http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/05/europe-cannot-allow-an-ungoverned-space-to-exist-on-its-doorstep/
Europe cannot allow an ungoverned space to exist on its doorstep
Brian Klaas and Jason Pack
22 May 2015 16:11
A Libyan coastguard boat carrying around 500 mostly African migrants
arrive at the port in the city of Misrata on May 3, 2015, after the
coastguard intercepted five boats carrying people trying to reach
Europe (Photo: Mahmud Turkia/Getty)
Last month, 700 migrants attempting to sneak into Europe drowned when
their rickety vessel capsized in the Mediterranean. This week, the
European Union announced a naval initiative to crack down on migrant
smugglers. It won’t work.
These tragedies are going to recur endlessly, as long as a steady
fleet of unsafe boats are able to set sail from Libya. The country has
become a political vacuum which no longer deserves to be identified as
a sovereign state. The civil war has left no functional state; in many
parts, nobody is keeping the electricity running or schools open, let
alone policing the coastline to stop illegal migration or the flow of
jihadists. Halting human trafficking to Europe is not in the interest
of warring elites, particularly as it’s so lucrative.
Britain’s new Conservative government must confront this crisis
immediately. More than 140,000 illegal migrants reached European
shores in 2014 alone. The numbers for 2015 could easily be double
that. Of course, many never reach the shores: nearly 2,000 migrants
have already died this year; and this toll will continue to rise.
The majority of these migrants are from war-torn countries like
Eritrea, Somalia and Syria. They seek a better life. Out of
desperation, these migrants will risk anything to reach the promised
land of Europe—and Libya’s militias are taking advantage, using them
as yet another commodity to smuggle for profit.
But militia kingpins treat their human cargo with less care than
heroin or petrol. This is because the migrants pay first and sail
second, while other forms of illicit cargo need to arrive safely for
payment to be collected. So long as Libya’s real sovereigns are myriad
local militias who need vast income streams to compete with yet more
powerful militias, periodical tragedy in the Mediterranean will
continue.
Despite its inevitability, the human cost is unacceptable.
Furthermore, the flow of boats is an international security risk, as
human smuggling represents a critical gap in the ability of the UK and
the EU to protect its borderlands from jihadists, militia groups, and
criminal syndicates – all of which thrive in ungoverned spaces. There
is a strategic dimension to the migrant boats crisis as well as a
moral one.
Yet Europe’s response is predicated on the false belief that the
European Union is ‘pulling’ these migrants across the Mediterranean,
luring them with the false hope of an overly inviting asylum policy or
the possibility of being rescued should their boat falter.
The Sun’s columnist, Katie Hopkins, who is almost as ill-informed as
she is needlessly provocative, echoed this argument, suggesting ‘a
huge bonfire of all the boats they have—in order to put a stop to
this’. Peculiarly, the EU summit in Brussels largely adopted this
approach on 23 April as it vowed to use military means to destroy
smuggling boats in harbour. By this laughable logic, the United States
need only burn enough pick-up trucks in Mexico to solve their illegal
immigration problem. Without enough pick-up trucks in Mexico, how else
would migrants reach Texas?
Sound ridiculous? That’s because it is. Human migration is an
unstoppable juggernaut force. Powerful states throughout history—from
the Roman Empire to the modern United States—have been unable to stop
the flow of determined, desperate people. But European
politicians—including David Cameron—have fundamentally misunderstood
the problem. This is not about ‘pull’ factors; it is about ‘push’
factors. Determined, desperate people who are willing to risk their
lives cannot be stopped, but Europe can try to reduce the number of
people that are determined to enter Europe out of desperation—and
certainly can make it more difficult for them to set sail. To do so,
Europe must foster stronger partners in North Africa.
North Africa was, until five years ago, a relative bastion of
authoritarian semi-functional states with solid control of their
territories and their coastlines. That shifted after the Arab Spring,
as turmoil and instability amidst radical political change transformed
the region.
Tunisia’s government has fared well, but still has porous borders.
Libya, on the other hand, is a sieve. Anyone can set sail from Libya’s
coast. The migrant crisis is merely one symptom of Libya’s implosion.
If a political solution were found in Libya, desperate migrants would
not have another easily accessible route; Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, and
to a lesser extent, Tunisia, are capable of reigning in transnational
smuggling operations.
The larger lesson is clear: Europe cannot afford to allow ungoverned
space on its doorstep. The West cannot end the world’s human
suffering, but it can help ensure that at least the scaffolding of a
government exists everywhere. Bureaucrats in Brussels cannot patrol
every beach and port in Libya, but they can help Libya patrol itself
by aggressively facilitating the construction of a semi-functioning
state.
If a new, functional Libya can rise phoenix-like from the ashes of its
ongoing conflict, both sides of the Mediterranean will be more secure.
If not, the boats will keep coming no matter what documents are signed
in Brussels.
Brian Klaas is a Clarendon Scholar and researcher at Oxford
University. He has served as an adviser to International Crisis Group
and the Carter Center. Jason Pack is a Researcher of Middle Eastern
History at Cambridge University and President of Libya-Analysis.com.
He specialises in the Libyan ports sector in his capacity as an
affiliated North Africa Analyst at Risk Intelligence.
Received on Fri May 22 2015 - 21:32:32 EDT