KMB speaks and we cringe in unison: GADDAFI SHOULD NOT STEP DOWN
Where is AST in all this?
The Sunday Times has has the good sense to get hold of our former prime minister, the wotsit who saved Gaddafi’s life by warning him that US bombers were heading his way, and ask him what he thinks.
You know, the Labour Party is just incredible for all the wrong reasons.
And please don’t tell me this is history.
Look at this photograph here: one of the men falling over Gaddafi during those Golden Years when he was our blood brother and paid for our children’s allowances (yes, really) is currently the top man in Muscat’s shadow cabinet (Karmenu Vella) and another, AST, is the Labour Party’s international secretary, who refused to put his name to the Labour Party’s brief statement about ‘all violence’ in Libya.
timesofmalta.com, this morning
KMB: Malta should mediate in Libya crisis
Mark Micallef
Malta should mediate between Muammar Gaddafi and the army of protesters who want to overthrow him, rather than embarking on an EU sanctions initiative , according to former Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici.
“Violence has to stop from both ends. This is not a question of taking actions against one side, but trying to mediate between the two. I cannot understand how the UN is contemplating action and not mediation,” Dr Mifsud Bonnici told The Sunda yTimes.
Asked if he would advise Mr Gaddafi to step down, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said: “No, I would tell him to come to a compromise.”
The former Labour leader is in a unique position, not only knowing Col Gaddafi personally but having been credited with saving his life and that of his family when he warned him of oncoming US fighter planes when his Tripoli compound was bombed in 1986.
Dr Mifsud Bonnici insisted that a mediatory role in this case was Malta’s vocation.
“Isn’t this Malta’s work?” he said, when asked who should mediate.
“Malta, in agreement with the EU, should try to take the role of mediator. I’m not saying we will succeed, but we should try. After all, according to our Constitution we have an obligation to work actively for peace. You don’t do that through sanctions or through taking part in military activities.”
His advice comes in the wake of comments made by several international leaders who condemned the bloody crackdown of the Libyan regime, which is believed to have killed thousands of civilians.
Dr Mifsud Bonnici insisted that even if the protests started as peaceful demonstrations, the situation had turned into an armed conflict between two sides, “a civil war”.
“So to ask one side to stop using violence is not correct. You cannot take sides in a civil war.
“This means that the government either gives in and the system ends there, or not. Given that the government is not prepared to give in, you need mediation. The alternative is the mightiest wins.”
Asked to comment to the fact that Mr Gaddafi’s public statements in the past days do not suggest he is inclined to mediate, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said:
“I don’t agree with you there because nobody has contemplated this so far. It is precisely because of his speeches that I am saying there needs to be mediation, because once the government is not ready to leave, there is no way of avoiding fighting and deaths.”
He argued the problem was not the issue of Mr Gaddafi stepping down, but the fact that the protesters were demanding the dismantling of his revolution. “It’s a psychological issue. That is why things need to be discussed differently.”
Asked if he feels his and successive Maltese governments will be judged negatively by history for the support they gave to the Gaddafi regime, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said: “Is there a country which did not support Libya? Italy, did, the US had commercial ties, Tony Blair and the UK did. If anyone made a mistake, the whole world did.”
The Libyan leader never forgot Dr Mifsud Bonnici’s 1986 gesture. Only last year, Libyan Foreign Minister Mousa Koussa thanked Malta for Dr Mifsud Bonnici’s warning. In November, Dr Mifsud Bonnici was in Tripoli to present the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan with the Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights – an award given to Dom Mintoff in 2008 and before that to Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
33 Comments Comment
Reply to michael Click here to cancel reply
Do Maltese support the Libyan people or the Libyan government?
I urge all Maltese to show their support to the Lybian people.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Maltese-who-will-pray-for-Libyans-to-be-free/154580301266951
‘The Sunday Times has has the good sense to get hold of our former prime minister’
Sorry Daphne, but I have to disagree with you. It is definitely NOT good sense to give this has-been credibility now. It is bad enough that we have to hang our head in shame that these people once had the power to decide things on our behalf. Their loony opinions should be considered as on par as the crackpot comments on timesofmalta.com.
[Daphne – No, they are right. It is the obvious story in this chaos. What does KMB think? And what he thinks does not give him credibility, but rather the opposite.]
Leaving aside the crap, what fascinates me is that as usual, Malta is at the centre of the known universe without which the galaxies would not rotate. Or so some seem to think.
KMB is only trying to save Gaddafi’s bacon, for the second time – if we are to believe him and not Craxi, for Gadaffi’s first salvation.
He does not give the proverbial tinker’s cuss about the sufferings and the massacre of the Libyan man-in-the-street.
He is only seeking to perpetuate Gadaffi’s reign of terror against the express desire of the whole civilized world. Everyone else must be wrong.
Asked if he would advise Mr Gaddafi to step down, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said: “No, I would tell him to come to a compromise.”
What kind of compromise? Remain in power and give out some benign concessions? Continue stealing billions from the country while ordinary Libyans can’t get basic goods and are constantly persecuted? Hasn’t history has shown us what happens when you compromise with tyrants and dictators.
“So to ask one side to stop using violence is not correct. You cannot take sides in a civil war.”
So for us to support the pro-democracy demonstrators they are to respond to being shot at by doing nothing. Then it will be OK to take sides.
No wonder Malta went to the dogs when it was being run by this man.
Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights. A detailed copy can be seen on display at the Mambra roundabout and KMB should sit on it.
Now another former prime minister has said that under Gaddafi’s rule there were positive developments for Libya (I think he does not exclude negative developments). Could it be that, as the Maltese saying says, the devil is not so black as he is depicted to be?
[Daphne – Could it be that you are deliberately playing the devil’s advocate because you like nothing better? Get a grip on yourself. Or perhaps Mussolini was OK because he made the trains run on time, and Hitler loved puppies and kittens.]
My late criminal law professor used to say that nearly every bad person has some redeeming features.
I think Hitler and Mussolini are not identical – Hitler was far worse than Mussolini. It is said that if Mussolini did not join Hitler in the war, today in Rome there would be a monument for Mussolini.
[Daphne – Yes, Guido de Marco did think that way, which is why he so often appears to have had to compromise himself and his integrity. It is the main reason I had so little time, patience or respect for him. But I’ll say no more about that out of respect for his son. Aside from being of dubious morality and integrity, your late professor’s statement was inherently flawed. Though a person can redeem himself after committing evil acts, by a lifetime of atonement, an evil person by definition cannot have ‘redeeming features’. A love of animals in a person who commits genocide is not a redeeming feature. Nor is making the trains run on time a redeeming feature in somebody who forms part of the Axis of Evil. You are being simplistic and childish. A grown-up who continues to rely on the thoughts of a lecturer as a substitute for forming his own is a poor thing. So you do work at the Court of Justice. Translate many documents, do you?]
“It is said that if Mussolini did not join Hitler in the war, today in Rome there would be a monument for Mussolini.”
But he DID join Hitler and that is a crucial difference.
Fortunately for him, he did not mention the RAF’s rescue mission in picking up workers from desert oilfields, with SBS (Special Boat Service special forces) on board to secure landing strips, as being against our obsolete neutrailty (or sitting on the fence) clause in our constitution, ghax konna imbossulu wahda sew.
No, he didn’t, but that idiot John Pisani at L-Orizzont did. He portrayed the rescue personnel as some kind of invasion force here to bugger up our supposed neutrality. The barrani are back to invade us. What a tosser.
Did he not try to inform Gaddafi about that mission?
What has Gaddafi done for Libya in these 42 years?
He has siphoned off billions of petro dollars in personal fortune for him and his good-for-nothing children.
He has nothing to show in Libya for all these years of his dictatorship. Most people still live in shanty towns with unmade streets. It’s those with some connections who have decent housing. And KMB states he should not go but asked to compromise. Unbelievable!
Can anybody, but anybody find something positive KMB will ever be remembered positively for?
I sure as hell can’t, from fiasco after fiasco in the eighties and nineties, trying to keep us out of the EU with scare stories about AIDS and now this rubbish.
Vera Alla halqu u rema l- forma!
The best thing KMB can do is pack up his bags and join Gadaffi, taking is-Salvatur along with him once not even God seems to want him.
[Daphne – God? There’s somebody else in charge down there. Maybe they’re busy fighting over who gets landed with him for all of eternity.]
He’s too stingy to pay the ferryman. That’s the problem.
Heaven and hell are battling for his soul – but sooner or later one will lose and have to keep it.
Brilliant idea of The Sunday Times to interview KMB because it helps to bring back the ugly memories of the not too distant past.
I suggest they also interview Mintoff, as I am sure he would come out with some bright and original idea how to tackle or perhaps stiffle the revolt of the Libyan people and save his close friend Gaddafi.
Why aren’t the Labour Party and PN media not taking recourse to this wealth of experience of our past glorious leaders?
Tghid issa ma johrogx jattaka il-gvern ghax l-Inglizi salvaw lil nieshom mid-desert f’operazzjioni sublima u telqu min Malta?
Halluna. Veru li il-PN fil-gvern zamm relazjionijiet tajba ma’ dan il-qattiel imma tal-Labour bieghu ruhna.
Imn’ Alla hadd ma jaghti kasu KMB ghax kieku hu l-aktar bniedem perikoluz f’din is-sitwazzjoni.
As usual KMB is perfectly right. Compromise is the word.
Gaddafi should agree a cap on the number of Libyans he murders every day. After all, this is what he has been doing for over forty years.
These past twelve days he has exceeded the quota. How silly of him.
If he agrees to return to the normal level of daily eliminations, the remaining six million Libyans should renounce hostilities and they will have peace in their time. It sounds simple to me.
I am sure KMB could pull this one if the UN entrusts him with the task.
He gets on very well with the rais.
Warped minds think alike.
Shades of a British PM waving a little paper and claiming “Peace for our time”. Give it a go, Karm. Plenty of space on the outbound vessels.
Isn’t it amazing that a Maltese prime minister, notorious for the police brutality and frame-ups under his watch, should now be bleating about mediation and compromise.
KMB was put out to pasture a long time ago, and quite frankly after his ridiculous comments (compromise with the tyrant who holds the keys to all the arsenals), that is precisely where he belongs.
Isn’t it time for this guy to find a hole and die there?
Let’s club together and send Zero to Tripoli for Gaddafi’s last stand.
KMB = Malta’s cockroach. He never dies.
Komikal Mifsud Bonnici
“The alternative is the mightiest wins.”
Well stupid, the mightiest are the people, always.
You should have learned that through experience.
And isn’t that Lino Spiteri looking thrilled to be, quite literally, in the picture?
No wonder he had nothing to say about what is going on in Libya.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110227/opinion/squeezing-air-malta-back-in
There is no compromising with bloody dictators and terrorists.
KMB would advise Gaddafi to compromise. This is the same man who hollered “Jew b’xejn, jew xejn!”
It seems that KMB is not the only LP who is saying that Gaddafi should not step down.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110228/local/former-minister-critical-of-gonzi-remarks-on-inevitability-of-gaddafi-fall
Even if Gaddafi steps down its not like Libya’s problems will change. The root cause remains – unemployment. It is the same issue that has triggered revolts in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Bahrain.
And why is there such high unemplyoment ? North African nations are, for the most part decently developed regions, with large cities and working transit systems.
The answer comes down to the people themselves, the birth rate to be precise. 70% of the population of Libya is under the age of 14 years old and that population explosion has been going on since 1900.
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:LBY&dl=en&hl=en&q=libya+population
According to that simple map, there were 1.2 million Libyans in 1960. Today there 6.4 million, so in 50 years Libya has quadrupled its population, and that population is still exploding. Is it really a surprise that so many people are not able to find a job there ? If the USA suddenly quadrupled its population to 1.2 Billion in such a short time span does anyone think unemployment would not be effected [it would, 600 million or more would have no job].
I dont really have a point here other than to point out that gaddafi is not a great leader but he is not the problem for Libya. He is just a convenient scapegoat for the lack of jobs due to people not being responsible and having 10+ kids per family.
For referance, here is a map for Egypts population –
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:EGY&dl=en&hl=en&q=egypt+population
28 million in 1960, 82 million today.
Yemen –
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:YEM&dl=en&hl=en&q=yemen+population
5 million in 1960, 23 million today.