There’s an interview with Malta’s foreign minister on CNN today: We can’t cope with more migrants because they “break the toilets” and “smear the place”

Published: January 3, 2014 at 6:31pm

CNN_George Vella_3 January 2014




34 Comments Comment

  1. Jozef says:

    Yes, and refuses to mention 90 million Euros in EU funds to cope.

    • Alexander Ball says:

      The immigrants don’t know how to use toilets properly and this government doesn’t know how to use EU funds properly.

      • La Redoute says:

        What rubbish. The detention centres are filthy and over crowded and the people held there have nothing to do.

        It’s not the broken toilets that drive people to suicide. It’s the desperation of inhumane incarceration that does that.

  2. C Falzon says:

    Here’s another case that needs Magistrate Peralta’s wisdom:

    http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140103/local/bus-driver-hurt-in-brawl-with-passenger.501251

    One really cannot blame the passenger, after all the bus driver did tell him the wrong date didn’t he?

  3. ciccio says:

    It’s one thing diagnosing diarrhoea and appendix problems, and another thing dealing with foreign affairs. Dr. Vella is a clear testimony of this.

    • La Redoute says:

      He seems to think that his comment about broken toilets went down very well with CNN’s international audience.

      Over the last ten years 100,000,000 euros poured into Malta’s coffers specifically to deal with immigration. Eur10,000,000 a year could buy an almost limitless supply of toilets, enough warm clothes and blankets for every new arrival, and pay for training, educational and sports programmes for detainees.

      Where did all the money go?

  4. Joseph says:

    The fans rushed to the comments board with a spate of racism, over 100 comments most of them from racists who think they are better humans just because they were born in a European democracy.

    • Jozef says:

      One wonders what they’d think of citizenship for those infants born here or in territorial waters.

      Adoption for those pulled out the water as their mothers went down is obviously out of the question.

      This country is becoming quintessentially hypocritical. Not that it wasn’t, but at least the previous administration tried to overcome and failed.

      Yet Saviour won’t have anything from the party that got drubbed.

      • La Redoute says:

        Mgr Calleja proposed citizenship for babies whose origins and exact ages are unknown and unknowable because their parents didn’t survive the crossing.

        He was ignored.

        Baby Mabrouk won’t be offered citizenship. He drowned, at one day old, on 11 October, along with his mother, while Muscat played tough, stamping, his feet to make the EU smell his coffee, refusing to authorise rescue.

  5. verita says:

    Now we have it from the horse’s mouth. “We cannot take care of all these NUMBERS.”

    If they drown it’s just a number.

    If they cannot use the toilet we don’t have the time to teach them. Doesn’t he know that many of them do not have sanitary facilities at home or a mattress to sleep on?

    That’s why you let a baby sleep on the floor at the police HQ – to make him feel at home. Shame on this government.

  6. D_Riddler says:

    The PM is reading bedtime stories to kids on Super One TV right now.

    • Jozef says:

      What’s the fairy tale, his roadmap?

      • albona says:

        No, it was probably: “Once upon a time there were a bunch of sand-niggers on a boat, and ooopsy daisy, they drowned because we were playing a game of hide and seek with them. The moral of the story, little kiddies, is that there are more many more where they came from so it does not matter.”

    • ciccio says:

      Did he read to them the story about Pinocchio and his nose?

  7. Neil says:

    And typically, by and large the people sticking in their two pennies worth on the comments boards think he’s just wonderful. A statesman, a luminary, a genius!

    Very, very dangerous indeed, this whole general racist mindset that prevails in Malta.

  8. nutmeg says:

    And to think, some are convinced that Dr Vella is the president we deserve.

  9. curious says:

    I challenge Joseph Muscat to visit Pope Francis again, after what his cabinet members are saying about immigration.

  10. bob-a-job says:

    If anyone is smearing the place it’s the MLP.

    Just look how they’ve handled the sale of passports saga and what the foreign press is saying about Malta.

  11. tal-QUTU says:

    This interview should automatically disqualify Vella from becoming President.

    It will be brought up time and again and used against him and against Malta in international fora.

    • albona says:

      I wouldn’t be too sure of that QUTU; have you heard what some of the others have said, prime amongst these our very own Prime Minister?

      Remember the: ‘take them to Sweden’ jibe. This National Socialist government has no limits.

  12. SOS says:

    Families of those who disappeared in the 11th October shipwreck off Lampedusa are calling for the remaining bodies to be brought up. You can sign their petition here:

    https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Find_the_missing_persons_in_Lampedusa_Shipwreck_11_October_2013/?mobile=1

    In addition to the Syrians and Palestinians who are missing, around 100 sub-Saharan Africans drowned because they were locked out of sight in the ship’s hold. No one will ever know their names unless their bodies are recovered.

  13. La Redoute says:

    The names and faces of some of those who were lost at sea:
    http://espresso.repubblica.it/internazionale/2013/10/30/news/names-and-photographs-of-the-children-who-drowned-on-october-11th-while-europe-postpones-the-issue-1.139493

    They won’t be breaking any toilets or smearing any walls. George Vella must be SO relieved.

  14. Kif inhi din? says:

    Wasn’t that Hitler’s rationale for justifying sending Jews into concentration camps? You dehumanise individuals by referring to them as ‘these people’ who have a problem and don’t help themselves by smearing all over the place and consequently spreading disease and deserve no better.

    16,000 people over 10 years is fewer than the number of people that pass through the airport in one week. And yet €100,000,000 is not enough to provide adequate facilities.

    The more this government bellyaches about asylum seekers, the deeper a hole it digs itself into.

    To crown it all with sale of passports, the government has fully blown any argument based on the sorry tale that Malta is a small island with a high population density.

  15. Adam Bones says:

    So Malta’s Foreign minister refers to the migrants as “these people”.

    Hopeless.

    • albona says:

      Also, please tell me I am sick for thinking this, but when he said that they ‘smear the place’ would he have been talking about faeces perhaps?

      The word ‘smear’ has a negative connotation and is generally collocated with words such as ‘faeces’, ‘mud’ or ‘reputation’. In his case, he had just finished talking about toilets so the connection seems logical.

      Did you get that too, Daphne?

      [Daphne – Yes, I took that as read.]

  16. Delicate subjects need delicate handling. This was clearly lacking on this occasion.

    • Not CNN says:

      The target interviewee was Manwel Mallia, who is responsible for detention centres. He went away on the day the interview was supposed to happen so George Vella was wheeled in to take his place.

  17. H.P. Baxxter says:

    We can’t cope any longer with Labour because they break the rules, smear the place, and even raid the safe.

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