Colonel Muammar Gadafi was a pan Africanist who believed that Africa could solve its own problems without interference from the West and he proved it, the west had interests in Libya because of its oil wells and Gaddafi ensured that the Libyans had the biggest stake in their oil, he also made sure that every Libyan benefitted from this oil. He introduced policies such as free education, free housing, a fund for new graduates and newlyweds. He turned Libya the desert into a Libya which never lacked water and one that practiced agriculture. As such he was a pain to the west and for centuries they sought to assassinate and topple him without success. After the Arab spring which swept across Algeria, Egypt, and eventually Libya, he was finally toppled, captured, tortured and killed gruesomely on national TV. A man who had the biggest heart for Africa, a man who supported African states across the continent, he who was lobbying for a single African currency which of course would wipe out the use of the dollar on the continent.
Africa has never been truly independent, we are still being governed and exploited by the west, the policies in place favor them and not us, our raw materials are being exploited, the west ensures that countries rich in natural resources are politically unstable and take advantage of this to steal their wealth, countries like Congo do not benefit from their vast wealth, they still explore our resources and carry them to the west and return the finished product and sell it expensively to us, iron, oil, copper, tin name it. Look at Liberia and its black diamond, Sudan and its oil, Guinea, Angola. in South Africa, apartheid may have ended on paper but the white man is still controlling the natural resources, the one with wealth is truly in charge. In Zimbabwe, the one good thing Mugabe did was to chase away the white farmers, his intentions were noble, he sought to return the land to the black man but was blacklisted by the west because of this and sanctions were levied, inflation rendered their dollar useless but he stood his ground. hopefully, the new government can continue what he started.
Muammar Gaddafi had ruled Libya for four decades until 2011 when he was killed like a dog and then the vultures stepped in, Libya has since then become a failed state controlled by gangs, militias and warlords control chunks of territories. One needs to understand that Libya is the main transit route for migrants and refugees hoping to reach Europe, in the last three years 150,000 people have made it across the sea and 3,000 have lost their lives as they attempted to cross over to Europe. The Libyan coast guard which is supported by funds from the EU has cracked down on boats smuggling migrants to Europe and there are now approximately 400,000 to one million people stuck in Libya. Detention centers are overrun and incidents of rape, murder-robbery are on the rise. The video that shocked the works of a slave being auctioned at $400 brought the world's attention to the slave trade happening in Libya. Immigrants rush to Libya hoping to get to Europe and out of poverty, however, this dream ceases to exist once they are stuck in the detention centers making them vulnerable to be auctioned off at slave markets like cattle.
After negotiations with the EU, the Libyan government accepted to repatriate refugees and also create a transit center where vulnerable refugees can be housed safely as they await repatriation.
African and EU leaders also agreed to fly out 15,000 migrants back to their countries of origin. Rwanda promised to extend asylum to 30,000 refugees.
US ambassador to UN Nikki Halley condemned the abuses and is quoted as saying; “To see pictures of these men being treated like cattle, and to hear the auctioneer describe them as, quote, ‘big strong boys for farm work', should shock the conscience of us all.”
“There are few greater violations of human rights and human dignity than this.”
