February 15, 2006

Unlike Australia, Malta has abandoned indefinite detention for asylum seekers but tensions remain, writes James Button.

THEY made the long, dangerous journey by land and sea. Some boats sank, people drowned. Such immigrants were new to the island nation. Alarmed, it locked them up. Soon there were protests inside the detention centres and from the United Nations.

But the Government said imprisonment was necessary to stop others from coming, and most citizens agreed. The immigrants, for their part, grew desperate as they waited for a resolution that might never come.

It could be Australia. It is also the Mediterranean island nation of Malta, which is facing what its Government calls an emergency as it battles to cope with an unprecedented wave of "irregular immigrants", mainly from Somalia, Eritrea and other African countries.

In 2000, Malta received just 24 such migrants. Since 2002 nearly 4000 have come. Last summer a boat landed nearly every night - mostly from Libya, 300 kilometres to the south.

The immigrants do not want to go to Malta, they see nearby Italy as a door to Europe, but are picked up when their often-unseaworthy boats enter Malta's rescue zone. On arrival they are fingerprinted. If they slip away to another European Union country and are caught, under EU policy they are sent back to Malta.

The numbers don't sound large, but they represent nearly 1 per cent of the population of 400,000. If the same proportion had come to Australia, it would have faced an influx of up to 200,000 asylum seekers.

But Malta's approach differs from Australia's in a key respect. Since 2003 it has abandoned indefinite detention, and now imprisons people for a maximum of 18 months. The policy is still the toughest in Europe, with 1500 people detained in grim barracks and even tents. The EU wants the country's maximum detention time reduced to six months.

Why the human wave has reached Malta is unclear. It may be because Italy and Spain have tightened their controls or that more people are leaving from Libya, which is said to contain 1.5 million transient, sub-Saharan Africans. Whatever the reason, Katrini Camilleri, of Malta's Jesuit Refugee Service, says "millions of people [in Africa] are on the move. You can divert the flow but you can't stop it".

About half the arrivals have been accorded "humanitarian protection", a category less than refugee status that nevertheless recognises they have escaped persecution. Yet with only one EU country so far prepared to take even a handful (the Netherlands is taking 35), they are unable to go. They are marooned in Malta.

Their presence is changing the country. For the first time since World War II, far-right groups have emerged, including the white supremacist Imperium Europa, which won 1600 votes in a European election in 2004.

A recent newspaper poll found that 90 per cent of respondents would not want an Arab, African or Jewish neighbour. A famously hospitable nation is turning hostile. The people on the receiving end of the hostility live in places such as the Marsa Open Centre.

A few kilometres from the capital of Valletta, Marsa's harbour looks like a cliche of Marseille or any seedy port.

In the yard of the former trade school, about 40 African men are playing football. But Fusume Telde, from Eritrea, keeps to himself in one of the 16-bed dormitories upstairs.

The 22-year-old biology student is the youngest of seven brothers. Five died in wars with Ethiopia, the eldest lives in New Jersey. Three years ago that brother helped Telde raise $US7000 ($9500) to flee Eritrea. But by escaping, Telde left his mother alone. "No one likes to be separated from the love of his mum," he says. "I like to live with her, but if the Government takes me for military service I will die for sure."

He travelled to Khartoum in Sudan, where he stayed a year. Then he paid a people smuggler to ferry him across the Sahara. He says the four-wheel-drive carried 40 people, some hanging from the sides and roof. It broke down often, people ran out of food and water, and some got sick and died. The bodies were left behind.

In Libya he used the rest of his money to buy a place on a boat, which the Maltese navy picked up as it threatened to sink in a storm. He spent six months in detention but gained humanitarian protection. "I want to go somewhere to study, to improve my mind," he says. "But I am spending my time doing nothing." His eyes are searching. "Please, can you tell me, what do you think will happen to us?"

Like most people in the centre, Telde is educated and middle class. In Africa only those with resources, money or a skill they can sell, can travel far on the refugee trail. "Some even travel with bank cards," says Terry Gosden, a British social worker in his early 50s who runs the centre. He lists a gynaecologist, lawyer, teachers and engineers among the 400 residents, almost all of whom are young men.

"I think we probably have the cream of the countries here. Which begs the question: if Malta is representative of who is coming to Europe, how can you expect stable governments to emerge in Africa if you take out the middle class?"

So are Gosden's clients merely economic migrants rather than refugees? No, he says. He thinks the line between an economic migrant and refugee is usually non-existent, especially in Africa. Take Somalia, from where half the 400 residents come. "It hasn't had a stable government in 15 years," he says. "Five warlords run the country. If a warlord down the road doesn't like you, you get taken out. If you are trying to start a business, as soon as it starts doing well someone will take it off you at the point of a gun."

Gosden says the migrants "have left a lot of dead behind, both in the countries they come from and on the journey itself". Since everyone knows they are carrying money, "they are preyed upon every step of the way across Africa".

He tells of men assaulted, women gang raped, brothers put into separate boats, one of which sank beside the other. A no-nonsense East Ender, he doesn't ask psychologists into his centre because "I'm afraid if you take the lid off these people they'll fall apart".

Instead, he has a more basic remedy: the dignity of work. He has encouraged people to run businesses in the centre: hairdressers, restaurants, an internet room. He says that 360 of his 400 clients have found jobs in Malta, mainly in cleaning and construction.

"They come out of detention scared and very angry because of the perceived injustice of being locked up. When they start getting anxious, I tell them, 'there's a job out there with your name on it'."

Warsame Ali Garare, a 26-year-old Somalian, is Gosden's assistant. A language teacher, he speaks English, French and Arabic as well as two Somalian tongues.

It took Garare nearly two years to make the 5000-kilometre journey from Somalia, via Niger and the Sahara, to Libya. Although his life is no longer in danger he fears being sent home.

"I don't blame the Maltese but a lot of them hate the immigrants. You feel it because you are black. It hurts too much," he says.

Can he understand the position of the Maltese, their fear of being overwhelmed? Garare nods. "If I had my choice, do you think I would leave my country? Do you think you get a better life than living with your family, your position, your honour? But when there's a fire in your house, do you let it burn or do you get out?" So what is the answer? Garare thinks for a moment then says quietly: "Peace in Somalia."

It sounds utopian, yet many are coming to agree that the only long-term solution to mass migration from Africa is the transformation of Africa. Italy's Deputy Prime Minister, Gianfranco Fini, last week said the problem would not be solved by simply shutting borders but by helping African countries.

Malta's Prime Minister, Lawrence Gonzi, has said: "We have to give people a reason to live in their own country. It is the only thing that will stop this migration."

Gosden says: "We are not going to play King Canute in Malta. The human tide is going to keep coming."

Night is falling in Marsa. A young Somalian, Mohammed Moawlid Ahmed, hears that an Australian reporter is present and beams. "My sister is in Australia," he says. "It's a good country, I want to go there."

He races off and returns with an Australia Post envelope. He slides out a sheaf of documents, including a citizenship certificate for Muna Jama Mohammed, of Granville, Sydney. "She send me the form, the application for Australia," Ahmed says with a shy smile. "I like to go to Australia. I hope."