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The Italians do not trust us – it is as simple as that! It is thanks to the Italians that the matter is now being taken seriously. We had to wait for splashes against the Maltese government and its people by the Italian media who have all branded us as the cruellest people in the world, worse that the Italian and the Chinese mafia. What a shame that the government was ready to await another human tragedy before it decided to do anything about the problem when this tragedy and the harm done to our tourism industry could have been avoided.
People talk, and time and again I have heard people describing the whole procedure that takes place in a particular area in St Paul’s Bay. I have heard how these people are transported on high speedboats, which all, except the police, are familiar with. I remember writing an article on another newspaper urging the government to investigate the issuing of visas by the Chinese and the contracts they may have with officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But needless to say, and as usually happens, the plea of us common people was hidden under the carpet as if the problem does not exist.
You and I know what these powerboats are meant for. However, it seems that the authorities, including the Commissioner of Police and the Maritime Authority, do not. They hide behind the pretext that there is nothing unlawful in having a powerboat, painted black or charcoal grey with four or five 250 horsepower engines. For the Commissioner of Police and the Maritime Authority, these are pleasure boats that anyone is free to have in Malta. It took the loss of lives and a human tragedy for the police to seize all the powerboats and consider a change in the law so to ban them from our shores.
I sincerely do not know whether the task of our secret service is only that of phone-tapping and cannot understand how they have never considered guarding the movements of the people who own the powerboats which are berthed before everybody’s eyes to see. It is so very strange that none of the people who are involved in human trafficking has - so far - been apprehended by the police.
And what about those visas? I have many a time insisted that that section of the police department has to be revamped. I cannot understand how certain officials have a perpetual emphyteusis attached to their job there.
The visa section is a hot potato and the Commissioner of Police knows this. He also knows that there is politics involved in this section and sometimes he is caught with his hands tied. This is a section which has become synonymous with the department of customs. Unless the Commissioner turns the tide and makes it a high priority to see that officials in that section from the lowest to the highest rank are transferred every three months, then it is useless trying to convince us that action is being taken so that more human tragedies are avoided.
I have never understood how the women from Russia and the former soviet block make it in the prostitution business in Malta. I cannot understand how the visas are issued with so much ease to these people. I cannot understand either how married men are made to sign that they will take responsibility for such women during their stay in Malta and their wives’ signature is avoided, when this is mandatory according to Maltese law. I remember watching Bondiplus on the subject and I was surprised how nobody in the studio mentioned this issue. If the Government wants to restrict prostitution and human trafficking, then it has to totally revamp the visa section.
As I said in my introduction, the Italians do not trust us and they do not trust us because they have this feeling that if they open their mouth and say all they know to our authorities, there may be some of them who will leak the information to people the Italians are seeking in connection with the human trafficking that goes on from Malta.
The Italians are very cautious and the reason is clear. This is not the first time that similar human tragedies have occurred and when the Italians made no fuss, the Maltese authorities made no fuss either. It is only now, that Malta’s name is tarnished and the Sicilian public prosecutor had very harsh words for us, that the authorities took the matter seriously and started their own investigations.
However, the Italians know that in Malta everybody knows each other and they are very careful not to divulge everything to us. They find it difficult to digest how in this small country, the authorities have never managed to take the problem of human trafficking seriously. They also know that not even Uncle Sam has bothered to investigate the assets of all involved, including those working or having a connection with the issuing of visas. It is a mystery for them and it is more of a mystery for us, how we let the matter get out of hand to the extent that we had to wait until the international community labels us as cruel as the kidnappers in Iraq.
The way the Chinese are reported to have been handled or rather, mishandled, by the Maltese has tarnished our reputation as kind and hospitable people. Until some time ago, Malta was associated with cruelty to birds, now it is being associated with cruelty to humans. The Terry Sciavo case is not only in the United States. We have had many Terry Shiavo’s in Malta who were murdered between Malta and Sicily by those who paid them to take them to the promised land. It is going to be very hard work for the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to put us back on track as the kind and hospitable people we were always known to be.
Sometimes I think that the Chinese tragedy was a Godsend. So was the harsh reaction by the Italian authorities. It is thanks to them that the Maltese authorities have woken up from their deep slumber. Not even the parliamentary question put forward by the Labour MP Leo Brincat before Christmas about the alleged corruption at our embassy in Beijing on the issue of visas served as a wake-up call. The Government was turning a blind eye and it was only when it was put to shame by the Italian authorities and the extensive coverage on the Italian media appeared, that it found itself with its back against the wall and reiterated by setting up investigations here and there.
The people are tired of endless investigations which - most of the time - lead to nothing. They want action and not words so that further tragedies are avoided. They want those boats to stay ashore forever. They want a ban on these boats. They want the people at the visa section to be moved every three months in order to avoid any possibility of contamination. They want the police to take monitoring of the illegal activities seriously. They want no interference from politicians on the work of the police in preventing and detecting crime.
They want justice to be the same for all!
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