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Henry Frendo
MaltaToday reporter Matthew Vella and Imperium Europa leader Norman Lowell (20 June) seem to have this in common: they readily confuse economic migrants who play the asylum system with bona fide refugees.
The latter, who qualify as such under Convention criteria as enshrined in Act XX of 2000, deserve all the protection and assistance they can get, and they now are entitled to it, even in Malta, as they should be. As such they would have the right to work as well as other rights, so any business employing them would be acting legally. However, bona fide refugees everywhere, even in Malta - which by European standards has a record high protection rate in varying degrees - are a mere fraction of illegal immigrants cum asylum-seekers.
Most of these other emigrants are refused refugee status at all stages of the process for one simple reason: they are not refugees as such. It is not fair for certain sections of the press to burden the public with misconceptions and false assumptions, thus playing into the hands of those who may have hidden agendae one way or the other. The general norm is this: a refugee is usually a migrant; but a migrant need not be a refugee at all. The former (bona fide refugees) seeks refuge in a third country, usually across a border, because protection would be denied to him or her in the country of origin when non-conformist beliefs have been expressed or for other explicit reasons such as race or creed in given situations. The latter (economic migrants) would have no solid grounds on which to base allegations in the attempt to obtain asylum and the right to stay in a third country, or indeed in a fourth, fifth or sixth country, frequently enough after having spent years living and working away from home without facing any serious problems, or, in the case of several young Eritrean women, on leaving school for what appears to be a ‘recruitment’ country.
Let’s be clear about this: most cases are basically honest folk desiring a better life, sometimes misled by traffickers, but they are not themselves in any way criminals. On a human basis, one cannot but sympathise and commiserate their lot, in most cases, but that’s where the matter rests. NGOs who help as best they can do the right thing, but we must not mix things up on the assumption that Malta must or indeed can respond in the spirit of a universal human brotherhood beyond a certain point. There is also a limit to political correctness.
Unfortunately, desiring a better life, a better job, better pay or conditions or simply believing that Italy would be such a nicer place to live in than anywhere else, or in several cases army desertion, or occasionally a nurse refusing to care for the wounded on a battle-field, or an ex-torturer fearing imprisonment if he returned following regime change, or a transvestite who quarreled with her pimp in a hotel suite, the willful destruction of documents or allegations to that effect, which sometimes have been proven to be completely false, and stories of this nature, do not, repeat not, entitle an illegal immigrant-asylum seeker to refugee status according to law, whether in Malta or anywhere else. Sorry, dura lex sed lex, not mea culpa. Facts speak louder than words.
Asylum-seekers who are economic migrants or, in some cases, justice-evading cases, are often disqualified on many counts at the same time. These represent cases which are manifestly unfounded according to law. Such manifestly unfounded cases could be accorded a so-called fast track procedure, sparing the competent organs from investigating their cases in depth purely on prime facie grounds of disqualification, thus to prevent delays. To date, this possibility has never been resorted to here, giving the benefit of the doubt to each individual case on merit after due process. Moreover, situations and policies change, so one has to respect contexts, not apply present over past or vice-versa in a pathetic attempt to personalise and to defame those who have been rendering a public service, for a token honorarium, without harbouring any political, pastoral, partisan, financial or sectarian motives. When, after careful and thorough re-examination, rejections which already have been amply motivated in the first instance, are unanimously upheld for the same all too evident reasons, no further repetition is required, except perhaps pro forma. Lengthy open hearings would be a waste of everyone’s time and are not required by law, unless there is some justification.
I am proud to say that I risked life and limb to help individuals and groups in situations of humanitarian concern, and I bear to this day the scars, including the physical scars, of such work performed in different continents, which I suspect is more than may be said for some others who speak freely.
I will not take lessons too readily in this subject from those who have never faced hazardous real life situations of this nature, however much they may beat their chests, and even less so from naïve ‘do goodies’ who clearly have not the least understanding of Convention terms and criteria both in principle and in practice, or who disagree with them.
This has nothing to do with the number of boats reaching Maltese shores: whoever alleges that as a reason for denial of status is, as the Refugee Commissioner politely told Bondi Plus, lying through his teeth, no doubt. Such concerns are not juridical at all and are outside the remit of adjudicating bodies. I certainly have never had anything to do with decisions to repatriate or deport anybody; those are political decisions everywhere; nor incidentally have I ever visited inmates in any reception or detention centre; that’s something else again. But it all seems to melt in the same local pot!
Members of the Refugee Appeals Board are precluded by an oath of office from divulging confidential information about individual cases, so I am afraid I cannot rebut totally unfounded and twisted allegations made with regard to specific cases in newspapers by some well-meaning young idealist on a paved road. That includes cases of persons who have long left the island and whose files are being made available to MaltaToday by third parties for reasons best known to themselves. It would also beam a different light, not necessarily a very heroic one, on a case such as that interviewed prominently in an earlier edition of MaltaToday, where a well-paid agricultural expert helping his countrymen in a rural area decided to leave family and nation behind allegedly because he did not wish to do his military service, and then, not having made it to Italy, he was now regretting that back home he had “a life” whereas in Malta he didn’t. Sorry, but that does not qualify him, not for refugee status anyway.
And finally, I have long harboured an admiration for organisations such as Cap Anamur (20 June, p. 4), ever since I myself was engaged in helping Vietnamese boat people and raising funds for them in 1979, when many of these were being beaten, stolen and raped by pirates in the South China Sea as they escaped.
Prof. Frendo is Chairman of the Refugee Appeals Board
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