Dr Martin Lemberg-Pedersen, an assistant professor at Aalborg University, has written an article for the European Council on Refugees and Exiles exploring Europe's externalization of migrant control to Libyan territory. Lemberg-Pedersen explores the consequences of this approach, suggesting:
When it comes to the externalization partners, the European policy also creates a vicious cycle since the influx of arms and funds to the kind of actors willing to enact the European agenda of preemptive control, means that more democratic, transparent and sustainable actors unwilling to act as Europe´s buffer and incarceration zones are politically and economically undermined. By contrast, the policy emboldens actors like the Libyan Brigade 48 or the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (formerly known as Janjaweed) who vie for legitimacy by inserting themselves into power vacuums, asking for recognition, and financial compensation, for their preemptive migration control. In this manner, the pursuit of the short-term goal of preventing immigration has the effect of undermining the long-term goal of tackling the root causes of displacement.
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