Last year was an extraordinary one for Joseph Muscat, especially for callowness, double-talk and duplicity. But this year looks like it may be even better.
The man who used to gush about meritocracy, and who used to get all worked up about the safety and health of Marsaxlokk’s residents, has now fixed on a new target. He has cold-bloodedly decided to talk sweetly about children – immigrant children.
He chose his moment. During his Freedom Day speech, with all attention on him, he spoke of his determination to combat the detention of immigrant children. He declared he was going to put an end to it. He was determined to give them freedom too.
One would think he came to power finding a child-detention policy in place by the previous government. Except he did not.
Child detention was abolished by Tonio Borg, then Minister for Home Affairs, in 2003. Yes, 11 years ago. Malta had not yet become an EU member. Eddie Fenech Adami was still prime minister. The regular boatloads of asylum-seekers from Africa had only been arriving for a year.
Thereafter, children were only kept in detention until they had routine medical checkups.
This should take a few days at most; sometimes it need last only a few hours.
Unaccompanied minors also need to undergo a verification process, a wrist x-ray to determine the true age, and this can take a few weeks. I have myself visited some of these minors, who are under the care of the Agency for the Welfare of Asylum Seekers (AWAS). They are not in detention centres with other immigrants but in a unit with special carers.
Some are even attending courses at the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology.
They are not living in ideal circumstances and a lot can be improved. But they are not in detention.
If the Prime Minister is telling the truth, and there are some children in detention, then Mallia lied to Parliament
So which children in detention was Muscat talking about? Lawrence Gonzi’s government did not keep children under detention. Did Muscat reverse this policy? Is he trying to take credit for releasing children he had thrown into detention himself?
On several occasions, both in and out of Parliament, I have asked Manuel Mallia, the Minister for Home Affairs and National Security, whether there are any children in detention. Mallia has always denied that there are any.
Consider slowly the implications of that repeated denial.
If the Prime Minister is telling the truth, and there are some children in detention who need to be released, then Mallia lied to Parliament. What if Mallia told the truth? It means that Muscat used the platform of a national feast to suggest something untrue and to take credit for something that was already done. That would be mendacity under the glare of the assembled national media.
Either way, the government has questions to answer. Muscat and Mallia cannot both be right.
So far, however, they look like they may get away with it. The media have asked no questions. Several NGOs have welcomed the promise to put an end to child detention but they have not asked the essential question. Since when have children been detained?
If there are no children actually in detention, one has to wonder why Muscat would want to suggest, so prominently, that there are. Could a wish to distract attention from two ministerial resignations have had anything to do with it?
A child detention policy would be callous. However, it is not much better to falsely suggest there is one. They both show an amoral willingness to use children for political ends.
In her last speech as an MP, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca stressed on the need to give children, especially child migrants, all the necessary protection, “as though they are our children”. You just have to wonder if she thought she needed to say that to someone in particular.
Claudette Buttigieg is the Opposition’s spokeswoman on social dialogue, consumer affairs and civil liberties.