World On the current situation in the Central Mediterranean Sea - Rescue operation or military mission?‏

Dear all,
Find below an urgent statement from us from yesterday, which has been sent to german language mailinglists and which includes partly informations which are more related to the german context. But we thought, an english translation nevertheless might be useful.
Best greetings,
hagen (no one is illegal, Hanau)

Rescue operation or military mission? 
On the current situation in the Central Mediterranean Sea

The rescue vessels of Medicin Sans Frontieres (the ‘Bourbon Argos’) and of MOAS (the ‘Phoenix’) are at present (12/05/2015, 13h CET) positioned not far from the Libyan coast. The weather conditions in the Central Mediterranean Sea remain consistently good, with hardly any strong winds, so that one can expect that refugees and migrants will soon again attempt the sea crossing.

We learned from Tunisian fishermen today, confirmed by the Tunisian media, that more than 20 military vessels were detected near the Tunisian seaport of Mehdia. Are these already concrete preparations for the military mission against ‘smuggling networks’ in Libya even if there is no accordant decision from the UN Security Council and even if the two antagonistic Libyan governments already opposed such mission?

Last Friday (08/05/2015), as the Alarm Phone, we were in direct contact via a satellite phone with the boat-people who were eventually rescued by the two German military vessels (see:http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/119 ). 
On that day, the German vessels ‘Hessen’ and ‘Berlin’ were also detectable on the internet platform ‘vesselfinder’. Afterwards and since, they made themselves invisible once again, which is a normal practice, so that they cannot be traced on publicly accessible platforms anymore. 

However, both vessel are very likely to remain in the area in a standby position. It is difficult to imagine that German soldiers would participate in a short-term mission along the Libyan coast or even on land. Nonetheless, it is possible that they would become indirectly involved in control- and safeguarding duties supporting Italian or British soldiers.

It is important to note that the reinforced rescue operations of civil society/private and military/state vessels in the Central Mediterranean Sea can be viewed as a great success of social movements. Given a consistently concerned public, large NGOs were able to collect a lot of donations to finance their expensive operations. Until recently and still on the 19th of April, when the largest shipwreck occurred with more than 900 deaths, the German government opposed any suggestions to step-up rescue capacities and categorically rejected any involvement. 

However, only 19 days later, two navy vessels started conducting rescue operations and are connected to the rescue coordination centre in Rome and explicitly not to the Frontex Operation ‘Triton’, steered from Warsaw.
This would have been unthinkable without wide-spread political and public pressure! In Germany, for example, ship companies issued explicit statements as did the NGO ‘Pro Asyl’ and the boat-project ‘Sea Watch’. Members of our WatchTheMed Alarm Phone gave various interviews and diverse protests formed also in street campaigns.

It is now crucial to maintain this pressure, through campaigns, events and actions. It is important to thereby point to the ambivalence of military operations and to strongly denounce the planned attacks on potential refugee vessels and the so-called smuggling networks. The EU’s 10 point plan has led to wide-spread disapproval in the media and any form of military intervention should lead to further indignation, opposition and protest. We need to be prepared that military attacks could take place in the days to come which would dramatically intensify the crisis in the Central Mediterranean Sea.