A spokesperson for the EU border security agency Frontex has stated that Nautilus is not the solution to Malta’s illegal immigration. The general feeling gotten is that it is Libya that is to blame for the failure of Frontex to solve the problem. This spokesperson then went on to compare Nautilus with the sister project Hera in the vicinity of the Canary Islands and how relative success was achieved there thanks in no small part to the cooperative efforts of Senegal and Mauritania.

This may indeed be the case and Libya may very well not be cooperating with Nautilus but there is a fundamental question that nobody in Europe seems to be asking. Why should Libya bear the weight in responsibility for the mass illegal migration from an entire continent? Is this truly a productive or constructive attitude towards solving the problem or is it merely provoking the very same stonewalling that Libya is accused of?

Libya is every bit as much of a victim in this matter as Malta is and likewise has every bit as much of an interest in solving the problem of illegal immigration from their own perspective. Libya unofficially has some control over the flow of illegal migrants from its shores; it is almost unfathomable to imagine it being any other way considering the highly engineered flow of immigrant, waxing and waning to conveniently cater for political events.

However how different is this strategy from the concept of “burden sharing” brought up in the run-up to the previous election? It may sound good on paper and I am pretty sure that Josie Muscat had done his homework on the matter (which compares favourably to the Nationalist’s non-plan of action in both its previous term and its current term in government) but I feel that there remain a number of logical flaws, some of which are pungently, if effectively, highlighted through comparison to Libya’s own brand of “burden sharing”.

Returning to Libya as a topic, let us attempt to identify its relationship to the issue at hand, illegal immigration, and classify it accordingly. Firstly Libya is not a source country but a country of transit, just as some people claim that Malta is. Secondly Libya is criticized for its treatment of African immigrants within its borders – it is not a picture of harmony. Therefore to attempt to ’solve’ illegal immigration from a purely pan-European perspective would be an exercise in futility as too many essential pieces of the puzzle are disregarded.

We will get absolutely nowhere if we continue regarding our closest southern neighbour with this degree of suspicion and disregard to their own interests. Once we successfully adjust our egotistically-geared nationalistic perspectives to more communitarian-geared nationalistic perspectives, where benefit within a neighbouring nation is deemed a positive not only to that nation but to one’s own nation, especially if prominent in its adjacency, then I feel that we would have taken a second crucial step to solving the illegal immigration issue.

This is the third segment in a three-part series recalling different facets of the Bulgarian crisis back in 2007. Focus shall finally placed upon evaluating Malta’s role, supposed and actual, in this crisis as well as the reflections that should be made following the conclusion of this saga.

Throughout the Bulgarian saga the diplomatic machinery of the Maltese Islands remained idle. Hardly any prominence was given to this heated controversy which had been unfolding mere hundreds of kilometres south of our shores. This while six persons, five of them citizens of the European Union, were struggled over through all legal and diplomatic channels in order to spare them a fate of death by firing squad within the North African nation of Libya. Very little pressure, if any at all, came from the Maltese Islands and this, in the opinion of myself, would have been a tarnishing stain upon our name had the crisis not been resolved and the lives of the medics been lost.

There are undoubtedly a number of arguments that support Malta’s actions, or lack thereof, throughout the crisis. One could say that it was not the responsibility of the Maltese to enter into diplomatic haggling over individuals who were not Maltese citizens. After all, we are to be loyal to our own. One could also say that Malta was in no position to throw its weight around on the issue, placed hundreds of kilometres north of Libya’s shores and exposed as a military target. After all, it is unwise to talk the talk if one is unable to walk the walk, to bastardize some contemporary pop culture.

However Malta’s non-action has thrown it in a negative light very unfitting of its rich past. Ever since Malta’s entry into the European Union in 2003 it officially became the closest EU member nation (Lampedusa is a colony) to Libya’s shores. While the ‘not our problem’ mentality may have been passable prior to 2003 it no longer remained the case following entry. Upon entry the Maltese Islands became a crucial strategic position for asserting pressure during the crisis and yet the Maltese authorities failed to do so with little more than the odd cursory minimalistic comment passed within parliament on the matter, weakly whispering a hope for a positive resolution. And this remained true even when the last in the legal appeals were exhausted.

Strangely it had to be non-government sources to recognize and act upon their ethical and circumstantial responsibility in the crisis, such as Moviment Graffiti earlier on and individuals supposedly from the opposite end of the political spectrum at the 11th hour.

A more legitimate concern was that of repercussions upon the Maltese for speaking up during the crisis – but such would have been a very unflattering reason for the Islands to remain silent. Indeed one might suggest that non-action was an act both in disowning the efforts of our forefathers in their efforts to uphold their virtues in the face of hostilities as well as denying our grandchildren something to feel proud of within this age where pride is spoken of in the past tense.

A final possibility is that the Maltese authorities secretly believed that the medics were guilty and that they deserved the death penalty. The absolute truth of the machinery at play may never be confirmed with full clarity but in the meantime the Maltese effected by this third instalment can take heart in the fact that no blood was spilled to their inaction. It is my hope that we as a nation will know better in future and not be afraid to actively offer our voice to such dilemmas that may yet unfold.

This is the second segment in a three-part series recalling different facets of the Bulgarian crisis back in 2007. Focus shall now be placed upon the claims and the accusations, the evidence and the circumstances surrounding the controversy. In doing so the intent is to demonstrate the innocence of the previously detained medics through this re-examination.

Firstly we shall look upon the nature and the timing of Libya’s accusations levelled against the five Bulgarian nurses, and Palestinian doctor. The medics were not the first to be accused of deliberately infecting over four hundred children. Such dubious honour was reserved for the Israeli Mossad and American CIA jointly, both secret service outfits. It was only subsequently that the focus was brought upon the medics.

Secondly, dubious is the Libyan authorities’ claim that the Palestinian doctor was responsible for masterminding the infections. It would have been extremely unlikely for a Palestinian to work with Israeli secret services to pull off such a stunt.

What was the motive? The Libyan authorities claimed that the children were deliberately infected in an experiment to find a cure for AIDS… In a country where there is no shortage of children suffering from AIDS.

Thirdly the Authorities claimed that the Palestinian doctor had not only masterminded the plot but had also succeeded in enlisting at least five Bulgarian nurses in assisting him in carrying out the plot.

Let us pause here for a moment and reflect upon this point. Not only was this Palestinian doctor able to mastermind a plot to infect children with HIV, for the Israeli Mossad, in order to try to find a cure for AIDS, but he apparently managed to achieve a 100% enlistment success rate with the Bulgarian nurses, never mind that it went completely against the training and instincts of each one of them.

Ok… so perhaps the Palestinian doctor duped the nurses into assisting him unknowingly… and yet not a single such accusation was levelled against him by his fellow detainees. And then there is the small matter of not a single other Bulgarian nurse coming forward with claims of being approached by the doctor. Startling indeed.

Fourthly the Authorities claimed to have found bags of HIV-infected blood in the apartments of the medics. Damning evidence indeed except for the small detail that the HIV virus can only last several hours outside a host body, and this only within laboratory conditions. Therefore there was practically no point in collecting infected blood from the hospital for use later in transfusions.

As if this article of evidence weren’t shot full of holes already, on two separate occasions international scientists and scientific bodies had testified or published findings indicating that the infections were not only far more likely due to poor hygiene and the reuse of syringes at the Benghazi hospital, but the the strains of HIV within the infected children concerned suggested that it had been contracted before the Bulgarians started working there. Such evidence was conveniently barred from subsequent appeals.

It would be a little easier to understand this tangle if one were to consider that Benghazi has historically been the venue for a number of anti-regime uprisings. Perhaps the Libyan authorities genuinely felt that the mass infections were too much of a coincidence… but within the context of relative ostracization from the Libyan state in terms of public spending, as would be the likely result of needing to suppress uprisings within the region, spending in healthcare would also have had to have been hit badly.

Also, within this volatile region over four hundred families were clamouring for the blood of the perpetrators who had terminally sickened their sons and daughters. Hence it is not beyond speculation that Libya needed somebody to take the fall and the implication of a Palestinian doctor and Bulgarian nurses, gaining confessions through duress, might have been an attempt to do so. They were to be sacrifices to be made in exchange for the relative satisfaction of the Benghazi population.

Fortunately history decided otherwise.

This is the first segment of a three-part series reflecting upon different facets of the Bulgarian medic crisis back in 2007. It is appropriate to recall the event as we approach the first anniversary of the conclusion of this chapter. This first segment shall focus upon the chronological progression of events.

Back in 1999 five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were taken into Libyan custody and detained as part of an investigation over the infection of over four hundred children with the HIV virus in a hospital within the Benghazi province. Charges were levelled against them, their guilt was declared and they were sentenced to death, so the medics spent the next eight years of their lives in imprisonment as they exhausted their options in appeal. All this was in vain and on the 11th of July 2007 their final appeal was rejected.

On the 16th of July 2007 an agreement was reached between the European Union and the Libyan government, paving the way for victims’ families to waive their legal right to seek the death penalty in exchange for a financial compensation package from the European Union adding up to four hundred million dollars to be divided amongst the families. As a result the death sentences upon the six medics were commuted to sentences of life imprisonment.

Throughout this saga protests worldwide had for the most part fallen upon deaf ears; Libya and the European Union had remained locked in stalemate. It was ultimately only through the timely intervention of France’s then freshly-elected prime minister Nicholas Sarkozy and his then first lady, Cecilia Sarkozy, that a positive progression of events began to unfold. Through a series of diplomatic visits and negotiations the then couple were able to come to further agreements with the Libyan leader Gaddafi, including treatment for the surviving infected children within France, sponsored improvement of the Benghazi hospital, grants for Libyan students studying within the European Union and even, for a time, flirting with the idea of permitting Libya to invest within nuclear energy.

In late July of 2007, eight years after the medics’ saga began, it ended and Libya finally arranged for their release and immediate air transfer to Bulgaria, whereupon who’s arrival they were promptly pardoned by Bulgarian president Georgi Parvanov. And this is where the chapter closed almost one year ago.