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Karl Schembri
With the media not invited to accompany the Prime Minister, we probably won’t know whether there will be any camels staring at Lawrence Gonzi outside the Colonel’s tent pitched somewhere in Tripoli, or whether the two leaders will share a diplomatic handshake or a cordial embrace under the palm trees.
It is a pity, because when Gonzi then sets off for a two-day visit to Tripoli on Tuesday together with Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg and Foreign Minister Michael Frendo, he will be facing the test of his government’s own pledge to “bridge Malta with the South” and to make a difference as a member state of the EU.
We in Malta won’t be able to see him perform, and probably not even to see the results, as the much proclaimed notion of Malta as an influential player in the Mediterranean slips into oblivion.
While Malta has, in the last four months, entered “a new Spring” of sorts in Europe, Gaddafi has been celebrating a much more eventful return to the international fold, earning plaudits from world leaders and holding meetings with unlikely new allies such as Tony Blair and Romano Prodi in Brussels.
The historical cordiality between the two countries has still not served so far to bring an end to visa problems for Maltese citizens wishing to travel to Libya, and it seems that Libyan immigration authorities are not that keen on reducing lengthy bureaucratic procedures adopted since Malta’s accession to the EU, in the wake of new visa regulations adopted by Malta. And this, despite two visits by two Maltese foreign ministers to the Jamahiriya over the last four months.
But perhaps an even more worrying issue right now is the traffic of illegal immigrants: whether they convince the Colonel to do anything about it or not over a lunch of Libyan couscous, Gonzi and his deputy, Tonio Borg, will be confronted with the problem once they return to these shores.
Gonzi might spot a couple of stray boats full of immigrants from the plane on his way. Reportedly, there are more than one million African immigrants waiting to leave the shores of Libya to sail to the European mainland. Despite the enormity of the problem, Malta hasn’t yet grabbed the attention of all the European states to tackle it globally, and the so-called ‘Italo-Maltese’ initiative to lift an arms embargo on Libya in return for cooperation in tackling immigration did in fact materialise only thanks to the Italians’ insistence.
In fact, the proposal much lauded here as a “joint effort” between Malta and Italy only originated from the latter and not even one news report in the foreign press mentioned Malta as a mover and shaker in the initiative.
Italy has convinced the EU that somehow, the arms embargo was preventing Libya from fighting illegal immigration.
Isn’t it the irony of history that the former pariah state which renounced its alleged nuclear arms programme last year had to be lured into fighting illegal immigration to Europe through the removal of, yes, arms trafficking restrictions? Only five years ago, the Maltese government intercepted a consignment of Scud missile parts destined for Libya from London’s Gatwick airport and sent them back to the UK. Now the UK is expected to become the chief supplier of weapons to the Jamahiriya.
With great parts of the embargo now lifted, it remains to be seen what kind of measures Libya will be taking to combat illegal immigration although, in all fairness, the problem is much larger than Libya’s vast shores.
Tomorrow, Italian Home Affairs Minister Giuseppe Pisanu will do his own bit of lobbying with his Libyan counterparts on a visit to Tripoli to negotiate a plan to boost border control and provide equipment.
Meanwhile, it is unclear whether Gonzi will discuss Malta’s intention to conduct oil exploration – a source of much controversy back in the eighties. Also, Libyan debts to the Maltese government and companies remain outstanding, while the reported death of Libyan fugitive Hashim Youssef Azzabi remains clouded in mystery.
karl@newsworksltd.com
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