THE imperialist criminal states – who supported the war on Iraq in 2003, the Security Council-backed NATO onslaught on Libya in 2011, and then the war against Syria, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, and made millions homeless – were in session yesterday to discuss the massive crisis that they have created.
There are now millions of people seeking to flee North Africa and the Middle East, risking drowning in the Med in the process, to get out of the living hell that the imperialist powers have created.
What was under discussion yesterday afternoon was not ending these wars, or massive reparations to attempt to repair the damage that they have done, or assisted relocation of the tens of millions that are suffering!
What was discussed was, in fact, the best way of keeping these desperate people out of western Europe, at all costs, with a recommendation that just 5,000 be allowed to enter the European Union!
Under discussion was launching a military operation against the ‘human traffickers’ in Libya, that is a fraction of the gangsters that NATO put into power who are now profiting from this situation.
It is ironic that those sitting in judgement over them are terrorist states who sought to rob 100% of Iraq’s and Libya’s oil and gas resources through wars and terror.
A draft statement for the summit committed leaders to ‘undertake systematic efforts to identify, capture and destroy vessels before they are used by traffickers’.
In other words, Libyan ports are to be bombed and all shipping capable of carrying refugees to Italy or Greece sunk, with great loss of life no doubt!
The statement added that the EU’s top diplomat Federica Mogherini ‘is invited to immediately begin preparations for a possible security and defence policy operation to this effect, in accordance with international law’.
This must be the law of international piracy where 100% of the issue is decided by force, and where many more innocent people are to die.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Monday evoked the possibility of ‘targeted interventions’ against the Libya-based smugglers that would fall short of a full military intervention.
‘You can’t be serious about this problem if you don’t take Prime Minister Renzi’s proposals seriously, though you have to go through the legal and operational issues,’ said a senior European official on the condition of anonymity.
If approved, the operation would be the first time EU governments used military force to keep out desperate migrants, who from fear of death are fleeing their homelands.
The message for the migrants is that if the traffickers do not kill them then the imperialist powers will!
‘No one is talking about boots on the ground,’ a diplomatic source cautioned, adding that a potential requirement for UN backing would depend on the reach of the mission. ‘This isn’t a war.’
In fact at this very moment, Egypt, whose military rulers volunteered to organise an invasion of Libya, is establishing an Arab army for that very purpose.
The draft resolution proposes that member states provide resettlement to 5,000 migrants. That this is a small fraction of the number that arrive on the shores of southern Europe each year, is obvious.
It is also obvious that what is being spelt out to the migrants is that their lives are worthless and that the best thing for them to do is to die in North Africa, quietly, out of sight of the EU states. And that if they don’t they will be killed.
Even Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday contrasted his country’s hosting of two million refugees from Syria with the EU’s approach of ‘letting the boats sink and leaving them to their deaths’.
British workers who do not want the blood of migrants on their hands must demand that they are allowed immediately into the EU and the UK and be resettled.
It must also be noted that the bosses and bankers of the EU want to smash the Welfare States and the way of life that workers won in Europe and the UK after the Second World War.
In fact, our enemy is at home, and the world’s migrants are our allies. The workers of the world must unite to smash capitalism and imperialism, and replace them with socialism. This is the only way out of the crisis, and the only way to stop imperialist mass murder!
