The European Migration Crisis:
The Mediterranean Becomes a ‘Watery Graveyard’

Nov. 24—It is hard to know which is worse: the thousands of desperate migrants from war-torn and impoverished countries in Africa and the Middle East perishing as they attempt to cross the Mediterranean into Europe, turning it into a “watery graveyard,” as Helga Zepp-LaRouche has called it; or the plight of hundreds of thousands of refugees who either succeeded in making the crossing, only to be locked up in refugee camps for years on end, or those who are returned to detention centers for migrants and refugees in Libya, which Pope Francis has rightly compared to “concentration camps.”

Once we identify the actual cause of this crisis, a moral and economically sound solution is also at hand.

The European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), the European Union agency in charge of external borders, published the following map which gives an overview of the size and direction of migrant flows in 2022 (see Figure 1).

Since 2021, there has been a significant increase in what Frontex defines as “detected illegal border crossings,” with the Central Mediterranean route showing the most dramatic rise (see Figure 2).

The 2023 Frontex report also notes that, out of the 380,000 detected illegal border crossings, “Syrians accounted for over 100,000 irregular crossings last year, the highest number among all nationalities. They were followed by Guineans and Afghans. These three top nationalities accounted for over a third of all detections.” It is also the case that international drug-running networks—controlled from the top by the London-centered Dope, Inc. financial apparatus—make extensive use of these migrant flows to transport cocaine and other drugs to European markets. Human-trafficking criminal enterprises play an integrated role in this process.

What is driving the desperate migration? Whereas Syria and Afghanistan have been destroyed by wars carried out by Western countries, Guinea is part of Francophone Africa, i.e., former French colonies that have historically been looted to the bone. French colonialism did not end with the formal independence of those countries, but has continued through the exploitation of resources, the presence of foreign troops, and the monetary enslavement of those countries through the FCA-Franc system, the single currency imposed on them and managed by the Banque de France.

Curiously, although the European treaties prohibit member countries of the European Monetary Union to issue their own currency, France has kept the Franc-Afrique up and running for its African client-nations. As far back as 1979, the Cameroonian economist Joseph Tchundjang Pouémi had written: “Today, if monetary issues are not given the attention they deserve, Africa is inflicting gratuitous suffering on its children, and even more so on those who are not yet born.”

The CFA zone comprises 14 countries, divided into two zones. First, the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), with its bank, BCEAO, with eight countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. Second, the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC), with its bank, BEAC, with six countries: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Chad.

All these countries are purely and simply under conservatorship! They have no control over their deficits, expenditures, budgets, or credit. And the conservator is the French Treasury—and the European Union—which have an official policy of monetary slavery and economic looting in Africa.

This has been going on for centuries, since the days of the slave trade. It was physical slavery then; today it is monetary slavery.

Consider the situation of the eight Franc CFA countries in West Africa with respect to the Human Development Index rankings. Their rankings out of 189 countries are as follows: Benin 173, Burkina Faso 185, Ivory Coast 166, Guinea-Bissau 179, Mali 188, Senegal 169, Togo 163, and Niger 189. All are classified as countries with low human development, and all eight are among the 30 poorest countries on the planet!

Access to electricity for these countries is equally bad. Niger has supplied thousands of tons of uranium in recent decades for France’s nuclear program, but less than 10 percent of its own population has access to electricity.