Zuma slates Europe over migrant crisis

15/09/2015. President Jacob Zuma shakes hands with Dean of the Diplomatic Corps Ambassador Ben Mpoko after briefing ambassadors and high commissioners about the standpoint of South Africa when it comes to foreign policy. Picture: Masi Losi

15/09/2015. President Jacob Zuma shakes hands with Dean of the Diplomatic Corps Ambassador Ben Mpoko after briefing ambassadors and high commissioners about the standpoint of South Africa when it comes to foreign policy. Picture: Masi Losi

Published Sep 16, 2015

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Pretoria - President Jacob Zuma has told South Africa’s diplomatic corps exactly who was to blame for the migrant crisis enveloping Europe.

“The consistent and systematic bombardment of Libya by Nato forces undermined security in that country – that’s why we’ve got this problem. The migrant crisis is the result of their interference – it is their responsibility, they caused it, and they must address it. That is the painful truth.”

These were potent words coming from South Africa’s president, who remembers all too well how the West pushed aside the African roadmap for peace in Libya in 2011, which Zuma himself had led.

Zuma had been engaged in painstaking shuttle diplomacy between then Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and other African Union leaders.

He firmly believed that the AU could have brokered a negotiated solution to the crisis, and could have made Gaddafi to back down and compromise with the opposition.

But Western powers in Nato were set on regime change in Libya for their own strategic interests and ensured that the African strategy to resolve the conflict was both undermined and ignored.

It was with great frustration that Zuma and his team were prevented from pursuing their mediation due to the no-fly zone imposed by the Nato powers, who then unleashed relentless bombardment on Libya, destroying key infrastructure and wreaking havoc.

“Before the Arab Spring and the killing of Gaddafi, there were no refugees flocking to European countries – it was quiet in North Africa. The killing of Libya’s leader led to serious tension and conflict in the country, and opened the floodgates,” Zuma maintained.

“The beginning of the refugee crisis was triggered by Libya’s security situation. We must not forget this – we forget easily,” Zuma said.

Gaddafi had gone to great extremes to hold back the waves of migrants seeking passage to Europe from Libya during his rule.

Libya had played a crucial role as a barrier against Europe’s unwanted migrants, and Gaddafi had demanded financial support from the EU to keep the waves of migrants at bay.

“We need support from the EU to stop this army trying to get across from Libya,” Gaddafi had told his EU partners in 2010. “Pay me £4 billion and I’ll stop Europe from turning black,” Gaddafi had said.

Even though migrants had been held in appalling conditions in camps in Libya, Gaddafi had kept the floodgates from being burst open.

With his demise and the ensuing civil war into which Libya descended, Libya became a free for all for human traffickers willing to facilitate passage for hundreds of thousands of migrants to Greece and Italy.

Some British opposition politicians have articulated similar sentiments as those espoused by Zuma recently, claiming that Prime Minister David Cameron is partially responsible for the deaths of hundreds of migrants who have drowned off the Libyan coast due to his “fanaticism” in ousting Gaddafi.

The wave of migrants leaving Libya is a human tragedy, with 2 000 having died making the hazardous journey this year alone. Many are Eritreans, Somalis and Sudanese fleeing poverty and human rights abuses, who have travelled the desert to get to Libya.

Independent Foreign Service

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