So much for sound relations with our neighbours. And isn’t a Ragusa house the fashion with Maltese people?
What a great way to make enemies and poison relationships: all for Eur700 worth of hake and shrimps. Total diplomatic disaster – they really love us now, don’t they?
And the mayor of Vittoria has called off his town’s twinning relationship with Siggiewi. I know it sounds really ‘piccolo mondo’, but you’ve got to look at that in context.
Next time some Maltese jerks power up in an offshore RHIB for lunch and to throw their weight around, the temptation to give them the once-over with submachine guns is going to be really strong.
I quote the Corriere di Ragusa:
“The nightmare experienced by our fishermen takes us back to Mintoff’s era, when the rigorous military border controls applied were worthy of an eastern European regime.”
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http://www.corrierediragusa.it/articoli/cronache/vittoria/23019-rientrato-il-peschereccio-di-scoglitti-il-capobarca-salvatore-penna-trattati-come-criminali.html
Oh, but they will.
‘…..The nightmare experienced by our fishermen takes us back to Mintoff’s era, when the rigorous military border controls applied were worthy of an eastern European regime…’
Sicilians get wise, fast.
Previously known as the island of Calypso, Malta is now making a name for itself as the land of the Cyclops (in more ways than one).
I just can’t understand how, all of a sudden, so many Maltese, including those in authority, seem to be hell bent on bringing Malta to shame.
Why can’t we get one thing right? I had thought that the Nationalists had somehow ‘erased’ the dreadful Mintoffian era out of Europe’s mind….but it’s amazing how these things are never forgotten, and our past is the first thing thrown at our face when incidents like this happen! What a shame that what’s happening now will be thrown back in our children’s face in the future.
Because they are all Daffy fairytales …. Credibility zero.
I have had the untimely misfortune of being in Sicily on business since Wednesday. It has been an embarrassing experience, to say the least.
Also, every news report about immigrants’ arrival since mid-week has been ended with the sentence “… this arrival follows the rescue of 102 immigrants on Wednesday, who were turned away by Malta”.
Every phone call I make carries a disclaimer.
I’m sorry. Irrespective of the value of the hake and shrimps caught, did the fishermen break the law or not?
[Daphne – Don’t be so frigging literal. This isn’t an internal matter. Bilateral relations come into it. A small lesson in diplomacy: do we poison our relationship with Sicily/Italy over Eur700 of shrimps? Answer: No. Especially not when the fishermen are clearly not criminals operating some kind of poaching business, and when there are differences of opinion as to whether they were trespassing on Maltese fishing rights or not.]
Your argument whether one should poison our relationship for €700 worth of shrimps is valid. The article for which you provided the link says that it was worth €1500 but never mind. I would also add that it was blown out of proportion.
[Daphne – The original news reports in Malta all gave the figure as around Eur700, and they quoted the market specialist who testified in court.]
However saying that there are differences of opinion on whether they were trespassing is not. The Captain claims that he was forced to enter Maltese territorial waters. Yeah right, with all radios and trekking systems usually found on board. Using your same argument almost all court sentences should be reconsidered due to “differences of opinion”.
[Daphne – That is not the point here.]
I am sure that the Court would not have meted out its sentence if it were not convinced that the fishermen were actually trespassing on Maltese fishing rights. Had the fishermen been Maltese and caught trespassing on Sicilian fishing rights I would have been the first to applaud any action taken by the Sicilian Court against the persons concerned. What I do find strange is the rather hefty sum the persons concerned were made to cough up. It does not in any way reflect the gravity of the crime.
[Daphne – The point being made here is that the matter should NOT have reached the courts.]
A liberal translation of the paragraph on the website and the news report:
The experience of the two Sicilian crews in the past three days of their arrest, takes us back to the years of Dom Mintoff, when the military control of the Maltese borders was comparable with the best Eastern European regimes.
“Of course I’m terrorised. Of course I’m terrorised.” The kidnapping of the crew and the fishing trawler la Madonnina has left an indelible mark on the captain, Salvatore Penna. The crew was released following the payment of a €20,000 fine.
Yesterday the trawler entered Scoglitti harbour, following a terrible four day odyssey, caused by the vessel’s ostensible entry into Maltese waters. The captain insists that the trawler was in international waters, and that it was the Maltese authorities who forced him to enter into Maltese waters, thus making the trespass obvious.
“They made me enter into their waters, and after that, they switched off everything, the mobile phones, the whf-radios, the radar…they only left the GPS on, so that they could check how far in Maltese water we were. After an hour, and after they had plotted our position, they phoned Malta to say that we were at 24 miles, but before that, we were at 25 miles!”
Visibly moved by the presence of family members, friends, colleagues and Italian authorities, Salvatore Penna appeared very shaken, but proceeded to describe clearly the dramatic moments leading to the boarding of the Maltese navy who, according to him, treated the crew like terrorists.
“They came on board, and to be honest, I thought it was a film – but not even American films have those scenes. They were armed to the teeth – machine guns, pistols, tasers…” Then came the endless hours spent in a tiny cell, “it was a cell, two metres by a metre and a half…in the morning, they gave us a pillow drenched in dried blood.”
Two Italian senators have now presented a parliamentary interrogation tasked with the review of the international treaty which regulates navigation between Sicily and Malta.
Sorry but i don’t agree. Its true that what was found on board was small, but it was still illegal. Whether you steal a bank or just a few amounts of cash, its still theft.
On the other hand, if the mayor of Vittoria wants to stop the twinning with Siggiewi because of this incident, I say so be it. This mayor does not condemn what is illegal. If it was the other way round, would the Sicilian authorities let them go – don’t think so – then why should we. Still, i do believe that this was blown out of proportion by both countries.
[Daphne – Dom Mintoff stole a bank, my dear. All others rob them.]
In 1979 at the age of 18 I travelled with a friend with my own car, starting from Syracuse and driving all the way to Munich.
We Maltese then had a really bad reputation in free Europe. We found it very hard to convince people we met that we were European and not part of Gaddafi’s Libya. The Italians kept talking to us about Mintoff and the country’s relationship with Libya, and this was at the height of Gaddafi’s financing of terrorism in Europe.
Showing our green passports to show the proximity of Malta’s distance to Sicily still could not convince them that Malta was not Gaddafi territory. But somehow we managed to earn some respect mainly due to the fact that we both spoke fluent Italian. But worse was still to come.
Crossing the border between Austria and West Germany was the biginning of a nightmare. When we reached the West German imigration Police, we got pulled to the side, asked to remove all our luggage from the car, and were interrogated like potential terrorists. Throughout, we could hear their conversation in German peppered with the words Libya, Gaddafi and Mintoff. It was one of the most degrading situations I met with during my overland travels between 1979 to 1987.
I work in a hotel, this morning whilst attending to my guests during the breakfast service i had the opportunity of conversing with a couple of Italian guests here and there.
All of them are aware and feel tense due to the last couple of incidents that Malta had with Italy.
One of them even advised that he had considered cancelling his holiday as he was concerned for the treatment his family “might” get. Perhaps the matter is irrelevant FOR SOME, but, 40% of the GDP is tourism.
Fejn qedin il-pampaluni li iggieldu ghal rohs fid-dawl ghal lukandiera? Sur Zahra ahjar noqodu attenti li jibqaw jigu it-turisti ghax bla flus inutli ikollok kont tad-dawl irhas ghax xorta ma thalsux.
The nightmare experienced by our fishermen takes us back to Mintoff’s era, when the rigorous military border controls applied were worthy of an eastern European regime.”
So, even they have their stories of those days. How brainwashed they are. They really need to stop watching NET TV.
Can’t wait to see the barrage of insults that will be directed towards this article because they dared speak badly on Mintoff.
I wonder if it is possible for President Abela to grant the Sicilian fishermen a pardon and refund the money . A sign that will surely help to ease some of the tension
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. One may logically come to the conclusion that the magnitude of a reaction by Ragusa for each of Malta’s action (positive or negative) will somehow be greater than the actual act Malta initiates in the first place.
Are we being succumbed to shortsightedness? Do we realize the repercussions on Malta, on the economy, tourism and society if we continue to use our barbarian tactics – to obtain what exactly?
Would the actions on two Sicilian fishermen lead for the Comune di Ragusa to revoke the permit allowing for the inter connector between Malta and the rest of the EU.
No, we cannot survive on our own. No, the EU does not really need Malta – its the other way round, evidently.
Adesso che è tutto finito ci rivolgeremo alla Corte Europea».
Adesso che è tutto finito, si può parlare di un vero e proprio incidente diplomatico e istituzionale fra l’Italia e Malta. I senatori siciliani Venerina Padua e Beppe Lumia hanno già presentato un’interrogazione parlamentare allo scopo di rivedere il trattato internazionale che regolamenta il diritto di navigazione fra i due paesi distanti appena 44 miglia.
This is my non-literal translation:
Now that it is over, we will take this to the European Court.
At the end of the day, you can call this a full-blown diplomatic and institutional incident between Malta and Italy. Sicilian senators Venerina Padua and Beppe Lumia have already tabled a parliamentary question in this regard with the aim of revising the international treaty that determines passage rights between these two countries which are only 44 miles apart.
Malta ips burning bridges with those countries which are most important to us and which have always bent over backwards to please us, and it is doing so, ironically, for the sake of populism and at the expense of our future generations.
Of course, Joe Bloggs does not see that. People do not have foresight-they just want to be seen as big men. If Malta were the size of Sicily we would invade a new country every week. What a misplaced sense of superiority.
@Daphne
You seem to be adapting to a ‘two weights, one measure reasoning’ here. There is a maritime/fishing law after all…
What worries me is that this Sicilian fisherman was adamant that he was fishing in Italian waters. His GPS positioning (when allegedly caught) together with recorded info, should verify this. On the other hand, did he have a GPS to verify such?
As Charon simply stated, it is not a matter of the value in weight caught, but rather of, infringing on someone elses’ territory.
[Daphne – Fishing rights are not a matter of national law, but are negotiated through agreement with other states. It’s the penalties which are a matter of national law. That we have fishing rights is in itself an acknowledgement that we also have relationships with other states. It is as simple as this: you do not prejudice a bilateral relationship for a few kilos of prawns. Where relationships between countries are involved, diplomacy and the law allow for a great deal of leeway. It is on this basis, one assumes, that an Israeli delegate was allowed to board his flight and leave Malta despite being found with weapons in his suitcase.]
The Sicilians have seriously overfished their fishing grounds and would dearly love to be able work over Malta’s , how come our fishermen do not infringe ( get caught ) our neighbours fishing territory . Some years ago the Spanish and French were unpolitly pushed further out from their favorite haunts off the coast of Canada in an attempt to safeguard fish stocks , so yes fish wars are ugly . All that really needs to be considered is what did we gain and what do we stand to lose .
@Daphne
You argument does hold water…However where do we draw a line her?
In the past years Sicilian trawlers have been caught fishing in our local waters, and lawfully charged on their gross infringement.
It is worth to mention your last sentence above, regarding the incident with an Israeli delegate. This really is food for thought. What do you think about this incident?
I mean this person should have known better, not to leave a luggage, what, unattended luggage by an Israeli ( Of all nationalities) delegate? Too good to be true…