Bangladeshi workers in Libya cry for help

The US State Department issued a travel warning advising all non-emergency US personnel to leave Libya. Portugal sent a plane to Libya to pick up its citizens and other EU nationals and Turkey sent two ferries to fetch construction workers stranded by the North African country's bloody unrest on Monday, February 21, as oil and gas companies said they were putting together plans to evacuate their employees. Austria said a military plane is on standby in Malta in case its citizens don't make it out on commercial flights and an emergency evacuation is necessary. Many countries, including India and Italy, are planning to send aircraft to Tripoli to bring back its citizens who want to leave Libya. The Netherlands is planning to evacuate its citizens from Libya with a military plane, while Russia's state-owned railroad company said on Monday that it was sending representatives to Libya to organise the evacuation of 204 employees. Britain has a plan to evacuate 3,500 Britons from Libya, of which between 40 and 50 are thought to be in the areas affected by protests. Protests against the ruling regime and the ensuing unrest have continued unabated in Libya since February 15. The unfolding situation in Libya has been horrible to behold and we are gravely concerned with the disturbing reports and images coming out of this North African country where a violent crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy protesters killed nearly 230 people. We are also gravely concerned and worried with the news that some unfortunate Bangladeshi workers in Libya were hurt when hundreds of armed Libyans attacked a South Korean-run construction site in the capital Tripoli. According to the South Korean Yonhap News Agency, about 500 demonstrators stormed the construction site late Sunday where around 15 workers from Bangladesh were hurt, and two were in serious condition after being stabbed while around 450 others were reportedly taken hostage in the port city of Darnah. More than 1,600 Bangladeshis and 40 to 50 South Korean workers were employed at the site. Libya is a country which possesses huge oil and gas resources, but has a meager population of just about seven million people. The inept rulers have not been able to look after a small number of people with immense resources at their disposal. The wave of awakening among the Arab people that started from Tunisia is now reaching every nook and corner of the Middle East and Libya is no exception to it. People have risen up against the atrocities of their rulers and are demanding their basic rights. They want safeguard of human rights and restoration of civil liberties. They are asking for true democracy and effective participation of people in the government affairs. Around half of its youth are unemployed and the unemployment rate is at a surprising 30 per cent, but its leader Muammar al-Ghaddafi buys labour support from abroad. On paper, there is an ample legislation to ensure that foreigners are given employment only where qualified Libyans could not be found. Despite the bias of labour market regulations favouring Libyan workers, the mismatch with the market demand has produced a large pool of expatriate workers. There are officially 1.0 million foreign workers in Libya, a country of 6.5 million, but the unofficial total of foreign workers many of them staying illegally is closer to 2.0 million. While the unrest in Libya is mostly against its present leadership, but local people are not happy with the foreign workers and have targeted migrant workers, burning their camps and chasing them away. More than 1,000 Chinese construction workers in Libya were forced to flee after gun-wielding robbers stormed their compound, stealing computers and luggage, the company and state media said Tuesday, February 22. Looters in Libya have also attacked Turkish companies with projects that are worth more than US$15 billion. In the present situation, people are not safe in Libya, especially foreign workers. An estimated 50,000 Bangladeshi workers in Libya, who are witnessing the protest, are probably living in great anxiety. We have had experiences in the past about the government response to the workers, who are facing difficulties abroad. Instead of attaching the highest priority to the welfare of non-resident Bangladeshis overseas, most of the time government or Bangladeshi diplomatic missions hardly take care of them in any difficulties. Last September, nearly 200 Bangladeshi workers, who had gone to work in Libya, have taken to streets to protest alleged torture by their recruiters. They had to live under open sky with empty pockets without food for four days. They alleged that they did not get any help from the Bangladesh Embassy in Libya and the agency through which they went there. While the attack on Bangladeshis in Libya has been published in almost all the news media of the world, but according to a Dhaka-based national English daily newspaper, the Bangladesh Ambassador in Libya ABM Nuruzzaman said they have no authentic reports of any such incident in Benghazi or Tripoli or any group holding Bangladeshi workers hostage in any part of Libya. According to BSS report, a foreign ministry spokesman in Dhaka said they have not received any confirmation of that report. Over 5.0 million Bangladeshis work abroad, mostly in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries, sending home around $10 billion a year and providing a vital foreign exchange injection to Bangladesh's economy. This is almost as much as the $12.5 billion the country's other main export, ready-made garments, brings into the country. Remittances are a catalyst in Bangladesh's growth. The remittance inflow was $10.99 billion last year and $10.71 billion in 2009. Although Bangladesh's remittance inflow is the main fuel of the country's economy, but most of the time the awful plight of thousands of Bangladeshi workers in many parts of the world is extremely worrying for everyone. Over 600 Nepali migrant labourers working in Darnah have sought immediate repatriation in the wake of the ongoing unrest in Libya and their government has initiated a process to rescue them by arranging a rescue mission. Giving highest priority, every country in the world is taking active measures to ensure the security of its citizen living in Libya or undertaking rescue missions to repatriate their citizens from Libya. We understand and appreciate that the government of Bangladesh had or have so many plans including setting up of an Expatriate Bank or Expatriate Welfare Bank, but this is the time that the migrant workers in Libya really need help because life is more precious than remittance. The writer is a freelance writer based in New York, USA, and can be reached at e-mail: rbiswas@bridgeport.edu