Displaced persons

Refugees from Libya in Tunisia: Egypt and Tunisia have received more than 350,000 displaced persons from Libya in this crisis

The minister of the interior speaks well on the subject of boat-people because he does not play tough for the gallery.

And because of that, the people who count are more inclined to listen.

When speaking about immigration, Maltese politicians of all stripes warp into right-wing demagogues, but Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici does not talk as though he must defend his island against invasion by subhuman creatures of indeterminate origin which have their sights set on taking over.

He speaks of them for what they are: people in the worst sort of crisis, whose troubles he recognises and acknowledges. Talking to the media yesterday in the wake of the arrival in Malta of 800 Eritreans from Libya, Dr Mifsud Bonnici made the case for distinguishing between them and the boat-people who have come to Malta over the last few years. Though he did not use the actual term, because it does not exist in Maltese, he correctly described the new arrivals as displaced persons.

“We know they are different because they have arrived with their all belongings, showing that they were settled in Libya but have been forced out by the crisis,” he told a journalist. “And if you were to have seen the way they were packed into those dangerous boats, you would have an indication of their level of despair. I don’t think anyone of us would risk his life on a journey like that (if it were not more dangerous to stay where we are).”

Distinguishing between those who have been displaced by the current crisis in Libya and those who in earlier years passed through Libya en route to Europe is, the minister of the interior says, essential if the European Union is now to formulate a specific strategy for dealing with the problem.

More people are likely to be displaced by the strife in Libya, he said, and it is obvious that the coping strategies which the European Union has used until now will not be sufficient.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici has exposed himself to accusations of specious reasoning – I can see that, even though I agree with him. This is because many of the sub-Saharan Africans who came to Malta through Libya in years gone by were also displaced persons – displaced from their home country and into Libya – and so not technically different in status to those who have been displaced from Libya now.

The 800 people who arrived over the last few days have been displaced twice: the first time when they were forced from their home country into Libya, where they settled, and the second time now, by the fighting. Had they kept going on their journey through Libya and on to Malta, they would still have been displaced persons – displaced from their original home by war or conflict – because strictly speaking, passage through Libya does not change their displaced status.

But I do see what Dr Mifsud Bonnici means and he is right to make the distinction. The fighting just 200 miles away has caused an immediate and proximate displacement of persons and created conditions different to those which Malta, Italy, Cyprus and Greece had to contend with before. It is impossible to predict what the level of displacement will be, but contingency measures have to be in place.

What weakens Malta’s argument when it makes its pitch from an egocentric stand is that we have little to complain about compared to our neighbours. Lampedusa has received 19,000 boat-people in just a couple of weeks. True, they have now been shipped out to the Italian mainland and Silvio Berlusconi has bought a house there on the internet (for a bit of bunga-bunga) to show how much he lies the island.

But still, a sudden influx of 19,000, all of them with papers to be processed and needing shelter, food and clothing, is a lot for any size of country to be getting on with.

Most of those men left from Tunisia, which is not at war, but we cannot conclude that this weakens the ‘special contingency for war in Libya’ argument because it is unclear still whether they are in fact Tunisian or some of the 193,783 people displaced from Libya into Tunisia when the fighting began.

Tunisia and Egypt have between them received more than 350,000 displaced persons who mainly crossed the border on foot. So Malta is not going to be taken seriously for grumbling about 800. Tunisia especially is coping with a major humanitarian crisis in the camps on its Libyan border.

Many of those people displaced from Libya have no home to go to, but others do and cannot return to their country of origin only because they lack the means to pay for the flights back. This reminds me that we have not given a second thought to the thousands of people who were left stranded in the grounds of Tripoli airport, with their belongings, when the fighting began and they had no money to pay for a ticket out. Are they there still, and if not, what has become of them?

Dr Mifsud Bonnici drew the ill-spelt opprobrium of the usual suspects on the internet comments-boards when he said that Malta is not “full up”. But this indicates that he is aware Malta’s position, if it presses for action alone, is a tenuous one. The response can only be: exactly what are you complaining about, Malta, when you have had 800 arrivals to Lampedusa’s 19,000 and Tunisia has had to cope with 15,000 a day?

The arguments about size are fatuous. Whatever the size of a country, displaced persons have to be dealt with in a single spot by a small group of trained people. They are not spread out all over the country and their papers are not processed in different towns and villages. It is what happens after refugee status is granted that is the main issue, and that’s where the country’s size comes into play.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici said that if the EU does not respond favourably to requests for assistance, then Malta will have to take action. I’m afraid I can’t see what this action could possibly be, short of breaking all sorts of laws, and I don’t think the minister of the interior is that sort of person at all.

What is clear is this: Malta has made it plain that it will not help the coalition forces militarily, but says it will pull its weight with humanitarian action.

Now we cannot pick and choose which sorts of humanitarian action we like (evacuating paying customers who pass through after 24 hours) while setting aside those we don’t like (providing a temporary home to displaced persons and sorting out their applications and their papers).

If we go to the coalition countries now and demand that they help us cope with a humanitarian exercise when we have refused to help with a military one, we run the risk of being told politely where to put it.

This article was published yesterday in The Malta Independent.