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14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 12 JULY 2020 NEWS MATTHEW VELLA MALTA'S relations with the United States have always been momentarily punctuated by the misgivings of national leaders on a Status of Forces Agreement with the superpower. With constitutional neutrality embed- ded in 1986, and the Labour Party's his- tory of anti-colonialism and non-align- ment, the debate on a SOFA has been peppered by unwillingness or suspicion towards American interests. And despite its comfortable-sounding acronym, 'SO- FA' has so far proved to be anything but accommodating for the successive US ambassadors who have tried to secure one with Malta over the years. Repeated attempts to secure such an agreement succeeded only in uniting an otherwise unbridgeable political divide: with both Nationalist and Labour governments re- jecting the proposal with equal emphasis. For the past 20 years, Washington has been putting out feelers with Maltese leaders on the establishment of a SO- FA – an agreement that establishes the rights and privileges of U.S. personnel in Malta as support of the larger security arrangement. But the question of neutrality apart (famously described as a form of equi- distance from the American and Russian superpowers of the Cold War), Malta's problems in a growing world of international crime that increasingly uses the high seas for smuggling drugs and military-grade weap- onry are about to take cen- tre-stage. Malta could be edging closer to a SOFA that would see the small island facili- tating a stronger American presence to tackle crime aboard Malta-flagged ships as well as operating on the 'Wild West' that is Hurd's Bank. Misgivings on jurisdiction Always present in the dis- cussions on SOFA in the Maltese press has been the scale of the agreement and questions about immunity for US personnel in Malta. As diplomatic cables from 2010 show, Washington analysts have al- ways been "very interested" in the views of Maltese leaders on a possible status of forces agreement – one of them request- ed biographical information on then President George Abela, Prime Minis- ter Lawence Gonzi, Opposition leader Joseph Muscat, foreign minister Tonio Borg, European Commissioner John Dal- li, and also Gonzi's personal assistant Ed- gar Galea Curmi to learn "who are they close to personally and professionally? What important alliances, business or political, should analysts be aware of in- volving these individuals?" The request had not found any warmth a few years earlier in 2007, when it was raised informally by US ambassador An- thony Goia with Michael Frendo. Fren- do had ruled out any discussions for the Malta Shipyards to be designated for Home Port Status to the United States government. On 2 February 2010, Foreign Minister Tonio Borg told US ambassador Douglas Kmiec that Lawrence Gonzi was "pre- pared to go forward" on a PfP SOFA to establish a military presence in Mal- ta. Speaking outside of the presence of note-takers, indicating the secretiveness of the request, Borg indicated that Gonzi was ready to go ahead on the SOFA when Borg and Kmiec agree on terms. But ear- lier, Gonzi's assistant Edgar Galea-Curmi had warned Kmiec that Borg "had been the primary opponent and chief skeptic of signing a SOFA (on political grounds)" but later dropped his opposition and agreed Malta should go for the SOFA "in some form of another". Kmiec replied to Galea-Curmi saying that this was an opportunity, "political- ly that Malta was in charge of the SOFA process and not doing the US's bidding." Borg was later asked to execute the NA- TO/PfP SOFA even though he recognised that Malta had "concerns pertaining to sovereign jurisdiction and some national laws (e.g., relating to the wearing of uni- forms, carrying of weapons, etc.), which are contrary to PfP SOFA provisions." Kmiec even urged Borg "not to make any gratuitous reservation or modifica- tion" to the standard document if at all possible. Borg was reported to have re- plied that he expected the Opposition to "stir up anger and suspicion among the public" through the PfP label; to which Kmiec replied that other neutral nations MATTHEW VELLA MALTA and the United States government are edging closer to a status of forces agreement (SO- FA) that could bring the two gov- ernments closer on important matters of military intelligence as well as security in the Medi- terranean. For the past 20 years, Wash- ington has been putting out feel- ers with Maltese leaders on the establishment of a SOFA – an agreement that establishes the rights and privileges of U.S. per- sonnel in Malta as support of the larger security arrangement. For the Americans, a SOFA would be key towards enhanced interception of the smuggling routes in the Mediterranean, es- pecially around the Hurd's Bank area, an offshore bank to Malta's east that is used to bypass US sanctions on illegal tranship- ments. As always, Malta's red line on the SOFA is the issue of jurisdic- tion on US personnel based in Malta: the Americans are said to be insisting on "concurrent juris- diction", that is a system where both American and Maltese courts have jurisdiction. But the Maltese are jittery about the de- mand, a situation that would lead to both parties quibbling over having any prospective criminal case heard in the court they per- ceive will be most favourable to them. The United States has been ac- tive in encouraging Malta to step up its efforts in countering fuel smuggling activities that have used Maltese ships and the State petroleum company's storage tanks to store smuggled Libyan fuel oil. United Nations sanctions to enforce Libyan embargo rules would grant the United States a route to easily board ships it suspects of carrying smuggled oil and weapons. But a SOFA would allow a faster relationship for Malta to have American na- val muscle in its backyard to deal with such situations. In 2019, Hurd's Bank – which falls outside the island's juris- diction – was being used by crisis-hit Venezuela to receive some 616,000 barrels of gaso- line and 500,000 of vacuum gas oil in cargoes that sailed from the Black Sea port of Taman, to Malta. In a meeting with finance min- ister Edward Scicluna, Marshall Billingslea – the United States' Department of Treasury's as- sistant secretary for terror- ist financing – had expressed American concern over Russia's role in the financing of Maltese operations involved in fuel smuggling, espe- cially over possible in- dications that the fuel was being sold for an eventual destination to blacklisted Syrian forces, or to Khalifa Haftar's army. Hurd's Bank – a veritable Wild West for trans- shipment on the high seas – is a site of sig- nificant transfers of oil products through an informal ship-to-ship network. Americans are law- fully allowed to board Malta-registered ships under the Prolifera- tion Security Initiative bilateral treaty, if au- thorised by the Mal- tese authorities. Malta, US edge closer on Status of Forces Agreement Red line on 'concurrent' jurisdiction for crimes on Maltese soil So near, yet A status of forces agreement for the Americans with Malta has long been on the agenda, but so far the Maltese have proved elusive