MALTESE PASSPORT IN SOMALIA

By John Attard Montalto

Up until a week or so ago, I thought I had heard and learned enough about Maltese passports. But that was before I visited Somalia, on a personal fact-finding mission to the land from where many irregular migrants to Malta originate.

I arrived from Ethiopia and landed in Hargeisa, Somalia’s second city and the capital of Somaliland, an autonomous region within the country.

Autonomy has meant that Somaliland has acquired a reputation for good public order, at least when compared to Somalia, the State it legally forms part of.

The people of Somaliland had been victims of vicious massacres conducted by the regime of Siad Barre, which collapsed 22 years ago. Those massacres themselves contributed to the civil war that followed. Since then, the local government declared independence, seeing itself as a successor to the British Somaliland protectorate, that was fleetingly independent half a century ago before being joined up to Somalia. However, Somaliland’s claims to statehood have received no international recognition just yet.

A reputation for good order is very relative, as I was soon reminded at Hargeisa airport.

Perhaps good order compared with Somalia, which is only now building up the semblance of a State administration after years of struggling with a failed State.

However, to a European the first impressions were of a country that had its own struggles.

The airport was strewn with aircraft that had crashed or been abandoned. I cleared immigration with relative ease, possibly because of the impact of my diplomatic passport in a airport that cannot have seen too many diplomats.

I had to walk quit a distance from the so-called terminal as it was heavily protected by soldiers with Kalashnikovs. The perimeter was heavily defended by concrete boulders, evidently to prevent the penetration of car bombs.

As soon as I cleared the barrier, half a dozen Somalis offered their transport services. One thing caught my eye. All the vehicle windows were blacked out to prevent recognition of the passengers. I took my pick, informed the driver that I wanted to go to the Ambassador Airport Hotel and he answered me: “No problem! Only one hotel open.”

Ali, my driver, took only 10 minutes to arrive at our destination. I noticed that the hotel was almost as heavily fortified as the airport perimeter: barbed wire, concrete blocks, metal barriers and, of course, armed soldiers.

It was at the hotel reception desk that my Maltese passport acted like a magic wand.

The receptionist took one look at it and started to shake my hand vigorously, repeating the word: “Malta! Malta! Malta!” The hotel staff in the immediate vicinity surrounded me, shaking my hand wildly, and patting me on my back.

The receptionist explained that all Somalia knows about Malta. “When we reach Malta, we know that Malta takes care of us!”

I cannot deny that it was a very emotional moment for me. Several feelings welled up inside me at once. Patriotic pride. Being moved by the trust and the gratitude of the men around me. Self-doubt, about whether all that gratitude was deserved. Shock, when I realised that these men could easily be some of those who will drown in the future or the harrowed survivors of a near-death experience on their way to the Malta they praised.

From then on, I could not have been treated better. After putting my luggage in the room, I decided to go to see Hargeisa. Ali, my driver, was still there, holding in his hand the money that I have paid him for the fare. “You from Malta, I drive you free.” Naturally I could not accept such a wonderful gesture.

Another surprise awaited me, in the backseat there were three soldiers with Kalashnikovs – evidently self-appointed security.

During the trip, with Ali as my guide, I could not help but notice the dire conditions in which the Somali people live. The shops, if one could call them so, were also in a very poor condition. Most were made of wood and corrugated iron. Not so the mosques.

Somalia is an Islamic country. All the women are dressed with headscarves but most of their clothes are brightly coloured. Only a minority were clothed all in black with a slip for the eyes. What struck me was the interrelationship between men and women (joking, laughing, working), which I have not witnessed in most Islamic states.

What also impressed me was that everywhere one sees dryness, dust and sand on either side of the potholed road. In the main square of Hargeisa, I saw the city’s principal monument: a fighter plane (a MiG, I think), which was shot down during the civil war. The most honest possible monument, perhaps.

I was slightly angered by the contrast with the main government buildings, which seemed to occupy a completely different town, luxuriously built and finished.

Returning to the hotel, the road was illuminated only by the light shining from the so-called shops.

Despite the respect in which I was held, for the simple reason I was Maltese, I was never allowed to forget the security situation.

I was advised that if I wanted to leave the hotel I would be provided with a “security policeman”. A 160-kilometre trip I wanted to make was considered inadvisable. It would have required a far stronger security detail.

It is visits like these that give a human face to the present migration crisis, to the hopes and insecurity behind it. Obviously, our national decisions cannot be based on our emotional response alone.

But empathy can help us be less flippant and casually cruel in how we discuss other people’s troubles and tragedies.

John Attard Montalto is a Labour member of the European Parliament.

Source: Times of Malta