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| Libyan civilians wait to fill their cooking gas cylinders in the rebel-held city of Benghazi in eastern Libya, on April 19, 2011, as French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said while on a trip to the Ukraine that his country will step up its air strikes in to protect civilians from Moamer Kadhafi's forces. -Getty Image |
(April 19, Eritrea, Sri Lanka Guardian) The human trafficking mafia is back in business in Benghazi, Libya. It has been about three weeks now since a floating death trap, crammed to the gills with hundreds of Horn of Africans, part of a small flotilla of such, set off from Benghazi for the Italian island of Lampedusa.
On the way one of these floating death traps engines broke down, and, overloaded, turned sideways to a wave,the boat broached, and then capsized. That was all she wrote. In the next few minutes over 200 Eritreans lost their lives, sending our little country of 4 million into a period of national mourning.
Eritreans are no stranger to their children’s bodies washing up on European beaches. For that matter the entire Horn of African community are no strangers to such. Ethiopia, with over 10 million refugees is number one in the world in generating displaced persons. Somalia has contributed millions more. Sudan and even Kenya send their share.
Benghazi to Malta was the route the human trafficking racket between north Africa and Europe used to make it to the big time. When we first moved here to Eritrea in 2006 the Benghazi connection was still in high gear as were the reports of Eritreans drowned in the Mediterranean.
When Malta started deporting African migrants the boats started heading for Italy proper and with the longer, more dangerous journey came more and more dead bodies of Africans washing up on Europe's shores.
Finally, Gaddafi and Berlusconi sat down together and seemed to have put an end to the Benghazi based human trafficking mob.
So how did this most evil business find new life in Benghazi? You can thank NATO for this. While NATO bombs blanket Libya with radioactive depleted uranium dust, part of the “pro-democracy forces” based in Benghazi being protected by NATO are busy sending Africans to a watery grave while stuffing their pockets with African blood money.
Yes, you can thank NATO for the rebirth of human trafficking from Benghazi, just as you could thank NATO for protecting and eventually nationalizing the Albanian mafia in Kosovo who ran an international business selling body parts from their Serb prisoners back in 1999.
It is hard to imagine a small country like Libya being victorious over the combined wrath of the USA, UK and France. Yet Gaddafi reunifying LIbya is what some believe it is going to take to put an end to the Benghazi mafia and its trafficking in human flesh once and for all.
Thomas C. Mountain is the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa and was a member of the 1st US Peace Delegation to Libya in 1987. He can be reached at thomascmountain@yahoo.com.
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