00:00This is Apropos.
00:04Opposition groups in Italy are accusing the government of freeing the head of Libya's
00:09judicial police because it relies on Libyan security forces to check the flow of African
00:14migrants crossing the Mediterranean, saying authorities in Rome did not want to antagonise
00:20them by arresting such a high-profile figure.
00:23Osama Najim was released despite being wanted by the International Criminal Court over a
00:28string of human rights abuses, including murder, torture and rape.
00:33Our correspondents in Italy have been meeting one of his alleged victims, a migrant from
00:38South Sudan.
00:39France 24's Natalia Mendoza reports.
00:44Just like many other migrants who arrive in Italy, Lam finds it difficult to forget the
00:49nightmare he went through in Libya.
00:51After trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2020, he was sent to Mitiga prison on the
00:56outskirts of Tripoli.
00:57I was tortured.
00:58They tie your legs, they use electric wire, electric cable and plastic stick and they
01:07put your leg on the chair and they start beating you.
01:10During the night you can't sleep because of the screaming, the torturing and also the
01:14people who have been, because they kill people inside the prison too.
01:17They will be calling migrants to come and put the dead body in the body bag.
01:22The prison director, Osama al-Masri, the head of Libya's judicial police, who was
01:28arrested late January in Italy on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court
01:33for crimes against humanity.
01:35I saw al-Masri, yes.
01:38I saw him.
01:39He is the boss.
01:40He is in charge of everything.
01:41Al-Masri is running.
01:42We were trying to escape.
01:43He came with a pistol and he started beating us with the police, with his soldier.
01:51The moment I heard the news that al-Masri was arrested, I was so happy and then I saw
01:58that justice will take place.
02:02But Lam was rapidly disillusioned.
02:04Not long after, al-Masri was released and flown back to Tripoli on a plane chartered
02:09by the Italian government.
02:12Lam decided to lodge a complaint.
02:16We are accusing the prime minister, the defence minister and the justice minister of complicity.
02:21That's to say, to have aided al-Masri to escape from the legal proceedings awaiting him at
02:26the International Criminal Court by returning him to Libya.
02:31For this journalist who covers the judicial system in Italy, the liberation of the Libyan
02:36senior official is far from accidental.
02:40It was probably a question of national interest because the arrest could have caused diplomatic
02:45problems between Italy and Libya.
02:48The risk was that Libya would open the floodgates, creating an excessive influx of illegal migrants
02:54into Italy in retaliation.
02:57With this somewhat David and Goliath legal fight, Lam is hoping to get justice for himself
03:02and for the thousands of migrants who suffer from violence and torture in Libya.
03:07Well, to discuss, we're joined now by Lorenzo Camel, he's an author, also professor of history
03:14at the University of Turin.
03:16Lorenzo, thanks so much for being with us this evening.
03:19We heard some harrowing testimony from that man there in that report, a migrant.
03:24Libya has long been criticised, this is far from the first time, over its treatment of refugees.
03:30Why does not enough seem to be happening to clamp down on what's actually happening to
03:35these people before they get on boats to cross the Mediterranean?
03:40Yes, because the problem, let's say that the debates are always focused on an issue connected
03:47to al-Masri or figures like him.
03:51But the problem is that structural issues are not taken.
03:54So for instance, the reason why these people are moving and are trying to reach European
04:02shores.
04:03For instance, there is not much debate about the ongoing exploitation of African natural
04:09resources by European companies, as the Panama Papers was, for instance, confirming.
04:16There are over 1,400 European and American companies that, through tax havens, are exploiting
04:24still to date the natural wealth of these countries.
04:27There is not much debate, for instance, on the flows of weapons from European countries
04:33that are sold in African and Middle Eastern countries.
04:37And for instance, we know in Yemen and a number of other areas, this plays a major role.
04:45There is not much debate about climate migrants used to flee African countries because of
04:51the effect of climate change.
04:53And there is not much debate about the fact of the importance of moving from crisis management
04:59to crisis prevention.
05:02These include rejecting the policy of outsearching migration management, that is a short-term
05:08solution that has created an economic boom in a number of centers, some of them located
05:15in desert areas, becoming an industry that profits off the most vulnerable ones.
05:20So let's say that all these structural issues are largely missing.
05:24So in the debates that we have in Italy and other European countries, the debate is just
05:28about, let's say, we can't help all of them here, or other issues.
05:32Once again, these are debates that speak to the gut, to the instinct of people, but that
05:38do not take the structural condition why we see millions of people trying to move from
05:43these areas.
05:44As you say, short-term policies are often formulated with an eye more on public opinion
05:49rather than on longer-term solutions, Lorenzo.
05:52What do you make of the fact that just today the EU paved the way, essentially, for member
05:56states to set up migrant return centers outside the EU, as we have seen Italy doing when
06:03it comes to Albania?
06:05Yes, once again, these are short-term solutions.
06:10While if this European politician would be serious in tackling the situation, for instance,
06:15would start to tackle the fact that uranium from Niger, where 87% of the population has
06:23no access to electricity, produce about 33% of France's electricity.
06:29So one third of the electricity that is produced in France.
06:32Or if you think in Nigeria, where the largest number of migrants arrive in Italy, we know
06:38that OPL 245, that is the largest oil block in Africa.
06:43So we know that somehow, thanks to a system that also take advantage of local corrupt
06:49leadership, somehow local population in Nigeria don't get one single penny out of these major
06:55natural resources.
06:56So once again, we focus on Albania, we focus on these shortcuts, because somehow it's a
07:02way of hiding the structural issues, and somehow it's a way also of not discussing it publicly,
07:10because for politicians this would consider as a major problem.
07:15Once that you face these issues, you re-touch the structural interests behind migration.
07:20Does this suggest, do you think, does it signal a significant change in policy from Europe?
07:25Or is it just simply down to the pressure that's being applied by countries like Italy?
07:31I think that there is not any structural change, but change will arrive.
07:37It's enough to say that according to the United Nations, the population in Africa will grow
07:41from 1.2 billion to 2.5 billion by 2050, while some European countries will see their
07:50population decline.
07:52For example, my country in Italy will face a decline of population of 2 million in a
07:58better of 20 years.
08:00So once again, these huge changes, demographic changes, at a certain point will oblige this
08:05country, my country included, to take on the structural solution, while still today we
08:10focus much on NGOs and other issues that once again are easy targets, but they are
08:16not really the important issues when we discuss the structural solution to take all of that.
08:21And as we've been reporting, Italy is being accused of releasing Libyan officials, for
08:25example, wanted on international arrest warrants in return for limiting migrant flows coming
08:32from Libya.
08:33So what is Italy actually doing to manage migratory flows coming from Northern Africa?
08:40And what kind of support are those countries in Northern Africa actually being given?
08:44Yes, let's say outsearching, that's the main solution that has been found also, of course,
08:52in relation to Turkey, so the other side, the Eastern Mediterranean.
08:56So outsearching has been somehow the easy shortcut that we have witnessed in the last
09:03years, or let's say the last decades.
09:07What are somehow the outcomes of all of that?
09:09We know.
09:10So we know reports, as you also are documenting, of beating, rape, killings, particularly since
09:16the 2017 Italy deal.
09:19Migrants today are sold openly in places like Seba and other cities in Libya.
09:26So this is something that somehow the outcomes of outsearching migration is precisely that.
09:32And what kind of role then is Libya playing in managing those kind of rescue operations
09:36and also in returning migrants to their home countries?
09:42Let's say that four fifths of migration are internal migration within Africa.
09:49So let's say that just a tiny percentage of this amount of people move toward Europe.
09:56So let's say that this is mainly an African issue that is managed by African countries.
10:03So the Libyan authority in these last few years, of course, was speaking about dictators
10:09that are exploiting these often using also the most brutal means.
10:17So they are exploiting this in order to gain economical benefit and also in order to be
10:22able to remain in power.
10:25So let's say that from an internal Libyan perspective, the goal, the end game is to
10:31keep the power and still profiting out of this, of the sufferance of the millions of
10:37human beings.
10:38And European leaders obviously caught up in the context of the security challenges that
10:43are facing the continent.
10:45Would you be concerned that the issue of migrant rights, of what's happening to these people
10:49coming from Africa, that that might flip through the cracks, so to speak, that it's not something
10:54that the EU is going to be necessarily focusing on?
10:56Yes.
10:57So let's say now there are at the moment some other priorities, so this RE-ARM program and
11:04so on.
11:05So another program that speaks once again to the guts of people, to the instinct of
11:09people that, but however, in another scenario does not take the structural issue.
11:14On a more general level, I think that until policymakers, and some of them, of course,
11:19understood that, but until policymakers do not realize that Africa is a voice to be heard
11:24and not a problem to be solved, to quote a Nigerian scholar, that is Abiodun Malawu.
11:28So until that we don't reach that stage, certainly these issues, the ways, the shortcuts that
11:35I was mentioning before will remain the pillars of the policies implemented by European powers
11:41in relation to this context.
11:42Lorenzo, we'll have to leave it there for now.
11:44Thanks so much for being with us this evening.
11:46That's Lorenzo Camel, author and professor of history at the University of Turin in Italy.
11:52Well, that's it from us for now.
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