Malta, la valletta di Gaddafi – remember that?
Muammar Gaddafi and Dom Mintoff
The Malta Independent on Sunday
20th April, 1997
Leading article: Truth hurts
A report carried last Sunday by The Malta Independent entitled “Pledge to omit Libya from Euro-Med opening speech” has been described by Foreign Minister George Vella as a “figment of the imagination”.
Perhaps it was and perhaps it was not, as his Dutch counterpart said about the same article.
What is certainly not a figment of anybody’s imagination are the statements made and stand taken vis-a-vis Libya by the government’s two most senior representatives -Prime Minister Alfred Sant and Dr Vella himself.
Under the previous administration, the Labour Party consistently urgued that by joining the European Union Malta would be distancing itself from its Arab neighbours. When pressed to say under what scenario would Labour be willing to change its stand on the matter, Dr Sant could only come up with one single “example”: If the EU opened its door to North African States!
This inexplicable stand justifiably raised fears that there was something more than meets the eye.
In a leader published on 20 August 1995 under the heading “See-saw politics”, The Malta Independent warned that Dr Sant could not have the cake and eat it too. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly clear that that is exactly what he is trying to do.
Less than a month after the 26 October 1996 general election, The Malta Independent ran another leader and asked: “Will Alfred Sant’s government take the country from the doorstep of the EU to re-embrace the Libyan comrades who at present are still suffering from the economic and political sanctions imposed on their country by the West?”
Given that the new government was then still in its infancy, this paper preferred to give the Labour administration the benefit of the doubt. It was thought that common sense would prevail, that the new government would be treading very carefully along the mine-infested path of foreign affairs.
The indications were that the national good was being put first and foremost unlike the 1970s and early 1980s when the Labour government, first under Dom Mintoff and later under Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, went through great pains to appease Libya and, particularly, its leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Such was the influence then that Enzo Rossi, the author of the booklet published by the Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies noted thus: “Over a period of 15 years, the Libyan infiltration of Malta has acquired institutional dimensions”.
The 1986 booklet, entitled Malta on the brink: From western democracy to Libyan satellite, made this comment: “Libya realises that a Nationalist government in Malta would be interested in cultivating economic cooperation and good-neighbourly relations, but would look north when it came to establishing Malta’s political and defence connections. A victory for the PN would, therefore, be contrary to what Libya considers to be its vital security interests…”
Mr Rossi made another observation: In the months preceding the 1987 election Libya was likely to take “a back seat in Maltese politics”. It did and continued doing so for almost 10 years.
Matters now seem to have taken a sudden bizarre twist. Was it the change in government? What has happened? Is Malta wooing Libya or is the other way about? And if so, why? Truth does hurt but one must be accountable for one’s actions.
Dr Sant told Reuters last December: “We don’t want to get too close to Western Europe and be perceived as a threat by North Africa, and we don’t want to get close to North Africa and be perceived as a threat by Western Europe”.
What course will the Labour government be following? It declares it is against the United Nations’ embargo on Libya but says that being a full UN member Malta will continue to observe the strictures of the embargo. It hosts the Euro-Med Conference and offends the majority of the member States by critising them for not inviting Libya to participate.
Dr Sant is taking the clock back to the Mintoff years, at least, as far as international relations in general and Libya in particular are concerned. Malta is again implementing see-saw politics. Recalling just one other sentence from Mr Rossi’s articles suffices to prove that Malta is adopting its past antics: “Malta has also promoted Libyan interests in various West European fora”.
Dr Sant must decide exactly where he intends to steer the ship of State. He cannot head sough and north at the same time.
The Malta Busines Weekly, the sister paper of The Malta Independent, was very correct when it commented editorially last Thursday that this government’s distancing itself from the EU has already had disastrous results. Malta within the EU fold would have had much more muscle to press for a wider Euro-Mediterranean dialogue, even embracing Libya, why not?
As things turned out, EU members States, notably the Netherlands and France, in the case of the Midlle East peace process, and Italy, in the case of Libyan participation, emerged as doing a lot more to friends to the south” than “neutral” Malta.
There is no middle of the road for Dr Sant and his government.
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2328: Italian Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa says Mr Berlusconi briefed his ministers on his conversation with Col Gaddafi: “He called for an end to all violence and told us that the Libyan leader Gaddafi said a lot of the violence was against soldiers, against army barracks and that many of the dead, were among the military forces.”
2323: Italy has huge investments in Libya, and has a lot to lose. It’s emerged that Silvio Berlusconi called his long-time ally Col Gaddafi earlier. According to the Iranian Jana news agency: “The brother leader reassured the friend Berlusconi that ‘Libya is fine, its people are… holding on to its security, stability and national unity.'”
2334: The AFP agency reports it has a statement from Peruvian President Alan Garcia. It reads:”Peru is suspending all diplomatic relations with Libya until the violence against the people ceases.” Will other nations follow suit?
I should explain that in Italian, ‘valletta’ is a sort of showgirl (but in this case is taken to mean whore). The expression ‘Malta – la valletta di Gaddafi’ was used in Italy during Mintoff’s time, when Malta was a satellite of Libya.
The only way that Malta can shed the expression “Malta – la valletta di Gaddafi” is by emulating Peru andbreaking diplomatic relations with Tripoli. However, who in Malta has the “cojones” to suggest this action and act on it?
This expression was used by the Italian ventriloquist Jose`Luis Moreno and his puppet Rockfeller. However, Daph, the use of the word Valletta does not mean whore under ny circumstance….it is used here to mean sidekick, servant or assistant, and that is because the valletta does the leader of the show’s bidding, as directed.
[Daphne – The English equivalent is whore in this context. Moreno would have probably said as much, had he not wanted to pun on Valletta.]
I respectfully disagree.
I had read you loud and clear when you first mentioned the ‘valletta’ sarcastic intentional pun in another post. And this comes from a country whose leader seems to know a lot about ‘vallette’. Or so their law courts say anyway.
Rather than digging shit up from the distant past try explaining to us why your beloved Gonzi was meeting recently with this psychopathic menace as you describe him? While you’re at it explain to us why your beloved Gonzi wanted to sell your National Airline to this psychopathic menace?
[Daphne – I’m glad you agree with me that our Labour past was shit. But you seem not to have understood that Maltastar was the only one saying that plans were afoot to sell Air Malta to Libya, and that the only people who swallowed this unsourced story were the ones who think that Martians are tapping Evarist’s and Jeffrey’s telephones. Beloved Gonzi? People who vote PN tend not to have beloved leaders. We leave that to Labour.]
Coming home from work tonight, I was shocked to hear Fr. Colin Apap on One Radio cracking jokes about how Gaddafi once wanted to buy Gozo but decided against when he saw Giovanna Debono. This while human beings are dying by the hundreds.
What do you expect of a priest who dyes his thinning hair? Intelligence?
How very insensitive. Instead of jokes he should have said a prayer.
Said a PRAYER?
How about roundly condemning Gaddafi and his actions and reminding listeners that they are part of the wider world?
You still haven’t told us why ‘the PN leader who is not loved by any of his supporters especially you’ was meeting with a terrorist supporting, murdering psychopathic menace?
[Daphne – Who knows? Maybe he was trying to get one over (not a leg, I hasten to add) your Beloved Leader: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100803/local/repatriation-of-immigrants-libya-confirms-governments-version-of-events-muscat Shhhhhhh! Don’t tell anyone I told you this, and especially not Maltastar, but Joseph was there to sell Super One to Gaddafi.]
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/cruel-vainglorious-steeped-in-blood-and-now-surely-after-more-than-four-decades-of-terror-and-oppression-on-his-way-out-2221687.html
Cruel. Vainglorious. Steeped in blood. And now, surely, after more than four decades of terror and oppression, on his way out?
In other words you can’t explain it so instead you bounce back to JM and something which you feel in your world passes for humour. If I mentioned glass houses you would probably know where I was heading so instead I think I’ll watch a good movie.
[Daphne – All Maltese politicians’ visits to Gaddafi can be explained in the same way: attempts at keeping a monster on side. Full stop. Nothing is actually discussed at those meetings, despite the press releases afterwards, because you can’t have a discussion with a nutjob. I gather you have heard him speak occasionally? Why watch a good movie when you have Super One? You can learn so much. You never know, little green people from Saturn might be tapping Jason’s and Ronnie’s telephones in an attempt at finding out…..never mind.]
Beowulf
Everybody knows where Malta stands with Libya.
Gone are the days when we were a Libyan satellite. We’re in the EU now, and not thanks to people like you.
All European leaders, and even the US, had tried to move closer to Libya in the hope that Gaddafi would stop sponsoring terrorism.
[Daphne – Actually, Denis, what they did to stop him sponsoring terrorism was ostracise him, and not move closer to him. They even tried to kill him, remember, but our prime minister KMB warned him that US bombers were flying over Malta. And thanks to him, we got another 25 years of the maniac and nobody knows how many people suffered and died in Libya at his hands.]
Dr. Gonzi worked along these lines. After all, Libya is our closest neighbour and it in our interest that we have stability in this area of the world. To compare this with the 80s charade, when Libya dictated matters in Malta, is ludicrous.
[Daphne – Libya still dictates matters to Malta. Malta is still worried about taking a stand against Gaddafi even as he goes down. That’s how bad it is. It’s so bad that even our prime minister and foreign minister were in denial about what was going to happen in Libya, and visited Gaddafi on February 9, when trouble had begun already in Benghazi.]
That’s because we’re spineless – it’s not only the opposition that sits on the fence, Daph.
[Daphne – Yes, read my column tomorrow. It’s about this.]
@ La Redoute
Isn’t he a priest? Apart from condemning, a prayer wouldn’t have been out of place, but a silly joke was.
He is a radio show host with an audience. There’s room for prayer and there’s even more need for condemnation. He might have earned a bit more respect from people who are not members of his usual audience and that usual audience might have learned that there is something other than self-interest.