Migrants, the government asks Libya joint commission for changes to the agreement with Tripoli

• Libya, 5 thousand migrants in the official "labor camps". Oxfam's accusations against Italy
• Conte: "He said so many lies about the maneuver" and about Libya "memorandum to improve"
• Italy-Libya Memorandum. Di Maio: "It can be improved, but it works". 20 parliamentarians: "Va suspended"

Share

The Italian government, with a verbal note sent to the government of Tripoli through the Libyan embassy in Rome, has requested the convocation of the Italian-Libyan commission provided for by Article 3 of the Memorandum of Understanding with Libya on the fight against illegal immigration. Government sources say that the commission will be chaired by Italy's Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio and by Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese: the goal, they explain, "is to improve the human rights memorandum".

According to the same sources, on the occasion of the commission meeting, which should hopefully take place as soon as possible, they will be asked to allow UNHCR and IOM "greater vigilance" on centers for migrants in Libya to ensure better respect for rights human. "This is the intention - the sources reiterate - certainly not denouncing it or canceling it, the memorandum remains valid because it has produced important results, this is the conviction of the government", aware that without that agreement the doors would be opened to hundreds of thousands of migrants.

In the Farnesina's note note, reference is made to articles 3 and 7 of the "Memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the field of development, the fight against illegal immigration, trafficking in human beings, smuggling and the strengthening of border security", signed on 2 February 2017 by the then premier Paolo Gentiloni and the president of the Libyan presidential council Fayez Serraj.

Article 3 states that "in order to achieve the objectives referred to in this Memorandum, the parties undertake to establish a joint committee composed of an equal number of members between the parties, to identify priorities for action, identify tools of financing, implementation and monitoring of the commitments undertaken ". Article 7 establishes instead that "the Memorandum of Understanding can be modified at the request of one of the parties, with an exchange of notes, during the period of its validity".

Councilor Serraj: open to changes to the Memorandum
The Government of Tripoli is "open to changes in the memorandum of understanding on migrants signed between Libya and Italy". This was stated by Hassan El Honi, the press adviser to the president of the Government of national agreement, Fayez Al Serraj. "We have not yet received requests for modifications from Rome - he explains - and when we will have them we will decide, but like any agreement it is possible to see it again in time".

On the detention centers of migrants, the main points of skepticism on the Italian side, El Honi explains that "abroad there is a wrong idea about these structures". "The migrants welcomed in the centers are between 10 thousand and 15 thousand while the scattered irregular migrants of the territory are hundreds of thousands, perhaps over 700 thousand and the latter are the real problem to be faced", stresses El Honi.

"Libya remains a country of passage for migrants and despite the extraordinary situation it faces, with an ongoing war, it tries to protect the rights of the people housed in the centers. Italy, to stem the problem of migrants must focus on the countries of origin, in Sub-Saharan Africa. And obviously the stability in Libya is needed so that many African migrants can work there in order, as happened in the past ", he adds.

What does the Italy-Libya Memorandum provide?
The Italy-Libya Memorandum of Understanding was signed in February 2017 by the then President of the Council of Ministers Paolo Gentiloni and the Prime Minister of the Libyan national reconciliation government al-Serraj. The agreement, which officially regulates "cooperation in the field of development", "the fight against illegal immigration, trafficking in human beings and smuggling" and "the strengthening of border security between the State of Libya and the Italian Republic ", was reached in the context of the European crisis of migrants and the Libyan civil war, when tens of thousands of men, women and children landed on the Italian coast.

The economic aid and the training and media support guaranteed by Italy to the Coast Guard of Tripoli, numbers in hand, have certainly helped to drastically reduce the arrivals but Libya does not seem to have managed to improve, as promised, the living conditions of the migrants massed in reception centers. Centers to which the United Nations and humanitarian organizations have access, but only in a very limited way, as widely documented by government reports and journalistic reports.

The role of the Libyan Coast Guard, which according to various sources would at least in part be formed by local militias colluding with the traffickers, is the subject of discussion: the recent investigation by Nello Scavo, journalist of "Avvenire", which documented how Abd al -Rahman al-Milad, known as Bija, considered one of the organizers of migrant trafficking, participated in official meetings between Italian and Libyan authorities in Italy.

This morning the Interior Minister, Luciana Lamorgese, explained that on the Memorandum "the government decides" and in question time in the House Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio assured that he "is working to change it for the better", in particular "in the part concerning the conditions of the detention centers ". Little, yet little, for those who believe instead that the Centers themselves are the cornerstone of scandal, the scene of what the UN itself defined as "unimaginable horrors": sales of human beings, torture, sexual violence, rape and abuse of every guy.

Today, three months before the deadline and in the absence of various indications, the Memorandum of understanding, strongly supported by the then Interior Minister Marco Minniti, would have been tacitly renewed for another three years. This in recent days has helped to widen the audience of opposites, a cross-cutting front that includes non-governmental organizations, associations that protect migrants' rights and human rights in general - gathered under the auspices of the Asylum Table - and Pd MPs and Leu.

Among the accusations made against the Memorandum by its detractors also that of "poor transparency": in January 2018 the Asgi, the Association for legal studies on immigration, asked the Ministry of the Interior to know the status of implementation of the agreement pursuant to the 'Foia', which gives anyone the right to know data and documents held by public administrations but the request has been rejected because it would have "entailed a concrete prejudice to interests protected by the law, such as" public security "and" public order'". However, the refusal was considered legitimate by both the TAR and the Council of State.