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Negotiating a deal with the Libyans is not only bound to be difficult but also likely to be ineffective – KARL SCHEMBRI investigates why
Panic stricken, the full blow of illegal immigration seems to have hit government like a knock-out after months of inaction on the home front despite clear warnings from experts and people in the field.
Since last Monday, Foreign Minister Michael Frendo has had to take up where his Cabinet colleague, Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg, has failed so miserably to deliver.
It is no coincidence that the foreign minister appointed Martin Scicluna as his special envoy to deal with the Libyans, the same defence expert who last January urgently advised Borg to devise a contingency plan, including new “ready to go” spaces that could house sudden massive influxes of immigrants, averting an immediate crisis.
All that time has been lost and it is only now that Borg’s functionaries are searching for those places, in the peak season of illegal immigration, as the minister so sourly realised last weekend.
Scicluna will now face what is, in his own words, “the uphill climb” of dealing with Libya in brokering an agreement for the return of immigrants landing in Malta from the Jamahiriya.
Prospects of reaching such an agreement are very dim, although Italy already has one in place, but put on the shelf since the European Union’s onslaught against the practice of airlifting immigrants back to Tripoli without allowing them to apply for refugee protection.
Already, the climate within the European Union makes it improbable for such an agreement to be deemed acceptable, although it has to be said that government exponents such as the populist parliamentary secretary, Tony Abela, have also already declared the country was willing to displease the international community with its unilateral actions.
Realistically, there isn’t much that Malta can do unilaterally, despite the Rabat notary’s woofy warnings. In contrast with Abela, minister Frendo knows that he needs allies, rather than enemies, to even start tackling this global problem.
Borg has already done a lot of harm to Malta’s image among international human rights organisations and the United Nations refugee agency, without earning many plaudits from his European counterparts. It is now time for Frendo to refer to his colleagues, as he did last week, and urge them to share responsibility in this humanitarian drama.
From the European Commission front, there are some encouraging signals in the form of Commissioner Frattini’s pledges to focus on illegal immigration in the Mediterranean.
But what should we expect from the Libyan side? More than the requests themselves, what is bound to be a debilitating hurdle in Mr Scicluna’s negotiations is the lack of depth in the current relations between the two countries, something which is also curtly acknowledged by the Libyan Ambassador to Malta, Saad El Shlmani in an interview with MaltaToday (pages 12 and 13).
The initial Libyan reaction has been a beseeching plea for sympathy, inundated as it is with over a million immigrants.
When it comes to brokering sensitive deals with Libya, deep, long-lasting personal relationships between the negotiators and long-term vision, if not patience, are what observers deem to be of very high importance.
Mr Scicluna is unreservedly acclaimed as an experienced defence strategy expert but his formation at the British Ministry of Defence will not be enough to penetrate the Libyan psyche and reach effective solutions. In this respect, government is losing out by not resorting to Maltese politicians or retired dignitaries whose faces are more than familiar with the Libyans, making them potential brokers in such situations.
People such as former prime minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, who Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi offers red carpet treatment in deep recognition for saving his life back in the eighties, when he promptly called him to inform him that unauthorised military planes had transgressed Malta’s air space and were heading towards Tripoli.
In the unpredictable Libyan leader’s eyes, long-term friendships, such as the ones he had with Mintoff, despite of the burning years of territorial disputes, could override practical obstacles.
In his typical unorthodox diplomacy, Gaddafi cancelled a meeting with the Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, during which the two were supposed to discuss the fate of five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death. Gaddafi told Moratinos that he was too busy to meet him, with the Spanish press branding the episode as “a serious diplomatic incident”.
Lawrence Gonzi had a smaller dose of the Colonel’s antics last year, when he almost let the Maltese prime minister leave Libya without meeting him, only to call him to visit him in a remote tent in the desert at the last minute, when Gonzi had arrived at the airport.
In all fairness, beyond the maverick leader’s frolics, there is also the emerging face of Libya in the breed of western educated, business-like ministers and high-ranking government functionaries, embodied in none other than the Libyan leader’s own son, Seif al Islam Gaddafi. It is through these people’s vision, and their ability to command the “political language” of the west, that Libya has brokered its historic 2003 deal with its decades-long arch enemies, to the world’s surprise.
But when it comes to illegal immigration, Libya admits its resources are insufficient to monitor both the inflow of immigrants and the departure of boat people towards Europe.
“It is an international problem that needs an international solution,” Libyan ambassador says, forewarning that sending immigrants back to Libya is not a solution.
An old Arabic proverb, reminiscent of the days of the Prophet when nomads and traders would travel by caravans on pilgrimages or trade routes, says: “Let the dogs bark, as long as the caravan moves on.”
With his British gentleman’s voice, Mr Scicluna knows that barking will stop none of the Libyan leader’s caravans for a hearing, but upon landing in Tripoli next week he may well realise that he needs to run to be able to catch up with all the lost time.
karl@newsworksltd.com
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