Italy signed a new secret agreement on migrants with Libya in 2012. Unfortunately, it didn’t cause the furore that the previous Italy/Libya agreement had caused.

The previous one which was stopped was about push-backs. The new one is about not letting migrants leave in the first place. Out of sight, out of mind.

It was condemned by human rights organisations when it was signed but few took notice. Condemning Muammar Gaddafi and Silvio Berlusconi, both buffoons, was easy but everybody wanted to give the newly elected governments in both countries a chance. There seemed to be more pressing matters than migration.

This agreement is still in force and will be so for a long time yet. Italy is a former coloniser of Libya and still has sway and business interests in the country.

http://euobserver.com/justice/116600

Your only concern is that you can live comfortably in a civilized country. It follows, whether you are able to see it or not, that Malta should honour its international obligations. If asylum seekers are unsafe here, then so are you.

[Daphne – You need a pretty high-calibre weapon to puncture a boat’s hull at a distance. You’re not going to do that with an ordinary rifle.]

Mallia has already said that people will be sent back. Maybe he meant back to Syria?http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23938583

As long as they are sent back, why should we worry where?
That’s not our problem
Our only concern is that they should not come to Malta..

[Daphne – Terribly primitive and uncivilised, Mr Loporto. So…unevolved. The liberal and progressive party must be so proud of your vote.]

During that interview I remember being disturbed by a statement by one of the officers (I believe it was the airman) who said that “they had information” (‘kellna nformazzjoni’) that there was a boat in distress. He didn’t specify where that information came from, neither did the interviewer ask him.

It seemed odd to me that the Maltese were the first on the scene of the tragic disaster which happened so much closer to Lampedusa than Malta. We were continually shown a map to prove it.

It seemed odd to me because our government hardly gave the impression that we were so eager to help the immigrants at sea. Secondly, because the Italians came to the rescue quite some time after the Maltese stole the limelight on the operation.

Much was made (locally) about the fact that it was our airplane that spotted the disaster area and were it not for our propitious intervention the consequences of the tragedy would have probably been a lot worse. .

Was the Marina Militare alerted by the Maltese authorities or did they sense that there were problems and went out to sea on their own steam? Quite a few things surrounding those tragic events remain unclear.

It also struck me that contrary to the previous occasion where immigrants were involved Dr Mallia, minister for the Police and National Security, kept a very low profile if at all. It was only Joseph Muscat and the foreign minister who gave the official statement, (pompously) on top of the Castille steps.

For a long time since, I had this gnawing doubt about the meaning of that statement: “kellna nformazzjoni” I heard during that interview. Taking your cue that at this stage we can exclude nothing, your conjecture is a possible answer to my doubts.

If anything of this sort has taken place — and you made your case quite strongly: why would the Libyan police shoot at them; if anything, they’re leaving Libya — then as Maltese we are really put to shame before the international community.

Many were refugees in the country they came from.

Because China has been very keen to contribute troops to UN missions lately. They’re everywhere: Sudan, Cyprus, among others, and now Mali. They’re also dead keen on establishing themselves a major player among Mediterranean navies.

Two birds, one stone, and good for PR too.

I ask: SENT BACK WHERE?

Now that he pretends that he has a close relation with the Libyan Prime Minister (why is he always close to male PMs, but not to female ones like Angela Merkel – the one who really matters in Europe at the moment?), he should use the confidence there is between them to ask the Libyan PM to take all those measures necessary to strengthen human rights in Libya, and to fight human trafficking.

I think we need to understand better why Joseph Muscat has come up with this idea.