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    HuskyBroAngela Helm
    11/26/17 12:31pm

    When “Hotel Rwanda” Rwanda says “Whoa, whoa, Libya, y’all trippin’” you need to re-evaluate your life choices

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      hardneededtruthsHuskyBro
      11/26/17 5:16pm

      This is a good move for Paul Kagame & Rwanda - a kind of PanAfricanism. But you have to wonder why President Kagame does not offer to take in some of the Congolese whom he helped displace during his invasion of the DRC. Interesting.

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    GearoidDubhAngela Helm
    11/26/17 4:01pm

    The two competing Libyan governments on the coast don’t control the interior. Most of this takes place around Sabha, it’s been going on awhile. Essentially the numerous militias in the region make money from smuggling, including human smuggling, and if someone can’t pay they force them into debt bondage. These markets are selling laborers stuck in debt to various militias or tribal leaders in the south. Of course like with most debt bondage it’s very difficult for people to get ahead of what they owe, so it’s de facto slavery.

    It’s made worse by competition. Both northern governments ally with local militias in the south, but can’t really control them. They’re just interested in having local allies, and they sometimes clash. Beyond that there’s ethnic conflict between Arabs, Tuareg, and Tebu. The Tuareg and Tebu control smuggling routes across the border and the desert but Arab groups control Sabha and many of the towns near it. Sometimes they clash as well. Everyone wants to take control of lucrative smuggling routes as it’s essentially the only way to make money in Libya’s south. The normal economy has collapsed.

    It’s not terribly likely that order gets imposed on the south any time soon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the de facto slavery continued on a smaller scale even if it is. Absent real development the illicit economy is the only way to support their families.

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      GearoidDubhGearoidDubh
      11/26/17 4:04pm

      Here’s two reports from the International Crisis Group worth a read.

      https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/north-africa/libya/traversing-tribal-patchwork-libyas-south-west

      https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/north-africa/libya/179-how-libyas-fezzan-became-europes-new-border

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    You are what you sayAngela Helm
    11/26/17 2:38pm

    Libyan officials have condemned the practice of slave trading but said that they required more support from the international community.

    This is the biggest problem Libya has no real government the country is run by local warlords proving that toppling a brutal dictator with no plan to fill the power gap is a terrible idea.

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      mercyxYou are what you say
      11/26/17 4:22pm

      Not if you’re a militant super power that supplies a huge bulk of the world’s weapons. Then destabilizing former colonial states and weaponizing every party is a great idea.

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      hardneededtruthsYou are what you say
      11/26/17 5:02pm

      Those who planned the destruction of Libya ought to pay a price for what’s going on in that country. At least they need to fund efforts to bring this modern day slavery to an end.

      Even Gaddafi predicted the unfolding that’s taking place in Libya, including the purging of Black Libyans.. Some Western leaders should be held accountable at the ICC.

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    Pearl Bensey nee LesterAngela Helm
    11/26/17 6:19pm

    My sister posted pictures of some enslaved African migrants and my brain shut the fuck down. I’ve been sleep for a few hours, only now waking up in a world where images from blood memory are vivid color. There was a young man with a sore on his leg. It was weeping blood and he was sweating profusely and I keep sucking in my breath with the sting of it.

    Those boys could be my kinfolk, eight rock black and country, looking like my Uncle they call Boo and I am still typing and talking and thinking around the one thing my mind doesn’t want to process: there were no women in those pictures my sister showed me. There were three young men balancing on their palms as their feet were strung up together like pigs for slaughter, but I didn’t see women. I am not brave enough to search for those images, if they exist.

    It is 2017 and time and history feels as if it has folded unto itself. Funnily enough, it’s made of a friable abrasive and the crumbs of progress sift over to the stubborn side of human greed and anti blackness. It’s 2017 and I teach little Nazi boys. Like, sit in class and group chat with Stormfront folk in Idaho, posting “kill all Jews” on snapchat and don’t get suspended, Heil Hitler me and still get let into NHS little white supremacists. I gotta convince folks that Nazis and Klan are bad tomorrow. I gotta wake up on Monday knowing that folks that look like me are yet again enslaved. Might stop at Starbucks first. Fortify myself with the last dregs of PSL season. Therapy on Tuesday. 2017 wants to kill me.

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      TehPoodlePearl Bensey nee Lester
      11/26/17 6:37pm

      <3

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      KingOfTheVagabondsPearl Bensey nee Lester
      11/27/17 1:29am

      We are witnessing the devolution of man. I’m not joking.

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    HumboldtGenesisAngela Helm
    11/26/17 3:11pm

    This is awful. What can we do as American citizens to help? Is there anyone representing the government of the United States who might give a damn about this problem that we can appeal to?

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      RedVioletHumboldtGenesis
      11/26/17 5:37pm

      Start with pressuring them to stop destroying countries that have stable civil societies.

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      GearoidDubhRedViolet
      11/26/17 9:39pm

      Libya never had stable civil society. Gaddafi completely destroyed every institution except himself, a years long attempt to center the state around him and his personality. That was being discussed in regional studies years before the rebellion against him.

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    OMG!PONIES!Angela Helm
    11/26/17 6:36pm

    Nice to see that the Barbary pirates are making a comeback.

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    MountainghostAngela Helm
    11/26/17 6:18pm

    Those poor men. God I wish the US would just fucking help people. This makes me curl up in a misery ball.

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    BlueThunder96Angela Helm
    11/26/17 5:16pm

    JESUS CHRIST!

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      Poodletime II: the Return of PoodletimeBlueThunder96
      11/26/17 5:32pm

      Huey is aways apropos.

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    AGPowellAngela Helm
    11/27/17 7:38am

    This is a beginning.......

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    SoyMagónistaAngela Helm
    11/26/17 7:38pm

    A Pan-African revolutionary falls and THIS happens. I am superstitious. I take that as a sign. The Black Panthers, the Haitian revolutionaries, Malcolm X..... they were shining lights of freedom to the entire world. I think that more shining lights of freedom are needed. People either take their destiny in their hands.... or I believe this is what happens. Maybe my interpretation will not be agreed with. Maybe yes. Either way, I am horrified at this and hope that black people will rise up, for in doing so they would not only advance themselves but freedom and justice for the entire world.

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