MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
African migrants flood Italian islands: 19.000 since civil unrest begun in January
Nearly 2,000 African migrants, many of them Eritrean and Somalis, have arrived on Italy's tiny, overcrowded Lampedusa Island in the past 24 hours. It is one of the biggest migrant waves to reach Lampedusa this year. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesAs the African Union so frequently states “African problems need African solutions”.
Mar 29th, 2011 - 01:06 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Turn round all boats, offload all africans, and leave the African Union to do their thing for their own Africans.
Europe's parting shot should be “Sorry mate, not our problem”.
Because, if *this* influx is bad, climate change induced conflicts will produce even bigger and even more warfare-enabled populations to enter Europe. Consider the present proportion of murders committed in Europe by African migrants and the situation would only get worse.
As Margaret Thatcher said “No, . . No, . . . . No”.
Send them to London, they will feel right at home.
Mar 29th, 2011 - 03:23 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Send them to France, England or to the US. I'm sure in the US, Patty Obozo (Obama) will welcome them with open arms.
Mar 29th, 2011 - 05:55 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Those 3 “first” world nations (I love this phrase..lol) can handle them, easily, they are sooo “rich”.
Please, not to Holland or where I am. We're full.
Noooo, Marcos/Fido . . .. that's exactly what I don't want to happen!
Mar 29th, 2011 - 08:14 pm - Link - Report abuse 0How can you be so cruel to these world centres of culture.
There are many bits in London, Paris & NY where they would feel quite at home, but the locals don't appreciate being pushed out of their communities.
Oooo, you are naughty nimbys!
“How can you be so cruel to these world centres of culture”
Mar 29th, 2011 - 09:42 pm - Link - Report abuse 0HAHAHA
Return all stolen treasures in London Museum and your “culture centre” is gone lol.
Marcos,
Mar 30th, 2011 - 12:19 am - Link - Report abuse 0you could campaign to get your government to bring all these displaced poor souls to 'your country'.
That would take a bit of the pressure off, and when they had settled in you would get all the extended families following and bringing new 'wives' to increase their populations.
In a few years they might put up candidates for President etc, with a reasonable numeric chance of success!
Then you could be submerged in a different kind of culture
- call it a cultural learning experience, you know Multiculturism will do you good.
Sure, what about your house in Brazil? I'm sure the Brazilian will kick you out with them all the way back to London.
Mar 30th, 2011 - 01:29 am - Link - Report abuse 0No,no, Marcos, you don't get it . . . .
Mar 30th, 2011 - 10:28 am - Link - Report abuse 0See #4 - that's what a nimby is!
london get ready!
Mar 30th, 2011 - 08:17 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“ Silvio Berlusconi has put on a vintage display of showmanship, claiming he would empty the island of immigrants within 60 hours, nominate locals for a Nobel peace prize and buy a holiday home there.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/30/berlusconi-empty-island-lampedusa-migrants
I'm starting to feel more and more uncomfortable about this military intervention. Preventing a planned massacre is one thing, but now they're talking about arming these mysterious rebels from a region known for its Islamic fundamentalism, who are reportedly killing Sub-Saharan Africans as Gadhaffi mercenaries whether they are or not. That can only come back to haunt us.
Apr 01st, 2011 - 02:07 am - Link - Report abuse 0Swift action to protect civilians is one thing, but this is turning into something else altogether....
Frase, remember who armed Osama and friends back in the 80's?
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 12:22 am - Link - Report abuse 0I hope I'm wrong on that.
Saddam too. We all know how that turned out.
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 03:28 am - Link - Report abuse 0This is going worryingly further than just protecting civilians. Especially now that the CIA is getting involved, and it seems that we're going to arm these rebels.
I'm not defending Gadhaffi, but as I said before, I can see CIA involvement and arming these people to the teeth as something that will come back to haunt us.
Without the intervention of arms on the ground , the massively disproportionate balance of hardware favouring the Gadaffi military will crush any and all opposition well into the forseeable future.
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 11:52 am - Link - Report abuse 0So, if the arms necessary to compete satisfactorily with the Gadaffi forces are introduced, who should hold them?
The Libyan people opposing Gadaffi?
The United Nations?
The African Union?
The Arab Union?
If you have no answer to this question, and you oppose any of these alternatives, then you resign Libya to a continuance of Gadaffi military dictatorship.
It is no good to bleat about *external* intervention, humanitarian and/or self-serving, if you have no *internal* alternative.
Picking a side and arming them hasn't worked out particularly well in the area in the past, so why would this be any different?
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 01:44 pm - Link - Report abuse 0These rebels certainly aren't the same people as in Egypt and Tunisia campaigning for democracy. Are there any real guarantees of long or even short term democracy under their rule? Are there any guarantees that innocent Black Libyans and Sub-Saharan migrants will be safe under the rebel regime? Are there any guarantees that they won’t take brutal retribution on civilians that supported Gadhaffi?
So, we're spending millions in replacing Gadhaffi's paranoia, secret prisons, limited media access and slaughtering of anyone deemed (rightly or wrongly) to be opposed to them with the rebels' paranoia, secret prisons, limited media access and slaughtering of anyone deemed (rightly or wrongly) to be opposed to them.
Does the fact that Al-Qaeda are backing the same group not ring any alarm bells?
With Italy and Germany reportedly wanting to step in to mediate, would it not be better, with reports of Gadhaffi's forces being weakened by 25%, to at least try diplomacy before arming such a questionable group?
Life brings no guarantees, and regime-replacement even less so.
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 07:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Sometimes it seems that accepting a 'Strong Man' who does really bad things but screws down his people into subservience, produces a stability of sorts.
It's not 'peace' and it's certainly not democracy.
We have seen this in Iraq, North Korea, Yugoslavia, Venezuela, and throughout North Africa, where democracy is an unknown or distantly remembered concept.
People have lived under such yokes for hundreds of years, believing this is the way life is and always has to be.
Try to make life better for such screwed-down peoples and you end up in problems whatever tactics you take.
And wherever you accept that my enemy's enemy is my friend you tend to find strange bedfellows that come back to bite you and haunt you at the dead of night.
Is it better to try to help down-trodden peoples?
or is it better to let sleeping dictators lie?
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