* “We cannot make miracles” Tunisian president says
* European, Arab leaders meeting in Malta urge cooperation
By James Mackenzie
VALLETTA, Oct 6 (Reuters) – Tunisian President Moncef
Marzouki called on Saturday for the creation of a regional task
force to deal with the “humanitarian disaster” which has killed
thousands of desperate African migrants trying to reach Europe
in small, unseaworthy boats.
Speaking at the conclusion of a meeting of European and
north African leaders in Malta, Marzouki said the task force
would have to coordinate work already being done by foreign and
interior ministries as well as regional bodies.
“We don’t want this to be a military operation, we want this
to be a humanitarian operation,” he said. “We cannot accept
having hundreds and thousands of people drowning in the sea.”
But he warned that a solution to the problem at the heart of
the crisis, instability, persistent poverty and destructively
high youth unemployment in Africa, was still a distant prospect.
“We need time, we cannot do miracles in a few months,” he
told a news conference at the end of the meeting.
“Independent systems have been badly damaged, the security
system, the health system, the judiciary system have all been
badly damaged,” he said.
The succession of small, overcrowded migrant boats that
still attempt the dangerous crossing from north Africa to
Sicily, Malta and other islands has long reflected the pressure
being created by poverty in the region.
While the problem is now less intense since Western
governments stepped up cooperation with North African countries
in the wake of the Arab spring revolutions, migrant boats still
regularly show up in southern Europe. As recently as last month,
dozens of people are believed to have died when a boat sank near
Lampedusa off Sicily.
Marzouki’s comments underlined the pressing desire of the
newly established governments in countries like Libya and
Tunisia for support from the European Union as well as worries
in Europe about the potential spread of instability.
The killing of U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens in Libya
and the sacking of the U.S. Embassy in Tunis last month in
protests over an anti-Islamic video provided a sharp reminder of
how fragile the situation remains in the region.
5+5 MEETING
The first meeting of leaders from the so-called 5+5 group of
countries since the “Arab spring” revolutions, produced few
concrete decisions and was billed mainly as a forum for dialogue
between countries in the western Mediterranean.
Algeria, France, Italy, Libya, Malta, Mauritania, Morocco,
Portugal, Spain and Tunisia form an informal smaller group of
countries alongside the 43-member Union for the Mediterranean
launched by former French President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008.
With the southern European countries struggling to stave off
their worst financial crisis since World War Two, there was
little prospect of any immediate financial assistance from the
meeting in Malta on Friday and Saturday.
On the European side, interest was divided between the
tantalizing but still distant hope of creating a stable,
prosperous region across the Mediterranean and the immediate
problem of containing instability.
“If we can succeed in avoiding a transformation of the Arab
spring into an Arab autumn or even a freezing winter, that will
be a great investment in the European economy,” Italian Prime
Minister Mario Monti said.
A statement issued after the meeting condemned the violence
in Syria and called for broader cooperation across the region.
(Editing by Jon Hemming)
