Home » Sicily, the endless fish war: conflicts inflame the Mediterranean

Sicily, the endless fish war: conflicts inflame the Mediterranean

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MAZARA DEL VALLO – Mediterranean sea of ​​peace but also of conflicts. If in recent decades the border states have made significant progress in trade relations in many sectors, from agriculture, to industry and also to culture, participating in a political and economic dialogue aimed at building good relations, the same dialogue, that Italy has intensified in particular with Tunisia, did not concern the fishing sector which is the one that first involves the countries of the Mediterranean area.

It can be said instead of since the 1950s, although in different forms and ways, the conflicts of the sea and the sea have involved the Mediterranean countries and in this context Mazara del Vallo, with its impressive fishing fleet, one of the first if not the first in Italy, it has played a leading role by going as far as the areas of central Africa; and it was the first to clash with Tunisia at sea undergoing the warnings of the Arab patrol boats which, without ever getting to real retaliatory actions, invited the Sicilian commanders to move away from their territorial waters. After years of free fishing, the Strait of Sicily began to respond to the rules of the territoriality of its waters.

Previously, by virtue of an old convention on fishing (dated 1884), mazarese fishing boats were free to fish in the Gulf of Hammamet. After the Second World War the Region had tried to confirm the agreement with Tunisia, which was a French protectorate, but for a series of reasons the agreement had not been renewed and Tunisia had decreed that up to 45 miles from its coasts fishing areas were his exclusive competence. Thus began the first real skirmishes that had subsequently extended to Libya and that still today cause serious conflicts that are resolved with the seizures of fishing boats and crews, and in the worst cases with ramming, stone throwing and even the use of weapons, as well as it happened in recent days to the Mazara fishing boat Aliseo, hit by bullets fired by the Libyan patrol boat which caused the injury, albeit slight, of the commander, Giuseppe Giacalone.

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Yesterday the umpteenth case. The motor fishing Michele Giacalone, already machine-gunned on May 3 by a Libyan coastguard while it was inside what Tripoli considers its fishing protection zone, was taken by stones, smoke bombs and finally rammed by a dozen Turkish fishing boats in the waters international. The boat escaped the attack thanks to the intervention of a Navy helicopter and a Turkish Coast Guard patrol boat. But it is yet another episode of what is called the “shrimp war”, as well as another sign of the mounting tension between Italy and Turkey.

Going fishing is almost like going to war, then. And the Mazara shipowner Luciano Giacalone doesn’t fit in: «the European Union – he asks – tell us, once and for all, where we should go fishing. We are ruined”. Even Mimmo Asaro, president of Federpesca in Mazara del Vallo, speaks of «the situation is now unsustainable. Who in duty addresses the issue of safety at sea for us fishermen ». Similar is the position of Coldiretti Impresapesca which calls for the end of the “far west which caused aggression, injuries and kidnappings, leading to the halving of the Sicilian fleet of Mazara del Vallo within 10 years”.

The problem is clearly present to the Government. Navy and Aise monitor the delicate situation of the Mediterranean. The invitation to national fishing vessels is to avoid risky routes given the aggressive posture of countries such as Libya and Turkey which have unilaterally enlarged their fishing areas. Ankara also contested the international criteria for the distribution of the exclusive economic zones of the area, also in light of the discovery of important gas fields in the waters of Egypt, Israel and Cyprus. After the definition of “dictator” given by Prime Minister Mario Draghi to Turkish President Recep Erdogan and the latter’s harsh response, Italy-Turkey relations are on the razor’s edge, also due to the Turkish influence on Libya.

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A few weeks ago in the House the Minister of Defense, Lorenzo Guerini, spoke clearly about the “claims of Ankara in terms of unilateral definition of the maritime spaces over which the Turkish authorities claim exclusive jurisdiction, to the detriment of neighboring countries and therefore of the activities that also involve our companies “. And precisely to protect national interests, the Navy has been activated with its units present in the Mediterranean in order to intervene promptly to avoid accidents that could have serious consequences.

The fact is also that the recommendations of the Farnesina not to go into “dangerous” waters are mostly disregarded. And so it takes little for the situation to get out of hand.

Already in the 50s and 60s there had been several episodes of “trespassing” some of which ended with the injury of fishermen on board (in 1960 one of these ended with the death of the commander of the Salemi fishing boat, Antonino Genovese and the shipowner Luigi Licatini). In the following years, the “fish war” never had a respite, the seizures intensified and so the episodes of rejection, often ended with the loss of all the catch, especially the precious red shrimp. Indeed, it seems that many conflicts are not even officially registered, but the many known cases remain to mean that the “war” for fish has never stopped.

Political interventions are thin and not very incisive, either because of the complexity of the question that involves many aspects, or because of the political balance between countries. But if relations with Tunisia regarding fishing are fluctuating, with Libya they are even more complicated by the fact that the country claims the territoriality of the sea beyond sixty miles from the coast.

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The mayor of Mazara del Vallo, Saved Quinci, following the latest episode involving the fishing boat Aliseo, said: “There is a part of the Libyan militia that acts with the intention of stopping our fishing boats.”

Owners and captains invoke the protection of the Italian Navy in the Strait of Sicily which, as we have seen, is often present but not always the intervention can be timely, as demonstrated by the latest episode with the Libyans when, given the dangerous situation, the commander asked the ship Libeccio which was not far from intervening; but despite the helicopter that was supposed to discourage the force action of the Benghazi men took off, the machine gun shots arrived in the direction of the trawler Aliseo (the Libyans claimed to have fired into the air), they hit the hull, shattered glass and wounded the commander. This is why the Farnesina only has to recommend to the fishing boats not to go to those areas but the recommendations are disregarded by the Mazara fishermen who, considering themselves in international waters, invoke the freedom to fish there.

It just seems like a never-ending story the “fish war” is a problem without solution, at least until governments are able to clearly establish limits and prohibitions so as to allow fishing activities without dangers. Mayor Quinci, like his predecessors, tries the dialogue card: “I will go to Rome to meet the Foreign and Defense Ministers – he declared – A table must be set up with the Ministry of Fisheries, there is an entire sector that is in difficulties and must be helped with more challenging routes and projects, which cannot be just those of defending our fishing boats ».

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