Shameful and shameless fence-sitting – but not in my name
I am utterly repelled – there is no other word for it – by the shameless and shameful refusal of Maltese politicians to be forthright about Muammar Gaddafi.
Is it because they remain afraid of him even now, or still more afraid because they know that if he isn’t removed then he will be worse?
As his son Saif Al Islam – he who is in partnership with not a few Maltese businessmen – said yesterday: we will win back Libya, and then we shall settle our accounts with the rest of the world.
Is it because Maltese politicians don’t wish to burn their bridges and plan to carry on sniffing around Gaddafi’s ankles for any crumbs he may choose to let fall on an island which he has long regarded as his vassal state?
Or is it because, despite their pro-life protestations and their cries in favour of liberty and democracy and human rights, they are not really appalled by what he has done and by what he is doing now?
The leader of the Opposition says nothing at all. In losing his voice, he has lost respect – not that he had much to start with. His No. 1 man Karmenu Vella, until recently chairman of a LAFICO-owned group of companies and so chummy with the Gaddafi regime that he got a lift back home to Malta in Muammar’s private jet last August, is not about to say anything. Shadow foreign minister George Vella, more accustomed to handing out prescriptions for antibiotics in Zejtun, is out of his depth.
“The violence has to stop”, the prime minister said – and indeed it does, but that is not a remonstration. That is an observation, like the observation that “the end of Gaddafi’s regime is inevitable”. Of course it is inevitable. As the saying goes, in the long run we are all dead.
And now foreign minister Tonio Borg has broken ranks with all 26 of his fellow foreign ministers at an EU Summit, saying that getting rid of Gaddafi is not the priority. A ceasefire is. EU commissioner Dalli’s similarly half-assed remarks were linked by the Maltese and international media to the fact that he has a house in Tripoli and business interests there. The foreign minister’s attitude is not being linked to the fact that his brother works for the Corinthia Group, which is half-owned by the Libyan-Arab Foreign Investment Company, in Zawiya.
Maltese politicians do not believe in declaring anything that might be construed as a vested interest. If it is a vested interest they seek to hide it for obvious reasons. And if it is not a vested interest, then they don’t see why they should bother mentioning it. Yet even if such a thing does not influence their decisions, and we have no hard reason to believe that the foreign minister is influenced by his brother’s employers, situations like this should be declared at the outset. That is democracy. That is transparency. That is not the Maltese way of doing things.
As for Tonio Borg’s ceasefire, it is quite obvious that he is not a strategist and that had he somehow received a commission as a commanding officer in some military regiment in one of the last century’s major wars, his manouevres would have led to death and defeat – of his own men.
He told the EU Summit that a ceasefire “should led to regime change”. He did not specify, and none of the reporters asked him afterwards, whether he meant a change from one regime to another or ameliorating changes within Gaddafi’s regime that would somehow do the impossible and make him more acceptable to his people, allowing him to stay on.
For that is precisely what a mandated ceasefire will do: it will create the very situation that Gaddafi needs to survive. I said that Tonio Borg is a hopeless strategist. I trust that this is the case, and that he is not actually strategising for Gaddafi, because that is the only other way his words can be read.
If our politicians were truly appalled at what is going on in Libya, they would want to personally rip off Gaddafi’s chest those decorations Malta gave him, and then wear sackcloth and ashes for the next 10 years for having such poor judgement.
Maltese politicians cannot pretend not to have known what Muammar Gaddafi’s regime was like. They knew, but they lived in denial like those whose minds shrink away from awareness of abuse in the family home. They did not have to wait for the testimony of those who are speaking now to know that he had his opponents systematically tortured and killed, that those who criticised him or stood up to his demands were made to disappear into the night, their families left without a corpse to bury or even a prison to visit.
What do Lawrence Gonzi and Joseph Muscat imagine is happening right now to the rebels who were captured when Zawiya fell, to those taken at Ras Lanuf and Brega, to the courageous men whose eloquent words against Gaddafi were broadcast to the world by the international news networks?
Perhaps they should ring the three BBC journalists who were beaten severely and kept in a cage, while all around them people lay bleeding with broken ribs and the wild screams of the tortured were heard from neighbouring barracks.
Yes, all countries courted Gaddafi but Malta went one step further. We called him a friend. When meeting him, our politicians did not extend their rigid right arm, so as to stand as far away as possible, and shake his hand with their body turned half away from his and a facial expression of barely contained ‘oh-god-the-things-I-must-do-for-my-country’ distaste. Instead they embraced him, hugged him, and were voluble, their faces wreathed in smiles, like Silvio Berlusconi or Tony Blair signing the BP contract.
Maltese politicians of all stripes called Muammar Gaddafi a friend of Malta. When Joseph Muscat and Karmenu Vella took that trip on Gaddafi’s private jet, I wonder if it bothered them that Al Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, sat there before them when he was brought back from prison in Britain in that very same plane.
The photographs which have accumulated in my files since February 17 are a litany of shame and servile acquiescence, from those depicting prime minister Dom Mintoff beaming up at Gaddafi with prideful pleasure in the early 1970s, when Gaddafi came to Malta to address Labour rallies, inspect troops of state-school children and give our premier US$3 million for his vote-catching children’s allowance, to the last of the lot, showing prime minister Lawrence Gonzi embracing a face-lifted and decrepit maniac in a Canadian trapper’s hat and looking supremely delighted to do so.
Yes, it’s true and accurate to say that the Labour Party’s relationship with Muammar Gaddafi was and probably still is personal and much embroiled, that they liked and admired him and held him up for adulation, rather than seeing their dealings with him as merely doing the necessary, a sort of needs must when the devil drives.
Gaddafi has spectacularly negative significance for those of us who were raised in the Golden Years of Labour and hated it. We must have been the only children outside Libya to know – because we had no choice – what the Green Book was and what Libya’s flag looked like, the only children outside Libya able to recognise Gaddafi’s face and who knew his name. Up until today, the only two colours which provoke in me a visceral reaction are the royal blue of my school cardigan and Gaddafi green.
Gaddafi visited Malta seven times between 1973 and 1984. He even visited with his family. There is a photograph which shows Mintoff, who was unfailingly boorish and uncouth to visiting dignitaries unless they were from the Communist bloc or Libya, bending low to fawn over a young Saif Al Islam, proffering a piece of fruit while Lorry Sant and Alex Sceberras Trigona wring their hands indulgently like two proud grandmothers, and Colonel and Mrs Gaddafi look on.
Things were different when the Nationalist Party came to power in 1987, but sadly not different enough. There were no more visits from Muammar, no direct donations to the country’s coffers (we don’t know whether the donations to the Labour Party’s coffers continued; they might well have done). But Maltese government officials popped over rather a lot themselves, for what purpose has never really been made clear.
One government minister got to know to know Tripoli and the Gaddafis so well, and built up such a network of useful contacts, that he bought a house there and set up an eponymous consultancy company – John Dalli & Associates – which claims on its website that it helps others enter the Libyan market.
Though unlike Labour they have left the party out of the equation and conducted their relationship with Gaddafi solely at government level, Nationalist politicians too have been guilty of fostering the impression that Malta has some kind of special relationship with the Tyrant of Tripoli. They were proud of this special relationship. They thought it was something to boast about, that they were ‘in with’ Gaddafi and had one over those clueless Anglo-Saxons.
As for the criticism that the French and the British sold him weapons and that’s worse, I beg to differ. Far better to sell an evil man weapons than to bestow on him the gift of friendship, though both are scandalous. Are we expected to believe that Malta would not have sold weapons to Gaddafi had we made them? The only reason we didn’t sell him weapons is that we never had any to sell.
We were happy enough to sell him anything else that we could, which is why Malta has a trade surplus with Libya. So please, let’s get off the moral high ground here.
This is an updated version of an article which is published in The Malta Independent on Sunday today.
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And to cap it all, we will find ways and means of helping LAFICO and LIACO in circumventing any sanctions imposed on Libya; after all, we have quite some experience in this field.
You are 100% right. Nobody should take the moral high ground in this situation.
The Libyan situation has catapulted our politicians into a serious game with the big boys. Our lot are way out of their depth, as their continuous inane declarations clearly demonstrate. In true Maltese political style they think that they can get away with equivocation and dodging. I think not.
So true. Goes to show that Malta is governed by kitchen politics (from both sides of course), although I have to admit that at least, Dr Gonzi, earned some respect?
Funny you should mention the kitchen, because that’s exactly where Lawrence Gonzi gave his first interview to the media as prime minister.
Have any other leaders followed Sarkozy?
None.
Unfortunately this is not only a Maltese problem – all the world including the US (that was very quick to take action on the Bosnian and Kosovo issues not to mention the Iraqi one) are just talking, talking and talking and asking Gadhafi to step down and to stop the violence.
In the meantime he is winning ground and I can assure you that if he finally suppresses this movement, Europeans, US, Australia and other countries will start a beeline to meet him and do business with him.
I have completely lost faith in the world in general.
I think you are being too pessimistic here.
I think you are perfectly right. All countries , excluding France, are playing the waiting game, and that exactly what we should do. FOOL RUSH IN WHERE AGLES FEAR TO THREAD>
It would be foolish to rush into the waiting room along with everyone else.
Silvio Loporto: typical Maltese mentality. You will never be a leader. And check your spelling before posting; it will make you look less of an incompetent.
My sentiments exactly, and that’s how I feel about Sarkozy’s hasty decision to recognize the Benghazi administration.
Why we keep on picking at Maltese politicians is truly beyond me. By the same token, I wonder what the Americans should be saying about Obama’s position (or lack thereof) or whether he should have already gone in and blasted Gaddafi with or without UN approval.
Not that it hasn’t been done before! Yet we expect our PM or the Minister of Foreign Affairs to be in the forefront threatening to do it alone with two pilotless Mirages, two rescue helicopters, and four patrol boats. How ridiculous!
What about NATO, UN, EU? At least the Arab states have agreed to a no-fly zone, so what is keeping the rest of the world from taking the lead and do something before the last resistor is executed? If Gaddafi wins, does that mean that sanctions will be lifted and everything reverts to business as usual, legitimizing all that up to now we are labeling as illegitimate?
One thing I have noticed, that while the killing in Libya continues, the world Press has found other stories to sensationalize while the Libyan tragedy has been put on the back burners.
Is a Libyan life worth any less than, say, a Japanese one?
I hope that some smart Alec will not interpret this as a slight on the Japanese tragedy still unfolding.
Angus, we pick on Maltese politicians because they are OUR politicians. Because they like to think that they know us personally. Because some of us do know them personally. Because we (ok, I) have seen up close what blatant liars some of them can be.
With the present seemingly unstoppable march of Gaddafi’s troops, one can understand the pessimistic view of things. It is now a matter of time before Gaddafi marches on to Benghazi and time is of real essence here.
Not sure what will come first, if it’ll be Gaddafi retaking Benghazi or the start of the no-fly zone action, however I tend to believe Gaddafi will get there first. The no-fly zone is of little use really, even if it starts tomorrow.
The Yanks did it for years in Southern No-Fly Zone in Iraq and Saddam still continued to run the country and decimate the Kurds and all opposition. By the look of things, it will be a swift military action on Tripoli in the next couple of months. Remember that in Bosnia not one soldier set foot on the ground, and yet Milosovich gave up and died in solitary confinement in a European jail anyway.
Oh dear. I think we’re slightly confused here. In Bosnia you had the whole of UNPROFOR on the ground.
If you mean Kosovo, then the Serbs never considered the negotiating table before they had the entire might of NATO’s Rapid Reaction Corps sitting on Kosovo’s border, with engines revved up. Because a no-fly zone means fuck all, and achieves very little in military terms.
Milosevic accepted peace conditions on 3rd June 1999. Even before the occupation of Pristina, on 12th June, you had Norwegian and British special forces fighting alongside KLA rebels (or terrorists. That is what it came to in Kosovo) and coordinating air support.
I really can’t understand all the enthusiasm for a no-fly zone if it isn’t backed by equal enthusiasm for a ground invasion.
“it will create the very situation that Gaddafi needs to survive. I said that Tonio Borg is a hopeless strategist. I trust that this is the case, and that he is not actually strategising for Gaddafi, because that is the only other way his words can be read.”
The three planes that visited Malta (then Portugal), Greece and Egypt reminded me of a modern day version of the three kings who rode on camels and bestowed treasure upon the king of kings.
Was ‘treasure’ also on those planes? What makes good and practicing Catholics as our leaders, who regularly beat their chests in defence of life, not condemn in a straightforward manner Gaddafi and for them to be in the same ranks as their European counterparts? Do our Maltese representatives know better?
This has nothing to do with this article…. but I want you to look into this…
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110313/local/muscat-explains-objection-to-ba-chairman-nomination
The Times in this article say that Joseph Muscat was responding to phone ins. But how could there have been phones ins if the interview was recorded? While he was speaking on the radio, he was actually touring clubs and committees in Safi.
He actually told me that on Sunday he is not keen to have a public dialogue so he records it, and then spends the morning touring villages relaxed not having to worry about what to say. Very spontaneous. All a play and well staged by Ray Azzopardi. I cannot think of what he would do when faced by pressure, we have already seen him collapse once, let alone if he was PM.
This blog has been unfailingly critical of the attitude of Maltese politicians towards the Libyan crisis. Fair enough. But let us at least take a slightly wider view. In today’s Malta Sunday Times editorial, the EU is described as “impotent” and describes the summit of EU leaders as characterised by “huffing and puffing” and “the usual handshakes, the usual lunches, the usual family photos and……… the usual mish-mash”.
So, roughly seven years after Malta’s accession, the (possibly) most conservative and one of the most pro-EU newspapers on the island finally dismisses the EU as “consistently irrelevant”. I see little evidence that contradicts this view.
Meanwhile, the Arab League has now called for a ‘no-fly zone’. I sat and waited for details of how many F-15s and other fighter jets the Saudis, Egyptians, Kuwaitis, etc. were prepared to commit to the good fight. Um, I’m still waiting.
Cameron has screamed and screamed but he has just scrapped the UK’s last aircraft carrier and many of that country’s Harriers. Obama has delivered a couple of fine speeches (he’s good at that). But no action (he’s good at that too). So, if the biggest men in the village refuse to pick up their spears, what does the tiniest, weakest guy do?
[Daphne – Pick up a spear, or die a coward. We can’t take military action because we don’t have the military. But we can at least speak out and speak properly and clearly.]
”Gaddafi has spectacularly negative significance for those of us who were raised in the Golden Years of Labour and hated it. We must have been the only children outside Libya to know – because we had no choice – what the Green Book was and what Libya’s flag looked like, the only children outside Libya able to recognise Gaddafi’s face and who knew his name.”
You forgot to mention the sight of seeing prime property in Malta going for a song to institutions sponsored by Gaddafi money and the kanna of having Arabic as a compulsory subject in order to be eligible for a university education under the Mintoff regime.
This article is right up there in the Pantheon of journalism.
You even demolished the comfort-seeking “but others have sold him weapons” excuse.
Now I’ve been hearing lots of disheartened comments about Gaddafi crushing the revolt and coming back. But we HAVE crossed the Rubicon. When the EU declared that Gaddafi must go. When France and the UK, in their joint letter, said that he must be tried by an international court. When France sent an ambassador to Benghazi. That is why gestures aren’t meaningless.
In the long run we are all dead – how right was Keynes about the needed policies in the long run for the economy.
Daphne, thanks for stating things as they are.
Do you think we would have to refund all childrens’ allowances paid under Labour if we were to demand that Gaddafi returns to us those medals?
what do you mean, Another John, by “MALTESE MENTALLITY” Hasn’t our Maltese mentallity made of us the envy of much larger countries? We might be the smallest country, but our MALTESE MENTALLITY has given us one of best standards of living,We are proud of being one of the best welfare states, We are proud of being a truly Democratic country making it possible for “incompetents “like me to enjoy life, like some other larger countries envy. And all this thanks to o ur Maltese Mentallity. I do not aspire to be a leader but I am proud of being able to choose my leaders.