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2 maltatoday EXECUTIVE EDITOR Matthew Vella MANAGING EDITOR Saviour Balzan Letters to the Editor, MaltaToday, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt Letters must be concise, no pen names accepted, include full name and address maltatoday | SUNDAY • 19 APRIL 2020 Crises and disasters Editorial THEY are dangerous times, politically. That level was reached yesterday when the Maltese Prime Minister gave us a taste of the overweening power of the State by bringing it down with force on a group of boister- ous critics who filed a police complaint against the Armed Forces of Malta and Robert Abela himself for the involuntary homicide of five migrants. The story in a nutshell is this: a group of boat mi- grants that left Libya and drifted into the Maltese search and rescue area was not succoured by the AFM after Malta closed its ports to migrant rescue charities at sea, citing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its resources. The boat was eventually rescued by a com- mercial vessel that took the migrants back to Libya, less five who died at sea, and another seven believed to be missing. Additionally, the NGO Alarm Phone shared an audio recording from a mayday call from migrants of the adrift boat, shared with the New York Times, accusing the AFM of sabotaging the migrant boat off the coast of Malta by going aboard and cutting an elec- trical cable. The Maltese government has not denied the claims. Is the Maltese government guilty of dereliction of duty by refusing to save people's lives at sea. Yes. Much like all EU member states who have shuttered their ports and refusing to take in boat migrants being taken out to sea by Libyan people smugglers. Can we point an accusatory finger at the EU's failure to address the hu- manitarian crisis in our back yard. Yes. Can we labour the point that those deaths at sea where the result But a criminal complaint filed by the civil society group Repubblika and signed by the Nationalist Party's shadow justice minister Jason Azzopardi as legal coun- sel, has raised the government's dander. That Repubbli- ka is an NGO of one-time PN activists in self-imposed exile from the party, who played an unstinting role in keeping the memory of Daphne Caruana Galizia alive with an incessant campaign for justice, does not go unnoticed by the Labour government. In the past week, the NGO has also filed a judicial protest demanding it review proposals for the reforms of the judiciary the Maltese government will be sending to the Council of Europe's Venice Commission. And while Jason Azzo- pardi was submitting the criminal complaint, the PN leader Adrian Delia was visiting the Armed Forces of Malta to extend to them the PN's support. The reaction of the prime minister has been a ze- ro-sum, cynical move to respond to Repubblika's over- played hand, and exploit the divide inside the Nation- alist Party. With a press conference that included the entire Cabinet, Abela savoured the fact that he was per- sonally accused of involuntary homicide and that he had "given himself in to the police" for questioning; but also said that the 12 army officers accused by Repubblika would be impeded from carrying out their duties at sea at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is taking up all resources of the disciplined corps. "Instead of saluting their life-saving duties so many miles away from home, there are those who want them in jail," Abela said. Emboldened by the European Court of Human Rights decision to throw out a similar request from Repubbli- ka, the PM used the occasion to double-down on Mal- ta's refusal to save asylum seekers at sea, a strategy that has involved the near-criminalisation of migrant rescue charities at sea (only one, Sea-Eye is currently oper- ating, with others offering only ancillary support and unable to mount rescues in waters that are no longer manned by European navies and coast guards). Foreign minister Evarist Bartolo's statement accusing 'NGOs' of abetting Libyan smugglers reinforced a line espoused by the populist right-wing in Italy to denigrate NGOs acting to save lives in the vacuum created by disinclined European governments. The social media bluster has been unstoppable since then, and it has reinvigorated a hardline stance against activists, artists, journalists, and healthcare professionals who signed petitions calling on Abela to rescue migrant boats outside Maltese territori- al waters. We cannot ignore the kind of manufactured con- sent that such a high-profile statement by the Maltese prime minister was intended to carry out. Minutes later, Labour MP Glenn Bedingfield tweeted a still from an Instituto Luce reel of Mussolini's declaration of war in 1939, with a placard reading 'Malta' in the sea of sup- porters cheering on the fascist dictator. The message was intended at 'traitors' in times of war. This line will encourage people threatened by the invisible predator of the coronavirus pandemic and its effect on their liveli- hoods, to push aside human rights and view others who are also fleeing from the predators of slavery, destitution and guns in Libyas, as undeserving of our humanitarian obligation.It is a complex issue, one recently placed in apposite context by the Malta Chamber of Psycholo- gists: we are dealing with two categories of persons equally threatened by predators and "equally afraid, equally fighting for their lives", but this should not put human life up for negotiation. "All lives have equal val- ue. Every human person has the right to safety, let alone the right to exercise their freedom to live and thrive". The threat to our humanity now is that the PM's statement will unleash a stream of derogatory accusa- tions against people who believe in international human rights for their own sake, and not just for political expe- dience. They include tens of thousands of decent people who understand very well the challenge the pandemic has presented to our health workers and other public servants but don't want the Maltese to lose their hu- manity. Malta as always is a price-taker in international re- lations. On migration, the European Union has failed to provide a common solution, and member states themselves have proven to be intractable in agreeing on common redistribution mechanisms. The cost of 'less Europe' in migration as always punishes border coun- tries like Malta (much as 'less Europe' in other matters of fiscal relief punishes economies on the European periphery). Irrespectively of the authors of the criminal com- plaint, at law the right to request a police investigation on an alleged crime is sacrosanct. But the government have used the occasion to reinforce its hardline stance and in the process, has now set the worst kind of ex- ample to a nation that needs guidance more than ever in the time of this pandemic. This pandemic does not allow us the freedom to ignore human rights or instru- mentalise the rule of law to promote an unacceptable discourse that divides people. The true colours of a nation are indeed in full view. 18 April 2010 Curia halted Bishop from reporting clerics to police REPORTING sex abuse scandals by clerics to the Police was an option considered by Maltese Bishops almost 20 years ago, however a Presby- terian Council had recommended the Curia to be 'diligent' and protect 'its sons' by investigat- ing them internally. A Response Team was set up in 1999 as a result of a lengthy discussion within the Pres- byterian Council that confronted former Gozo Bishop Nikol Cauchi who had originally pro- posed reporting clerics to the police when cases of sex abuse were brought to the attention of the Curia. Speaking to MaltaToday, Bishop Emeritus Nikol Cauchi said: "I told the Presbyterian Council that the easiest way for Bishops was to refer the cases to the police, but the council members replied that it was a matter of looking deeper into the issues, and putting it at par to a situation where a father, learning about his sons' evils, would turn him in to the police." As the Response Team was formed, Cauchi explained that the Curia had asked the Vatican for guidance: "We informed the Vatican about the Response Team and they stressed that we still send the findings from the investigations to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith." Bishop Cauchi categorically denied that he or former Archbishop Joseph Mercieca had ever hidden guidelines laid out by the Vatican's Con- gregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from the Response Team, as was suggested to MaltaTo- day by senior officials within the same team. The guidelines – prepared in 2001 and up- dated in 2003 by then Cardinal Jozef Ratzinger – were issued by the Vatican for the exclusive consumption of Bishops worldwide. The guidelines were reproduced last Monday on the Holy See's website, in what appears to have been an attempt to quell international crit- icism over the response by the Church to cases of alleged sex abusers that have tarnished the Papacy of Pope Benedict XVI who this morning will concelebrate mass on the Granaries in Flo- riana. Senior Vatican sources told MaltaToday that the guidelines "only oblige Bishops to immedi- ately report abuse cases to the police, where it is obligatory, such as in the United States."... Quote of the Week "Leaders who simply abstain from taking action; who sit and let things unfold, are also complicit in setting a poor example to a nation who currently needs guidance more than ever." Malta Chamber of Psychologists MaltaToday 10 years ago