REFUGEES: Tiny Malta Is Finally Heard

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Vanya Walker-Leigh

VALLETTA, Jul 20 2006 (IPS) - The tiny island of Malta has won support from EU partners for greater support in coping with boat people arriving on its shores through organising maritime patrols on its sea borders.

A breakthrough finally came on Wednesday – after Malta refused to take in 51 Africans picked up from a sinking craft by a Spanish trawler 100 miles south of the island, outside its search and rescue area. Spain agreed to fly out most of the mainly Eritrean immigrants from Malta by a military plane. Five of them who were Moroccans will be repatriated at the expense of the European Commission.

In Brussels European commissioner for justice Franco Frattini told a press conference that an announcement on the start of central Mediterranean sea patrols, involving Greek and Italian ships, would be made next week.

“We have asked the Libyan authorities to sanction our patrols in their territorial waters,” he said. “The Maltese government believes it is very important for the patrolling mission to start. Other member states would prefer to wait for an answer from Libya. My opinion is that this first mission should start in any case. This will send Malta a positive message of European solidarity and show Libya that we want to cooperate with them.”

Maltese foreign minister Michael Frendo had told the EU general affairs and external relations council Monday that “with some exceptions, the Maltese feel alone and abandoned by the European Union on this matter.”

Frendo also asked for EU states to share Malta’s burden by offering resettlement opportunities. The council issued a statement on illegal immigration which expressly recognised problems in the Eastern Mediterranean and called for concrete action “including the need for developing adequate surveillance capacities at the sea borders.”

Earlier this month, members of the European parliament from Malta and some other countries attacked the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union (EU) for failing to deliver enough assistance to Malta by way of patrols or sufficient financial support. Malta is the smallest of the 25 EU countries.

On Wednesday, the Commission issued a wide-ranging communication on illegal immigration providing for rapid reaction teams of border guards to be sent from 2007 to countries experiencing a sudden high inflow of boat people. The Commission also proposed a new short-stay visa policy. The Commission note will be discussed and decided on by the EU member states and the European Parliament.

Last week Malta lobbied hard at the Euro-African ministerial conference on migration and development in Rabat, Morocco, for the scope of the conference’s final decisions to be widened to address migrant flows via Libya from the Horn of Africa countries as a condition of Maltese support for the Rabat declaration. No representatives from the Horn of Africa countries – Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti – were invited to Rabat.

The Maltese minister obtained a formal commitment from Frattini that central Mediterranean patrols would begin this summer – the high season for people traffickers.

Malta also offered to host a preparatory meeting for the next major summit on migration between the European Union (EU) and the African Union, to be hosted by Libya later this year.

The Rabat declaration, endorsed by 30 European and 27 African states, launched a new cooperative partnership, underpinned by a 62-point action plan aimed at stemming the flow of illegal immigrants from Africa into Europe, stepping up repatriation of immigrants who fail to obtain refugee or humanitarian asylum status, and promoting regular legal immigration in line with Europe’s labour needs.

The declaration affirms that “effective action must be taken against illegal migration, smuggling of and trafficking in human beings, in the framework of a viable and united partnership, whilst respecting the fundamental rights and dignity of migrants.”

At the same time, it aims to enhance job opportunities for would-be migrants in their home countries through development assistance focusing on local job creation and small enterprises.

The declaration and action plan will be submitted to the forthcoming United Nations high-level dialogue on migration in mid-September.

Apart from organisational problems over patrols, a sticking point has been the Commission’s continued inability to get support from Libya – a transit zone for sub-Saharan Africans crossing the desert to enter the country through its sparsely guarded southern frontier. The Commission has been asking Libya to authorise EU patrols to enter its territorial waters and to take back illegal immigrants found there sailing towards Europe.

A former British colony located 100km south of Sicily and 200km north of Libya, Malta has 400,000 inhabitants packed into 320 sq km, and is the second most densely populated nation in the world (after Bangladesh) – 1200 inhabitants per sq km.

It is a tightly knit, 99 percent Roman Catholic society, with no history of migration from Africa in its crowded urban areas and straggling villages spread over the islands of Malta (16km by 26km) and Gozo (10km by 15km).

More than 5,000 ‘irregular immigrants’ have arrived in Malta since 2000 – 1822 last year, more than 1,000 so far this year, 500 just in June, 150 this weekend. They come crammed in rickety boats organised by traffickers which leave the 2000km Libyan coastline for Italy – but mistakenly land in Malta, or break down in Malta’s huge maritime search and rescue area.

Xenophobia is mounting as increasing numbers of the released immigrants begin to look for work. They may find casual labour, but little welcome from most Maltese; a few have been physically assaulted. They cannot access other EU states, who refuse them entry.

Racist attitudes have been stirred up recently by the Republican National Alliance, which is calling for repatriation of all African boat people claiming that the migrants are contributing to rising unemployment amongst the Maltese.

More than 1,500 detained immigrants (as numerous as Malta’s entire armed forces) have been housed in miserable conditions under military guard for at least a year; media access to them is denied. Last month about 400 of them broke out of the detention centre to demonstrate in a nearby street. Most, not all, were rounded up by the police. Another 1,031 released from detention are housed in sparse ‘open centres’.

“We agree with Maltese NGOs assisting the immigrants that Malta must institute a more transparent, humane procedure, with proper judicial oversight, and significantly reduce the detention period,” Father Paul Pace, acting director of the Roman Catholic Jesuit Refugee Service told IPS.

Damning reports on the detention centres have been produced by Amnesty International and visiting members of the European Parliament.

Martin Scicluna, the government adviser on illegal immigration, and former assistant under secretary at the British Ministry of Defence, told IPS that the detention period could not be shortened, and that Maltese society must learn to welcome and integrate Africans already here.