Get off the fence, Malta
It is now clear as day that anyone who was a friend of Muammar Gaddafi was not a friend of the Libyan people, and that nobody could have been or can be a friend to both.
Maltese politicians who foolishly believed that by embracing Gaddafi they had embraced Libya and Libyans have been forced to acknowledge just how grossly wrong they were.
So now it’s time to shift position.
More than four decades of ‘close friendship’ with Gaddafi have crippled and twisted our judgment and severely compromised our integrity.
While we posture and mince about on matters like divorce and remarriage, we have been content to embrace a murderous psychopath who has kept his people in absolute terror for almost as long as I have been alive.
Our foreign minister, in a previous incarnation as minister of the interior, used his influence and his office resources to drum up support for the Gift of Life Movement and its campaign to have a ban on abortion entrenched in the Constitution of Malta. But faced with the harsh reality that his close friend Gaddafi is murdering people 250 miles away, his response is that friends should stick together despite their differences.
Tonio Borg can see Gaddafi going down in a bloodbath of destruction and still he continues to hedge his bets – just in case the monster pops up again and bites Malta in the butt. As the Maltese saying goes: don’t fall out with anyone, because you never know who you might need.
Meanwhile, his counterparts across the world are queuing up to condemn Gaddafi and to call for severe action against him – except for Italy’s Franco Frattini and his boss Berlusconi, a famously unprincipled and unscrupulous duo. Nicolas Sarkozy has now called for sanctions, but the reaction among some people here is that ‘it’s all very well, but France sold arms to Gaddafi’. The same upside-down reaction met William Hague’s harsh condemnation of Gaddafi’s behaviour, because British Petroleum signed deals with him in 2007.
Yet it is precisely because France sold him arms and Britain signed an oil exploration deal with him that their unequivocal, no-going-back condemnation of Gaddafi’s insane and murderous actions is to be respected. They have vested interests in his regime that are far greater than piddling Malta’s. Their losses are going to be massive. Hundreds, if not thousands, of their citizens are stranded in Libya. But still they speak out.
And now look at pathetic, spineless, shameless and shameful Malta. While people risk their lives and lose them to stand up to Gaddafi, our political leaders show no leadership and instead scurry about like frightened rabbits, far too heavily conditioned by long years of sucking up to Gaddafi to tell him at last where to get off and what we really think of him. While the government moons on about friendship, the Opposition says nothing.
Perhaps we should give them some time to come to terms with the situation and admit to themselves – a difficult process – that they befriended a murderous oppressor for mercenary reasons or, worse, that they were too uninformed or deliberately blind to work out just what he was doing to his people.
Some very poor briefing, lack of insight and a massive failure of diplomatic intelligence led our prime minister and foreign minister to visit Gaddafi in his tent just five days before the simmering situation in Benghazi boiled over. This act of phenomenally bad judgment now has them framed as two lackeys giving a public show of support to the only North African dictator not yet facing a baying mob – or so they thought.
The statement they made with that ill-timed visit was that Malta stands with Gaddafi and not with Libyans. For the two are not the same. It suited us to believe that Gaddafi was there because Libyans wanted him to be there. But he was there against the will of his people, who were terrified of him and his regime.
Over the years, and despite mounting evidence that Libyans were miserable and desperate, we convinced ourselves that Gaddafi and Libya were one and the same.
We deluded ourselves so that we could carry on taking his 10 pieces of silver with a clear conscience and sleep at night. We looked the other way so that we could do whatever it took to keep the madman 250 miles to the south-east off our backs and out of our territorial waters and airspace.
Our behaviour was craven and it’s time to admit it. We are going to wear sackcloth and ashes for a long time as more of the truth is revealed when Gaddafi goes down.
But instead, our foreign minister ekes out the last few remaining opportunities for crawling about on his belly and living on his knees. What is he hoping exactly – that Gaddafi might somehow pull off a magic trick and stay on, with everything returning to normal, so that Malta doesn’t have to contend with the fall-out of change, with floods of refugees, or with the problems of those who have lost their businesses and their jobs?
Let six million people suffer for more decades still, so that 450,000 people in Malta don’t have to be temporarily inconvenienced? One day I will understand why to be born Maltese appears to mean being born egocentric and with tunnel-vision. Or maybe it’s just the way we are raised: looking after Number One first and foremost, and screw the rest.
Muammar Gaddafi is not Libya. He is not the Libyan people. You cannot be a friend of Gaddafi and also be a friend of Libya or its people. Perhaps Malta is now learning the hard way that what it thought was friendship with Libya and its people was actually friendship with Muammar Gaddafi and his henchmen, and that is exactly how Libyan people saw it.
They saw us – and Italy – as mercenaries and opportunists who collaborated and colluded with their oppressor. That’s why there were so many shouted insults at Berlusconi during Tuesday’s protest outside the Libyan Embassy in Attard. That’s why the Italian flag was torn and burned.
The message was clear: those who profess friendship with Gaddafi are no friends of the six million people he has oppressed for 42 years. Let’s be sensible: if we were in their position, that’s how we would see it too.
Even as the fighting, the shooting, the bombings and the killings were underway in Benghazi and Tripoli, Tonio Borg told a newspaper here: “Malta, through successive governments, has had close contacts with Libya since the 1960s because there was mutual friendship. We even remained close when UN sanctions were imposed upon it. It would be a mistake to stop contacts with countries because they have governments different to ours.” During his visit on 9 February, they spoke about “renewing the friendship agreement between (Malta and Libya)”.
How badly Tonio Borg misunderstands the situation. Malta’s relationship has never been with Libya or with its people. It has been only with Gaddafi and his regime. It is because he cannot grasp this distinction that his judgment has been so clouded and continues to let him down, even as it becomes clear to him that it is the Libyan people he is going to have to convince of his integrity now, and not Gaddafi.
Libya has long hated Gaddafi, detested him with a passion and feared him so much that few Libyans felt safe talking about how they really felt, even when they lived outside Libya. Gaddafi agents spied on expatriate Libyans. Transgressors were popped off. Back home, members of their families ‘disappeared’. What all this meant is that only those who listened really carefully and ‘between the lines’ got to know the true picture.
Maltese politicians and businessmen were divorced from that reality because the only Libyans they ever met were Gaddafi’s henchmen, members of his regime or – here’s the real bummer – ordinary Libyans who never felt comfortable speaking to them precisely because they are Maltese politicians and businessmen who are close to Gaddafi and his men.
That’s why Maltese politicians and businessmen were the last to know about what was happening in Libya and thought that riots would never reach Tripoli and that Gaddafi was inviolate: because Libyan people who were not part of the regime did not trust them enough to tell them the truth.
If it’s any consolation to Tonio Borg and Lawrence Gonzi – though this will come as a great shock to Joseph Muscat and his band of brontosauruses – it is the Labour Party that Libyans despise and not Maltese people in general. They despise it because they associate it with Gaddafi, because Mintoff was a Gaddafi ally, because Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici warned him of incoming US bombers and saddled them with the psychopath for another 25 years and now a bloodbath, because the new leader tried so hard to carry on with that system, to the extent of getting the reviled AST to organise meetings with their hated despot. Libyans admire Eddie Fenech Adami, conversely, because they see him as the man who saved Malta from Mintoff and Labour/Gaddafi oppression.
For all those years, we thought “Mintoff = Gaddafi = Libya = Libyans”, when all along Libyans hated and despised Gaddafi (and Mintoff) far more than we did, because they had every reason to do so.
Now that Tonio Borg and Lawrence Gonzi have finally understood just how much the six million people of Libya hate their close friend, the murderer Gaddafi, they had better do the clever thing and tailor their behaviour accordingly. As for doing the moral thing, I would say it’s rather too late for that.
This article is published in The Malta Independent today.
23 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
Mintoff was bad, very bad, extremely bad but we are blessed that he never reached the heights of his buddy, who the Benghazians were referring to and chanting away as the “Enemy of God”
All very well said. Every word of it. You have perfectly depicted a 42 year relationship. You could have added also that the first head of state to visit Gaddafi in 1969 was Dr. Borg Olivier, while apparently the last head of state to visit Gaddafi is/will be Dr. Gonzi.
But, using the same arguments, then I would add or rather question, how should our relationship with China be?
The Chinese leadership is no less brutal in silencing dissent. I do not mention North Korea or Iran or Cuba because our trade is minimal. But trade with China on the other hand runs into the millions.
And when we are doing trade with China, we are propping up a dictatorial regime with poor human rights records. What shall we do in this case? Maybe it is time for all democracy-loving nations/leaders to call a spade a spade when it comes to human rights violations and to actually stop trading with countries who disregard human rights, but this would be the longest shot of all.
That same argument can be applied to many countries even in the west. Take Sweden’s and the US’s treatment of Assange right now, where is the sanctity of democratic free speech? Or the “enhanced interrogation techniques” of the US.
Before I get assaulted here, I understand that Gaddafi is on a totally different level. Just saying that no one out there is pure.
So what then, if no one is pure? Is Malta itself pure? But I think that Sweden and the US should never ever be mentioned in the same sentence with countries such as Iran, Libya, North Korea and China.
Far, far from it. I would even condone the US in being tough on suspected terrorists. And when I say ‘suspected’ it is because they are not far off the real thing. And I do not consider Assange’s spilling of official documents as representative of ‘the sanctity of free speech’.
Sweden is seeking him for altogether different motives, unless you can PROVE otherwise. But obviously you are entitled to harbour a different opinion to mine, even if facts remain facts. On the other hand, even dictators such as Mubarak and Ben Ali were benign when compared to the likes of Gaddafi and Ahmadinejad. So then, what does that make of us? We should keep up appearances and do business as usual?
Shall we be ashamed now or in the future?
Do not read beyond what I write. I did not suggest that Malta is pure, far from it. I see you’re interpreting my comment as a defence of how the Maltese are acting. Not at all. I think it is shameful.
But where do we look for the ideal role models?
Sweden is seeking him to make the US happy. Did you actually read the charges? They are not even a criminal offence in the UK. No one was ever brought to the attention of Interpol for those charges.
And condoning the US for being tough? Seriously?
Isn’t it hypocritical to claim to be a beacon of human rights and then break your own rules? Even from a pragmatic point of view that approach does not make sense. Torture is shown to yield bad intelligence and the risk of torturing innocents is also too great.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110224/local/outgoing-passengers-searched-for-images-footage-of-turmoil
“Chris Fenech said he never felt threatened but was worried. If he were guaranteed the situation in Tripoli would remain the same as it was when he left he would have remained and was ready to return to work after the weekend if things did not degenerate.
“We just needed to get out for a couple of days until things calm down,” he said, adding that “from the inside, you do not hear much and what is said on TV may be out of proportion”.
Based about 10 kilometres outside Tripoli, Mr Fenech said the odd gunshot could be heard but it could also have been friendly fire for the celebrations that were under way. Still, it was no fun for those who were not used to it, he said, admitting it made him edgy.
Mr Fenech was aware that on the other side of Tripoli, only about 20 minutes away, there had been violent clashes but he had not experienced them and was advised to stay indoors at night.”
I have just seen horrible mortuary pictures of men chopped in half by anti-aircraft fire, soldiers who refused to shoot on compatriots handcuffed and executed in cold blood… these are pix that are circulating amongst the people.
The vengeance and retribution of the people is going to be great.
They feel trapped without any way out. At this point we should be ready to cut our arm to save ourselves. Dilly-dallying indecision at this point is a loser’s game.
I don’t care what Malta says in public. I only hope that my country doesn’t stall any humanitarian intervention from the EU.
Can we have a no-fly zone? A summary attack on his compound? I’m sure the biggest threat is the spectre of burning oil fields maybe already sabotaged with a deadman’s switch.
Diplomacy is a weird and funny game but at this point we are beyond diplomacy. I hope the international community will not repeat what happened in Ismir a 100 years ago with military ships of all the major powers stationed outside the harbour looking on as the people were being massacred over a week of Turkish vengeance.
My great-grandparents and their children, including my grandmother, who was 15 at the time, were caught up in that. They escaped by the skin of their teeth – on a British battleship – but they were some of the very very few that managed.
Do you know what Annan had to say about the genocide in Sudan? ” The Security Council must wait to recieve a report on Tuesday before it can decide how to act.”
I wonder what the hundreds dying at the hands of Gaddafi think about this. If we were being massacred what would we think? What would we want from the European Union, Annan ?
“If we were being massacred what would we think?”
That would have been a totally different story, Mario. Mhux hekk? We would have expected the WHOLE world to come to our assistance.
So all those people crowding Tripoli airport must be there for a picnic.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110224/local/libyan-ambassador
“Dr Suayeh said ambassadors would be taken on tours of places allegedly bombed, and Maltese journalists and other foreigners were welcome to go to Libya. Their presence, he said, should help remove distortions about the situation in the country.
He did not know, however, for safety reasons, whether they could go to the Eastern part of the country but the western part of the country was quiet and stable.”
Daphne, in this and some of your previous posts you criticize the Maltese governments, past and present, for “sucking up” to Gaddafi. Aren’t you being a tad too tough on Malta, seeing that many many western governments – including those of the UK and France – and private enterprises have been investing in and making deals with the same man?
Everyone knew that Gaddafi was far from sane, but everyone also knows that there’s lots of commercial opportunity in Libya. True, the UK and France have now condemned the man’s actions, something that our government has yet to do with the same intensity, but how can you take Gonzi to task for his unfortunately-timed recent visit? I don’t see how this is any different to visiting a month, a year or 10 years ago.
[Daphne – Malta’s relationship with Gaddafi cannot in any way be compared to that of other countries. Our foreign minister himself pointed this out only a few days ago, when he said that “we” have been close for years and stayed close even during sanctions. It falls into the category of ‘special relationship’. Yes, many western leaders have sucked up to Gaddafi but we go one step beyond that: we claim friendship. This might be part of the ridiculous Maltese ‘Levantine’ mentality in which business and friendship must perforce be intertwined and cannot be kept separate. So our political leaders always appear overcome with delight and merriment and enthusiasm when they meet and embrace Gaddafi and are in his presence, while the body language of other leaders, in photographs and film footage, tells a completely different story. THAT is the problem. Malta’s prime ministers convey an impression – I rather think because it is true – of unqualified acceptance and approval.
The visit on 9 February was completely unwise from a diplomatic point of view – it was a massive failure of diplomatic advice and intelligence (as in information, that is) – because when you visit a person who is in trouble you are making the statement that you ally yourself with him against his opponents. You are showing solidarity. Malta might not have meant to show that solidarity with Gaddafi, but that is precisely what he would have thought and certainly how it came across. Commonsense should have dictated, even if diplomatic intelligence failed to pick up the unrest in Benghazi and the hatred in Tripoli, that if you’re looking at a map of North Africa and there are baying mobs right across except for Libya, then you should stay away from making any diplomatic overtures to Libya until matters evolve.]
You really can’t blame our government(s) for wanting to keep close ties with Libya. Being against or even ignoring Gaddafi (particularly at a time when the rest of the western world was falling over itself to ‘make friends’) would be detrimental to Malta both from a commercial and a security angle, don’t you think?
[Daphne – My comment above refers. You can do business with Libya and still keep your dignity, as others did. Look at the bollocking Tony Blair is getting in the British press for his enthusiastic body language when he met Gaddafi in Tripoli in 2007.]
As for the Libyans in Malta who (you say) dislike us because we can’t be friends with Gaddafi AND friends of the people, I really don’t think everyone thinks in this way. If they came to and stayed in Malta, they must feel at least a little bit welcome here.
[Daphne – No, they don’t. Rather the opposite. They face contempt every day because, ironically, the Maltese associate them with the very man they hate and fear: Gaddafi. And that’s quite apart from the fact that they are kept at arm’s length because they are Muslim. The only Libyans I know who have integrated completely did so by becoming ‘Maltese’. It’s just better than Libya, that’s all. But most of them would rather be in Libya without Gaddafi because it’s their home. Didn’t it ever strike you as odd thatas soon as you mentioned Gaddafi to a Libyan friend they would change the subject and immediately become uneasy, even if they were in a private room in Malta or Rome or London? Or have you never spoken to anyone who is Libyan except in a formal context?]
A quick illustration of the point is Chamberlain’s “peace for our time” blunder just a year before the dawn of World War II. He “couldn’t have known”, despite that Hitler broke all his weaponry sanctions throughout the 30s.
The reality is that all countries are hedging their bets. The differences only lie in the way each country sees the odds. Even as they condemn Gaddafi’s actions, there is always some sort of caveat in that condemnation is not accompanied by concrete action, but only by some reference to the taking of strong [but unspecified] action, the eventual application of sanctions, or whatever.
So long as countries, notably the UK and USA, have their nationals in Libya, Gaddafi is still able to call the odds by the simple measure of sequestering a planeload or shipload of evacuees, holding them hostage to whatever crazy demands he may seek to impose.
Gaddafi is mass-murdering his own countrymen and has vowed to bring total chaos to the nation or die in the attempt. Creating a hostage situation is right up his street.
Grim as that reality may be, at least until all the evacuees are out, Gaddafi holds in his lethal grasp the very countries that could and should act decisively to topple him from power.
@Another John
Very well said. Should we tell China off now while it pays to enter into commercial agreements etc., or should we be ashamed not to have said it when it no longer pays, say in 40 years time. Could be next week for that matter.
Nisthi nghid li jien Malti meta niftakar li l-gvernijiet taghna taw midalji lil bniedem li halla lil pajjizu jasal sa hawn:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/2011223213547845546.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GDBHEPM_JQ&feature=related
This is the typical egocentric, tunnel-visioned wise man in the street. Our politicians demonstrate the same attitude in a little bit more sophisticated way.
“A Borg (comment on timesofmalta.com)
We have nothing to do with Libya’ situation. At this point, i say repatriate all libyans who are causing trouble-if you want to protest against gaddhafi and spread violence , go back to Libya-li ma nidhlux fl inkwiet bla hsieb”
As a PN supporter I feel let down by our PM and Minister Tonio Borg for being so weak in their “condemnation” of the terrible events taking place in LIbya. Barely twenty years ago we were at serious risk of ending up in a similar position.
Surely we should empathise more with the Libyans fighting for their freedom? May they have the satisfaction of experiencing the happiness and sense of freedom we have enjoyed in1987. Good luck, Libya.
Spot on, Jo. In democracies the government can say it represents the people. I just want to tell this government that being cowardly selfish hypocrites on this matter you in no way represent me.
And I will not forget.
We’re not talking about money here, we’re talking about lives. I have a very good friend in Tripoli at the moment and I expect my government to make the right noises so he and all his people can get out of the nightmare they are in.
This has nothing to do with partisan politics. It’s about fellow human beings. Do the right thing morally, even if it maybe the wrong thing financially!
Drs Gonzi and Borg let you down – and (above) Tony Blair let the British down. Gonzi and Borg are ultra-conservative Catholics (Borg pandering to the Gift of Life fundamentalists) and Blair subsequently converted to Catholicism. Makes one wonder…
We must understand that in the very near future our dealings with Libya will be the ousters of Gaddafi. Even for purely selfish reasons we must act accordingly.
I have to say it, Daphne – hats off to you for this article. It’s bloody brilliant! Let’s hope it does not fall on deaf ears but as you so succinctly put it – it’s a bit too late for that now.
SHAMELESS MALTA SUCKED UP TO THE ”MAD DOG”.
Next Saturday, I will go to Valletta with my ten-year-old son to morally support the anti-Gaddafi Libyans.