Turnstile migration

The recent incident involving Asian illegal immigrants shows this government's ineptitude in tackling head-on the issue of illegal immigration, whether the migrants are travelling to or from our shores.

Last year, on his first official visit as Prime Minister, Lawrence Gonzi travelled to Libya with illegal immigration at the top of his agenda. The visit turned into a diplomatic debacle, with Muammar Gaddafi standing our Prime Minister up while EU Commission President Manuel Barroso cooled his heels in Malta awaiting our leader's return.

The Prime Minister failed to secure an agreement to return to Libya those illegal immigrants who do not qualify as genuine refugees. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, on the other hand, was subsequently successful in securing such an agreement.

The recent conference on illegal immigration heard and discussed proposals on what Malta should do to make the often recalcitrant illegal immigrants more comfortable. Also, since illegal immigrants are bound to continue to honour us with their presence in greater numbers, larger and improved facilities to house them will be the order of the day. At no time was any discussion raised as to what Malta and its EU partners - some of whom possess considerable naval resources - could do to stamp out this scourge once and for all.

Turning back towards the North African coast boats loaded with individuals, most of whom would not be carrying identification papers anyway, should slow down trafficking in human cargo. Once word got out such action might even bring such illegal sailings to a grinding halt. Also, the least the Libyan authorities could have done to demonstrate good will was to clamp down on the traffickers, impose heavy prison sentences on those who are responsible and put the rest out of business.

With regards to Asian illegal immigrants allegedly using Malta's English language schools as their entry to the EU, how naïve can our government be? A would-be Chinese wishing to improve his or her English needs only to travel as far as Hong Kong. There, despite that island's reverting back to China, the standard of English taught as well as spoken by the man in the street is of such high calibre that it would make even the head of a typical English grammar school sit up and take notice. Has anyone ever wondered why, out of all the different nationalities (all carrying a variety of passports) which visit Malta, Chinese passports only are advertised as lost in the local press?

Regrettably, it had to be the disparaging remarks made by the prosecutor in Pozzallo that nudged the Maltese authorities into action in this instance.

Once again damage control vis-à-vis our relations with our neighbours to the north had our Foreign Minister and Police Commissioner making all sorts of statements in rebuttal. History does tend to repeat itself. Sadly, learning from previous mistakes and failing to take decisive action have exacerbated what was already a very bad situation.