The Global Refugee Wave and Migrant Crisis

Questionable Deal: EU to Work with African Despot to Keep Refugees Out

Impressive.

This feels slightly more anti-immigrant than anti-refugee.

Also might end up producing more in the long run.Or not working.Why would you trust them,sheesh.

Judging by their comments I don't think they trust them at all. It's simply gone to the point where any kind of control is seen as a good thing.

Better late than never I guess.

Its going to be all for nothing: Bashir's regime isn't exactly stable.

Perhaps the deal might help to stabilize it. The last thing we need is more instability in the region.

edited 15th May '16 5:34:45 AM by Zarastro

The fact that these EU ambassadors appear to be sworn to secrecy suggests that that deal is something unspeakably evil and heinous, to me.

Further, there is apparently no control on how the equipment and money are to be used. Wonder how quickly they'll turn up in Darfur.

It doesn't need to be something sinister. They probybly don't want it to become known after the bad reaction to the Erdogan deal.

Give what Bashir is like, I am far more inclined to consider it "sinister" than anything else bar proof to the contrary.

Yeah this seems bad, we may be about to be responsible for another genocide considering who we're now funding.

The only way this deal would stabilise things would be by allowing stability via death. Either Sudan gets unstable due to being unable to manage the new people, or it remains stable because the government commits genocide against the new people.

edited 15th May '16 6:25:36 AM by Silasw

Or they "just" take advantage of them,and send them our way anyway.

But CHAOS IS A LADDAH.

The deal isn't going to stabilize it. Money doesn't actually solve everything, especially when that money is entrusted to just the elites and thus is unlikely to be used where it is needed most. After all, the Saudis lavish the man with money, both to keep him on their side and because Sudan is a good source of agricultural products for Saudia. Doesn't really help the stability.

The secrecy is simple: regardless of the heinousness of the actual deal, knowledge of it essentially ties the EU morally to anything buddy boy does. Also double points against it should he be overthrown, since a successor in that scenario would villify the EU and thus not only not help out, but might even encourage people to go there.

Efforts would be better spent on Libya, since that is the actual launch point for most of these refugees. Trying to be buddy buddy with Bashir has very little gain.

The article does seem to imply that the EU is attempting to buddy with everyone in North Africa. Not sure why they're focusing on Sudan first though...

We are already doing this. Tunesia is already receiving money. Many states (most prominently Italy and Germany) have signed many agreements on economic cooperation with Egypt. Only Libya is a complicated case, we are currently waiting for both Libyan governments to stop struggling together and focus on the real enemy.

So we'd rather work with a genocidal dictator then two groups of mild idiots who just need a bit of diplomacy and help?

Europe has enough genocides on our conscious, we realy don't need another, and that's where supporting the Sudan government leads.

We'd have less blood on our hands if we if invaded Libya then we're going to have for supporting Sudan.

edited 15th May '16 1:10:01 PM by Silasw

The situation in Libya more complicated than that and you know it. So far neither side has been willing to compromise but as the special envoy for the UN said, we need patience.

And the last thing we should do is another military intervention. Every military intervention with boots on the grounds in the muslim world has been a pyrrhic victory at best or an utter disastee at worst.

Only because no one ever commits. Every intervention has been half assed. Supporting Bashir is ALSO half assed. You will have a disaster no matter what, but at least with an intervention (and honestly its only one side in Libya thats particularly stubborn, the other side having been taken over by the UN-created government) you own every decision and are able to adjust accordingly. I say again, just dumping money into Bashir's personal accounts won't stabilize the country...you will gain nothing for it. So yeah, argue all you want that Libya is some sort of impossible case (weak ass argument, but an argument that can be cogently made at least), but Sudan offers you nothing in return except culpability.

This constant obsession of doing everything on the cheap via delegation to irresponsible parties will blow up in the EU's face spectacularly. Grow some balls and do something direct for once.

The Wedt has been commited to Afghanistan for 15 years now and look how things have turned out.

A military intervention in Libya would most likely be a nightmare. Countless militias that are loyal to their tribes, have combat experience and might see alus as foreign invaders.

On a sidenote it is worth pointing out that Bashir is atill fairly popular in his country and African democratic countries are cooperating with him too. At this point anything that reduces the flow of economic migrants to Europe is a good thing.

X3 Iraq is not enough to make a judgment by, we've intervened in Muslim countries successfully, Kosovo and Sierra Leone, they've just been outside the Arab World, likewise Afganistan which is outside the Arab World has also been a mess.

But yeah Libya probably shouldn't have a forcful intervention, it's a bad idea and would likely make things worse. The situation is complicated and while the unity government kind of technically exists it has neither full support nor full control, and that's not counting the small ISIS pocket in Libya.

But with all of that under consideration Libya is still a better bet then Sudan, because again, once we support the Sudanease government we're becoming complicit in genocide.

I get that Germany has for to long been made to feel guilty and repent for Hitler, that Germany does need to move beyond its guilt over WW 2, but the way to do that is not to find every genocidal dictator you can and throw money at them, first Assad and now now Bashir, where is this desire to prop up dictators coming from all of a sudden? the way to get over guilt from one genocide is not to help commit two more!

African democracies are in many places narrow majority tyrannies like Iraq, they have to work with Bashir because he's their neighbour, we don't.

Including genocide? Because that's what we're signing off on, that's what we're okay in with Bashir. We're also kinda destroying the ICC as an institution, but that's a small thing to be honest.

edited 15th May '16 1:46:54 PM by Silasw

Don't forget Somalia.

Somalia failed because we ran away from a half done job, same thing we did in Lebanon and the Palestinian Mandate. Somalia also lead to us letting Rwanda happen, I'd almost rather it be forgotten, seeing how much damage remembering it did.

The real problem has always been that interventions never do enough to build up the economic, educational, and infrastructure foundations of the countries they intervene in.

Because nobody gives a shit about a school in "Pakistan".

It's one of the things I hate about the Doctor, he never stays around for the cleanup.

Doctor Who is a sci-fi fairy tale show, getting into real nitty-gritty consequences like that is a bit beyond its parameters.