A Window To Perceptive Journalism

Four Years After Malta,
 Indian Govt Plays Dumb,
Fortress Europe Deaf

S P Singh

A couple of days earlier, Ujjal Dosanj ran through the streets of his village in Doaba heart belt of Punjab. It was his first home coming after becoming premier of British Columbia, and many have projected him as a great role model. In Doaba, where Ujjal hails from, there is no dearth of those who want to live the Great American Dream, and going by the queues at the travel agents' offices, no one seems to need much inspiration.

Fortress Europe is deaf. It does not want to know what is happening on its shores. It does not want to accept that people are dying daily trying to beat harsh immigration laws. They come as human cargo in the hulls of ships, wade through the mined beaches, hide in woods before daring to mingle with those who preceded them. And sometimes, they die in most shocking circumstances as nearly 300 of them did four years ago on Christmas night in the icy Ionian Sea, between Sicily and Malta.

But they are perhaps the wrong kind of dead. They were acting illegally, and they were black. And no one cared.

Four years have passed. And families of many who have never returned from their sour odyssey still do not believe they died the fateful night. No one seems to be particularly worried, except for a toothless NGO called Malta Boat Tragedy Probe Mission  (MBTPM) which is pursuing the case with a rare diligence. 

Headed by Balwant Singh Khera, an MBTPM delegation had earlier toured Greece, Malta, Italy, Switzerland and other European countries to sensitise governments to take action against the guilty. That it is not an easy task to get apathetic governments move is clear from the fact that even the delegation’s success in securing a copy of the charge sheet issued by an Italian court against 13 main accused made big news earlier this year in India.

Now, another delegation, again headed by never-say-die Khera toured Pakistan in a bid to prevail upon federal minister for labour and overseas affairs Omar Asghar Khan to expedite probe into the racket of human cargo smuggling.

"We were able to meet many of the families of nearly 31 Pakistani immigrants who died in the Malta tragedy and recorded their statements. The Pakistan government, after the pressure created by our visit, acted promptly and arrested Mohammed Yunus of Lahore, a main accused," Khera told The Indian Express.

36 degrees 45 minutes North, 14 degrees 30 minutes East lies the spot where the Christmas day massacre took place in 1996. Captained by Youssef Al Halal, the 1500 tonne Yiohan, a migrant slaveship with a Honduras flag, was carrying nearly 500 would-be Asian migrants as cargo who all were expecting to reach Sicily at the end of a voyage for which each of them had paid over 5000 dollars. Squatting in the tanks reeking of fish smell, they didn’t trust the crew but they had little choice. They were powerless, and what was even more dreadful, they were without papers.

In immigration terminology, they didn’t exist, not as yet.

In mid-sea, an 18 metre an ex-RAF search and rescue launch converted for fishing work and named just F174 met up with Yiohan shortly after midnight. The human cargo was being transported onto the F174 and the boat with a capacity of 100  had nearly 300 on board when the Yiohan inexplicably turned. F174 floundered, bodies wallowing both in it and in the icy waters around it.

So far it was tragedy. Then came the real evil. Evtyhios Zervoudakis and his associates in the boat climbed onto Yiohan and it quietly sailed away, perhaps too sure that the survivors, who were dumped at Ermioni in Greece, would not tell their tale since they were illegal immigrants or that, even if they do, no one will believe them.

Al Halal, Zervoudakis and others like them weren’t very wrong. It took Italian government two years to even take official cognisance of the tragedy. It took a delegation’s visit to Pakistan four years after the tragedy for Islamabad to order arrest of the main accused. And it would take perhaps many more years, and more tragedies may be, for a CBI case registered on January 17 1997 in the Malta tragedy to reach a logical conclusion.

The government seems to have washed its hands off the shameful tragedy. Not even half the families have received any grant till date. "But why have the grants not been paid?" I asked Mandip, and met with an answer I couldn’t argue with: "If government was as efficient and functioning one, why in the first place would we be searching for our destinies in foreign lands? Then we would have jobs here, and opportunities to make it big some day with our hard work and enterprise. Abroad too, things are not easy, but at least there are opportunities."

Even the consolation that such a tragedy would deter the illegal immigrants’ odysseys across oceans is not there. Qualm less travel agents are pushing such human cargos into Fortress Europe with chilling regularity. Going by the proliferation of fly-by-night travel agents in Doaba, and across Punjab, the Ionian tragedy is a forgotten chapter.

And takers for adopting Ujjal Dosanj as a role model are just as determined as those who squatted in the hull of Yiohan. The gold pot at the end of rainbow beckons, the lure of the lucre is powerful, and the ocean but a small obstacle. Looks as if the tribe of illegal travel agent would live long, and Malta would only be a distant fading memory soon.

Except for some like 27 year old Mandip Singh of Kala Sanghia village of Kapurthala who survived the Malta massacre by the skin of his teeth as he was unable to climb down the rope to board the killer F174. "I saw the boat go down with my own eyes. People were desperately screaming for help. Many were falling straight into the icy waters. I know of a man who saw his brother fall into the water. I have seen hell now, and I will never want to go abroad, but what about others? Foreign shores is the only Shangri La that people here now of," Mandip said.

As for the travel agents, Malta just meant having to deal with slightly stern cops for some days. It is back to business once again, and there is no dearth of people who are ready to even mortgage their lands and sell off their tractors for that elusive visa.

Doaba is a region where everyone is born with a dream, a dream of making it big one day, but in a foreign land. That is a secret of Doaba’s development, and paradoxically, its biggest tragedy.■

Also See:
Doaba Has A Dream – It Is To Run Away

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