Editorial
Migrants: Case for exercise in transparency
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.
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David Portelli
Aug 1st 2010, 08:35
Louise Vella in the first comment hits the nail on his head,cause these people are just abusing from this system and using it as a ferry.
The AFM are not just rescuers but also ferry crew.
Sean Grima
Aug 4th 2010, 08:37
nonsense: they are exercising the right granted to them by maltese law to seek asylum.
B. Cachia
Jul 31st 2010, 17:08
In fact, the 'only' obligation Malta has is to rescue people in difficulty within its vastly oversized search and rescue region (which covers a part of the Mediterranean that is almost as large as the Italian peninsula). It does not have the obligation to bring them to Malta afterwards, although in practice it often has to do that, when the country that the boat belongs to actually fails to cooperate.
Equally importantly, prospective asylum-seekers don't have the right to lodge a claim until they reach Maltese territory (not the SRR but our much smaller territorial waters, extending 12 nautical miles from our shore). In this case, and in many others, the rescue occurred a very great distance away from our territorial waters and this is an undisputed fact.
It may seem petty or legalistic to raise such points, but one is not talking about a few individuals here. One is talking about mass migration. And no country around the world, whether it is European, Asian or African could accept that.
Sean Grima
Aug 4th 2010, 08:38
the obligation is to take rescued migrants to the nearest safe harbour, which, very often, in practice, is malta.
B. Cachia
Aug 5th 2010, 00:22
@ Sean Grima: I suppose you know very well that you're wrong. The obligation to take people to the nearest port (which is often not Malta, as our SRR extends over areas which are much closer to other countries) only arises when no one else wants to accept them. Those rescued have no specific legal right to demand to be taken to this or that port.
Once they are taken to whatever port it may be, they then have the right to lodge an asylum claim.
Joseph Cauchi
Jul 31st 2010, 15:11
It seems that the Editor is more inclined to believe the “stories” or the fables as uttered by the illegal immigrants rather than the version as stated by the Armed Forces of Malta.
I tend to have more faith in our Armed Forces as history has proven that most of these illegal immigrants are not so scrupulous in their version of events!
Why should the Editor doubt our Armed Forces?
I wonder!
JC.
Sean Grima
Aug 4th 2010, 08:39
the editor is not taking sides, but calling for an independent inquiry. nobody who does not have anything to hide should object to that.
Joseph Camenzuli
Jul 31st 2010, 15:04
The only inquiry that should be held is why not all illegal immigrants were sent back to Libya and why all illegal immigrants are not sent back. The polls constantly show that the people are fed up with them and their antics and want them out of Malta back to Libya. The politicians are disregarding the people at their political risk. Elections are not that far away and we shall give our answer on our vote.
Sean Grima
Aug 4th 2010, 08:40
countries are governed according to law, not online polls.
patrick zammit
Jul 31st 2010, 14:38
I find it strange that illegal immigrants who are about to drown or drowning should be worrying where the patrol boat that has saved them will be taking them.
Proverbially, a drowning man will cling to straw to save himself.
MSciberras
Jul 31st 2010, 14:27
The writer of this editorial knows well that both the Italo - Libyan agreement and the specific incident of the Maltese patrol boat mentioned are in a very grey legal area where the rules that apply, well intentioned as they are, outdated in other respects (the Dublin treaty mentioned, an integral part of the international legal framework covering migrants and refugees, was designed with the displaced persons in postwar Europe in mind) simply cannot be applied all the time or even most of the time. It isn't in Malta's interest to have an independent inquiry, period. Many out there would think this writer incredibly naive or doing what many Maltese do when they hear sunday mass - generate a feeling of spiritual well being by writing an article that takes the easy-to-reach moral high ground while, in reality, offering nothing more meaningful than an empty prayer. The root causes of African migration, and the colossal investment in money and blood needed to address them are ignored. Western countries never even stopped their own trawlers from depleting the fishing stocks off Somalia's coasts, depriving millions of their livelihoods - but of course, we must observe the Dublin convention to the letter.....!
Sean Grima
Aug 1st 2010, 14:42
an independent inquiry should be help precisely because it might not be in someone's interest!
Sean Grima
Aug 1st 2010, 14:43
The Dublin treaty has got nothing to do with postwar refugees.
Charles Sammut
Jul 31st 2010, 12:49
What the inquiry should investigate is why half of the illegal immigrants were brought to Malta in the first place when they should all have been sent back.
Africa is an enormous continent with limitless resources and needs all the manpower it can get. Malta on the other hand is overcrowded, resourceless and fed up with this invasion.
Sean Grima
Aug 4th 2010, 08:39
so, africa is in a better state than malta!
Louise Vella
Jul 31st 2010, 11:33
This editorial is written in UNHCR-speak. It ignores the views of 81.4% of respondents to a timesofmalta.com poll who say that illegal immigrants found in central Mediterranean waters should be sent back to Libya.
Sean Grima
Aug 1st 2010, 14:43
it rightly ignores them. might is not right.
Louise Vella
Jul 31st 2010, 10:49
“As time went by, something went wrong”.
We don’t know what went wrong. But knowing UNHCR’s behaviour in Malta we can imagine. UNHCR never explained the behaviour of its official Michele Manca de Missa in the riots by illegal immigrants at Safi in 2005, as referred to in the report by retired Judge Franco Depasquale. UNHCR has still not explained why in the case of the Spanish trawler it openly took sides with Spain against Malta. UNHCR has still not explained the hostile public attitude of its officials Paolo Arditi, Laura Boldrini, not to mention Neil Falzon.
“As time went by, something went wrong”. I wonder what.
Sean Grima
Aug 1st 2010, 14:44
there is no hostile attitude, it is just that their words are not music to the ears of some.
Louise Vella
Jul 31st 2010, 10:32
It is a feather in Malta’s cap that its Armed Forces have saved thousands from drowning. Most of these illegal immigrants had put their lives deliberately at risk to blackmail European countries into rescuing them. Search and Rescue is what it says. You search for a man and you rescue him from drowning. It does not mean acting as a ferry to take the man to the shores of Europe.