Lampedusa (gro) From high above, from an airplane, Lampedusa looks like a giant sandal that has lost its straps. The roughly 20-square-kilometer island, which would fit almost three times into Lake Constance, is 120 kilometers further south than Tunis, but for the past three months it has become a gateway for refugees from North Africa who want to get to Europe. This is due to the fact that at present no European territory is as easy to reach illegally from North Africa as this barely vegetated limestone plateau in the African sea. It is almost twice as far from Sicily as it is from Mahdia, the nearest city on the east coast of Tunisia, which is a good 80 kilometers away. It is 400 kilometers south across the sea to Libya. Well over 10,000 refugees are believed to have landed on the small island in the past three months.
Paradoxically, security has increased
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In 1986, Muammar al-Ghadaffi, responding to U.S. military air strikes on Tripoli, had two Soviet-designed Scud missiles fired toward Lampedusa. They did not make the long journey and plopped into the sea about 20 kilometers off the island. The projectiles were aimed at the then U.S. base in the far west of the island. The Lampedusans did not let themselves be frightened: A pizzeria was renamed “Ristorante ai missile di Ghaddafi” (“Pizzeria to Ghaddadfi’s missiles”) and a hotelier at the Old Port called his guard dog “Muammar!” from that time on. There has been a perfect surveillance system for the airspace ever since. The current military buildup of NATO has recently made the area between North Africa and Europe virtually impenetrable. Thus, paradoxically, it is now safer in the extreme south of Europe than ever before.
Chicken wings and good beer
To the east, on its broad side, the 9-kilometer-long island measures a good 3 kilometers. There is enough space for an efficient runway, which is enough even for jumbo jets. The airport was built in the 1960s with U.S. assistance. The CIA had a base on Lampedusa for over 20 years, on the west side of the islet, where it is only a few hundred meters narrow. It was a station of the U.S. Coast Guard, equipped with a lot of electronics and a canteen, where far from home chicken wings were guaranteed to be on the menu every day and where Budweiser sometimes flowed in streams. Advancing satellite technology made the base superfluous for the CIA in the 1980s. The intelligence service of the Italian Navy took over the base. There are plans to create another refugee camp out of the now largely abandoned naval base.
Human smuggling has already brought in 10 million
this year.
An illegal crossing from North Africa to Lampedusa costs 1000 to 1500 euros. He is thus a murder business, the human smuggling.A “shipload” with 50 paying passengers brings more than 50,000 euros, the material costs for the crossing already deducted. With 10,000 refugees that is 10 million euros. The 4500 inhabitants of the island are hospitable people, but they feel abandoned by the Roman government and the European partner countries. At present, about 6,000 refugees are camped out on Lampedusa, mostly in the open and inadequately supplied with food. The problem is not new. Africans have been trying to reach Europe via Lampedusa for years. Every year there are thousands. The peak brought the year 2005. Six years ago, there were about 20,000 refugees from Africa.
The prime minister’s cornucopia for the island of Lampedusa
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The onward transport of refugees has been repeatedly delayed in recent weeks at the instigation of Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, a member of the racist Lega Nord. There have been repeated protests by the islanders. The indignation was so fierce that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi decided to jet to Lampedusa himself to pour out a promotional verbal cornucopia on the island and islanders. Berlusconi promised last Tuesday to propose Lampedusa for the Nobel Peace Prize. In addition, the island would be granted duty and partial tax exemption as soon as possible. Lampedusa should be greened, and he, Silvio, will ensure with a film crew that “the beauties of this paradisiacal isle become known throughout the world.” Already this week, the excess refugees are to be taken away by ferry boats and distributed across the Italian mainland in the north and later across Europe.
Berlusconi buys vacation home on Lampedusa
That Berlusconi likes it on Lampedusa is already proven. On the sidelines of his stay on Tuesday, he found time to sign the purchase contract for a house, for another vacation home, a chic villa not far from the sea beach for 1.5 million euros. His brother already has a stately home on the island: the villa that the late singer Toto Mudugno had built illegally (but against the subsequent payment of a fine) in the 80-ies in a nature reserve on the enchanting south coast of the island.