Blackwater founder pitches plan to quell Libya migrant crisis with private police

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Blackwater founder pitches plan to quell Libya migrant crisis with private police

The military contractor and Trump ally Erik Prince, who has faced scrutiny for his human rights record, has a ‘humane’ proposal to try to stop the flow of migrants

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome
Thursday 30 November 2017 05.01 GMT

Erik Prince, the founder of the private military contractor Blackwater, is pushing a plan to intervene in the migrant crisis in Libya with a proposal involving a privately-trained police force that would mirror his company’s work in Afghanistan.

The proposal, he said, would be a more humanitarian option for the European Union compared to the chaos that is now gripping the oil-rich nation, given widespread reports of grave human rights abuses by militia groups against migrants.

Prince, who is close to the Trump administration and is mulling a run for Senate in Wyoming, said it would be relatively easy for his company, Frontier Services Group, to stop, detain, house and “repatriate” hundreds of thousands of African migrants who are seeking a path to Europe through Libya.

He has also proposed to do so for a “fraction” of the price the EU is spending on boats that intercept migrant vessels in the Mediterranean.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/30/blackwater-founder-pitches-plan-to-quell-libya-migrant-crisis-with-private-police

[JustAnotherGen]

1. Uhm -

Nope. He'd have to get the EU's buy in - and Italy won't go for it.