Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1002137
16 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 8 JULY 2018 INTERVIEW Malta has recently implemented a policy of closing its ports to NGO vessels involved in search and rescue (SAR) operations at sea. To quote the captain of one such vessel, this policy 'contributes to the Mediterranean becoming a mass grave'. Government argues that its intention is the opposite: to ensure that all rescue vessels are 'operating legally'. As a human rights campaigner, how do you interpret those two, very different arguments? They're two very different dis- courses. There can be absolutely no doubt that the search and res- cue vessels have saved thousands upon thousands upon thousands of lives. We also need to remind ourselves that they have been op- erating for a relatively short time. 'Death in the Mediterranean' isn't something new; the central Mediterranean route is the most lethal by far in the world... and [NGO vessels] have been operat- ing for, what, three or four years? If we just look at statistics: in the last couple of weeks, since the vessels were stopped from oper- ating, we've had a 50% increase in the number of deaths. Last week, it was just under 1,000... now, it's 1,500. There can be absolutely no doubt... no playing around with figures here... that pulling the vessels away, and stopping their operations, is at the cost of human life. Five hundred deaths in the past week alone. If it had been anyone else, it would be 24/7 headline news globally. Yet somehow, we are now facing a discourse that justifies this loss of life. [Pause] I'm at a loss. Honest- ly, I'm at a loss as to where we go from here. That the deaths have been 'normalised', in their own right, is already shocking; but to somehow justify it, is... incred- ible. Simply incredible. The end cannot justify the means. We're taking things to a completely dif- ferent level here. The new policy of stopping search and rescue vessels is deadly... Another stated government justification is that this policy also 'sends out a message' to human traffickers – and also asylum seekers – that: 'this is the risk you are facing if you try to come to Europe'. Wouldn't you say that this is also an indirect admission that all other more 'humane' approaches have so far failed? We need a take a historical per- spective. The EU approach has been containment throughout: in other words, containing refu- gee and migrant flows within the African continent. What we're seeing is an intensification of this policy. Every time they try a [new] approach, it doesn't work, because people keep arriving; so they will try something else, then something else again... and each time, the human rights violations become more serious. The loss of life becomes even steeper. I think the narrative also tends to put too much focus on arrivals, and coming up with new poli- cies to stop people from coming to Europe – without looking at why people are moving in the first place. Over more than a dec- ade now, we've developed a very strong evidence base, speaking to refugees who have taken the Eastern, Western and Central Mediterranean routes. The evi- dence is conclusive: people are being pushed to move. We need to look at why people are taking these decisions in the first place. If we ignore the situation, and just focus on keeping everybody out of Europe, then our policies will continue to fail. As they have done so far... At the risk of asking a very open-ended question: is there any real alternative to the containment policy? People have been asking us over the past couple of weeks: yes, but what are your solutions...? They put it more bluntly, but yes, that's what I'm asking too... My response would be, our 'so- lutions' depend on how we frame the problem. If the problem is arrivals, then yes: containment would appear to be the solution. But if the problem is loss of life, then there are many other solu- tions we can look at: many solu- tions that we have proposed over and over again. It depends on how you define the problem. If it's loss of life at sea, then search and rescue is the obvious solu- tion... But the conventions of SAR have been in place for centuries, if not millennia. In itself, 'saving lives at sea' is not a policy, but rather a long- established obligation. So it cannot really be considered a 'solution'... No, of course it isn't. Ideally, people shouldn't be forced onto those boats in the first place. Once they get on the boat, how- ever, search and rescue becomes one solution. But if we are saying, 'we need to stop them from get- ting on those boats'... then what alternatives do they have? 'Keep- ing them there', for me, is not a solution. If, however, people are provided safe and legal options, then that is another solution. But again, another solution on its own; because as we know, mi- gration is an extremely complex issue. There is no 'silver bullet', there is no one solution. But put- ting different options together, I think we can face this contempo- rary challenge. You call it a 'contemporary challenge', but – let's face it – it isn't, really. People have been migrating out of Africa ever since the dawn of mankind. Why is it so much more difficult to cope with today? Broadly speaking, I would say that what we have here is a con- temporary phenomenon. Migra- tion has always existed, yes, but the dynamics today are very dif- ferent: reflecting a contemporary reality of globalisation. Even in the time that I've been working in the field, people [at first] didn't arrive with mobile phones; then they came with phones with sim- ple text; and today they arrive with smartphones. This changes the dynamics of migration. But we still seem to be addressing the issue from a very 19th/20th century perspective, with a lot of focus on the nation state. Even the idea of 'Europe' as a collec- tive whole is far from a reality. We have 28 – soon to be 27 – member states... each looking after their own interest. These are not responses that reflect contemporary realities. They are very much grounded in another era. In many ways, I think what we are witnessing are the death- throes of the nation state as we know it. There will be change, because you are not going to stop people from moving. But until we accept this reality, our re- sponse still seems to be grounded in bullying... in thuggery... in this notion that 'might is right', with very strong echoes of colonial legacies as well. There is a lot of talk about 'solidarity'. If we speak European governments – including Malta – seem to have turned their guns onto NGOs involved in migrant rescue. MARIA PISANI, of the human rights NGO Integra Foundation, argues that the new policy takes things to a new level by justifying large-scale loss of life Solutions If the EU's intention, as recent history demonstrates, is to stop arrivals at all costs, then it seems to me they have found their 'f inal solution': let them drown Europe's final solution: 'let them drown' Raphael Vassallo rvassallo@mediatoday.com.mt