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An account from a fisherman who was out at sea
Early on Wednesday morning, Joseph Bugeja, who owns the Ave
Maria spotted a shoal of tuna, went on the spot and started
to fish. Mr Bugeja is a member of the committee of the fisheries
cooperative and is also a Nationalist Party local council candidate.
This was very early in the morning. Just when he was fishing
for the tuna, six Italian trawlers went close to the Ave Maria.
One of them, the Sacro Cuore went extremely close to the Maltese
vessel and he heard the Italian captain telling him: “If
you do not leave from here, you will not return to Malta.”
When he realised he was being threatened, he called for help
from Maltese fishermen on his radio. “You know, we are
a close knit community,” he said.
By then, the Italians had started to feed the tuna and consequently
Mr Bugeja could not fish. The first Maltese fishermen to arrive
on the spot took around three hours. The tuna were in the 25
mile zone which is an exclusive economic zone. Mr Bugeja was
fishing for the tuna some 23.4 miles off Malta. The Italians
lured the fish into international waters.
The Italians fish for tuna differently. They use a system called
purse seine. With the guidance of a spotter plane they find
a shoal of tuna and then six trawlers surround the shoal and
net the fish.
The problem with this type of fishing is that whole families
of tuna are caught. The smaller tuna are not allowed to live
in this way and thus they cannot breed. Unfortunately even dolphins
are caught in this manner.
“As fishermen we consider feeding to be part of the fishing
process. Therefore when the Italians had started to fish they
were in Malta’s exclusive economic zone.”
An Italian destroyer came to the scene and told the Italian
fishermen to leave. This Italian destroyer belonged to the Italian
navy. Moreover the Maltese patrol boats had to come to defend
the Maltese fishermen as well. The Italian destroyer stayed
at a distance.
The fish were by now in the tuna pen. The six trawlers and the
tug boat which had the pen were around half a mile away while
the rope was at sea.
By now, the fish had been passed on to Fuentes, for which the
Italians also work. One of the workers of Fuentes, a Croat,
came on board a Maltese fishing boat and invited us to go and
speak on their tug boat, the St James which is hired by Fuentes.
We asked the Croat whether they had bought the stolen fish since
those belonged to the Maltese. He replied that the Italian fishermen
had not been paid. “Until I know who the fish belongs to
we will not pay.”
The Maltese asked whether there was an objection if they towed
the fish to Malta. The Croat accepted that the Maltese fishermen
take the fish until the dispute is settled as long as the fish
were kept alive.
Two boats started to tow the fish to Malta and it was at this
time that the AFM helicopter and patrol boats came. They started
to circle around in the vicinity.
What happened was that very early on Friday morning, at sunrise
five patrol boats arrived on the scene, they unloaded three
dinghies and soldiers fully armed and with balaclavas came in
our direction. We saw that these “special forces”
even had hand grenades. They boarded the San Gorg owned by Joseph
Bugeja and kept the fishermen arrested on the vessel. They also
tried to board the Azzurra but did not manage because the owner
resisted this.
Members of the cooperative were on the Tweety. We wanted to
go and tell the soldiers that we were assuming the responsibility
of what was happening. We moved close to the San Gorg and from
there shooting from the P29 started. The warning shots seemed
to be directed at the Tweety but they hit two other boats instead.
We could not believe that Maltese soldiers were firing at us,
Maltese citizens. They could have easily killed someone. This
was a commercial issue and the Army fired at Maltese citizens
with the possibility of killing someone.
Although the AFM said these were warning shots, the bullets
came just inches away from the deck where Maltese fishermen
were. Had someone been hit, it could have led to very bad consequences
and possibly even a fatality. Till now, we cannot understand
why bullets were fired in our direction.
The AFM then slowly started to tow the cage with the tuna. As
soon as we arrived in Malta we started negotiating to see what
we could do with the fish. The Italians were also there and
the Italian ambassador also intervened.
The talks, however, proved inconclusive. The reason for this
was that those who should have helped us took a stand against
us. Where was the minister in all this?
We feel that the Maltese government did not want to look bad
with the Italian government due to Malta’s application
to join the European Union. We insisted that we wanted a 50-50
agreement with the Italians and refused the 10 per cent or 15
per cent on offer because we do not want charity.
It was for this reason that we gave the pen to the government.
However, the government did exactly the same as it is doing
when negotiating with the EU. It does not want to be portrayed
in a bad light so it concedes everything.
We are now calling for an inquiry into why the shooting took
place. We are extremely sorry that the government acted in this
manner. The issue, as it is, is far from being solved. Meanwhile
the season closes on 15 July but we are very concerned because
the government does not have the means to protect us at sea
and we are in danger of being attacked.
Raymond Bugeja was speaking to Ivan Brincat
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