Malta 'should consider itself a southern country'

EU membership did not benefit Malta in terms of employment because factories had to downsize anyway and the dockyard had to be sold, former Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici said yesterday.

He was asked whether EU membership had put the country in a better position to deal with the financial crisis.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici was speaking at the airport on the arrival of Algerian President Emeritus Ahmed Ben Bella who is in Malta together with an international delegation to take part in a two-day forum on the global financial crisis and its impact on North-South relations.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici said Malta should consider itself a southern country so as to benefit from more assistance. "If we consider ourselves as part of the north we will have to be the ones to help," he told journalists before a press conference.

He described the global financial and economic crisis as a "pandemic" that was the single biggest threat to the world because it was not restricted to any regions.

Mr Ben Bella, who had been chosen as the first President of Algeria after he fought for independence, said he had trained several African heads of states including Nelson Mandela.

During the press conference, Mr Ben Bella spoke in Arabic without pause, causing problems for his translator.

At times, Dr Mifsud Bonnici looked visibly confused about what was being said as were the journalists.

Mr Ben Bella said organisations such as the North-South 21 Organisation for International Dialogue and Human Rights, which is organising the forum, were helping in the solution process of the crisis.

He spoke against the western domination of African countries and complained about the fact that his countrymen were migrating in large numbers.

Asked whether Malta should be considered as a developing or developed country, Mr Ben Bella avoided giving a straight answer but said today development was not measured in economic terms but in human value terms.

Aminata Traore, a writer from Mali, said the EU was not respecting the rights of Africans because it was continuing to impose measures that did not benefit Africa's development. "This is a good opportunity to rethink the relationship between the north and the south. As things stand the more we open up our economies the poorer we are becoming. We are so rich and, yet, we are forced to migrate because our economies have not managed to take off."

The forum, open to the public, will be held at the Vivaldi Hotel in Paceville today and tomorrow.

cperegin@timesofmalta.com