Illegal immigrants, criminals and crusaders

According to a public opinion survey carried out for The Sunday Times by Professor Mario Vassallo, only 2.3% of Maltese agreed that everybody should have the right to settle in Malta. Only 20% favoured granting asylum to foreigners escaping from war, political persecution or hunger. While 95% could accept other Europeans as neighbours, 90% were unwilling to accept Africans; 95% were unwilling to accept Arabs (The Sunday Times, August 14, 2005).

That is as broad a consensus as you can get, but it falls short of unanimity. At one end of the spectrum, the pro-immigrant lobby advances religious or political reasons to favour the settlement in Malta of nationals of North and sub-Saharan African states and their integration into Maltese society. This lobby probably numbers a few hundred, but outnumbers those at the other end of the spectrum, who seem ready to resort to illegal and criminal acts to defend the opposite viewpoint.

One can only condemn criminals, who are beyond the pale of reason; but one can argue with crusaders in the hope of persuading them that their method can be a nuisance and could even be counter-productive.

As militants, the defenders of illegal immigrants try to make their voice sound louder than it is and to convert others to their cause.

They work with like-minded foreign organisations, which they subsequently call as witnesses to the rightness of their cause. The system functions like several interconnected loudspeakers, raising the volume of their viewpoint above its real strength.

It can be easily deciphered and I shall describe some of its elements.

UNHCR

The United Nations' Refugees agency has done sterling work for more than 50 years but in recent years, as it expanded, its standard of professionalism has fallen. Examples abound. In February 2005, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers was forced to resign.

The London Times reported that he had been guilty of "a pattern of sexual harassment" and that "his reputation as a flirt earned him the nickname of 'Lewd Rubbers' among UN staff" (February 21, 2005).

This information is absent from the UNHCR's Website (www.unhcr.org), which still carries a detailed report, mistakes and all, of the incidents in Malta the previous month.

Another example is the role of Michele Manca de Nissa, a Rome-based UNHCR official visiting Malta during the illegal immigrants' protest in January 2005. Judge Franco Depasquale's report quotes Charles Buttigieg, the Maltese government's Refugee Commissioner, as saying: "Dr de Nissa told them more than once that UNHCR did not agree with the detention system... UNHCR had been protesting for a long time with the Maltese authorities about the unacceptable conditions in which they were living. I was surprised that in such a delicate moment Dr de Nissa felt he could make such a speech".

A third example is the misuse of Maltese hospitality by another UNHCR official, Laura Boldrini, at a press conference in January this year, when she criticised the British press. As Malta is a free country, she could have criticised the Maltese press. She can criticise the British press in Britain. But criticising the British press in Malta is as unacceptable as criticising the Maltese press in London. It is a pity that, in their delicate functions, UNHCR officials should be so gaffe-prone.

In the meantime, UNHCR has not repatriated a single illegal immigrant not qualifying for refugee or humanitarian status in Malta. Instead, it has evaded its duty by pressuring Maltese authorities to open up the detention centres and accept illegal immigration, in defiance of the opinion of the majority of Maltese. With the pretext of an 'awareness campaign', its representatives overstep their attributes and, with others, play the role of loudspeakers.

The Council of Europe

The Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights (sorry, but they are all called Commissioner!) has no legal powers. He visits countries and writes reports. He does not cost his recommendations, let alone pay for them, and so he can afford to be magnanimous. Unlike an Opposition party, he cannot be challenged to say which taxes he would raise to pay for his generous proposals. The Commissioner may appear impartial, but can lean whichever way he chooses.

In his first report on Malta (February 2004), he coyly said he met representatives of civil society and NGOs. He gave the game away in footnote 4 by referring to "the study realised in July 2003 by the Maltese Jesuit Refugee Service".

The latter returned the compliment. In its publication "Reception of asylum seekers in Malta" (February 2005), it quotes with approval "a number of reports, published by both local and international organisations". Among them it cites the report by the Council of Europe Commissioner, its own reports, and one of a press conference by UNHCR.

Coincidentally or not, two re-ports were published on the same day (December 22, 2005) criticising the Depasquale report on the January 2005 incidents. The first, by Amnesty International, refers to UNHCR. The second, jointly by the Emigrants' Commission and the Jesuit Refugee Service, again quotes with approval the report by the Council of Europe Commissioner and UNHCR. It says that "various credible human rights organisations and international institutions on more than one occasion" agreed with Maltese NGOs. As Maltese NGOs had made an input to the reports of the international institutions, this is not surprising at all.

The paper also calls for more resources to be "invested" in the care of illegal immigrants. My dictionary defines 'invest' as "spend money in the expectation of earning a profit". What profit do the Maltese expect from money spent on illegal immigrants?

On March 29, the Council of Europe Commissioner published a follow-up report after a two-day visit by two staff members. Some journalists gave it an enthusiastic copy-and-paste welcome. Others obsequiously called it an "international report". The Ombudsman rubbished it. The footnotes to the report say the visitors met "NGOs and the UNHCR consultant in Malta", and refer to the Jesuit Refugee Service and its publications at least four times. At this rate, they can go on citing and complimenting each other for a long time.

Among his recommendations, the Council of Europe Commissioner calls for better psychiatric care for illegal immigrants. Does he know that the only way to make an illegal immigrant happy is to put him on a boat to Sicily or a plane to Germany?

The report abusively states that detention "resembles a prison sentence in all but name", even though an illegal immigrant (unlike a convicted foreigner) can leave Malta any moment, for example, if UNHCR sends him to his own or another country.

The Commissioner criticises Malta's Refugee Appeals Board without having met its members. The report makes recommendations for new laws, better facilities, more social workers, free legal aid and so on.

It does not say what it would cost the Maltese taxpayer to implement these recommendations. Incidentally, it "welcomes the investment and progress made in relieving overcrowding". Investment, again; investment, indeed!

We learn that "many detainees complained of gastric conditions and spread of worm infections" and that four detainees suffered from tuberculosis. We already knew that 5% of soldiers working with illegal immigrants contracted the microbe TB mute. We had also read of a suspected case of meningitis (It-Torca, April 2).

The Council of Europe Commissioner's reports never mention Malta's national interest or Maltese public opinion; neither do the cited reports by UNHCR and the NGOs.

However, the follow-up report makes two oblique references to the odium the Government incurs by its preferential treatment of illegal immigrants. They jump the queue at the hospital emergency service. Their children are provided with free school uniforms and given pocket money.

The report hopes "that the tensions here and there over what is sometimes perceived as preferential treatment for foreign children in the school system can be quickly defused so as to avert any upsurge of racism and xenophobia". The Commissioner knows that preferential treatment leads to more, not less, racism. He hopes it will be defused, but that is not his problem.

All told, the Commissioner is a lucky man. Having penned (but not costed) his recommendations, his duty is done.

He does not have to square the budget circle, or raise taxes to pay for measures opposed by 80 or 90 per cent of the Maltese. He does not have to face the electorate.

He does not have to go knocking on people's doors every five years, begging for that crucial vote that can make a difference. Neither do officials of UNHCR and NGOs, of course, as they operate their system of interconnected loudspeakers. Government ministers do.