Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/392875
12 THE tragedy off Lampedusa in Oc- tober last year – when an estimated 200 asylum seekers died after their boat capsized in Maltese search and rescue waters – has had a profound impact on the way immigration is now discussed and tackled at inter- national level. Although the death rate associ- ated with perilous Mediterranean crossings has always been high, such large-scale loss of life in a single in- cident was met with almost unprec- edented international outrage, shock and indignation. As a result, Europe- an governments – and in particular, the European Commission – were forced to acknowledge that a good deal more needs to be done to pre- vent similar tragedies in future. The EU is now in the process of re- suscitating its earlier (and not terri- bly successful) border patrol agency, Frontex. Perhaps more effectively, Italy has since unilaterally assumed responsibility for all migrant cross- ings in the central Mediterranean through its own programme, 'Mare Nostrum'. Even private life-saving operations such as MOAS, recently launched in Malta, have responded to calls for assistance by (among oth- ers) Pope Francis. Meanwhile, echoes of this tragedy are still being felt. This week, human rights NGO Amnesty International published a report laying the blame for those 200 deaths at the doors of both Italy and Malta. "It is reasonable to question whether Italy and Malta acted promptly and with all available resources to save the refugees and migrants and whether a delay in go- ing to their rescue contributed to the shipwreck," the AI report noted. Although not a member of Am- nesty International (which closed its Malta office some years back), Neil Falzon of the Aditus Foundation nonetheless shares both the same concern with human rights, as well as broadly the same opinion that the systems in place to handle immigra- tion are severely flawed. But before turning to the AI re- port, I ask Falzon to comment about the current situation in the light of all the above developments. The shift in attitude at European level appears to vindicate Malta's long- standing position on the issue. Under both Labour and National- ist administrations, Malta has con- sistently complained that it is 'too small' and too under-resourced to cope with the influx. Now, the same arguments are repeated even by much larger Italy, and there is broad cognisance that this is a problem too large and complex for any one coun- try to handle. How, then, can anyone expect tiny Malta to cope with a problem that seems to be beyond the capabilities of even the entire EU? "It's a massively complicated sce- nario," he readily admits. "From the purely political perspective, the major challenge the EU has always had – and that the new Commission will find on its plate – is how to re- ally bring about a European vision of migration and asylum. I know it sounds very 'pie-in-the-sky' and cliché, but if you look at most other areas dealt with at European level – competition, agriculture, and so on – member states have agreed on a common European vision for these issues. They have given up, in a way, some of their own national priorities for the sake of the common interest. With asylum and migration, there was that feeling about 10, 15 years ago – in fact, it resulted in the Com- mon European Asylum policy – but because of a number of issues and incidents that happened along the way, much of that original willing- ness has fizzled out." Falzon reasons that Italy's Mare Nostrum programme is in part in- tended to 'force' other European member states to live up to their European commitments. "If you look at what's happening in Italy… Italy is rescuing everybody out at sea, yes, and I don't doubt it is doing so out of a moral commit- ment. But what Italy is not doing is fingerprinting those people. So they [the rescued migrants] are quite easily moving out of Italy. They are pouring into other member states. And those member states don't really have a way of knowing whether they came from Italy, because there is no fingerprint trail to trace. So in a way, Italy is challenging the whole Dublin concept by saying: look, I have shoul- dered the burden of rescuing every- one, as a humane responsibility. But I will refuse to accept the legal and political responsibility for every sin- gle person. I will just let them walk free, which in a way challenges the crappy Dublin system. Because the Dublin II system is, in fact, totally crappy…" Dublin II is the primary article of European legislation governing migration and asylum procedures. Both Italy and Malta have consist- ently complained that it is unfair and counterproductive. On this point, Neil Falzon wholeheartedly agrees. "Dublin II no longer makes sense in the context of how it was created. The idea was that, if you're a refugee, wherever you enter the EU you are meant to be given the same recep- tion conditions, the same asylum procedure, to have the same mini- mum standards, everywhere. But then, on the other hand, it says that if you entered the EU in Malta, you have to stay in Malta…" Doesn't this contradict the vision of Europe as a borderless territory rooted in the principle of freedom of movement? "Completely. On the one hand, we are saying the EU is meant to be one big territory, all the same… on the other hand we are creating borders. Which is why one of the solutions we constantly try to raise is that the EU needs to move towards a stage when we start talking about free movement of refugees…" For the present, however, we are stuck with the Dublin II convention, which in the past – before Mare Nos- trum, at any rate – was often subject to different interpretations by differ- ent countries trying (or so it seems from the outside) to shirk their re- sponsibilities. The previous Italian government at one point took the initiative of re-classifying Lampedu- sa as an 'unsafe port of call', specifi- cally to circumvent the wording on international law (which provides that persons rescued at sea must be transported to the 'nearest safe port of call'). And both Malta and Italy have argued endlessly over which country was to be responsible for rescued migrants under the present legal regime. It was this sort of wrangling which – according to Amnesty Interna- tional, at any rate – ultimately cost 200 lives in the Lampedusa tragedy. But my question for Falzon con- cerns the approach taken by this and other, similar NGOs. One criticism frequently levelled at such organisa- tions is that it is very easy to sit back and point fingers at the local Armed Forces – because for instance, they didn't act fast enough, or argued over operational procedure. But in actual fact we are dealing with a very diffi- cult and volatile situation. We know, for instance, that there are human traffickers who are ready and will- ing to kill their passengers at the first sign of trouble. Surely, these must also take a share in the blame for the high death toll of migrants at sea. So isn't it counterproductive to criticise the people who are actually trying to save lives – however unsuccessfully – while exculpating the people di- rectly responsible for ferrying those migrants towards their deaths? "A couple of points. What you are saying is perfectly true: it does cre- ate a strong emotional reaction along the lines that, 'why are you criticising the AFM? They are doing their best in a difficult situation, let them do their job'. I can understand that reac- tion. But imagine a slightly different scenario, where you have a number of policemen controlling a crowd or a protest. In doing their job, one individual uses excessive force. You can claim that they were 'doing their job': but there are rules and stand- ards that must be observed. Nobody is saying that all the work of the Mal- tese or Italian armed forces is wrong. What we are saying is that – I'm not speaking for AI, by the way, although we share their views – that yes, they are doing a great job, and it is defi- nitely appreciated. However, when the government refuses to publish information which could help us understand exactly what happened, questions are inevitably going to be asked. Governments cannot react merely by criticising the criticism. That is not a justification. They need to show us that the procedures were respected. Because ultimately, that's what counts from a legal and human rights perspective…" Falzon argues that neither the Ital- ian nor Maltese governments even launched an inquiry into a maritime incident that cost 200 lives. "This is- sue also arose in the incident of last October, another massive tragedy. A number of organisations requested the government to publish the logs, to determine exactly what happened minute by minute. "From a human rights perspec- tive, if you have a situation where hundreds of people die, we shouldn't even be asking government to pub- lish information. It should be im- mediate. Even if a couple of people die, the government must institute an independent inquiry. Not only to apportion blame, but also to prevent future repetitions, to see how we can improve operational procedures, to see if there are any gaps in the sys- tem, and what other assets we need to have on board to avoid similar situations. "But if we don't have access to that information, if there is no trans- parency, we are clearly going to be suspicious and ask questions. Not because I doubt in any way the pro- fessionalism or moral approach of individual soldiers; but maybe there was an issue that they spent too long to answer the phone. Maybe they did ignore a call. Maybe they did think that a boat that was moving steadily was not in an SOS situation. There are a number of issues we have brought up with the government and the AFM over the years, and this is one of them: that a boat moving on its own steam is not in need of as- sistance. We don't agree with that interpretation. But that's an ongoing discussion we have with the AFM…" How would you define an SOS situ- ation, then? "For us, objectively, if you have those kind of boats – the boats mi- grants are coming in, with so many people on board: presuming that on board you will have men, women, children, possibly sick people… lack of food, lack of water, exposure to sun and weather conditions… for us, that is automatically a distress situ- ation." But there have often been situa- tions where boatloads of migrants have refused assistance when this was offered. I can cite one case where this resulted in a stand-off at sea, which created additional difficulties for both the migrants and the rescu- ers… "Yes. That's a very tough situa- tion. It certainly complicates matters when people don't want to be res- cued. But not all people don't want to be rescued. There have also been situations where persons have called for assistance, but because their en- gine was working the AFM said that theirs was not an SOS situation. 'We will monitor them, we will follow them, but it's not a boat in distress'… Again, part of the problem involves the international laws and treaties. There is no internationally accepted Interview By Raphael Vassallo maltatoday, SUNDAY, 5 OCTOBER 2014 Echoes of the Lampedusa RESPONSIBILITY As a citizen, if my government were partly or wholly responsible for the deaths of 200 people, I would want to know. And whoever is to blame should be brought to justice DUBLIN II Italy's Mare Nostrum operation in a way challenges the crappy Dublin system. Because the Dublin II system is, in fact, totally crappy…