Crimes of Peace by Albahari Maurizio;

Author:Albahari, Maurizio;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Published: 2015-04-14T04:00:00+00:00

PART III

BORDERS ADRIFT

Chapter 5

Spring Uprisings, Fall Drownings

Torching the “Lampedusa Model”

Lo scoglio, “the rock.” This is what Lampedusa’s residents affectionately call the island, home to about six thousand. Migrants have long arrived at Lampedusa on boats, whether landing on their own or assisted by coast guard vessels. Fishermen, in particular, remember the arrivals of 1996, when some three thousand Tunisians were merely “asked” by state authorities to leave within two weeks. Historically, maritime arrivals from neighboring Tunisia were institutionally tolerated, and to this day Tunisian sailors staff many fishing boats in Sicily. Local residents also take pride in the history and position of the island.1 They make a point of recommending a visit to the grotto and sanctuary aptly dedicated to the Madonna of Porto Salvo (safe port), historically open to the cult of both Christian and Muslim sailors and traders. A seasoned fisherman, always wearing his Juventus FC cap as he rides his Vespa, recalls that the Tunisian cities of Sfax and Sousse used to host Lampedusan communities.2 Others brag about their fishing travels throughout the Mediterranean. Regulars at Bar dell’Amicizia (friendship café) discuss with a nostalgic tone how throughout the mid- to late 1990s newly arrived maritime travelers would stop there for refreshments and to ask for “directions” on how to get to Sicily.

Today, newly arrived migrants are brought to the local centro di primo soccorso e accoglienza, a center of first aid and reception. Since 2007, it has been officially intended for immediate assistance, limited to seventy-two hours. As typical elsewhere in Italy, the center is built in a somewhat remote and secluded location, known locally as Contrada Imbriacola. Migrants’ short-term assistance in Lampedusa is to be followed by relocation to other centers in mainland Italy, or by repatriation. The “Lampedusa model,” in institutional parlance, is that of an “efficient” and short-term “waiting room” where migrants are identified prior to being transferred to other holding facilities in Sicily and mainland Italy.3 In such a situation, their presence on the island—confined behind the fence of the holding center—is tolerated, when not ignored. Prospective tourists are routinely reassured that there is no danger whatsoever, as migrants are locked in, unable to move freely on the island.

This seemingly well-oiled architecture of Italian border enforcement and migration management was built on bilateral agreements with Tunisia and Libya, curbing arrivals especially from the first country; pushback operations; Libyan detention of third-country nationals; short-term detention in Lampedusa; and immediate repatriation or deportation. But the Lampedusa model was shredded by the Arab Uprisings of 2011. In this chapter, I first trace the contradictions reemerging with the arrival of Tunisian citizens at Lampedusa and their transfer to a newly built tent camp in Apulia. I then draw the catalogue of institutional failures enabling the many maritime deaths of 2011, when during the war in Libya the Mediterranean was the most heavily patrolled sea in the world. The second part of the chapter focuses on the volatile situation in Egypt and Libya and the unresolved plight of

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