Politics

Salamis

It has been described as one of the most significant battles in human history. Had the invading forces been victorious it would have signified the end of Western Civilisation as we know it. It all happened at Salamis, 480 years before the birth of Christ.

At Salamis almost 2500 years ago Xerxes’ Persian forces were once again trying to gain an inroad into the land occupied by a number of city states. Thanks to some wily moves, a bit of luck and some help from the elements (the Gods?), the Greek states managed to ward off the Persian danger yet again. Which is why Salamis is seen as quite an important turning point in our history.

Which brings me to the ship that goes by the name Salamis floating outside the shores of this island of ours. It fatefully picked up a hundred migrants who were stranded at sea and then was apparently ordered by both Italian and Maltese authorities to return its fare to Libya. All forms of legalisms are out in force at the moment. Mallia and Muscat are clinging to the rules of rescue at sea – basically the intent being to feign ignorance of the fact that the people who were saved would have been potential asylum seekers.

Those dreaded NGO’s have caught on to this farce and have immediately issued a call for the migrants to be allowed to disembark. “Not on my island” quoth Mallia. “It’s a point of principle”. Really? Both Italian and Maltese authorities seem to forget that they have been busy warning their own nationals to keep a wide berth of Libya – not exactly a safe haven for whomever to be obliged to disembark to. The class of idiots that swallow the daily pill from the authorities that be have taken to swarming onto the facebook page of EU Commissioner Malmstrom – spewing out all sort of invective chief among which is “Don’t mess with Malta” or “Keep out of our country”.

Early this afternoon the opposition did little to help the cause by standing fair and square behind the Labour government’s position. It was probably not aided by the fact that there are many a similar skeleton in its cupboard – PN governments did have the habit of using poor souls at sea as bartering tools for international diplomacy.

Yes, both the PL and the PN have opted to paint our country the picture of intolerance and non-hospitality. The irony is lost on all those idiot tweeters and facebookers threatening that the Knights of Malta will fight back for their identity. Has anyone heard of the Hospitallers? Do we really need to be reminded over and over of our role as nurse and missionary of the Mediterranean? Do our politicians not see that there is no dignity to be found in blowing the nationalistic trumpet?

It seems not. It seems that the hundred plus souls on board the Salamis are bound to suffer the heat, the danger and the uncertainty. Because Mallia thinks it’s a point of principle. Because Busuttil wants to stay consistent with previous PN positions. Because Muscat still gets a hard on every time he believes he can emulate Mintoff – that most Arab of post-colonial leaders.

This time the name Salamis will not be synonymous with the saving of civilisation as we know it. It will be a great monument marking the continuing slide to our mediocre end.

 

 

Follement

The storm in a tea-drinking establishment captured most of the attention on the Sunday papers and media. You would be forgiven therefore (and for reasons I will explain later you would also be fortunate) had you missed the piece penned in the Sunday Times of Malta by Malta’s former ambassador to the Council of Europe Joseph Licari. The title makes no effort to hide Licari’s ultimate aim – “The case for refoulement“. He could have called it “Apologia for Joseph Muscat’s Madcap Idea of Pushing Back Migrants” but I guess it would have been too long and in your face. You would hope that the presence of the word “case” in the title to an article would mean that there would be a build up of cogent logic leading to a strong argument in favour of something: in this case that something being the not too kosher idea of “refoulement“.

Interestingly the actual principle in international law is that of “non-refoulement” – the principle itself being an enshrining of the accepted idea among international actors that refoulement is a no-no. Here’s good old Wikipedia explaining the origins of the idea:

The principle of non-refoulement arises out of an international collective memory of the failure of nations during World War II to provide a safe haven to refugees fleeing certain genocide at the hands of the Nazi regime. Today, the principle of non-refoulement ostensibly protects recognized refugees and asylum seekers from being expelled from countries that are signatories to the 1951 Convention or 1967 Protocol. This has however not prevented certain signatory countries from skirting the international law principle and repatriating or expelling bona fide refugees into the hands of potential persecutors.

In other words: “Non-refoulement is a principle of the international law, i.e. of customary and trucial Law of Nations which forbids the rendering of a true victim of persecution to their persecutor; persecutor generally referring to a state-actor (country/government).” Which is pretty much where Licari starts to deviate from the point in an attempt to find some justification for a form of refoulement that he can only imagine.

In primis, Licari goes to great pains throughout his piece to underline some form of trump-card that he variously defines as national interest or better still the international obligation to share heavy burdens. You see, a country may – according to Licari – allow itself to be bound by international obligations but these may be set aside should the country feel that its national interest be threatened or as he weakly deduces from a preamble of the 1951 Convention: “A country’s obligation to accept refugees is balanced by other countries’ obligation to help it carry an unduly heavy burden.” Sound familiar? Of course it does. Patriotism being the last refuge of …

In secundis, Licari segues off into some kind of justification by analogy about the issue of self-defence. A nation, states the wise former ambassador, is the best placed to assess when the tipping point has been reached and when to resort to declaring “self-defence”.Next step? Here goes:

In other words, a country must abide by the law but it has the right of self-defence. Killing is a crime but not if committed in self-defence, as no one has an obligation to suffer physical harm and everyone has the right to prevent it.

Drum roll please. Joseph Licari served 14 years as Malta’s ambassador to the Council of Europe. in this day and age when many a nationalist is pooh-poohing certain Taghna Lkoll appointments in the diplomatic corps (rightly so) they deserve to be reminded that this paragon of logical befuddlement was our man in Strasbourg during the nationalist watch. The race to mediocrity anyone?

It gets better. In tertiis, Licari’s article goes somewhat conspiracy theorist. In a mix between Dan Brown and Anders Breivikh he takes on the hidden powers that are supposedly influencing the mad decisions at the UNHCR and ECHR. NGO’s (unelected) get pride of baton followed by those dastardly religious leaders. The cherry on the cake comes towards the end. In an article obviously penned to justify the pushback of boatloads of sub-saharan people to their country the author suddenly turns his guns on the people to the north: you know them, the Nordics.

Together with religious leaders and NGOs, the Nordic countries form a triptych of preachers we have to suffer in today’s Europe.

Suffer eh. I just could not believe what I am reading. What began as a supposed researched case in favour of pushbacks of some form really turned out to be one hell of a joyride. Smoking. The question really is what.

And finally, just in case you were wondering about the existence of any legal import to anything Licari wrote, there is much more to the “exception” that can be found in article 33 of the 1951 Convention. First of all the exception itself requires very strict interpretation and application. Here is Cornelis Wouters in “International Legal Standards for the Protection from Refoulement“:

The danger to the national security or community of the country of refuge must be a present or future danger. Thus, the past conduct of the refugee may be relevant.As with any exception to human rights guarantees,the exceptions contained in Article 33(2) must be interpreted restrictively and applied with great caution. The exceptions apply to refugees, who in principle have a right to be protected from refoulement. The finding of dangerousness does not require strict proof, but must be based on reasonable grounds and therefore supported by credible and reliable evidence and not made arbitrarily. The burden of proof of establishing reasonable grounds is on the State and requires an individual assessment. A State cannot assume that a refugee poses a threat to its national security or community based on the fact that he belongs to a certain group and create a rebuttable presumption of danger.Article 33(2) must be applied in a manner proportionate to its objective.483 This means that (1) there must be a causal link between the refugee and the danger, (2) it must be shown that the danger posed by the refugee is sufficiently serious and likely to be realised, (3) refoulement is a proportionate response to the perceived danger, (4) refoulement alleviates or even eliminates the danger, and (5) refoulement is used as a last possible resort where no other possibilities of alleviating the danger exist.

Even more importantly than these strict conditions (that obviously cannot be applied by rounding up the healthy suspects and putting them on the next plane to Tripoli) is the concurrent application of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. A trifle detail to have missed for an ambassador of 14 years in Strasbourg. You see Article 3 of the ECFHR has been applied in such a way as to constitute an absolute prohibition on any action that could result in torture or inhuman or degrading treatment. More specifically, Article 3 of the Convention has been used to prohibit any possible refoulement: According to the Court Article 3 ECHR leaves no room whatsoever for a balancing act between the national security of a State and the need of the individual for protection. (That’s what ex-ambassador Licari does not seem to like about the Court and its supposed infiltrators).

Still from Wouters :

In all three cases mentioned above the applicant’s conduct in the country of asylum was no reason to allow exceptions under Article 3. The Court explicitly acknowledged in these cases that the protection afforded under Article 3 from refoulement is thus wider than that provided under Article 33 of the Refugee Convention which does allow exceptions.

States do have a right to be legitimately concerned about potential “wolves” – criminals hiding among a flock of refugees seeking asylum. To perform the illogical leap of justifying refoulement generally with this argument though requires not only a leap of faith but also a heavy dose of those taghna lkoll pills that risked transforming Malta into a pariah state last month.

With (ex-)ambassadors like these who needs meritocratic appointments?

The riot acts

It’s all happening in Rabat it seems. At is-Serkin to be exact. Rabat pastizzi and tea places have long been the rage for an after hours sobering up. There was a time when you would throw in the Tarxien doughnut guy – that was when the guy would go to the doughnut before the doughnut began to come… everywhere. Turns out that at 5 a.m. this morning there was some form of altercation between an employee of PN Dar Centrali and the two renegades Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and Franco Debono. Depending on which news source you read there was some form of provocation from one side and the Taghna Lkoll appointees who had shot to stardom under a nationalist administration are on record to have directed a barrow load of invective against anything “nationalist”.

Five a.m. in Rabat eh. We’re not exactly back to the Raymond Caruana drive by scenarios (God rest his soul) but by the look of it this morning you get the feeling that the PN side of the equation are dying hard to portray this event as a prelude of such things to come. (I mean we DO have a monument to Mintoff in the making – and displayed at Labour HQ to boot – Ghax Taghna Lkoll means tal-Lejber). On the other hand my facebook wall is already witnessing mocking comments by Labourite “supporters” of the young nationalist stalwart whose description of the action makes him sound like some Harry Potter being attacked by Death Eaters.

The tableau remains the same. Two politicians long past their sell-by date have engaged in yet another public performance that should in normal non-Banana Republic countries spell the end of their public commitments and engagements. A reluctant opposition still insists on referring to JPO and Franco without reminding the public of their roles – you get the feeling that the PN is (1) painfully aware of its limitations at this current junction and is not too eager to rock the boat and (2) quite tellingly the PN remains even more painfully aware that it was the springboard for JPO’s and Franco’s claim to fame. It was after all PN votes that got JPO into parliament (spin and all). And Joseph? What will he do this time round? Surely not another quip about something that ‘also happened under the nationalists” (it didn’t by the way).

These are the politicians of this Banana republic of ours. Now it’s down to brawls in nightspots. Oh yes J’accuse will express sincere solidarity with any victim of senseless violence. If punches were thrown then the aggressor must not only be condemned verbally but must be brought to justice. Things might be about to go out of hand thanks to the persistence of our dichotomous way of thinking. I look at the scene as it was reported and I do not see Nicky Azzopardi, Franco Debono and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando brawling outside a pastizzi and newspaper joint.

I see the continuation of a race to mediocrity that is far from over.

Ghamilli te vojt u tlieta irkotta. Le… x’gazzetti? Ma tafx li ilni ghomor ma nixtri gazzetta?

Grabbing the iced buns

Iced buns are quite the talk of the town thanks to Muscat’s very unique interpretation of meritocracy. Norman Hamilton’s appointment as High Commissioner in Britain is the latest in a long line of appointments that have absolutely nothing to do with merit and much to do with “partitocracy”. Taghna Lkoll’s labour are not reinventing the wheel, we’ve been there before but never with such brazen partisanism. It’s as though the only reason Labour wanted to get elected was to dig its teeth in a huge cake and there seems to be a sense of urgency in all this – as though the cake might finish tomorrow.

It’s across the board. Across the boards actually. Nothing is spared. Justice, environment, diplomacy, culture… you name it the’ve got a board, directorship, charimanship or some other magic chair to fill. There is absolutely no direct correlation between the person nominated and the job in question – which is where Labour is actually going out on a limb. There is no attempt to colour the nominations with any semblance of competence or adequacy, the only justification spouting from the acolytes of the TaghnaLkoll creed is that “now it is our turn” or that “you can only trust our own”.

Such a parody of a political system defies comment through its very existence as a real life caricature. Everyone can see how naked the Emperor is it’s just that they still cannot get over how brazen he is about his nudity. Meanwhile the consequences of a more subtle iced bun distribution network gone wrong are being felt among the opposition. The horse-trading that went on behind the scenes in the nationalist party camp had already been partially exposed thanks to the Borg Olivier gaffes about his “barter” system. Businesses and commerce would have been quite happy with preferential treatment and a rather generous credit system “mal-partit” if their workings were facilitated by the party in power. Lose the power, lose the credit.

Before you know it l-istamperija is history. You know, the stamperija is the kind of place that allows the PLPN parties to conduct multimillion print and poster campaigns without batting an eyelid. Obviously right now the Labour side of credit must be basking in sunlight. No closing time for the Labour equivalent of stamperija yet because Labouris now in the driving seat of the iced bun business. Sure, Labour will bumble it much faster than any amount of PN sugary pastry scheme could – simply by way of the inability to moderate its hunger for power – but yes we are still very much in the field of same, same but different.

The biggest problem with Labour’s idea of managing the iced bun business is that Labour seems to have even less of an appreciation of the fragility of the whole power system. The Labour Horde of pretenders to iced buns have been unleashed on a Castille Palace that must seem to them what the witche’s Candy House seemed to Hansel and Gretel. The tentacles of the Labour orgy have spread into sensitive areas such as justice and diplomacy. That is very dangerous territory. Meanwhile a civil service that was very much constructed to work the EU machine is being slowly dismantled to allow inexperienced pretenders to take their places in various directorships… expect a ticking time bomb there – not because of any sabotage by nationalist civil servants but simply because the lock stock change being imposed by the iced bun brigade is simply unsustainable.

In short, the Iced Bun system is simply a progressive increase on what was already there in another form. That does not make the new Iced Bun system any more acceptable than the previous one. But it seems that in the world of PN vs PL all that it takes to be ahead is to be “same, same but different”.

Thank you very much PLPN.

Hagi’s Brave New World

In 1994 we took to watching some of the World Cup matches at La Grotta nightclub in Xlendi. I don’t remember whether the Romania v. Argentina fixture was late enough to be broadcast direct during clubbing hours or whether it was the repeat of the goals on Eurosport that we watched while dancing to the latest tunes. What I do remember is the magnificent performance of Gheorghe Hagi and Co and how they outshone the Argentinians with some of the best football of the tournament. The second Romanian goal, skillfully envisioned by Hagi and masterfully executed by Dumitrescu remains one of the classics of the tournament – as will the whole Romanian team that would go on to lose its nerve against a cynical Sweden in the quarter-final.

An interview in French sport magazine So Foot with the mastermind behind that team brought these memories of football and clubbing back to my mind. Hagi remains an institution in Romanian football history and nobody since has shone the way he had in the mid-nineties. Not even the meteoric Adrian Mutu. The interview might have struck me for many an insight that Hagi had about football in his heyday, about his moves from Madrid to Brescia to Barcelona, and about how his great Steaua succumbed to a physical Milan in a pre-Champions League final but what really struck me is the sense of saudade that Hagi seems to feel for the communist system that produced his team of greats.

The 1994 national team was a product of Ceausescu’s Romania – a project that had been selected from the villages and towns of the Carpathians and centred around Bucharest’s two dominant teams : Steaua and Dinamo. Plucked away from their regional haunts, different generations of players were disciplined into one system in central Romania and learnt to play together, to live football together and go through an educational system together. From Prunea to Belodedici to Munteanu to Dumitrescu, they all pased through a strict “Eastern” development system that we now only know to relate to the Communist heavy handed “discipline”.

We’ve all heard stories about the pumped East European women for the Olympics. Stories abound about how the successful football teams from behind the Iron Curtain were little more than playthings of the different secret services and police. Descriptions of such systems are normally painted with brushstrokes of oppression, dehumanisation and deprivation of basic rights. Yet here was Hagi expressing a nostalgia for those times and obviously pining for those days when the communist machine made footballing men out of undisciplined boys. There is something about this streak of nostalgia that cannot be ignored. Obviously this is not an appeal for the return of communist regimes and their dark methods of “preparation” but one does have to ask whether the moral fibre of the golden teams such as Hagi’s Romania can ever be replicated again.

This was Hagi who would quit Madrid for Brescia simply to play under the guidance of one of his gurus (Mircea Lucescu) prior to returning to Barcelona (where he played with – hold your breath and kneel down – Stoichkov and Romario). He may have had a fiery character but he did not break down to the vices and greed that seem to be so common with today’s footballers. Did I hear you say Mutu?

In an awkward twist of serendipitous reading I switched to this week’s Economist to find two articles about Raul Castro’s managed shift from Communism to a sort of free trade. The byword in Cuba seems to be to allow small businesses to work but just about that. The government still seems to be intent on ensuring that nobody gets “too rich”. For how long that can be controlled is anybody’s guess. In the meantime I understood why accounts by recent visitors to Cuba jarred so much with my own first-hand witness of Cuba in 2006 (just before Raul came into power). I remember being impressed by the lack of any free-market activity but also by the good-naturedness of the people.

True, there was an in-your-face lack of materialism and absolutely no familiar reference points for anyone coming from a liberal democrat background. But there was also an inexplicable joie de vivre that you could not read about in international reports. It was almost as though the resourcefulness of the people compensated for the limitations imposed by an oppressive regime. It was a contradiction that was hard to swallow. Here was a people who fail on many standards of the liberal democrat scale but then their cultural, health, educational and sporting values shot through the limit. Deprived of the outlets of senseless materialism the Cuban people did what they could do best – improvised and worked on other values.

Is this what Hagi misses? A sense of disciplined approach? Will Cuba produce its Sotomayor’s and little sporting miracles when the barriers to free market and laissez-fairism fall? I don’t have the answer to that one but for a few moments just savour the magic of the other boys in gold who almost conquered the world back in 1994.

The other boat people

The agreement between Australia and Papua New Guinea (PNG) regarding the treatment of Australia’s waves of boat people made the breaking news early this morning. Australia, it was announced, would be forwarding any refugee (asylum) seekers to PNG for processing and should their application become valid these asylum seekers would be resettled in PNG and not Australia. The arrangement is valid for twelve months and is subject to an annual review. In Rudd’s own words:

“Our expectation … is as this regional resettlement arrangement is implemented, and the message is sent loud and clear back up the pipeline, the number of boats will decline over time as asylum seekers then make recourse to other, more normal UNHCR processes to have their claims assessed,” Mr Rudd said.

No sooner had the news made the world wide web that repostings of the BBC report were being made on social networks by Maltese users – with such illuminating comments as “food for thought”. No doubt they believed that this move vindicated Joseph Muscat’s push-back ploy, and a cursory look at the facts behind the deal show that they there is no doubt that this is not a similar scenario. Let’s see why.

1. Human Rights

Yep. You have to begin there. The agreement means that the refugees are shifted to another point to have their asylum request processed. They are not shepherded onto a plane (with the added trauma of separating the healthy from the weak), they are not denied access to a lawyer or HR institutions and above all their entitlement to have their request treated is not prejudiced. Papua New Guinea is a signatory to the UN Refugees Convention – not an unstable country in the process of reconstruction. Here’s Rudd again:

“I understand that this is a very hard line decision,” Mr Rudd said. “But our responsibility as a government is to ensure that we have a robust system of border security and orderly migration, on the one hand, as well as fulfilling our legal and compassionate obligations under the refugees convention on the other,” he added. (9msn)

It’s not exactly a “stamping of feet” or “wake up and smell the coffee”. The Australian PM is aware that no matter how hardline you may get the combined duty of compassion and international obligations must and will be respected. A far cry from bluffing to break the law.

2. Promised Land Delayed.

It’s not all hunky dory. Australia is the land of promise for the people in that region. Not PNG, not Nauru. That however is what Rudd is banking on. His plan is a disincentive to smugglers who thrive on these illicit tours and mortal trips across the seas by sending out a message that the final destination will not be the land of Oz. It plays perfectly into the hands of recent “atavistic fears” aroused among the Australians – angry above all, at the lack of effort by recent arrivals to assimilate to the Ozzie culture. Settlers will instead have to adapt to New Guinean (Papuan?) culture since PNG has accepted for the refugees to be resettled within its borders.

A few notes on PNG will show that this is a growing democracy which is still plagued by a poverty gap with vast swathes of unexplored land. Fair game? So why did PNG accept the deal?

3. Money talks.

Well the PNG deal follows up on an earlier deal with Nauru. In both cases asylum seekers heading for Australia are (will be) rerouted to an asylum processing centre based on PNG or Nauru. The asylum centres are set up and maintained by Australia. That means that the money to pay for, monitor and run the centre comes from Australian coffers. Earlier centres were heavily criticised by the UNHCR for their conditions (a familiar story?) but Australia has pledged to build a new centre in PNG. That’s not just it… PNG needed more than a spanking new asylum centre to sign the dotted line and this is what it got:

In exchange for PNG’s agreement, Australia will fund further aid initiatives. These include redeveloping a major referral hospital in Lae, PNG’s second largest city, and assisting with its long-term management. Australia will also supply half the funding to reform PNG’s university sector and in 2014 implement the recommendations of an Australia-PNG education review. As well, it will support professional management teams in health, education and law and order. “And Australia, prime minister, stands ready to assist PNG further with other development needs in the future,” Mr Rudd said to Mr O’Neil. “That’s what friends are for.” (9msn)

International Cooperation

So Australia’s Rudd does get to shake the waters in the field of immigration policy. He admits that the PNG-Australia agreement might be challenged in the courts but also hopes that this will open the way for new global discussions on the treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers. The agreement exploits what Rudd seems to treat as a loophole in the international convention. The convention prohibits repatriation of asylum seekers but, according to Rudd’s reading does not prohibit resettlement in a different country – such as PNG.

Australia also plans to convene an international conference of transit and destination countries to consider how to improve global arrangements for refugees. The conference would consider the adequacy of processing arrangements and how Australia, the US, Canada and other countries could deal better with the resettlement issues.

So, no real stamping of feet. No threat to break international rules. The Australian PM gave his reassurances of compassionate treatment of the asylum seekers while setting up a framework the compatibility of which remains to be tested under international obligations. Having said that the way Rudd moved is diametrically opposed to what happened in the Maltese scenario.

That essentially is the difference between a statesman and a tantrum thrower fanning the flames of nationalistic fears. So, yes, food for thought indeed.