The news that the new EU Director General for Migration, Stefano Manservisi, defended the 2009 bilateral agreement between Italy and Libya about returning to the north African country migrants rescued in the Mediterranean is surely music to the ears of those who agree with this practice and support the Maltese government's stand on the recent rescue operation. In the rescue, a group of migrants, reportedly from Somalia, were sent back to Libya.
Mr Manservisi maintained that Libya was a signatory to the 1969 Addis Ababa Convention concerning refugees in Africa, which binds Libya to principles he said were similar to those of the UN Refugee Convention, including cooperation with the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. Although Libya did not sign the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention, the UNHCR began operating in Libya in 1991, doing so at the invitation of the government. Since then, in the absence of a Libyan national asylum system, the UNHCR has been carrying out registration and refugee status determination, visiting detention facilities and providing medical and humanitarian assistance to detainees.
Moreover, about two years ago, the UN agency signed an agreement with three organisations aimed at ensuring the protection needs of refugees and asylum seekers in Libya. The agreement was in line with the UNHCR's responsibility to ensure that, in the context of mixed asylum and migration flows, refugees are adequately protected. It also sought to support the Libyan authorities in designing and implementing comprehensive and protection-sensitive asylum management strategies that fully respected international and regional refugee and human rights principles.
As time went by, something went wrong. Indeed, last June, the UNHCR said it had been ordered by the Libyan government to close its office in that country and halt activities. The agency's chief spokesman in Geneva then told journalists the UNHCR was hoping the closure would be temporary and that negotiations to find a solution were continuing. Yet, to date, it is not clear, at least publicly, whether Libya and the UNHCR have managed to resolve matters, and if so, when and how.
In such circumstances, keeping in mind the UNHCR's experience in Libya, its claim that the immigrants who were transferred to a Libyan vessel in the joint operation with the Armed Forces of Malta - the one mentioned above - could have been misled and that it doubts whether they had actually volunteered to return to Libya, raises an issue that must be addressed.
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi ruled out an independent inquiry into the AFM's behaviour during the rescue operation. He said he was convinced the rights of the migrants sent back to Libya were safeguarded and that the army behaved according to established procedures.
The Times has already raised this issue earlier this week and makes the point again because it feels strongly about it.
The case for an independent exercise aimed at getting to the bottom of what happened earlier this month on the high seas, putting all cards on the table and clarifying any lose ends, remains opportune and this not only in view of the UNHCR's concern.
Such an exercise in transparency, which could also see how best to deal with potentially similar situations in the future to ensure that during rescue operations migrants seeking international protection clearly understand their situation and that their decision is completely voluntary, would be a feather in Malta's human rights and solidarity cap.