Over the past days, public comment has focused mainly on the danger of an IS attack on Malta, however improbable that may be.

The very fact how this debate has been led shows how uninformed public opinion is about what is happening over the sea.

Lack of familiarity with the language and lack of contact with people there makes for a completely uninformed debate. Not that people inside Libya, I think, have a better idea about what is going on in their country.

The recent flurry of high-level visits and contacts, as well as the very probable links between the West and some forces inside Libya would probably provide decision-makers with an approximate idea about what is happening and what could be happening in the near to middle future.

But what should concern us are the various forms in which the situation in Libya can have knock-on effects on our country and our life here.

Many would think, at this point, about asylum seekers or boatloads of people taking to the sea and arriving on our shores. That is very true, although I must point out that so far the migration we have seen is of sub-Saharan people who have crossed the desert and suffered heavy battering from Libyan bandits and, out of sheer desperation, choose the way of the seas rather than stay in a Libya turned into a badland.

The situation in Libya is still very fluid and all sorts of outcomes can develop. There are two loose coalitions but then all sorts of groupings in a kaleidoscope of armed groups joining up and splitting up, but other than that it is next to impossible to get anything resembling sure information, especially since they have this penchant for blaming anything on the other side when you sense they have been the miscreants.

So yes, there is the enduring danger of boatloads coming our way, endangering AFM units sent to rescue them from rough seas and then ending up here with no future to speak of.

I say that if the situation in Libya deteriorates, (and the experience of past months has shown that when you think it has reached a new low, an even lower low beckons), we may start getting boatloads of Libyans, not sub-Saharans.

This may happen if IS continues unopposed to take one city after another and/or if the Libyans do not get together to fight and oppose it. If we go by the pattern shown by Isis in Iraq and Syria, Isis makes lightning-quick conquests which stretch out its lines of communication, but then it consolidates its grip on the areas it conquers by its extra-strict enforcement of Sharia laws, arrests and beheadings.

So far, there does not seem to be any mass evacuation of Derna and/or Sirte. One must also consider that the latter, Gaddafi's birthplace and his preferred city, suffered tremendously in the post-Gaddafi years, especially in the last days of the fighting until Gaddafi was captured. Its religious principles have thus tended to be hard-line Islam, rather than the secular Western lifestyle of the cities, especially Tripoli.

Having said that, there have been waves of Libyans seeking pastures new both in Tunisia and in Egypt, and also in Malta, and this is specifically the fallout I am talking about today.

These are no boat people coming over and landing at Hay Wharf on AFM patrol boats; they arrive here mostly by plane from intermediate places such as Tunisia and Egypt.

I have long held that very unfortunately we have no certain way of even monitoring who is coming and of ensuring they do not overstay the terms on their visa. I am practically sure we (and by me I mean the government) have no idea how many people there are in Malta who come from war-torn countries (not only Libya).

What sparked this reflection was a very minor thing that happened last Tuesday evening. I was working in our office when a carcade passed by. I paid no attention to this since carcades still take place, whether it's because of football or whatever. But later I chanced on a Facebook comment asking why people in cars waving Libya flags were going round the streets in Sliema.

That's when the penny dropped. Tuesday was 17 February, the anniversary of the beginning of the rebellion against Gaddafi.

A short time later, the same carcade (maybe it was just one car or so) returned again with horns honking.

As I said, it's a very minor point, everything considered. Now that I think of it, there used to be a new Libyan flag or two hung in the road at the lower end of San Gwann. I cannot quite remember but I think there were carcades the night Gaddafi was killed.

The fact remains, we are exposed, and becoming increasingly so, to reverberations of whatever is happening over there.

Considering the state of chaos in Libya, our national interest must be to avoid that kind of chaos percolating here, even in small drops.

Then again, as I have mentioned in other articles, among the Libyans living here there must be people from the Gaddafi regime. I do not know who they are, but I am sure the Libyans here know who they are and possibly what they did. It is nothing short of a miracle that we do not seem to have had revenge attacks.

What does our national interest ask of us? I believe it is very clear: beyond any possible involvement in a UN or other action regarding Libya, this must be strictly non-military and possibly just logistical, and it is in Malta's national interest to avoid being in any way contaminated by the chaos that has descended on Libya.

This is not a plea for the police to put a stop to this or any other carcade, but rather for efforts at persuasion they are guests in Malta and that this is not their country, and that they must respect Malta's neutrality regardless of whatever is happening in Libya.

This regards the entire gamut of our national life, from top to bottom, from bottom to top. This brings to mind the laid-back attitude our authorities seem to have assumed regarding the strange co-existence of two Libyan 'embassies' in our small country. Clearly, when there are two conflicting governments in Libya, this was sort of inevitable. Clearly too, the government has been wise and prudent to follow international diplomatic practice of official recognition, without excluding the fact that it must keep open lines of communication with all sides in the Libyan conflict.

Again, this is another delicate area where we are exposed to fallout from our Libyan neighbour.

Fundamentally, however, the defence of our national independence and sovereignty depends on each and every one of us. We are Maltese first and foremost and must at all costs avoid being split into for or against this or that other faction or side.

Whatever may happen in the coming months or years, Malta must preserve its independence and neutrality regarding the Libyan conflict.

Sometimes I despair of the future we are preserving for our children. People from the armed forces complain they have systematically been left without proper armour and equipment, our borders are undefended, so too arrivals at the airport, and people from a warring neighbour feel free to careen around in carcades.

It may be, true, a very minor thing, and probably due to exuberance rather than anything else, but it looks like the thin edge of the wedge.

 

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