Facing reality

From the comments made by Alvaro Gil-Robles, the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, during his visit to Malta a few days ago, I get the impression that he is taking a somewhat liberal approach to the issue of illegal immigrants, one that might not be completely in line with our government's position.

Basically, he spoke about three aspects of the problem. He insisted with the local authorities that we should provide more humane conditions for refugee seekers and illegal immigrants.

I am in agreement on this. However, the EU must appreciate our limited resources, which are being practically stretched to the limit. Malta is being inundated with such foreigners and it is proving increasingly difficult to find the space, money and manpower to deal with the problem. This does not mean there is no place for improvement.

Mr Gil-Robles has urged the government to speed up the administrative and quasi-judicial proceedings regarding those seeking refugee status. It seems that certain cases are taking longer than a year to be decided. Such delays create undue hardship. In this respect, however, though in no way do I condone unwarranted delays, it must be pointed out that such proceedings can prove to be complicated indeed.

The situation is made more difficult in those instances where the illegal immigrants would have purposely disposed of their identification documents in order to avoid being repatriated.

Thus, more often than not, many of these foreigners bring undue hardship onto themselves.

Finally, the commissioner argued against detaining illegal immigrants indefinitely or for prolonged periods.

In this regard, this point of view has the sympathy of certain sectors of our society, including the support of Joseph Abela, an opposition member of parliament.

Personally, however, I find no hesitation in publicly declaring that I am in agreement with the position being taken by Gavin Gulia, opposition spokesman for home affairs. In my opinion, he has taken a very prudent and cautious approach to the matter.

On the one hand, he reiterates the Labour Party's position that in the circumstances our country has no option but to continue to detain illegal immigrants. On the other, he rightly emphasises the need to upgrade the living quarters and improve their quality of life as much as possible.

From my point of view, it is absolute madness to let these thousands of illegal and clandestine immigrants roam the streets and live freely among the Maltese citizens. Such an approach would prove disastrous and chaotic to our country and would lead us to a calamity.

How are these thousands of foreigners supposed to sustain themselves? Are they expected to take over, as cheap labour, the jobs of the Maltese, who are already facing a crisis in this respect? Furthermore, where are all these people supposed to live?

Is the government expected to construct full-scale housing estates to accommodate their ever-increasing numbers, or to revert to requisitioning private property to this effect?

Above all, we have to consider the even more important aspect - that of deterrence. If Malta takes too liberal an approach to this burning issue, the island will start to attract refugee seekers in droves.

It is public knowledge that on the shores to the south of Malta there are at present no fewer than one and a half million illegal immigrants waiting to make a crossing to Euorpe. If we open our doors too freely, there is an imminent danger that our country will face an onslaught of such illegal immigrants, the likes of which we have not yet experienced and which we might not even imagine.

Those one and a half million foreigners camping on the shores of countries such as Libya, Tunisia and Morocco are practically an invasion waiting to happen.

It is true that Malta has international oblilgations to adhere to. It also has moral and Christian principles to uphold but in the final analysis the ultimate responsibility of the Maltese government rests with the well-being of its own citizens.