Migration and foreign policy: the case of Libya

Abstract

This article provides a critical analysis on migration policies and trends across Libya. I focus on the relations between Libya and its Arab and African neighbours between the 1970s and 2010. In examining migration from the angle of international relations, I document the ways in which the regime has employed migration as a foreign policy tool to affect the behaviour of neighbouring countries.

Keywords:

• foreign policy
• migration
• asylum
• Libya
• North Africa

Notes

Some research on migration across the region has been produced by Fargues (2006), Gregoire (2004), Pliez (2004; 2006) and Wilson (1994).

I am grateful to the conversations with Lisa Anderson (on 13 May 2008) as well as George Joffé for these insights. Comprehensive historical accounts can be found in Vandewalle (2006).

In this context, I define Northern Africa as including Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The emphasis on Libyan policies toward Arab versus African countries necessitates two clarifications. First, it must be emphasised that the analytical distinction between the policies aimed at migrants from Arab countries versus those targeted at Sub-Saharan Africans is not without its problems. Undoubtedly, this blunt distinction runs the danger of overlooking the subtleties and entangled nature of Libyan migration rhetoric and actions. Nonetheless, it provides a fruitful basis for exploring the extent to which migration through Libya has changed over time and has been used as a strategic device in the two different political contexts. For this reason, while maintaining this categorisation in this article I will not only unravel the discrepancies and contradictions within the two set of policies but also explore how they overlap and interrelate. Second, Libya has historically also attracted migrants from Europe, the US and Asia; and large communities from, inter alia, Italy, the UK, the US and the Philippines have settled in Libya. Significantly, according to some scholars Libyan policies towards these foreign communities confirm the initial hypothesis of this article on migration being manipulated by the regime for political motives (Davis 1987). However, without denying the relevance of such migrant movements from economic and political perspectives, for the purpose of coherence and because of space limitations, this article concentrates on migrants from Africa.

The employment of foreigners for foreign policy purposes is not limited to migrants from Africa and people seeking asylum in Libya. For example, following the killing of a British policewoman, allegedly by a Libyan national in 1983, four British citizens were detained in Libya. Terry Waite, the envoy of the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, succeeded in establishing a contact with the Libyan Colonel, and eventually secured the release of the hostages (for more on this see Barnes 1987).

See also de Haas (2008), Beauge and Burgat (1986), Birks and Sinclair (1978). They report that in 1975 the majority of expatriate workers in Libya were from Arab countries (Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan and Morocco). The only non-Arab countries were Pakistan (accounting for 1.7% of the total) and Yugoslavia (2.9%).

At this point of the analysis, a precautionary note is required concerning the reliability of the data on migrants either residing in or going through Libya. The very exercise of calculating the number of foreigners in Libya is fraught with difficulties. The lack of consistent figures provided by the Libyan government is aggravated by the fact that there is little consensus among different non-governmental sources on the size of migrant flows through Libya (Pliez 2000). Mindful of these shortcomings, I provide here a rough, yet by no means complete, idea of the changing size of the foreign population in Libya since the late 1950s (Pliez 2000). This exercise aims to set the basis for the core of this article, which analyses Libya's interaction with its neighbours.

Anonymous interview, 7 May 2007, Tripoli, Libya.

In a formal meeting of the Tunisian Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Social Affairs in March 1970, it was declared that ‘the emigration of labour-force abroad is a necessity. Indeed the evaluation of our demographic structures compared with our economic development capacity tells us that 270,000 people will be unemployed in 1980. Hence the placement of Tunisian abroad appears to the only possibility of providing them with an employment’ (Grimaud 1994, p. 32).

Libya's interaction with Arab and African countries is not limited, however, to migration. For an account of the wider economic and political relations, see Solomon and Swart (2005, pp. 469–492).

Inter alia, anonymous interviews, 28 February 2008 and 6 February 2007, Tripoli, Libya.

As confirmed by the report from Frontex, since March 2007 no other regulations on migrations have been passed Frontex (2007).

Anonymous interview, 7 May 2007, Tripoli, Libya.

Anonymous interviews, 7 May 2007 and 10 June 2007, Tripoli, Libya.

Inter alia, anonymous interview, 7 May 2007, Tripoli, Libya.

Ibid.

Throughout the article I use interchangeably the expressions ‘repatriation’, ‘return flights’, ‘expulsions’ and ‘readmission’ to refer to the practice of returning migrants from Italy to Libya, as well as from Libya to third countries. An account of the legal implication of this practice goes beyond my present purposes. For more on this, see Jean-Pierre Cassarino (2007).

Anonymous interviews, 3 March 2008 and 20 June 2007, Tripoli, Libya.

Anonymous interviews, February 2008, Tripoli, Libya.

Anonymous interviews, February 2008, Tripoli, Libya.

Inter alia, anonymous interviews on 5 June 2007 and 28 May 2007, Tripoli, Libya.

Anonymous interview, 6 February 2007, Tripoli, Libya.

Anonymous interview, 6 February 2007, Tripoli, Libya.

Anonymous interviews conducted on 12 January 2010, Tripoli, Libya.

Anonymous interview, 13 May 2007, Tripoli, Libya.

Anonymous interview, 24 May 2007, Tripoli, Libya.

I selected the examples of Palestinian and Bosnian refugees but they are by no means the only cases of political manipulation of refugees by the Libyan government.

Anonymous interviews on 24 May 2007 and 13 May 2007, Tripoli, Libya.