”

Since neither Der Speigel nor any other Western newspaper had, or still has, resident correspondents in Syria, it could only have obtained this report second or third-hand through a local stringer. This, and the wealth of detail in the report, suggests that the story of a test firing, while not necessarily untrue, was a plant by an intelligence agency. It therefore had to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

One person who not only chose to believe it instantly, but also to act on it was Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On Dec. 3, 2012, Haaretz reported that he had sent emissaries to Amman twice, in October and November, to request Jordan’s permission to overfly its territory to bomb Syria’s chemical weapons facilities.

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service.

* The second part of this two-part analysis can be accessed here.

Excerpt:

The 28 Ethiopian migrants of Christian faith murdered by the Islamic State (IS) on Apr. 19 in Libya had planned to cross the Mediterranean Sea in search of work in Europe.

Commenting on the killings to Fana Broadcasting Corporation (FBC), Ethiopian government spokesperson Redwan Hussien urged potential migrants not to risk their lives by using dangerous exit routes.

Hussein’s call sparked anger among hundreds of Ethiopian youths and relatives of the deceased, who took to the streets in the capital Addis Ababa this week before the demonstration was disbanded by the police, local media reported.

Protestors cited the government’s lukewarm response to the massacre of Orthodox Christians for their outrage, the Addis Standard reported. Later in the week, during a public rally organised by the government in the capital, violence again broke out between security forces and protesters resulting in injuries and the detention of over a hundred protesters, local and international media reported.“Pervasive repression and denial of fundamental freedoms has led to frustration, alienation and disillusionment among most Ethiopian youth” – Yared Hailemariam, former senior researcher for the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (now Human Rights Council)

Almost two-thirds of Ethiopians are Christians, the majority of those Orthodox Copts – who say that they have been in the Horn of Africa nation since the first century AD — as well as large numbers of Protestants.

In the widely-reported incident in Libya, IS militants beheaded 16 Ethiopian migrants in one group on a beach and shot 12 in the head in another group in a desert area. Eyasu Yikunoamilak and Balcha Belete, residents of the impoverished Cherkos neighbourhood in Addis Ababa, were among the victims, it was learnt, along with three other victims from Cherkos.

Seyoum Yikunoamilak, elder brother of Eyasu Yikunoamilak, told FBC that Eyasu and Balcha left their country for Sudan two months ago en route to reach the United Kingdom for work to help themselves and their families, but this was not meant to be.

“I used to talk to them on phone while they were in the Sudan,” Seyoum said in grief. “But I never heard from them since they entered Libya one month ago.” Eyasu had previously been a migrant worker in Qatar and had covered his friend’s expenses with his savings to reach Europe, said Seyoum.

In defiance of the warning of the government spokesperson, Meshesa Mitiku, a long-time friend of Eyasu and Balcha living in Cherkos, told the Associated Press on Apr. 20: “I will try my luck too but not through Libya. Here there is no chance to improve yourself.” Meshesha’s intentions came even after learning about the fate of his friends.

Ethiopian lawmakers declared a three-day national mourning on Apr. 21. The government also expressed its readiness to repatriate all migrants in dangerous foreign countries, the Washington-based VOA Amharic radio reported.

The rally earlier in the week came one month before Ethiopia holds parliamentary elections, the first since the death of long-time leader Meles Zenawi, and current prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn is expected to face little if any opposition challenge.

“We will redouble efforts to fight terrorism,” foreign ministry spokesman Tewolde Mulugeta said in response to demands for action from protesters.

Ethiopia is trying to create jobs so that people do not feel the need to leave to find work, he added. “We’re trying to create opportunities here for our young people. We encourage them to exploit those opportunities at home.”

Nevertheless, disenchantment marked by asserted claims of repression, inequality and unemployment has spurred a series of protests against the regime over the last few years.

These and other issues have prompted the exodus of Ethiopian migrants to Europe, according to several observers. “The idea that the majority of Ethiopian migrants relocate due to economic reasons appears flawed,” contends Tom Rhodes, East Africa Representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists, in an email interview with IPS. Rhodes also maintained that the violation of fundamental freedoms is closely tied with poverty and economic inequality.

In an email interview with IPS, Yared Hailemariam, a former senior researcher for the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, agreed. “Pervasive repression and denial of fundamental freedoms has led to frustration, alienation and disillusionment among most Ethiopian youth.”

“Citizens have the right to peacefully protest,” said Felix Horne, East Africa researcher with Human Rights Watch. “It’s no surprise given the steps government takes to restrict peaceful protests that disenfranchised youth would use the rare opportunity of an officially sanctioned public demonstration to express their frustrations. That’s the inevitable outcome when there are no other means for them to express their opinions.”

The main opposition parties say that the government has failed to create job opportunities, making migration inevitable. The regime, they charge, favours members of the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front and creates economic inequality.

Recently dubbed an “African tiger”, Ethiopia is one of Africa’s most populous nations with 94 million people (Nigeria has 173.6 million). It has been celebrated for its modest economic growth over the last years. But the average unemployment rate (the number of people actively looking for a job as a percentage of the labour force) was stuck at 20.26 percent from 1999 to 2014.

“The regime allocates state resources and job opportunities to members of the ruling party who are organised in small-scale and micro enterprises,” noted Horne. The CPJ representative agreed. “Ethiopian government authorities tend to reward their political supporters and ethnic relations with lucrative political and business positions” at the expense of ingenuity in the business sector.

In its 2015 report, the World Bank shared this discouraging view. Some 37 million Ethiopians – one-third of the country’s population – are still “either poor or vulnerable to falling into poverty”, the World Bank said, adding that the “very poorest in Ethiopia have become even poorer” over the last decade or so.

The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has estimated that about 29 percent of the population lives below the national poverty line. This explains Ethiopia’s rank at 174 out of 187 countries on the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index.

The Oakland Institute, a U.S.-based non-governmental organisation that spotlights land grabs, was recently denounced by Ethiopian officials for its latest report ‘We Say the Land is Not Yours’. According to the government, the institute used “unverified and unverifiable information”.

In a reply to the Ethiopian Embassy in the United Kingdom on Apr. 22, Oakland Institute challenged the government’s claim that ongoing development was improving life standards in the country.

The institute maintained that the government’s development endeavours are “destroying the lives, culture, traditions, and livelihoods” of many indigenous and pastoralist populations, further warning that the strategy was “unsustainable and creating a fertile breeding ground for conflict.”

More than half of Ethiopia’s farmers are cultivating plots so small as to barely provide sustenance. These one hectare or less plots are further affected by drought, an ineffective and inefficient agricultural marketing system and underdeveloped production technologies, says FAO. Several studies indicate that this phenomenon has induced massive rural-urban migration.

According to Yared Hailemariam, state ownership of land has contributed to poverty and inequality. “People don’t have full rights over their properties so that they lack the motivation to invest,” he stressed. The ruling regime insists that land will remain in the hands of the state, and selling and buying land is prohibited in Ethiopia.

Yared also pointed out that the ruling party owns several huge businesses which has created unfair competition in the economy. “The party’s huge conglomerates have weakened other public and private businesses” he told IPS. “Only the ruling party’s political elites and their business cronies are benefitting at the expense of the majority of the people.”

The tragic news of the massacre in Libya came amid news of xenophobic attacks against Ethiopian migrants in South Africa last week including looting and burning of properties. Unknown numbers of Ethiopian economic migrants are also trapped in the Yemeni conflict, according to state media.

Edited by Lisa Vives/Phil Harris    

As Europeans debated their policies towards the leaky flotillas steaming out of Libya, carrying most to a certain death at sea, members of ISIL were streaming a video of captured Ethiopian Christians on a beach.

One group of Christians is on their knees and shot to death. Another group is beheaded. The video bore the official logo of the ISIL media arm Al-Furgan and resembled previous videos released by the group, Al Jazeera reported.

A masked fighter is seen delivering a long statement between pieces of footage of the slaughter. The victims were identified as “followers of the cross from the enemy Ethiopian Church”.

Earlier this year, fighters pledging allegiance to ISIL released a video purporting to show the killing of 20 Egyptian Coptic Christians and a Ghanaian abducted in Libya.

According to a release by the group Coptic Solidarity, the Christians were killed for refusing to pay a tax, imposed on non-Muslims in an Islamic state who refuse to convert.

Since the U.S.-assisted removal of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya has become a hotbed of Islamist violence with no central government.

With security denied in Libya, some 900 migrants made their way to the sea last week, hoping to reach Malta. When the boat capsized after a few days, many were trapped behind doors locked by their smugglers. Between 28 and 50 survivors have been found.

The Italian Coast Guard is collecting statements from other survivors, prosecutors said. Passengers were from Algeria, Egypt, Somalia, Niger, Senegal, Mali, Zambia, Bangladesh and Ghana.

The U.N.’s High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said that the incident could be worse than an incident last week in which 400 refugees and migrants died in the Mediterranean.

Human Rights Watch urged the European Union to act quickly. “The EU is standing by with arms crossed while hundreds die off its shores,” said Judith Sunderland, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “These deaths might well have been prevented if the EU had launched a genuine search-and-rescue effort.”

In a statement released Sunday, the U.N. said that it planned action down the road but didn’t detail any immediate plans to help with the search for the victims of this accident.

Doctors Without Borders also had strong words for the tragedy. “A mass grave is being created in the Mediterranean Sea and European policies are responsible,” said the group’s president, Loris De Filippi. He compared the high number of deaths to “figures from a war zone.”

“Faced with thousands of desperate people fleeing wars and crises, Europe has closed borders, forcing people in search of protection to risk their lives and die at sea,” he said. “This tragedy is only just beginning, but it can and should be stopped.”

Doctors Without Borders will begin its own rescue effort, he added, because “as a medical, humanitarian organization, we simply cannot wait any longer.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

A U.N. peacekeeper from Niger is ready to begin a patrol at the Niger Battalion Base in Menaka, in eastern Mali, Feb. 25, 2015. Credit: UN Photo/Marco Dormino

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 21 2015 (IPS)

The United Nations is fighting a losing battle against a rash of political and humanitarian crises in 10 of the world’s critical “hot spots.”

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says even the U.N.’s 193 member states cannot, by themselves, help resolve these widespread conflicts.“We need more support and more financial help. But, most importantly, we need political solutions.” -- U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric

“Not a single country, however powerful or resourceful as it may be, including the United States, can do it,” he warned last week.

The world’s current political hotspots include Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic – not forgetting West Africa which is battling the spread of the deadly disease Ebola.

Historically, the United Nations has grappled with one or two crises at any given time. But handling 10 such crises at one and the same time, said Ban, was rare and unprecedented in the 70-year history of the United Nations.

Although the international community looks to the world body to resolve these problems, “the United Nations cannot handle it alone. We need collective power and solidarity, otherwise, our world will get more and more troubles,” Ban said.

But that collective power is conspicuous by its absence.

Shannon Scribner, Oxfam America’s humanitarian policy manager, told IPS the situation is serious and Oxfam is very concerned. At the end of 2013, she said, violent conflict and human rights violations had displaced 51 million people, the highest number ever recorded.

In 2014, the U.N. appealed for assistance for 81 million people, including displaced persons and others affected by protracted situations of conflict and natural disaster.

Right now, the humanitarian system is responding to four emergencies – those the U.N. considers the most severe and large-scale – which are Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan, and Syria.

These crises alone have left 20 million people vulnerable to malnutrition, illness, violence, and death, and in need of aid and protection, she added.

Then you have the crises in Yemen, where two out of three people need humanitarian assistance; West Africa, with Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea asking for eight billion dollars to recover from Ebola; in Somalia, remittance flows that amount to 1.3 billion dollars annually, and are a lifeline to millions who are in need of humanitarian assistance, have been cut or driven underground due to banking restrictions; and then there is the migration and refugee crisis in the Mediterranean, where almost 1,000 people have died trying to escape horrible situations in their home countries, Scribner said.

The United Nations says it needs about 16 billion dollars to meet humanitarian needs, including food, shelter and medicine, for over 55 million refugees worldwide.

But U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Monday virtually all of the U.N.’s emergency operations are “underfunded”.

Last month, a U.N. pledging conference on humanitarian aid to Syria, hosted by the government of Kuwait, raised over 3.8 billion dollars.

But the United Nations is appealing for more funds to reach its eventual target of 8.4 billion dollars for aid to Syria by the end of 2015.

“We need more support and more financial help,” said Dujarric. “But, most importantly, we need political solutions.”

But most conflicts have remained unresolved or stalemated primarily due to sharp divisions in the Security Council, the U.N.’s only political body armed with powers to resolve military conflicts.

Asked if the international community is doing enough, Scribner told IPS there is no silver bullet for dealing with these crises around the world because there are so many problems causing them: poverty, bad governance, proxy wars, geopolitical interests playing out; war economies being strengthened through the shipment of arms and weapons; ethnic tensions, etc.

The humanitarian system is not built for responding to the crises in the 21st century.

She said Oxfam is calling for three things: 1) More effective humanitarian response by providing funding early on and investing more in local leadership; 2) More emphasis on working towards political solutions and diplomatic action; and 3) Oxfam encourages the international community to use the sustainable development goals to lift more people out of poverty and address inequality that exists around the globe today.

Scribner said the combined wealth of the world’s richest 1 percent will overtake that of everyone else by next year given the current trend of rising inequality.

The conflicts in the world’s hot spots have also resulted in two adverse consequences: people caught in the crossfire are fleeing war-torn countries to safe havens in Europe while, at the same time, there is an increase in the number of killings of aid workers and U.N. staffers engaged in humanitarian work.

Over the weekend, hundreds of refugees and migrant workers from war-devastated Libya died in the high seas as a result of a ship wreck in the Mediterranean Sea. The estimated death toll is over 900.

On Monday, four staff members of the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF were reportedly killed in an attack on a vehicle in which they were riding in Somalia, while four others were injured and remain in serious condition.

Ian Richards, president of the Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations (CCISUA), told IPS: “We’re appalled at the loss of our colleagues in Garowe, Somalia and are very concerned for those injured. They truly were heroes doing great work in one of the world’s most dangerous locations.”

He said the United Nations has been clear that it will continue to operate in Somalia and “our work is needed there.”

“We support the work of our colleagues in these difficult circumstances,” he said.

At the same time, Richards told IPS, “We should not lose sight of a context in which U.N. staff and, in the case of local staff, their families, are increasingly targeted for their work.”

It is therefore important, he said, that the secretary-eneral and the General Assembly fully review the protection the U.N. provides to staff in locations where their lives are at risk, so that they may continue to provide much-needed assistance in such locations.

Oxfam’s Scribner told IPS attacks on aid workers have steadily risen over the years – from 90 violent attacks in 2001 to 308 incidents in 2011 – with the majority of attacks aimed at local aid workers. They often face more danger because they can get closer to the crisis to help others.

Because local aid workers are familiar with the landscape, speak the local language, and understand the local culture, and this also puts them more at risk, she said.

“That is why it is not a surprise that local aid workers make up nearly 80 percent of fatalities, on average, since 2001,” Scribner added.

Last year on World Humanitarian Day, the New York Times reported that the number of attacks on aid workers in 2013 set an annual record at 460, the most since the group began compiling its database, which goes back to 1997.

“These courageous men and women aren’t pulling out because they live in the very countries where they are trying to make a difference. And as such, they should be supported much more by the international community,” Scribner declared.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Mar 25 2015 (IPS)

The United Kingdom has been accused of “sleepwalking” into the Ukraine crisis – and the accusation comes from no less than the House of Lords, not usually considered a place of critical analysis.

In a scathing report, the upper house of the U.K. parliament has said that the United Kingdom, like the rest of the European Union, has sleepwalked into a very complex problem without looking into the possible consequences, letting bureaucrats taking critical political decisions.

Roberto Savio

It said that it was only when the conflict was well entrenched that political leaders decided to negotiate the Minsk ceasefire agreement, reached by Angela Merkel of Germany, Francois Hollande of France, Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation and Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine, with the notable absence of U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron.

In fact, it was left up to bureaucrats of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to take decisions regarding Ukraine, the same kind of bureaucrats as those appointed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission who, with their usual arrogance, decided the European bailout conceded to Greece where it is widely known that the priority was to refund European (especially German) banks.

The media have a great responsibility in this situation. In all latter day conflicts, from Kosovo to Libya, the formula has been very simple. Let us divide conflicts into good and bad, let us repeat the declarations of the ‘good guys’ and demonise the ‘bad guys’. Let us not go into analytical disquisitions, complexities and side issues because readers do not like that. Let us be to the point and crisp.“The media have a great responsibility … the formula has been very simple. Let us divide conflicts into good and bad, let us repeat the declarations of the ‘good guys’ and demonise the ‘bad guys’. Let us not go into analytical disquisitions, complexities and side issues because readers do not like that”

The latest example. All media have been talking of the Iraqi army engaged in taking back the town of Kirkuk from the Caliphate, the Islamic State. But how many are also informing that two-thirds of the Iraqi army is actually made up of soldiers from Iran? And that the Americans engaged in overseeing this offensive are in fact accepting cooperation from Iran, formally an archenemy?

How many have been reporting that the ongoing negotiations over the nuclear capabilities of Iran are really based on the need to restore legitimacy to Iran, because it has become clear that without Iran there is no way to solve Arab conflicts? And how many have informed that all radical Muslims have received financial support from  Saudi  Arabia, which is intent on supporting Salafism, the Muslim school which is at the basis of al-Qaeda and now of the Islamic State?

Recent history shows the West has gone into a number of conflicts (Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011 and Syria in 2012), without looking beyond the immediate consequences, and without any consideration for long-term analysis. The costs of those conflicts have always exceeded the benefits foreseen. An auditor company could not certify any of those conflicts in terms of costs and benefit.

Let us start from the collapse of Yugoslavia, and let us remind ourselves that the West has three principles of international law under which to shield itself as a result of its actions.

One is the principle of inviolability of state borders, which was not applied to Serbia, but is now the case for Ukraine. The second is the principle of self-determination of people, which was used in Kosovo for the Albanian minority living in that part of Serbia but it is not considered valid now for the Russian populations of East Ukraine. The third is the right to intervene for humanitarian interventions, which was used first in Libya, and is now under consideration for Syria.

The drama of the Balkan conflicts was due to a very unilateral action by Germany, which decided to extrapolate Croatia and Slovenia from the Yugoslav federation as its zone of economic interest. The then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, pushed this in an unprecedented way throughout the West.

It was the first time that Germany had play an assertive role, with U.S. support, and it was a Cold War reflex – let us eliminate the only country left after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which still inspires itself to a socialist state and not to a market economy.

Serbia, which considered itself heir to the Kingdom of Serbia (out of which Josep Broz Tito had created the socialist Yugoslavia), intervened and a terrible conflict ensued, with civilians paying a dramatic cost.

That conflict renewed dormant ethnic and religious divisions, about which everybody knew, but Genscher, who was then no longer in the German government, explained at a meeting in which the author participated: “I never thought the Serbians would resist Europe.”

It is interesting to note in this context that just a few weeks ago, the International Court of Justice ruled that neither Serbia nor Croatia had engaged in a genocidal war. The news was reported by many media, but without a word of contextualisation.

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had been destroyed to implement the winning theory of “free market against socialism”. Did the creation of five mini-states improve the lives of the people? Not according to statistics, especially of youth unemployment, which was unknown in the days of Tito.

Then there was Iraq where, in the aftermath of the Twin Towers attack in September 2001, the rationale for attacking the country was based on assertions that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was both harbouring and supporting al-Qaeda, the group held responsible for the attack, and possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed an immediate threat to the United States and its allies. These, which turned out to be lies, were blindly propagated by the media

But if, as is widely believed, petroleum was the cause, let us look at figures as an accounting company would do. That war is estimated to have cost at least two trillion dollars, without considering human life and physical destruction.

Iraq’s annual petroleum output at full pre-war capacity was 3.7 million barrels per day. Now a part of that is under the control of the Islamic State and Kurds have taken more than one-third under their control. But even at the full production, it would have taken more than 20 years to recoup the costs of the war.

It is, to say the least, unlikely that the United States would have had all that time – and since the war, has spent more than a further trillion dollars just in occupation and military costs.

And what about Afghanistan where there is no petroleum? Two trillion dollars have also been spent there … and the aim of that war was just to capture al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden!

Among others, it was said that democracy would be brought to Afghanistan. Now, after more than 50.000 deaths, nobody speaks any longer of institutional building, and the United States and its allies are simply trying to extricate themselves from a country whose future is bleak.

Now, the question I want to raise here is the following: what has happened to looking beyond the immediate consequences and long-term analysis in foreign policy?

Is it possible that nobody in power questioned the wisdom of an intervention in Libya for example, even assuming that Muammar Gaddafi was a villain to remove?  Did any of them ask what would happen afterwards? Did any of those in power ask what it would mean to support a war to remove Bashar al-Assad in Syria and what would happen after?

It appears that the House of Lords is right, we are taken into conflict by sleepwalkers. The West is responsible either for creating countries which are not viable (Kosovo), or for disintegrating countries (Yugoslavia and now probably Iraq), or for opening up areas of instability (Libya, Syria).

Without mentioning Ukraine where intervention is aimed at pushing the country towards Europe and NATO, thus provoking the potential retaliation of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Those errors have cost hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced millions of people and, altogether, cost at least seven trillion dollars. Who is going to wake the sleepwalkers up? (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

By Emma Bonino
ROME, Feb 27 2015 (IPS)

When I am asked whether Europe is still a relevant “protagonist” in the modern world, I always answer that there is no doubt about it. For a long time now, the continent has been shaken by financial crises, internal security strategy crises – including wars – and instability within its borders, which definitely make it a protagonist in world affairs. 

If the question asked were about what the leading role of the European Union actually is, it is enough to take a look at a few days’ entries in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s diary.

Emma Bonino

On Thursday Feb. 5 she was in Moscow with French President François Hollande for negotiations on the Ukraine crisis with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the following day she met Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko for talks in Kiev. At the weekend she was back in Munich, where she argued publicly for resistance against increasing pressure from the United States to arm the Ukrainian forces.

On Monday Feb. 9 Merkel was in Washington, where she obtained – at least temporarily – U.S. President Barack Obama’s agreement to her stand against providing arms to Ukraine, in order to maintain a favourable climate for the negotiations that were about to be held in Minsk.

Next she went to Minsk to participate in three exhausting days of talks including a 17-hour debate with the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, which led to a proposal of truce in Ukraine, presented on Thursday Feb. 12 to an informal meeting of E.U. heads of state in Brussels.

This brief overview, and the reports and images disseminated in the media, clearly show that Angela Merkel personifies the global role of Europe and puts other European heads of state and institutions in the shade.

Other protagonists on the international stage, like Obama and Putin, show a similar perception when they make important agreements with the German Chancellor.

In my federalist vision of Europe, it would be just perfect if Merkel were the president of the United States of Europe. Unfortunately, that is not the case.“I am convinced that Berlin is aware that Germany is called on to shoulder strategic responsibilities that go beyond its status as an economic superpower”

I do not want to dwell on the oversimplified dilemma that has been exercising think tanks for years: Are we moving towards a Europeanised Germany, or towards a Germanised Europe?

But I am convinced that Berlin is aware that Germany is called on to shoulder strategic responsibilities that go beyond its status as an economic superpower. This view is reinforced by the certainty that the proposal to reform the United Nations Security Council by granting Berlin a permanent seat is not going to happen in the foreseeable future.

And if, at some date far in the future, such a reform of the Security Council is approved, the Council’s powers may by then have been reduced.

I believe this because in the last few months, while the events that are public knowledge were happening in Syria, in Iraq, with respect to the Islamic State, in Ukraine, in Sudan, Libya and Nigeria, the Security Council was conspicuous by its absence.

Furthermore, it is a disappointing surprise to witness the almost non-existent resilience of the institutions created by the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007, which reformed the European Union. At the time they were praised as a new departure in the framework of international law and as the consolidation of a united European foreign policy.

While we watched the serious conflict in Ukraine on our continent, many of us asked ourselves what the top E.U. authorities, who had been elected transnationally for the first time, were doing: E.U. President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Council President Donald Tusk and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini.

What credibility can possibly remain for structures that are systematically side-lined when conflicts become red-hot?

The problem does not lie in the persons who perform these functions. Such an analysis would be too superficial.

It is rather a question of ascertaining whether European institutions are sufficiently robust to resist what many call a return to the Westphalian system, that is, to the treaties of 1648 that demarcated a new order in Europe founded on the nation-state as the basis of international relations.

Outside Europe, this tendency has been developing for some time. The role of global power is increasingly taken over by “mega states”: the United States, Russia, China, India, and soon to include Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia.

The European Union has difficulty matching up to these as a valid counterpart.

I am afraid that this tendency may lead to the definitive crisis of the European federalist project. However, we federalists must resist the trend and reflect on the best way to face the situation.

Since 2008, the economic and political measures taken by EU member countries have aimed at “renationalising” their interests, with the exception of actions implemented by Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank.

Consequently, Europe has abandoned the pursuit of a common foreign policy and has reverted to inter-governmental practices that prioritise national interests.

The dilemma is clear: either the European Union is a global power and is recognised as such, or Europe will be represented by others in crucial debates.

In this context, what is emerging is that Germany is increasingly taking on a new role.

This process began with the bizarre designation in 2006 of a group of countries to negotiate with Iran, known as 3+3, or more commonly, outside Europe, as 5+1: the five permanent members of the Security Council (the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France) plus Germany.

Since then Berlin has taken on a leading role, not only in the European context but also in many international affairs, often on behalf of the European Union.

To sum up: the European Union works jointly to the extent that this is possible. After that there is a level at which decisions – and responsibilities – are taken by those with the power to do so. That is the scheme practised in today’s Europe. It is time for other Europeans to sit up and take notice. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Translated by Valerie Dee/ Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service

Excerpt:

By Christopher Occhicone
NEW YORK, Jan 4 2015 (IPS)

A concerted disinformation campaign is being conducted to manufacture consent for military action against the government in Tripoli and the town of Misrata, which has been at the forefront of toppling the despotic Gaddafi dictatorship.

It is ironic that the very same people who called in NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) led airstrikes on satellite phones in 2011 are now being labeled as dangerous ‘Islamist militants’.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

It looks like Western policymakers and legislators in the U.S. and Europe, and the United Nations may all be misinformed, which in turn could unleash catastrophic consequences for the people of Libya.  Undoubtedly a protracted civil war in Libya will swell the numbers of refugees fleeing to Europe manifold.

Impact of Benghazi

To understand the difference between fact and fiction, I spent several days interviewing senior members of the government of Libya and Fajr Libya known in English as Libya Dawn (LD).  My main subject on the side of the government was Mustafa Noah, director of the Intelligence Service of Libya.

What was very clear throughout the interview is that both Noah and his supporters in the government in Tripoli and Libya Dawn are very much pro-U.S. and pro-NATO who they say are “the saviors of Libya”.The Libya story in 2015 is about disinformation, lies and a power-grab in motion clandestinely supported by the Egyptians and their Saudi and Emirati counterparts.

They are genuinely upset at the murder of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and his three colleagues in Benghazi.  Ambassador Stevens is considered “an honourary Libyan who loved the country and its peoples” and who was “above all, a guest whose murder is sacrilege”.

Noah said that the “perpetrators have been paying a heavy price for their crime that is being slowly but surely being exacted upon them”.  He stated categorically for the record that “extremist Takfiri Islamists are clearly rejected by Libya Dawn and the government in Tripoli”.

In my four-hour interview, Noah made it clear that he was happy to talk about any issue, but did not want to be the focus or want it to appear as though he may be vying for power. This was something he came back to later on in the recorded conversation.

In fact, he spoke little about himself and his role despite several attempts to steer the conversation in that direction.

The major point Mustafa Noah made is that the government in Tripoli and Libya Dawn (as it stands now) is/are in the process of trying to set up an inclusive government for all Libyans.  His opinion is that opponents – specifically retired Libyan General Khalifa Belqasim Haftar – were “concerned about consolidating their own personal power base”.

There is mounting evidence that Hafter’s power-grab is being carried out with support of Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah al Sisi and his Saudi and Emirati backers. For example: the MiG-21 bombing runs from across the border, which are tantamount to a war crime for unprovoked and undeclared bombing of a neighbouring country.

And the recent purchase of six Sukhoi Su-30 warplanes delivered to Tobruk by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military (i.e. paid for allegedly by Egypt with funds that most probably originated from the Arab Gulf).

Mustafa Noah seemed genuine insofar as he always had a humble, well-composed, and thoughtful approach to any subject discussed.

He never framed anything in terms of his own accomplishments or involvement but in terms of the people and the revolution for change, stability and prosperity for all Libyans.

Noah was genuinely upset at the thought that someone-like Haftar, who is “working for his narrow personal interests and self-aggrandizement”, could be successful in building a personal power base without regard for the people.

He said Haftar was “using the divisive methods he learned from his time as a crony in the Gaddafi dictatorship”.  Noah found the “thought of a ‘strong man’ coming to power particularly offensive and abhorrent in light of recent history in Libya”.

Mustafa Noah clearly has put a lot of trust in the ability of Libya Dawn, however he is not blindly committed to them.  When I read a list of different militias, brigades, groups that composed Libya Dawn and asked about the character of specific militias, he painted them as all equally for the revolution and composed of good people.

Noah said any group that was not focused on the spirit of the revolution (i.e. anti-corruption, against arbitrary political violence, etc.) would not be a part of the future of a peaceful, stable and prosperous Libya.

His main focus is the Libyan people, creating better institutions, employment opportunities, social services, education, health services, etc.

Mustafa Noah talked about an “inclusive future” for Libya.  He described the “old system of tribalism and manipulation by Gaddafi” and how the “mentality has to change in order for the country to progress”.  Regarding inclusivity in the future, Noah said that they are “open to people from the Gaddafi regime returning to public life once stability is created”.

In fact, Mustafa Noah’s senior advisor on Anti-Terrorism Operations, who joined the conversation halfway through, was in the Gaddafi regime for 37 years.  For Mustafa Noah, the government in Tripoli and Libya Dawn, “there is a place for people from the Gaddafi regime who could prove they were not stealing from the Libyan people or … involved in atrocities against the people”.

Quo vadis Libya 2015?

What I discerned from my recent visit to Tripoli and Misrata is that the power-grab spearheaded by Haftar has more to do with Libya’s oil and gas resources, which are coveted by their neighbours, rather than the red herring of ‘Islamist militants in Tripoli and Misrata’ that is being trumpeted in the news media.

The Libya story in 2015 is about disinformation, lies and a power-grab in motion clandestinely supported by the Egyptians and their Saudi and Emirati counterparts.  What will the U.S. and the Europeans do?

Will they play along in the new ‘Great Game’ or stop another Syria-like imbroglio unfolding where extremist Takfiri militant organisations like the Islamist State (ISIS or ISIL) can feed off and emerge to threaten peace and stability in the Mediterranean and beyond?

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS-Inter Press Service.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Sub-Saharan migrant garbage collectors push their carts through the streets of Tripoli´s old town. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
TRIPOLI, Libya, Dec 18 2014 (IPS)

It’s easy to spot Saani Bubakar in Tripoli´s old town: always dressed in the distinctive orange jumpsuit of the waste collectors, he pushes his cart through the narrow streets on a routine that has been his for the last three years of his life.

“I come from a very poor village in Niger where there is not even running water,” explains the 23-year-old during a break. “Our neighbours told us that one of their sons was working in Tripoli, so I decided to take the trip too.”

Of the 250 Libyan dinars [about 125 euro or 154 dollars] Bubakar is paid each month, he manages to send more than half to his family back home. Accommodation, he adds, is free.

“We are 50 in an apartment nearby,” says the migrant worker, who assures that he will be back in Niger “soon”. It is not the poor working conditions but the increasing instability in the country that makes him want to go back home.

Thousands of migrants remain detained in Libyan detention centres, where they face torture that includes “severe whippings, beatings, and electric shocks” – Human Rights Watch
Three years after Libya´s former ruler Muammar Gaddafi was toppled and killed, Libya remains in a state of political turmoil that has pushed the country to the brink of civil war. There are two governments and two separate parliaments – one based in Tripoli and the other in Tobruk, 1,000 km east of the capital. The latter, set up after elections in June when only 10 percent of the census population took part, has international recognition.

Accordingly, several militias are grouped into two paramilitary alliances: Fajr (“Dawn” in Arabic), led by the Misrata brigades controlling Tripoli, and Karama (“Dignity”) commanded by Khalifa Haftar, a Tobruk-based former army general.

The population and, very especially, the foreign workers are seemingly caught in the crossfire. “I´m always afraid of working at night because the fighting in the city usually starts as soon as the sun hides,” explains Odar Yahub, one of Bubakar´s roommates.

At 22, Yahub says that will not go back to Niger until he has earned enough to get married – but that will probably take longer than expected:

“We haven´t been paid for the last four months, and no one has given us any explanation,” the young worker complains, as he empties his bucket in the garbage truck.

While most of the sweepers are of sub-Saharan origin, there are also many who arrived from Bangladesh. Aaqib, who prefers not to disclose his full name, has already spent four years cleaning the streets of Souk al Juma neighbourhood, east of the capital. He says he supports his family in Dhaka – the Bangladeshi capital – by sending home almost all the 450 Libyan dinars (225 euros) from his salary, which he has not received for the last four months either.

“Of course I’ve dreamed of going to Europe but I know many have died at sea,” explains Aaqib, 28. “I´d only travel by plane, and with a visa stamped on my passport,” he adds. For the time being, his passport is in the hands of his contractor. All the waste collectors interviewed by IPS said their documents had been confiscated.

Defenceless

From his office in east Tripoli, Mohamed Bilkhaire, who became Minister of Employment in the Tripoli Executive two months ago, claims that he is not surprised by the apparent contradiction between the country´s 35 percent unemployment rate – according to his sources – and the fact that all the garbage collectors are foreigners.

“Arabs do not sweep due to sociocultural factors, neither here nor in Egypt, Jordan, Iraq … We need foreigners to do the job,” says Bilkhaire, Asked about the garbage collectors´ salaries, he told IPS that they are paid Libya´s minimum income of 450 Libyan dinars, and that any smaller amount is due to “illegal subcontracting which should be prosecuted.”

Bilkhaire also admitted that passports were confiscated “temporarily” because most of the foreign workers “want to cross to Europe.”

According to data gathered and released by FRONTEX, the European Union´s border agency, among the more than 42,000 immigrants who arrived in Italy during the first four months of 2014, 27,000 came from Libya.

In a report released by Human Rights Watch in June, the NGO claimed that thousands of migrants remain detained in Libyan detention centres, where they face torture that includes “severe whippings, beatings, and electric shocks.”

“Detainees have described to us how male guards strip-searched women and girls and brutally attacked men and boys,” said Gerry Simpson, senior refugee researcher in the same report.

In the case of foreign workers under contract, Hanan Salah, HRW researcher for Libya, told IPS that “with the breakdown of the judicial system in many regions, abusive employers and those who do not comply with whatever contract was agreed upon, can hardly be held accountable in front of the law.”

Shokri Agmar, a lawyer from Tripoli, talks about “complete and utter helplessness”:

“The main problem for foreign workers in Libya is not merely the judicial neglect but rather that they lack a militia of their own to protect themselves,” Agmar told IPS from his office in Gargaresh, west of Tripoli.

That is precisely one of the districts where large numbers of migrants gather until somebody picks them up for a day of work, generally as construction workers.

Aghedo arrived from Nigeria three weeks ago. For this 25-year-old holding a shovel with his right hand, Tripoli is just a stopover between an endless odyssey across the Sahara Desert and a dangerous sea journey to Italy.

“There are days when they do not even pay us, but also others when we can make up to 100 dinars,” Aghedo tells IPS.

The young migrant hardly lowers his guard as he is forced to distinguish between two types of pick-up trucks: the ones which offer a job that is not always paid and those driven by the local militia – a false step and he will end up in one of the most feared detention centres.

“I know I could find a job as a sweeper but I cannot wait that long to raise the money for a passage in one of the boats bound for Europe,” explains the young migrant, without taking his eyes off the road.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Bondok Hassem (left) gets help to mount a mortar inside Zwara´s squat house. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
ZWARA, Libya, Dec 5 2014 (IPS)

It could be a squat house anywhere: music is playing non-stop and there is also a radio station and an art exhibition. However, weapons are also on display among the instruments, and most here wear camouflage uniform.

“The house belonged to a former member of the secret services of [Muammar] Gaddafi so we decided to squat it for the local youth in Zwara [an Amazigh enclave 120 km west of Tripoli, on the border with Tunisia],” Fadel Farhad, an electrician who combines his work with the local militia, tells IPS.It could be a squat house anywhere: music is playing non-stop and there is also a radio station and an art exhibition. However, weapons are also on display among the instruments, and most here wear camouflage uniform.

The centre is called “Tifinagh” after the name given to the Amazigh alphabet. Also called Berbers, the Amazigh are native inhabitants of North Africa.

The arrival of the Arabs in the region in the seventh century was the beginning of a slow yet gradual process of Arabisation which was sharply boosted during the four decades in which Muammar Gaddafi (1969-2011) remained in power. Unofficial estimates put the number of Amazighs in this country at around 600,000 – about 10 percent of the total population

Like most of the youngsters at the centre, Farhad knows he can be mobilised at any time. The latest attack on Zwara took place less than a kilometre from here a little over a week ago, when an airstrike hit a warehouse killing two Libyans and six sub-Saharan migrants.

Three years after Gaddafi was toppled, Libya remains in a state of political turmoil that has pushed the country to the brink of civil war. There are two governments and two separate parliaments one based in Tripoli and the other in Tobruk, 1,000 km east of the capital.

Several militias are grouped into two paramilitary alliances: Fajr (“Dawn” in Arabic), led by the Misrata brigades controlling Tripoli, and Karama (“Dignity”) commanded by Khalifa Haftar, a Tobruk-based former army general.

“Here in Zwara we rely on around 5000 men grouped into different militias,” Younis, a militia fighter who prefers not to give his full name, tells IPS. “We never wanted this to happen but the problem is that all our enemies are fighting on Tobruk´s side,” adds the 30-year-old by the pickups lining up at the entrance of the building.

Local militiamen gather outside their squat house in the Amazigh enclave of Zwara. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

The polarisation of the conflict in Libya has pushed several Amazigh militias to fight sporadically alongside the coalition led by Misrata, which includes Islamist groups among its ranks.

However, the atmosphere in this squat house seems at odds with religious orthodoxy of any kind, with an unlikely fusion between Amazigh traditional music and death metal blasting from two loudspeakers. This is the work of 30-year-old Bondok Hassem, a well-known local musician who is also an Amazigh language teacher as well as one of the commanders of the Tamazgha militia.

“Both Misrata and Tobruk are striving to become the alpha male in this war. We are all fully aware that, whoever wins this war, they will attack us immediately afterwards so we are forced to defend our land by any means necessary,” laments Hassem between sips of boja, the local firewater.

But can it be international partnerships that hamper an already difficult agreement between both sides?

Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and France are backing Tobruk and Misrata relies mainly on Qatar and Turkey. Meanwhile, NATO officials are seemingly torn between wanting to stay out of the war, and watching anxiously as the violence goes out of control. Today, most of the diplomatic missions have left Tripoli, except for those of Italy and Hungary.

A fragile balance

Moussa Harim is among the Amazigh who seem to feel not too uncomfortable siding with the government in Tripoli. Born in Jadu, in the Amazigh stronghold of the Nafusa mountain range – 100 km south of Tripoli – Harim was exiled in France during Gaddafi’s time but he became Deputy Minister of Culture in March 2012.

Although he admits that Islamists pose a real threat, he clarifies that in Misrata there are also people “from all walks of life and very diverse affiliations, communists included.”

It is the geographical location itself which, according to Harim, inexorably pushes the Libyan Amazigh towards Misrata.

“Except for a small enclave in the east, our people live in the west of the country, and a majority of them here, in Tripoli,” the senior official tells IPS.

But there are discordant voices, like that of Fathi Ben Khalifa. A native of Zwara and a political dissident for decades, Ben Khalifa was the president of the World Amazigh Congress between 2011 and 2013.

The Congress is an international organisation based in Paris since 1995 that aims to protect the Amazigh identity. Today Ben Khalifa remains as an executive member of this umbrella organisation for this North African people.

“This is not our war, it’s just a conflict between Arab nationalists and Islamists, none of which will ever recognise our rights,” Ben Khalifa tells IPS over the phone from Morocco. Although the senior political activist defends the right of his people to defend themselves from outside aggressions, he gives a deadline to take a clearer position:

“If Libya´s Constitution – to be released on December 24 – does not grant our legitimate rights, then it will be the time to take up arms,” Ben Khalifa bluntly claims.

At dusk, and after another day marked by exhausting shifts at checkpoints and patrols around the city, the local militiamen cool down after swapping their rifles for a harmonica and a guitar at the squat house. This time they play the songs of Matloub Lounes, a singer from Kabylia, Algeria´s Amazigh stronghold.

“I can´t hardly wait for the war to end. I´ll burn my uniform and get back to my work,” says Anwar Darir, an Amazigh language teacher since 2011. That was the year in which Gaddafi was killed, yet a solution to the conflict among Libyans is still nowhere near.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Children in Aleppo forced underground to go to school, October 2014. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

By Shelly Kittleson
ALEPPO, Nov 6 2014 (IPS)

Winter has not yet hit this nearly besieged city, but children are already attending classes in winter coats and stocking hats.

Cold, damp underground education facilities are less exposed to regime barrel bombs and airstrikes but necessitate greater bundling to prevent common seasonal viruses from taking hold in a city from which most doctors have fled or been killed.

Only one perilous route leads out of the city and northwards to the Turkish border and better medical care, if required.A few of the children in the co-ed primary school seem shell-shocked, but many smile and laugh readily on the crowded wooden benches stuffed into the cramped, cold spaces.

On the way to an underground school IPS visited in late October, the children must necessarily pass by shop fronts blown out by airstrikes, a few remaining signs advertising what used to be clothing, hairdressers’ or wedding apparel shops with the ‘idolatrous’ images spray-painted black by the Islamic State (IS) when they briefly controlled the area, before being pushed out by rebel groups.

The jihadist group is still battling to retake terrain in the area, with the closest frontline against them being in Marea, an estimated 30 kilometres away from opposition-held areas of eastern Aleppo.

They must also witness the destruction wrought by the regime, which is trying to impose a total siege on opposition areas and which would need to take only a few kilometres more of terrain to do so.

Even if they only live a block away, the children are forced to walk by buildings entirely defaced by barrel bombs, floors hanging down precariously above the heads of fruit, vegetable and sweets street vendors. A pink toilet and part of a couch are still visibly wedged between the upper, mutilated and dangling levels of one such building on their way.

A few of the children in the co-ed primary school seem shell-shocked, but many smile and laugh readily on the crowded wooden benches stuffed into the cramped, cold spaces. Two boys at the front of one of the rooms sway back and forth with their arms around each other’s shoulders, singing boisterously.

Some of the rough walls have been painted sky blue or festooned with holiday-type decorations to ‘’brighten the children’s spirits’’, one of teachers says. A few comic-strip posters have been pasted in the corridor.

Children singing in underground school in Aleppo, October 2014. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

The classes run from 9 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon during the week, one of the instructors – Zakra, a former fifth-year university student in engineering – told IPS.

Zakra, who now teaches mathematics, English and science at the school, said that she gets paid about 50 dollars a month. All of the school’s 15 teachers are women wearing all-covering black garments. Some cover their faces as well, some do not. IPS was told not to photograph them in any case, because many still have family members in regime areas.

‘’The school opened last year,’’ Zakra said, ‘’but then stopped between October 2013 and July 2014, as the barrel-bombing campaign made it too dangerous for parents to send their children to school,’’ even to underground ones.

The young teacher said that she plans on leaving at some point to continue her studies in Turkey but was not sure when, primarily due to economic reasons.

Older students are mostly left to their own devices, because this school and others like it only provide for those ages 6 to 13.

The head of the education department of the Aleppo City Council – who goes by the name of Mahmoud Al-Qudsi – told IPS that some 115 schools were still operating in the area, but that most of them were former ground-level flats, basements or other structures.

Only about 20 original school buildings were still operating, he said, from some 750 in the area prior to the uprising.

Syrian government forces have targeted educational and medical facilities in opposition areas throughout the conflict, and efforts are made to keep the locations secret.

Those preparing for the baccalaureate – the Syrian secondary school diploma – study at home, he said. They then come to centres on established dates to actually take the exams in late June and early July. Word is spread of where they will be held via the Aleppo Today television channel, which broadcasts out of Gaziantep, and posters are put up around the city to announce the times and places.

Turkey, Libya and France currently recognise the baccalaureate exams, Qudsi noted, but ‘’French universities only accepted five of our students last year.’’

Most of the curriculum remains that approved by the regime, but ‘nationalistic’ parts praising the Assad family have been cut and religion classes now teach that ‘’fighting against the Assad regime is a religious duty.’’

‘’We also want to change the curricula, but we can’t right now. We want it to be a Syrian-chosen one – one designed and wanted by all Syrians – but we can’t do that now, given the situation,’’ said Qudsi, ‘’and we obviously don’t have the money to print new books.’’

Most of the low salaries the teachers receive are necessarily funded by various international and private associations because the city council just does not have the funds, he noted.

The council, ‘’was only able to pay the equivalent of 70 dollars each for the entire academic year but the teachers were happy about it nonetheless, since it shows that we appreciate what they are doing.’’

Qudsi was also adamant that even the most fundamentalist parents had not interfered with their teaching.  ‘’We are all in this together. Their children attend our schools, too.’’

The barrel bombs stopped entirely for a number of days earlier this autumn after rebel forces closed in on the Aleppo air defence factories where the crude bombs made of scrap metal and explosives are assembled by regime forces. The bombing has since resumed following regime gains.

On arriving at the scene of one such attack in late October, IPS saw a body pulled from the rubble by the civil defence forces before they rushed with flashlights around the block to get to the other side of the collapsed building, where three young children had been trapped underneath the rubble. All were later found dead.

Families were crowded on the steps outside of other buildings down the street, and flashlight beams illuminated the faces of clutches of frightened children, an adult or two nearby in the dust raised by the concrete slabs brought down in the impact.

The schools at least give the children a chance to focus on something other than the destruction and death surrounding them, Qudsi told IPS, and ‘’are the only chance of Syria having any future at all.’

(Edited by Phil Harris)

At a time when HIV rates have stabilised or declined elsewhere, the epidemic is still advancing in the Arab world, exacerbated by factors such as political unrest, conflict, poverty and lack of awareness due to social taboos.

According to UNAIDS (the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS), an estimated 270,000 people were living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in 2012.

“It is true that the Arab region has a low prevalence of infection, however it has the fastest growing epidemic in the world,“ warns Dr Khadija Moalla, an independent consultant on human rights/gender/civil society/HIV-AIDS.With the exception of Somalia and Djibouti, the [HIV] epidemic is generally concentrated in vulnerable populations at higher risk, such as men-who-have-sex-with-men, female and male sex workers, and injecting drugs users

The United Nations estimates that there were 31,000 new cases and 16,500 new deaths in 2012 alone. “Infections grew by 74 percent between 2001 and 2012 while AIDS-related deaths almost tripled,” says Dr Matta Matta, an infection specialist based at the Bellevue Hospital in Lebanon.

However, both Moalla and Matta explain that figures can be often misleading in the region, due to under-reporting and the absence of consistent and accurate surveys.

With the exception of Somalia and Djibouti, the epidemic is generally concentrated in vulnerable populations at higher risk, such as men-who-have-sex-with-men, female and male sex workers, and injecting drugs users.

In Libya, for example, 90 percent of those in the latter category also live with HIV, notes Matta. Furthermore, adds Moalla, most Arab countries do not have programmes allowing for exchange of syringes.

The legal framework criminalising such activities in most Arab countries means that it is difficult to reach out to specific groups.  With the exception of Tunisia, which recognises legalised sex work, female sex workers who work clandestinely in other countries are not safeguarded by law and thus cannot force their clients to use protection, which allows for the spread of disease.

Lack of awareness, the absence of voluntary testing and of sexual education, social taboos, as well as poverty, are among the factors driving HIV in the region. “Arab governments and societies deny the epidemic and the absence of voluntary testing means that for every infected person we have ten others that we do not know about,” stresses Moalla.

People living with HIV or those at risk face discrimination and stigma.  “More than half of the people living with HIV in Egypt have been denied treatment in healthcare facilities,” explains Matta.

This bleak scenario is compounded by the security challenges prevailing in the region which not only make it difficult to deliver prevention and other programmes, but also restrict access to services by those on treatment and cause displacement and loss of follow-up according to the UNAIDS report.

The war in Iraq that began in 2003, for example, led to the destruction of most of the country’s programmes and facilities under the National AIDS Programme and, according to Moalla, the national aids centre in Libya was recently burnt down.

In addition, in some countries, conflict has significantly increased the vulnerability of women. By 2012, for example, only eight percent of the estimated number of pregnant women living with HIV in the MENA region received appropriate treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission according to the UNAIDS report.

Meanwhile, only a few governments have worked on effective programmes to fight the epidemic, although there are signs of the emergence of NGOs tackling the problem with people living with HIV and providing them with support.

“North African countries and Lebanon have generally done better than others, while Gulf countries are doing the least,” says Moalla, adding that less than one in five people living with HIV are receiving the medicines they need in the Arab region.

While some efforts have been made with the UNDP HIV Regional Programme pioneering legal reform in several countries, as well as drafting an Arab convention on protection of the rights of people living with HIV in partnership with the League of Arab States, these are not enough.

“The Arab world attitude taking the high moral ground on the issue of HIV is no barrier for the epidemic,” says Matta. “The region’s governments need to address a growing problem that is only worsened by the general upheaval.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Group of asylum seekers in Casoli, near Bagni di Lucca, Italy. Credit: Silvia Giannelli/IPS

By Silvia Giannelli
LUCCA, Italy, Aug 1 2014 (IPS)

His journey started four years ago in Conakry, Guinea. Now that Mamoudou* has finally reached Italy, he hopes this will be his final stop.

When he first left his home, his plan was to stay in Libya, but after the 2011 crisis, when Gaddafi’s government was overthrown, life in the country became very hard for migrants. “I was jailed 28 times, and tortured,” he told IPS, “so I decided to come to Italy, because it’s a democracy and I hope I will have a peaceful and secure life here.”

Together with 13 other asylum seekers from Mali, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Mamoudou is now living in a tiny village in the Tuscan mountains, where the ‘Partecipazione e Sviluppo’ association is taking care of his application.“While trying to look at tackling the root causes [of migration] in economic disparity may be a laudable objective, it is not going to make a difference any time soon […] Without an effective rescue response people are going to drown, and they have drowned, and more will drown” – Benjamin Ward, Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch

They all arrived between April and June from Libya, where they had migrated to escape conflicts and hunger and it is now painful for them to recall how their voyage took. “

In order to smuggle me to the Libyan coast, they put me in the boot of a car,” says Mamoudou. “I don’t know how many hours I spent there and what day I left Libya, but my registration documents say I arrived in Sicily on April 11. “

He paid the equivalent of 1,000 dollars to human traffickers to share a boat with 80 people and no skipper. “They told us where the North was and that we should have taken turns steering. When the Italian Navy found us, we had no idea where we were and the boat was already sinking.”

Since the tragedy off the Italian island of Lampedusa, which left more than 350 migrants dead in October last year, the Italian authorities have started a rescue operation called ‘Mare Nostrum’ (Our Sea). Mamoudou is one of the more than 80,000 migrants that have been saved since the operation started, winning appreciation from human rights NGOs and European Union authorities.

“Mare Nostrum is extremely important because it has saved many lives,” Benjamin Ward, Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch, told IPS. “We think it is something that needs to continue and we are among other groups calling for the European Union to respond positively to Italy’s call for European support for the operations”.

Given the high costs of the operations – about 9.3 million euro a month, according to Italian Navy – the Italian Minister of the Interior, Angelino Alfano, who is also leader of the New Centre Right (NCD) party, has stressed on several occasions the need for Frontex, the European Union border management agency, to take over Mare Nostrum.

“Mare Nostrum was set up as an emergency operation. It can’t last forever,” the minister told G6 interior ministers in Barcelona in June. ”Europe must replace Italy in this effort, and Italy will continue to make its contribution,” he added.

“Europe must come up with a clear strategy to regulate the flow of migrants. The Mediterranean that unites us is a European sea. It does not just belong to Italy, Spain, or any of the other countries that look onto this extraordinary body of water,” said the minister.

Yet, the answer of the European Commission leaves little room for negotiation. “Mare Nostrum is a very broad and expensive operation and Frontex is a small agency, it cannot take over Mare Nostrum,” Michele Cercone, spokesperson for EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström, explained to IPS. “Of course Frontex can and will contribute and can do a lot, but we don’t have the means to totally substitute it.”

Despite the widespread approval that the Italian rescue operation enjoys, Italian right-wing party Northern League has been calling for its termination since its early stages. “The only real outcome of Mare Nostrum is the favour we make to the traffickers, who can now leave tens of thousands of people at risk of dying, because they know the Navy will come and rescue them,” Massimiliano Fedriga, party leader in the Chamber of Deputies, told IPS.

“The only real solution is to have EU observatories in the North African countries to verify who has the right to receive asylum, which must be a European asylum and not the asylum of a single country. The others, the illegal migrants, who are the majority, should not come and must not come to our country,” he concluded.

Yet, in April Alfano had already said that “immigration is deeply changing profile […] there are increasingly more asylum seekers than economic migrants.”

Riccardo Noury, communications director of Amnesty International Italy, confirmed. “The migrants who arrive, when they manage to survive, at the European border, which is often the Italian and the Greek border, are mostly people who would have the right to asylum or other types of international protection,” he told IPS.

Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch seem to be mostly concerned by Europe resistance to changing its approach towards migration.

“Obviously there are other aspects like border enforcement, like taking action against dangerous smuggling, which are important and need to continue, but we do think that saving lives should be the top priority,” said Ward.

“While trying to look at tackling the root causes in economic disparity may be a laudable objective, it is not going to make a difference any time soon […] Without an effective rescue response people are going to drown, and they have drowned, and more will drown. That in our view is something that has to be engaged. The European Union can’t simply say that it’s Italy’s mess to fix,” he added.

According to Noury, there are several reasons why Italy’s requests have not been heard.

“In the past years, Italy has lost the chance to show credible policies while asking for Europe’s support. We have been the country of push-backs, the country that threatened to release fake residence permits during the 2011 crisis to allow migrants to cross the Italian Northern border… we haven’t been a reliable partner when it came to reform the EU’s migration policies,”  the Amnesty International spokesperson commented.

“But we now have another opportunity, with the EU presidency [which Italy assumed for a six-month period at the beginning of July], to assume a leadership role.”

If Italy fails to obtain strategic and financial support from the European Union, it will be soon forced to scale down or discontinue its rescue operations. One year after the Lampedusa tragedy, exactly same conditions might be in place, and the consequences could be deadly once again.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

 * Name changed to protect his identity.

The government of Mali and Touareg rebels representing Azawad, a territory in northern Mali which declared unilateral independence in 2012 after a Touareg rebellion drove out the Malian army, resumed peace talks in Algiers last week, intended to end decades of conflict.

The talks, being held behind closed doors, are expected to end on July 24.

Negotiations between Bamako and representatives of six northern Mali armed groups, among which the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) is the strongest, kicked off in Algiers on July 16. Diplomats from Mauritania, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and other international bodies are also attending the discussions.

Moussa Ag Assarid, MNLA spokesperson. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

IPS spoke with writer and a journalist Moussa Ag Assarid, MNLA spokesperson in Europe.

You declared your independent state in April 2012 but no one has recognised it yet. Why is that?

We are not for a Touareg state but for a secular and democratic multi-ethnic model of country. We, Touaregs, may be a majority among Azawad population but there are also Arabs, Shongays and Peulas and we´re working in close coordination with them.

Since Mali´s independence in 1960, the people from Azawad have repeatedly stated that we don´t want to be part of that country. We do have the support of many people all around the globe but the states and the international organisations such as the United Nations prefer to tackle the issue without breaking the established order.

And this is why both the United Nations and Mali refer to “jihadism”, and not to the legitimate struggle for freedom of the Azawad people.

However, we are witnessing a reorganisation of the world order amid significant movements in northern Africa, the Middle East, and even Europe, as in the case of the Ukraine. It´s very much a clear proof of the failure of globalisation and the world´s management.“We [the people of Azawad] do have the support of many people all around the globe but the states and the international organisations such as the United Nations prefer to tackle the issue without breaking the established order” – Moussa Ag Assarid

The French intervention in the 2012 war was seemingly a key factor on your side. How do you asses the former colonial power´s role in the region?

The French have always been there, even after Mali´s independence, because they have huge strategic interests in the area as well as natural resources such as the uranium they rely on. In fact, you could say that our independence has been confiscated by both the international community and France.

The former Malian soldiers have been replaced by the U.N. ones but the Malian army keeps committing all sort of abuses against civilians, from arbitrary arrests to deportations or enforced disappearances, all of which take place without the French and the U.N. soldiers lifting a finger.

Meanwhile, Bamako calls on the French state to support them under the pretext they are fighting against Jihadism.

Another worrying issue is the media blackout imposed on us. Reporters are prevented from coming to Azawad so the information is filtered through Bamako-based reporters who talk about “Mali´s north”, who refuse to speak about our struggle and who become spokesmen and defenders of the Malian state.

So what is the real presence, if any, of the Malian state in Azawad?

Mali´s army and its administration fled in 2012 and the state is only present in the areas protected by the French army, in Gao and Tombouktou. Paris has around 1,000 soldiers deployed in the area, the United Nations has 8,000 blue helmets in the whole country, and there are between 12,000 and 15,000 fighters in the ranks of the MNLA.

We coordinate ourselves with the Arab Movement of Azawad and the High Council for the Unity of Azawad. Alongside these two groups we hold control of 90 percent of Azawad, but we are living under extremely difficult conditions.

We obviously don´t get any support from either Mali or Algeria and we have to cope with a terrible drought. We rely on the meat and the milk of our goats, like we´ve done from time immemorial and we fight with the weapons we confiscated from the Malian Army, the Jihadists, or those we once got from Libya.

You mention Libya. Many claim that the MNLA fighters fought on the side of Gaddafi during the Libyan war in 2011. Is that right?

Many media networks insist on distorting the facts. Gaddafi did grant Libyan citizenship to the Touaregs but he later used them to fight in Palestine, Lebanon or Chad. In 1990, they went back to Azawad to fight against the Malian army and, even if we had the chance, we did not make the mistake of fighting against the Libyan people in 2011.

Gaddafi gave Touaregs weapons to fight in Benghazi but the Touareg decided to go to Kidal and set up the MNLA. It´s completely false that the MNLA is formed by Touaregs who came from Libya. Many of our fighters have never been there, neither have I.

Do Islamic extremists still pose a major concern in Azawad?

In January 2013, AQMI (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), MUJAO (Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa), a splinter group of AQMI and Ansar Dine attacked the Malian army on the border between Mali and Azawad.

Mali´s president asked for help from Paris to oust them but it´s us, the MNLA, who have been fighting the Jihadists since June 2012. The United States, the United Kingdom and France claim to fight against Al Qaeda but it´s us who do it on the ground. Ansar Dine has given no sign of life for over a year but AQMI and MUJAO are still active.

One of the most outrageous issues is that Bamako had had strong links with AQMI in the past, or even backed Ansar Dine, whose leader is a Touareg but the people under his command are just a criminal gang. Today, the Jihadists backed by Bamako have become stronger than the Malian army itself.

Are you optimistic about the ongoing talks with Bamako?

So far we have signed all sorts of agreements but none of them has ever been respected. Accordingly, we have already discarded the stage in which we would accept autonomy, or even a federal state. At this point, we have come to the conclusion that the only way to solve this conflict is to achieve our independence and live in freedom and peace in our land.

Mali has never fulfilled its word so that´s why we call on the international community, France and the United Nations.

At Cairo's Tahrir Square. Credit: Mohammed Omer/IPS

By Emile Nakhleh
WASHINGTON, Jan 24 2014 (IPS)

As the Egyptian revolution against Hosni Mubarak celebrates its third anniversary, the military junta under General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is resurrecting dictatorship under the veneer of “constitutional” legitimacy and on the pretense of fighting “terrorism.”

Syria is still ablaze. Yemen has yet to sever the tentacles of the Saleh regime, and Libya remains in the chaotic throes of tribal fissures and militia violence. Tunisia is the only “Arab Spring” country that is transitioning to democracy wisely and pragmatically.Although dictators fell, most of the old regimes remained intact. The re-emergence of the Mubarak-era dictatorship under General Sisi is the most vivid example.

The uprisings in the past three years have rattled Arab dictators and forced Washington to reassess its relations with the region. Arab autocrats have fought the uprisings and resisted all efforts to redesign the decades-old social contract with their people. Four fell.

Those who are still in power continue to inflict destruction on their countries and repress their citizens.

Yet, some policymakers, talking heads, and academics in Washington and other Western capitals are myopically advocating reconciling with existing regimes, including the Syrian tyrant. Self-proclaimed regional experts are advising these policymakers that Gulf monarchies, for example, are stable and secure and should be embraced.

Likewise, some of these experts are calling on Washington to engage the Egyptian military junta because, they argue, Egypt is the centrepiece of U.S. policy and interests in the region. They maintain these interests should trump American values, which were trumpeted by President Barack Obama in his initial support of the anti-Mubarak revolt.

This “expert” advice reflects a shortsighted, shallow knowledge of the region and is devoid of any strategic analysis of future relations between Arab peoples and their rulers. If followed, it would harm long-term U.S. interests in the region.

Let us remember that three years ago, many of these experts missed the Arab Spring all together, as was pointed out in the 2011 Stimson Institute’s Seismic Shift report.

Many academics and journalists paid scant attention to endemic grievances in Arab societies and focused instead on the “deep state” narrative, which they bought from the regimes hook, line, and sinker.

A few distinguished U.S. journalists, such as the late Anthony Shadid of the New York Times, were aware of what was boiling below the surface in places like Egypt despite the glossy mask of stability that Mubarak and his fellow autocrats presented to the outside world.

It is unfortunately understandable that some policymakers and academics are leaning toward accepting this narrative now because they are becoming disgusted with the bloody tumult across the region and the rise of radicalism and terrorism.

Some academics similarly are trumpeting the “stability” narrative, especially in the Gulf. These “access academics” — who forego serious analysis of regimes’ repressive policies in order to be allowed into those countries and meet with officials — are repeating the same analysis they offered before the revolutions of 2011.

In the Gulf monarchies, as the British academic Christopher Davidson of Durham University has pointed out in his book “After the Sheiks,” the absence of legitimacy, continued repression, and sectarianism will hasten the collapse of these tribal regimes.

Professor Davidson maintains some academics, retired generals and sitting and former diplomats are peddling the “stability” fiction for potential access and economic gain.

Promising business deals, lucrative post-retirement jobs, country visits, and Gulf investment in European and American university buildings are even influencing the type of research, analysis, and academic conferences that are being conducted on the present and future of Gulf monarchies.

Fortunately, some scholars such as Toby Matthiesen of Cambridge University are seriously assessing the long-term destructive nature of bloody sectarianism across the region, which for the most part is being pushed by regimes.

Several factors are driving this pernicious phenomenon. First, although dictators fell, most of the old regimes remained intact. The re-emergence of the Mubarak-era dictatorship under General Sisi is the most vivid example.

The military junta’s harsh sentencing of Ahmad Maher, Ahmad Duma, and Muhammad Adel — key activists in the January 2011 revolution — and the espionage charges against two of Egypt’s most prominent intellectuals, Emad Shahin and Amr Hamzawy, signal that the deep security state is alive and well in Egypt.

The military’s harsh crackdown against all opposition–secular and Islamist–belies its claim that Egypt is on the road to democracy.

The recent branding of the Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist” organisation moves Egypt away from political reconciliation, the new “constitution” notwithstanding. In fact, the recently ratified document enshrines the power of the military as an institution impervious to any form of accountability.

The politically motivated capital crime charges against the deposed President Mohamed Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders underpin the vengeful anti-democratic policies of General Sisi.

Despite flagrant human rights violations and sham trials, the Obama administration is tragically maintaining its military aid to the Egyptian military.

Furthermore, the U.S. State Department has withdrawn the name of Robert Ford as ambassador designate to Egypt from consideration in response to objections from the Egyptian military, according to media reports.

Second, the authoritarian regimes that are still in power are employing comprehensive hard and soft power tools, violently and viciously, in order to keep their rule. Bashar al-Assad has rendered his country a wasteland, killing over 130,000 Syrians and forcing millions to become refugees in an attempt to defeat the opposition.

Much like Egypt’s Sisi, he is feverishly trying to convince Washington and other Western capitals that he is the most effective force against terrorism and (Saudi) Wahhabi extremism. His foreign minister has repeatedly stated that if Western leaders hope to keep Salafi jihadists from overrunning Syria, Assad is their man.

It would be tragic if Washington falls for this ruse. It was Assad who worked closely with radical Salafis first in Iraq and then in Syria. He had hoped Salafis would discredit the moderate, secular opposition — a self-fulfilling prophecy he is happy to see come to pass.

Third, as these regimes fail to defeat their popular revolts and reject meaningful dialogue with the opposition, radical elements and Salafi jihadists begin to fill the power vacuum in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere. The ensuing stalemate is already producing more turbulence, anemic economies, debilitating uncertainty, and diminishing personal security.

No winner will emerge in the foreseeable future, which hopefully would force Washington to make hard choices. Simply put, these choices involve drawing a morally palatable balance between values and interests. If Washington hopes to be on the right side of history, interests should never be allowed to trump values of good governance, certainly not in the wake of the Arab uprisings of 2011.

Emile Nakhleh is a former Senior Intelligence Service Officer, a Research Professor at the University of New Mexico, and author of “A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World.”

At the Kawrgosik Refugee Camp near Erbil, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, more than 200,000 refugees from Syria are being hosted by the regional government. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 17 2014 (IPS)

The widespread sectarian violence and ongoing military conflicts in several political hotspots, including Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, have not only claimed thousands of human lives and devastated fragile economies but also undermined the U.N.’s longstanding plans to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty worldwide.

The U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), the world body’s lead agency monitoring human development, points out that the political turmoil, including in countries such as Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, is threatening to derail the U.N.’s highly-touted Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), specifically in the Arab world.

“The crisis in Syria is a crisis for development across the Arab region,” warns Sima Bahous, chairman of the U.N. Development Group (UNDG) in the Arab States Region.

While suffering a major setback in human development, including in education, literacy, health care and life expectancy, Syria has also been singled out as one of the countries responsible for triggering the spreading economic chaos in the region.

Citing a new UNDP report, Yasmine Sherif, special adviser on strategic partnerships & resource mobilisation at UNDP’s Regional Bureau for the Arab States (RBAS), told IPS the conflict in Syria has rolled back human development achievements by 35 years, leaving more than 50 percent of the population (12.6 million people) living in poverty, 9.3 million in need of humanitarian and development assistance and 6.5 million displaced from their homes.

According to the report, released in September, the crisis has also forced some 2.3 million people to flee Syria into neighbouring countries.

Most of them (about 80 percent) do not live in refugee camps but amidst host communities, severely impacting municipal and social services, such as health, education, sanitation, housing and socioeconomic infrastructure, as well as social cohesion in those communities.

Sherif said UNDP is implementing a resilience‑based development approach (livelihoods, vocational skills training, rapid employment, basic rehabilitation) for crisis-affected communities in Syria and host communities in neighbouring countries.

UNDP’s total requirement amounts to 166 million dollars in the subregion, of which 138 million dollars refers to the U.N. Rapid Response Plan and the Syria Humanitarian Assistance Response Plan ‑ both prepared by the U.N. system for Wednesday’s pledging conference in Kuwait which raised more than 2.4 billion dollars, along with 400 million dollars from non-governmental organisations (NGOs)..

Asked how these funds will be disbursed, Sherif told IPS U.N. agencies identify priorities – for instance UNDP identifies priorities together with beneficiaries – and then donors pledge against those priorities. But sometimes, she said, donors themselves suggest priorities. “What is presented by UNDP and other agencies in Kuwait is based on identified needs and priorities in-country,” she added.

The agencies seeking funding also include the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Secretary-General Bank Ki-moon, who chaired the pledging conference, said the nearly three-year-old conflict has “set Syria back for years, even decades.”

The negative fallout is also “damaging stability and reversing development across the region,” he warned.

The spillover of the refugee crisis – with over 6.5 million people described as “internally displaced” – is causing “great hardship and raising tensions throughout the region”, according to Ban.

And indirectly, the Syrian conflict has triggered secretarian violence in two neigbouring countries: Iraq and Lebanon.

According to a joint World Bank-United Nations study cited by Ban, the conflict has cut economic growth in Lebanon by nearly three percent annually, leading to total losses of up to 7.5 billion dollars.

In Jordan, the cost of hosting Syrian refugees could exceed 1.5 billion dollars, while the high costs have also impacted on Turkey and Iraq.

Bahous, who is also director of UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Arab States, points out that the impact of the Syrian crisis “goes far beyond even the tragic and terrible widespread death and destruction in that country: it is also slowing the region’s progress on development.”

The UNDP report also said that economic activity has been slowed in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen – all three countries which are undergoing complex political transitions.

The New York-based agency also said that while the Arab region had made progress towards many of the MDGs, including hunger and poverty alleviation, progress has been thwarted due to the “widespread impact of the ongoing conflict in Syria.”

According to U.N. Under Secretary-General Valerie Amos, who heads emergency operations, the WFP needs about 100 million dollars to provide more than four million Syrians with food – for just one month.

And the UNFPA needs about 10 million dollars to reach 2.8 million people with life-saving reproductive health care services in nine provinces in Syria.

Amos also told donors Wednesday nearly every Syrian is affected by the crisis, with a 45-percent drop in gross domestic product (GDP) and a currency that has lost 80 percent of its value.

Militia commander Ziad Zabala (with a beard) poses next to three policemen at the entrance to the Jadu Police station. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
JADU, Libya , Jan 2 2014 (IPS)

Everybody in this mountain village is seemingly familiar with the new regulations. “People other than militiamen or policemen will be fined 500 dinars [around 300 euros] for carrying guns,” local resident Younis Walid tells IPS.

”If the offence is repeated a second time, the fine will be double; you do it a third time and you are taken to prison,” adds the 21-year-old student, paraphrasing article 5 of the so-called Jadu Draft for a National Agreement.

Residents from all walks of life of Jadu, a Berber or Amazigh location 150 kilometres southwest of Tripoli, in the Nafusa mountain range, agreed on the ground-breaking document on Oct. 25.

“It´s a compilation of six elementary yet very necessary articles to handle security in our area. The power vacuum after the war is dragging the country towards chaos,” Shokri Agmar, a local lawyer, explains to IPS.

Almost three years after Muammar Gaddafi (1969-2011) was ousted, no date has yet been set for the election of a 60-member constituent assembly to draft a new constitution.

The process, expected to take place sometime in the first quarter of 2014, has failed to awaken enthusiasm among the population, especially the country´s minorities. The Amazighs, Tuaregs and Tubus altogether have only been granted six seats.

Meanwhile, the new government can hardly cope with the myriad armed groups who only pay allegiance to local, or even individual, interests. Last November, Tripoli witnessed the biggest spike in violence since the end of the war in 2011, when a peaceful demonstration against the impunity with which militias operate in the country’s capital ended with dozens killed and almost 500 injured.

“If our neighbours in Zintan [an Arab enclave in this predominantly Berber area] have not attacked us so far it´s only because they know that ours is also a very powerful militia. And this pattern applies to the whole country,” states Agmar. “All Libyan militias are preparing for war.”

It may well be a de facto rule for the rest of the country, but article 1 of the Jadu draft agreement grants official recognition to the local militia as the “main security force in the area alongside the local police.”

“There are 15 of us policemen in Jadu,” a local police officer told IPS. “We work in shifts of five men but we only deal with small issues as we do not have the training or equipment to tackle bigger threats. For the latter, the agreement states that we should get support from the local militia.”

The official didn´t want to disclose his name but had no problem getting his picture taken.

Whereas the higher ranks among the regime forces were removed after the revolution, regular policemen still receive a government salary. And communication with the local militia appears to be fluent. Commander Ziad Zabala shows up for a mid-morning coffee break.

“Luckily enough, Jadu is among the quietest places in Libya,” Zabala tells IPS before pointing on a map to the bypass roads locals take on their way down to Tripoli. “People here are peaceful but we have to watch to prevent aggressions from our neighbours in Zintan or those down the valley.

“None of us takes the direct route up here. You are likely to lose your car if you dare to cross that territory,” warns the former fighter who is now a paramilitary officer.

Sitting next to him, militia chief commander Yousif Said confirms that his force is “independent from the Libyan Ministry of the Interior.” Apparently, many other bodies and institutions also remain in some kind of legal limbo.

“We have no prison as such in Jadu so we have reached an agreement with the one in Gheryan [60 kilometres southeast of Tripoli] so they can host our prisoners until they go on trial,” Said tells IPS.

According to a United Nations report released in October 2013, around 8,000 detainees remain in custody without charges, under suspicion of fighting alongside Gaddafi’s troops. The report also highlighted that countless other individuals are held by local militias under conditions worse than the ones in the official prisons.

Article 4 in Jadu´s agreement exhorts the families of former prisoners who escaped after the war to hand them over to the local council authorities. And Article 3 gives the local elders full competence to settle disputes within the community.

“It´s a group of eight elected people who have historically enjoyed the support and respect of the community,” explains Shokri Agmar. “Whatever legal issue you have, you would ask for their help, but you would never turn to the official authorities,” adds this young lawyer from a lawless country.

According to Agmar, it was actually Jadu that mediated between Tripoli and Misrata after the clashes in November, a move which led to a progressive withdrawal of Misrata militias from the country´s capital.

Ruling the old way

Civil servants languish behind their desks at Jadu´s District Court, a three-storey building at the entrance to the village. All of them refuse to speak with IPS on the agreement in question.

From the empty corridors papered with portraits of those killed during the revolution, Agmar points out that the draft doesn´t explicitly take the District Court into account, but doesn’t reject it either.

“You never know, if this country ever starts to function normally we may need to include them at some point.”

For the time being, it´s difficult to know which is number one among Libya´s most pressing problems. Faizal Egira, a local teacher, shares his own view:

“A teacher in Libya only gets 600 dinars whereas a militiaman is earning 1000,” complains this teacher on strike from the town´s best-known pizza restaurant.

Egira, 50, admits that the agreement is a “starting-point rather than a definitive solution.”

Asma Bin, an NGO worker and also a native Berber, agrees. But she says she feels “rather sceptical” about the likelihood of any significant improvement in the short term.

“This is nothing new as every single town or village in Libya has its own rule,” explains the 30-year-old woman. “The only difference in Jadu is that they wrote it on a sheet of paper.”

Libyan writer Aicha Almagrabi says women were part of Libya’s revolution but seen no political benefits from their participation. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
TRIPOLI, Dec 19 2013 (IPS)

Unless immediate changes are enforced, Libya is heading towards an “Afghan” model regarding women´s rights, Aicha Almagrabi, a Libyan writer and senior women rights activist, told IPS from her residence in Tripoli.

Women who fight for their rights in Libya “are constantly insulted, harassed and threatened,” lamented the 57-year-old university professor, who also chairs the Organisation for the Defence of Freedom of Thought.

Almagrabi studied philosophy in Libya and France and is the author of four books of poetry, a novel and a play which has just been published in Arabic. She´s currently working on three other books, a task which she combines with her activism and lessons on “Philosophy of the Plastic Arts”.

Q: Last October marked two years since the overthrow and brutal killing of Muammar Gaddafi. What has changed for Libyan women since then?

A: Things have changed but not for the better, and we´ve lost the few rights we had. As an example, polygamy is still common currency in Libya but, at least, a man needed his wife´s approval to marry a second wife under Gaddafi (1969-2011). That is no longer required.

Actually, reviewing the law on polygamy was the first thing Mahmoud Jibril (head of the National Transitional Council) mentioned in his famous speech at the end of the (2011) war, even before talking about reconstruction or rebuilding civil society…

Changes? Libyan women were handed over as spoils of war.

At a street level, when women protest they face a lot of violence. Women advocating their rights are constantly insulted, threatened and harassed. We were part of the revolution, we had our own female martyrs, but we didn´t get any political benefits out of it.

Q: But some women do hold government positions today, don´t they?

A: They do, but they´re struggling to keep their seats. Their parties used them for mere electoral purposes. In the Committee of 60 (the group to be set up to write Libya´s constitution) there are only six seats for women.

One of the members of the General National Congress (the Libyan legislature) even suggested measures to prevent men and women from sharing the same space during meetings. Some figures are also eloquent: 90 percent of teachers are women but only two percent have reached the decision-making level.

Q: Nonetheless, politics seemingly play a lesser role compared to that of Libya´s mufti (religious high authority), Sadeq al Ghariani. Many say he is the country’s de facto leader.

A: The mufti holds religious power and is also backed by both the political and military bodies. They want Sharia (Islamic) law to be at the core of the penal code and the future constitution.

What they want to implement is actually based on their own interpretation of the Quran, so we could say that it´s more dangerous than the holy book. There´s always been a lot of talk about Sharia but few seem to notice that there are many versions of it: do we want the Iranian one? The Afghan? Maybe the Moroccan?

One of their main goals is to control women through their own vision of the Quran; that´s one of the reasons it is mandatory to keep religion separate from politics.

Girls at school are now forced to wear the hijab (a headscarf that covers women’s hair and necks but not their faces) and the mufti is also campaigning for all women to always cover their hair.

I´m a professor at Zaytuna University (in Tripoli), and I´m the only one who doesn´t cover her hair. The rest of my female colleagues wear either hijab or niqab (a headscarf and veil which reveals only the eyes). Their number is growing not because of the law – it´s more about group pressure.

Q: There are also rumours about a new fatwa (Islamic ruling) to be enforced from January 2014, according to which women won´t be able to travel across the country without a muharram (male companion).

A: It wouldn´t surprise me at all. I live outside the city, and on Feb. 13 I was stopped by a group of armed men on my way to work. They held me at gunpoint for an hour and a half because I had no muharram travelling with me. I took the issue to the media and it got the attention of the general public. On Mar. 14 we organised a protest called “the march for the dignity of women”. As usual, we were insulted, beaten and harassed.

Q: Is increasing violence in the country the most pressing problem for Libyan women today?

A: It´s just one among several. Women are limited by strong domestic ties. Besides, the streets are not safe for them. There are many street assaults and even kidnappings, but there´s still no visible will to grant women rights in the new constitution.

A low level of participation in civil society is also a big issue. We were very strong at the beginning (of the 2011 revolution) but growing pressure led to a decline in that strength since the end of the war.

Today we are very disappointed because we also took part in the revolution and now they want to change our ideals of freedom and justice through fatwas and religious speeches which have a very strong influence among the new generations.

Even Gaddafi switched to religion back in the 1980s when he realised that Islam could be an effective tool to gain greater influence over people. However, the lack of rights and freedom during his rule pushed many to more extreme positions, such as the Muslim Brotherhood or the Jihadists.

Q: What can help Libyan women in such a difficult scenario?

A: Even in the unlikely case that we finally get a constitution based on human rights, we would also need to conduct another revolution to change the mindset of Libyan women.

Nevertheless, a key question is to break the militia rule as well as that of all armed groups outside the umbrella of the national army and police before the constitution is written. If that doesn´t happen, we´ll be heading towards an “Afghan model” in women´s rights.

A view of the briefing room as Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (left, facing camera) addresses journalists at his annual end-of-year press conference. At his side is his spokesperson Martin Nesirky. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 16 2013 (IPS)

As the ongoing crises in some of the world’s hot spots – including Syria, the Central African Republic, Mali, Libya, Palestine and Darfur, Sudan – continue unabated, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Monday singled out some of the biggest challenges facing the international community in 2014.

At his traditional year-end press conference, Ban said 2013 was the year in which the Syrian conflict, now in its fourth year of relentless killings, has “deteriorated beyond all imagination”."I can think of nothing I would rather see in 2014 than for world leaders to emulate [Mandela's] example in upholding their moral and political responsibilities." -- Ban Ki-moon

“The people of Syria cannot afford another year, another month, even another day of brutality and destruction,” he added.

And 2013, he noted, was also the year in which the Central African Republic “descended into chaos”.

The situation in the Central African Republic has become “one of the most serious crisis issues for the United Nations to manage,” he said.

“I am gravely concerned about the imminent danger of mass atrocities,” Ban warned, appealing to the country’s transitional authorities to protect people.

The crisis in both Syria and the Central African Republic will remain two of the primary issues high on the U.N. political agenda in 2014.

The Syrian crisis is furthest from a resolution since the Security Council remains deadlocked with two veto-wielding permanent members, Russia and China, opposed to any sanctions against the beleaguered regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

A conference of the warring parties is scheduled to take place Jan. 22 in Geneva. But it is in danger of unraveling over several contentious issues, including the composition of the rebel forces’ representation at the conference, and whether or not Iran and Saudi Arabia should participate, besides the five permanent members of the Security Council, namely the United States, UK, France, Russia, China, plus Germany (P5+1).

Meanwhile, the fighting between the government and rebel forces in the Central African Republic has been temporarily thwarted with the deployment of French and African forces.

But as the battle intensifies, Ban is expected to call for an upgrade of the joint military force, called the International Support Mission for the Central African Republic, into a full-fledged U.N. peacekeeping force.

Asked about the important lessons he may have drawn after six years in office, Ban said he was “just amazed there are still so many challenges unresolved”.

The number of crises now seems to be increasing than during his first term, which began in January 2007. At that time, the situation in Darfur was the most serious issue, he said.

“Now you have so many issues,” said Ban, specifically Syria, the Central African Republic and Mali.

Making a strong case for international collaboration, he said “nobody, no organisation, no country, however powerful, however resourceful” can singlehandedly resolve the current crop of problems.

“That is a very important lesson which I learned, and that is why I have been appealing and reaching out to member states: please, let us work together.”

But he cautioned that he himself or even the United Nations cannot do it alone. “We need support from many regional and sub-regional organisations,” he said.

As the situation in Syria continued to deteriorate, there was a humanitarian appeal Monday for a staggering 6.5 billion dollars in funds. The collective appeal came from several U.N. agencies involved in humanitarian assistance to 9.5 million people affected by the fighting in Syria.

The U.N.’s Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos, and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, described the crisis as “appalling”.

Jens Laerke, spokesperson and public information officer at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, (OCHA), told IPS the combined appeal is “the largest ever appeal for a single emergency.”

Asked how much of this will be realised, he said, “We certainly hope the generosity shown by donors in previous years will also apply this time round. Having said that, appeals are rarely if ever 100 percent funded.”

At the press briefing, Ban also laid out some of the key success stories of 2013.

Alongside the new and ongoing crises, he said, 2013 was also a promising year for diplomacy.

The United Nations reached a landmark agreement on the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons programme, while the 193-member General Assembly adopted the Arms Trade Treaty, “realising a long-held dream.”

At the same time, member states agreed on a roadmap for shaping the post-2015 development agenda, which will include a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a logical successor to the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) whose deadline is 2015.

Ban also said the climate change conference in the Polish capital of Warsaw last month “kept negotiations on track for an agreement in 2015.”

And across the Sahel and West Africa, peacekeeping and mediation promoted stability, with the people of Mali conducting peaceful legislative elections last week.

Saturday’s “bombing attack in Kidal will not deter us,” he added.

Ban also referred to “another highlight of 2013”: the agreement reached last month between Iran and the P5+1 countries on Iran’s nuclear programme.

“I hope this initial understanding will be followed by a comprehensive agreement on all outstanding concerns,” he declared.

Finally, 2013 will be remembered, he said, as the year in which the world bid a sad but celebratory farewell to former South African President Nelson Mandela.

“I can think of nothing I would rather see in 2014 than for world leaders to emulate his example in upholding their moral and political responsibilities,” Ban said.

African migrants wait for work in Tripoli that might pay eventually to take them to Lampedusa in Italy. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS.

By Karlos Zurutuza
TRIPOLI, Dec 8 2013 (IPS)

Youssef crossed the Sahara desert with a folded school map of Europe in his pocket. “Could you please point [out] Lampedusa in the map for me? I cannot find it.”

The 28-year-old Nigerian undertook an arduous journey from the capital Abuja to Libya in the hope of some day making it to the Italian island of Lampedusa, 600 km northwest of this city.

“There are no direct flights from Abuja to Tripoli, so I came overland. I paid 800 euros for a five-day journey across the desert on top of a heavily packed truck. They told me to tie myself to it as they would not stop if anybody fell down,” he tells IPS.“Boats usually stop going by November due to difficult sea conditions, but there is still a slight chance of leaving before the year ends."

Libya continues to be a gateway for thousands of undocumented African migrants who are willing to risk its violent militias, harsh detention centres and often fatal rides on overloaded, rickety boats to set sail for Lampedusa – for them the closest point in Europe. Even Asians have been found to use Libya as a transit point.

As they dream desperately of greener pastures, the migrants do odd jobs to earn enough to pay for the boat ride.

Youssef stands by the roadside holding some roller paint. It’s easy to spot him among the dozens of sub-Saharan Africans who stand under the Gargaresh bridge south of Tripoli, until somebody picks them up for a day of work.

The average daily payment for this kind of work is 20 dinars (12 euros), but not everyone is lucky enough to find work at this rate.

“Last week I worked for 10 hours in a row at a construction site, but they didn’t pay me anything at the end of the day. When I started to complain, they put a gun to my head and told me to go away,” recalls Suleyman, a 23-year-old Malian who can hardly wait to leave Tripoli “forever”.

“I’d rather go back home as this is no life. Clashes between militias are constant here and I often get into trouble with them just because I’m black,” he says. “As soon as I have enough money, I’ll head for Lampedusa or it may be too late.”

Work is scarce and the competition severe due to the growing number of migrants gathering in Gargaresh. The charge for a seat on one of the many boats leaving the Libyan coast is around 1,000 dollars. Even if an exhausting day of work is fully paid for, it could take years to save a sum like that.

Besides, there is always a chance of missing the boat.

“Boats usually stop going by November due to difficult sea conditions, but there is still a slight chance of leaving before the year ends,” says 27-year-old Christian.

According to him, growing instability in Libya is pushing many to take greater risks to make it to Lampedusa despite the rough sea.

During the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya turned into a major transit point for African migration to Europe. Gaddafi had famously asked European countries for money to stop the flow.

After he was ousted and killed in 2011, the number of those fleeing the north has increased as lack of security has made it easier for human traffickers to operate.

“Amid growing unrest in the country, the current Libyan government is too busy to monitor the coast. Now our main hurdle is the waves,” a human trafficker told IPS on condition of anonymity.

He admitted to earning around 20,000 euros from each successful trip to Lampedusa. Payments, he said, were only accepted on arrival and through an intermediary in Tripoli.

But the coast is not unwatched.

Imran, 21, came all the way from the Pakistani part of Kashmir to end up sailing aimlessly on a boat for three hours before they were captured by the Libyan coastguard.

“The captain simply didn’t know the route and he got lost,” recalls the young Kashmiri, who spent three months in jail after his first and only attempt to get to Lampedusa.

Despite the harsh conditions at the Libyan detention centre, he still claims he was lucky. “We were around 50 in the same cell, but at least the guards never hit me. For the black guys, though, it was completely different. They would be tortured and beaten in the most brutal way and on a daily basis.”

Women, he adds, were asked for sex in exchange for their release.

His testimony is corroborated by an Amnesty International (AI) report released last June, where the human rights NGO called on the Libyan government to end indefinite detention of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, including children, who had ended up there solely for immigration purposes.

After visiting seven “holding centres”, AI also documented several cases where detainees, including women, were reportedly “subjected to brutal beatings with water pipes and electric cables.”

Imran hopes to try a different boat next time.

“I only paid 500 dinars (300 euros), but the cheap boats, most of them run by Somalis, are the ones that never make it. Next time I’ll try one run by Syrians. They’re way more expensive, but most of them reach shore,” claims Imran, who now works at a hotel as a cleaner.

Elijah, his workmate, is considering the possibility of joining Imran in his next attempt. So far only one thing has prevented him from taking the last step – the risk involved.

“Even if you pay the regular 1,000 dollars fee, you cannot see the boat until the very moment you leave. And they won’t let you pull back,” explains the 28-year-old from Arlit in northern Niger.

The migrants and even local fishermen know only too well the risk of getting into a packed, fragile, raft-like boat.

As Abdala Gheryani, who works at the tiny fishing port of Gargaresh, says, “Every now and then I find corpses trapped in my nets.”

Toubou militiamen at their headquarters in Murzuq, southern Libya. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
MURZUQ, Libya , Nov 26 2013 (IPS)

“Can there possibly be anything more satisfying than teaching your own language to your own people?” Abdel Salam Wahali remarked to IPS. He is a teacher of Tebu, an ancient language which is experiencing a boom in post-Gaddafi Libya.

“Lessons start at 5:00 PM and finish at 7:30 PM because the children go to school in the morning,” Wahali, 38, explained from Murzuq, about 800 kilometres south of Tripoli. “For the time being, formal education is taught in Arabic.”

Living in the inhospitable region crisscrossed by the borders of Libya, Chad and Niger, the Toubou were victims of Muammar Gaddafi´s (1969-2011) brutal Arabisation campaigns seeking to eliminate indigenous cultures and languages.

Many Toubou – whose ancient language is Tebu – were deprived of citizenship, which prevented them from getting healthcare, education and employment.

“Ours is a race against the clock for which we do not have any help from the Libyan government. Still, we are pleased with the results so far,” said Wahali, who also teaches French.

Adam Rami Kerki, the leader of the Toubou National Assembly – the main political organisation for members of this ethnic group in Libya – told IPS from his office in downtown Tripoli: “While today we don´t suffer persecution, the current Libyan government insists on identifying Libya as an ‘Arab’ country, just as Gaddafi did.

“What makes you an Arab? Is it the colour of your skin? Your religion? Your mother tongue? For us one thing is clear: we may not be Arabs but we are Libyans. In fact, traces of human habitation have been found in our region dating back to 30,000 years ago,” added the senior representative, while he underlined the stigma that being black still poses in Libya.

Two years after Gaddafi’s death, the country as a whole is suffering from chronic instability, which recently peaked after the dramatic episodes of violence on Nov. 15, when dozens were killed and hundreds injured after a peaceful march was broken up through the indiscriminate use of force.

The Toubou are watching what is happening in Libya from a distance, hoping that their own militia will be able to react against any possible aggression.

They are all too aware that stability in the region is key to being able to jump on the train to the 21st century.

One of the stops in this merciless desert is the social centre run by “The Sons of the Sahara”, the leading organisation for the cultural awakening of this community. From its headquarters in downtown Murzuq, volunteers teach English and French, as well as Internet courses.

Hassan Egi is one of the group’s coordinators. He stresses the importance of access to the Internet for what he describes as “the most inhospitable region of one of the most isolated countries on earth.

“We Libyans thought we lived in the best country in the world until 1997, when satellite television arrived. The Internet is like a new revolution for us,” the 31-year-old explains to IPS while he strolls among the ten computer terminals.

Adam Kukin is using one of them. At 14, he is able to herd 100 camels across the Sahara desert. But unlike his parents, he can also read and write in his own language. And he is also increasingly familiar with online social networks.

“Thanks to the Internet I know what’s happening in the Murzuq area, and way beyond,” says the teenager.

An ambitious friend

The Toubou “spring” is very much transcending the four walls of the classroom and the cultural centre and spreading across the southwestern Libyan region of Fezzan, or Zalaa in the Tebu language, thanks partly to publications such as the Sodur Zalaa (The Echo of Zalaa) newspaper or the Labara Zalaa (News of Zalaa) magazine.

The latter was launched just as Gaddafi lost his grip over the south, like almost everything else involved in the renaissance of Toubou culture.

“We started printing 500 copies in August 2011 and today we are releasing 2,000 every month,” Ahmed Kuki, the publication’s proud promoter and editor, told IPS.

In its latest issue, Labara Zalaa offers news, interviews, crossword puzzles, song lyrics and even a report from the very heart of the Toubou cultural movement, across the border in the Tibesti mountains of northern Chad.

“We owe Kandamai a lot. None of this would have been possible without his passionate work and the morale boost he has given us,” says Kuki.

Kandamai – which means “ambitious” in the Tebu language – is the name by which the Toubou know Mark Ortman, a linguist from the U.S. who settled in Chad’s Toubou region 20 years ago. His aim was to start a language programme in order to reduce the local language to a written form and develop literacy in Tebu.

“I chose an adaptation of the Latin alphabet as the national language in Chad is French, and it also serves as a bridge into English, which the Toubou in all three countries want to learn,” Ortman told IPS on the phone from the other side of the border, where he is based with his wife and five children. The youngest one, he said, was born in Chad.

Ortman said the future of Libya’s Toubou people depends on to what extent they are able “to continue to avoid assimilation into the Arab worldview and maintain their historical distinctives and culture.”

So far, the strong will of this desert people seems more than proven, partly thanks to the bold initiative of this family which has also reshaped their life.

“Our children essentially grew up among the Toubou and attended local primary school with them,” Ortman said.

“We became a part of this people, and the more we learned about and understood them, the more we believed they share many of the same values as we do, including freedom of religion, separation of church and state, and democracy in the sense that people should be free to choose to live as they want,” explained the man who is helping a long neglected people to write their story. Some may well say he is even part of it.