Gaddafi: Migration 'inevitable'
The Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, has told African and European government ministers that they must accept high levels of cross-border migration.

Mr Gaddafi told ministers gathered for a conference on migration from Africa to the EU that resisting migration "is like rowing against the stream".

"The current populations of the world are originally migrants," he said.

Libya is hosting a two-day conference aiming to agree a common stance on both legal and illegal immigration.

Ministers from more than 50 European and African countries are attending the conference.

Libya is a key route for thousands of African migrants seeking to cross into Europe to begin a new life.

Mr Gaddafi spoke to a group of ministers gathered at his Tripoli home on Wednesday night.

He told the delegates in Tripoli that migration had complex historical and social roots and was a force of nature that could not easily be ignored.


HAVE YOUR SAY
Land is property of everyone, and God commands all human beings to migrate on Earth to seek a living, which is their right
Muammar Gaddafi

"Political borders, official papers and identities set for every group of people are new, artificial things not recognised by nature.

"Land is the property of everyone, and God commands all human beings to migrate on Earth to seek a living, which is their right," he said.

Correspondents say the Libyan leader's views on migration hold considerable sway thanks both to Libya's strategic position on the migration train and to Mr Gaddafi's influence with other African leaders.

Development issue

Both Libya and Morocco, the other main staging post for migrants leaving Africa, have called on the EU to ensure that tighter border controls are complemented by development projects in African states.

Ministers gathering in Tripoli want to adopt a declaration seeking ways to address issues like the protection of refugees and joint border patrols.

But African ministers want migration to be linked with a multi-billion dollar development fund paid for by the EU.

The Finnish foreign minister has stressed the EU's "total" commitment to African development.

But Mr Gaddafi cast doubts on EU intentions in comments earlier on Wednesday, saying he suspected the promises were little more than propaganda.

One of the delegates in Tripoli, Richard Williams of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, told the BBC that the theoretical discussions about the root causes of migration could prove to be a distraction.

He said: "What we are not really seeing is the answers to the problem that triggered off this inter-governmental debate, which is what to do about the people trying to enter the EU across the Mediterranean from North Africa into the Canary Islands."

This year the Spanish authorities detained 28,000 people in the Canary Islands, while 16,000 were held on the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/6176720.stm

Published: 2006/11/23 13:39:13 GMT

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