The PCP condemns the measures that the EU, under the pretext of fighting the trafficking of migrants and hypocritically using the recent tragedies in the Mediterranean, announced yesterday. The decision to create a naval force deployed for an alleged fight against the mafia networks of illegal immigration in the territorial waters and along the coast of Libya, is an unacceptable militarist offensive in violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Libya and of the international law which aims to perpetuate the military occupation, interference and destabilization of the countries in the Southern Basin of the Mediterranean, namely Libya.
The measures, like the one just taken, are not a solution to the tragedies in the Mediterranean. On the contrary, they are an intensification of the militarist and interventionist policy of the European Union and NATO which led to the mass exodus of migrants fleeing war and chaos sponsored and promoted by the EU, as was the aggression and destabilization of Libya.
As the European Council on Refugees and Exiles and various organizations have said, this militarist action can lead to even more victims, both by the deaths of migrants who are in the attacked boats and by their search for even less secure alternative solutions.
Huge are the risks associated with this operation. As an unofficial document of the European Commission, now made public, on this strategy acknowledges, "the risk of collateral damage is high including the loss of lives" of an operation which will involve "extensive naval, land and air resources ", including units of special forces.
This decision, which the PCP strongly condemns, aims not save lives, but to contain migrants that the EU does not want - as witnessed by the ongoing debate on the so-called "quota system" of the EU - while enhancing political, economic and military domination by the EU of the countries of North Africa and Middle East and ensures the continuation of a neo-colonial tutelage fed with the hypocritical concept of a "failed State". Hence, the PCP firmly opposes the participation of Portugal in an operation in breach of the principles of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic.
The PCP calls for a mobilization and explanation of this new drift and militarist aggression by the EU and in defence of peace, cooperation and respect for the peoples. It is urgent to create safe and legal migration routes to fight the trafficking of migrants and to answer, in a humane way, to the needs of the migrants and refugees.
