[url]http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/14/africa/libya-migrant-auctions/index.html[/url]
[url]http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42038451[/url]
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/world/middleeast/libya-slave-auction-un.html[/url]
[IMG]https://cs.mg.co.za/crop/content/images/2017/11/22/xIvCHXDOTSWnmyl7TIPi_CNN_Libya_Slave.jpg/800x450/[/IMG]
[QUOTE]Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- "Eight hundred," says the auctioneer. "900 ... 1,000 ... 1,100 ..." Sold. For 1,200 Libyan dinars -- the equivalent of $800.
Not a used car, a piece of land, or an item of furniture. Not "merchandise" at all, but two human beings.
One of the unidentified men being sold in the grainy cell phone video obtained by CNN is Nigerian. He appears to be in his twenties and is wearing a pale shirt and sweatpants.
He has been offered up for sale as one of a group of "big strong boys for farm work," according to the auctioneer, who remains off camera. Only his hand -- resting proprietorially on the man's shoulder -- is visible in the brief clip.
After seeing footage of this slave auction, CNN worked to verify its authenticity and traveled to Libya to investigate further.
Carrying concealed cameras into a property outside the capital of Tripoli last month, we witness a dozen people go "under the hammer" in the space of six or seven minutes.
"Does anybody need a digger? This is a digger, a big strong man, he'll dig," the salesman, dressed in camouflage gear, says. "What am I bid, what am I bid?"
Buyers raise their hands as the price rises, "500, 550, 600, 650 ..." Within minutes it is all over and the men, utterly resigned to their fate, are being handed over to their new "masters."
After the auction, we met two of the men who had been sold. They were so traumatized by what they'd been through that they could not speak, and so scared that they were suspicious of everyone they met.
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/e1FIdBL.gif[/IMG]
Crackdown on smugglers
Each year, tens of thousands of people pour across Libya's borders. They're refugees fleeing conflict or economic migrants in search of better opportunities in Europe.
Most have sold everything they own to finance the journey through Libya to the coast and the gateway to the Mediterranean.
But a recent clampdown by the Libyan coastguard means fewer boats are making it out to sea, leaving the smugglers with a backlog of would-be passengers on their hands.
So the smugglers become masters, the migrants and refugees become slaves.
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/LKxa1g7.gif[/IMG]
"The situation is dire," Mohammed Abdiker, the director of operation and emergencies for the International Organization for Migration, said in a statement after returning from Tripoli in April. "Some reports are truly horrifying and the latest reports of 'slave markets' for migrants can be added to a long list of outrages."
The auctions take place in a seemingly normal town in Libya filled with people leading regular lives. Children play in the street; people go to work, talk to friends and cook dinners for their families.
But inside the slave auctions it's like we've stepped back in time. The only thing missing is the shackles around the migrants' wrists and ankles.[/QUOTE]
[video=youtube;2S2qtGisT34]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S2qtGisT34[/video]
As usual, avoid reading the comments.
The fact that Libya has been allowed to languish in this shitty state for so long now is a fucking embarrassment, and it could have been avoided if the international community had devoted half as much energy to brokering a post-Gaddafi political settlement as they did to helping Libya overthrow him. There's a reason President Obama cited it as the [url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/12/barack-obama-says-libya-was-worst-mistake-of-his-presidency]worst mistake of his presidency[/url]. I still maintain that intervening in Libya was the right thing to do, but building a new democratic, stable Libyan state should have then become one of the West's top foreign policy concerns. Instead it seems we stopped giving a shit as soon as Gaddafi was gone, even though literally everyone, even at the time, knew for a fact that that would lead to disaster.
It just seems like when we talk about a military solution to a problem, it means shit's going to get blown the fuck up. But when we talk about a political solution, as politicians love to do all the time, all that it really amounts to is just hopes and prayers.
[QUOTE=Bob The Knob;52917158]The fact that Libya has been allowed to languish in this shitty state for so long now is a fucking embarrassment, and it could have been avoided if the international community had devoted half as much energy to brokering a post-Gaddafi political settlement as they did to helping Libya overthrow him. There's a reason President Obama cited it as the [url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/12/barack-obama-says-libya-was-worst-mistake-of-his-presidency]worst mistake of his presidency[/url]. I still maintain that intervening in Libya was the right thing to do, but building a new democratic, stable Libyan state should have then become one of the West's top foreign policy concerns. Instead it seems we stopped giving a shit as soon as Gaddafi was gone, even though literally everyone, even at the time, knew for a fact that that would lead to disaster.
It just seems like when we talk about a military solution to a problem, it means shit's going to get blown the fuck up. But when we talk about a political solution, as politicians love to do all the time, all that it really amounts to is just hopes and prayers.[/QUOTE]
because nobody ever was planning for lybia to recover in a first place.
[QUOTE=Bob The Knob;52917158]It just seems like when we talk about a military solution to a problem, it means shit's going to get blown the fuck up. But when we talk about a political solution, as politicians love to do all the time, all that it really amounts to is just hopes and prayers.[/QUOTE]
Military blows shit up, it's sort of their thing. Political solutions require the people you're doing the political solution to to cooperate, and a simple 'yeah nah i don't think so' will sink most political solutions to international problems. It's not really a shock that one 'works' and the other doesn't.
[QUOTE=karimatrix;52917426]because nobody ever was planning for lybia to recover in a first place.[/QUOTE]
Doesn't help when the Kremlin is working to consolidate the power of a pro-Russian regional strongman and establish a “crescent of Russian influence” across the Middle East, starting with Khalifa Haftar.
[QUOTE=BANNED USER;52927256]Doesn't help when the Kremlin is working to consolidate the power of a pro-Russian regional strongman and establish a “crescent of Russian influence” across the Middle East, starting with Khalifa Haftar.[/QUOTE]
From a lot of perspectives they have full right to do that. In part when they feel that the west tried to establish Counter Russian Influence in the region, which Russia has often considered to be important for itself.
That's often a problem with the international community, there's multiple players and multiple sides.
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