Evarist Saliba: "Those who claim neutrality to suggest that we should mediate are not neutral at all."
The Sunday Times, Letters to the Editor
THE INADEQUATE FIG-LEAF OF NEUTRALITY
Evarist Saliba, Former Maltese ambassador to Libya and former Secretary/adviser at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Suffolk, England
The Libyan crisis has put to the test the anachronistic Section 1 (3) (b) (i) of Malta’s Constitution.
Although this clearly empowers the government to permit “military facilities to be used by any foreign forces… in pursuance of measures or actions decided by the Security Council of the United Nations”, people living in the time-warp of Cold War days, are deliberately perverting this truth by quoting our neutrality. This claim is a very inadequate fig-leaf.
Equally anachronistic are reports in the media, including a prominent British national newspaper, claiming that Malta has military bases to offer for operating a no-fly zone over Libya.
For several decades Malta has had no such bases. Malta only has one civil aviation airport inadequately equipped for offensive and related defensive military operations.
Indeed, all reports indicate that no request was made to the government for the use of such imaginary bases. Yet, in spite of our limitations, our airport is hosting two defecting Libyan military aircraft in defiance of Libya’s demands for their return.
Those who quote neutrality to justify our detachment from what is happening in Libya should be reminded that when Malta faced a similar situation and our forefathers rose against the French, they sought the intervention of Britain and its allies. Had it not been for the naval blockade by British and Portuguese warships, and the presence of British troops on land, it is unlikely that the siege would have lasted two years and ended successfully.
Let there be no twisting of facts. What is happening in Libya is not the first popular protest against Muammar Gaddafi, but it is widespread as never before, extending from the Egyptian to the Tunisian borders, with impressive defections by military, diplomatic and political officers, and socially comprehensive, including most tribes.
There is ample evidence that Gaddafi has been merciless with those who dare to disagree with him to justify this uprising. Those who claim otherwise, and blame oil interests or foreign interference, are Gaddafi apologists, and pawns in his propaganda machine which has been caught in one lie after another.
The man cannot be trusted. I am amazed there are still Maltese Gaddafi supporters, when he has shown utter disregard for our sovereignty on several occasions.
He has abused us in his support for terrorism – the downing of Pan Am flight 103, the arming of the Irish Republican Army , and the transit of terrorists like Fathi Shqaqi on false Libyan passports.
He used force to stop us from drilling for oil.
He supported the opposition to the democratically elected government of Malta by creating and financing POPEM.
Those who claim neutrality to suggest that we should mediate are not neutral at all. They are playing Gaddafi’s game, ensuring that the outcome would provide for his remaining in power under some guise or another.
Malta has nothing to gain through the prolongation of the Gaddafi regime in Libya.
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For many years and probably for some inane reason, Evarist Saliba was not exactly a man I considered as one of my ‘favourite’ individuals. Having read your above contribution, Sir, I offer you my most humble apologies for having misjudged you.
Well said Mr Saliba, with your knowledge and experience of these countries you are in my opinion 100% right.
Excuse my ignorance, but can someone enlighten me to what is POPEM please ?
If you are neutral then you stay out of it completely. But being in the EU and the UN renders it obsolete. Gaddafi shoots his own people and we say we won’t take sides.
blah di blah blah di blah
I know all about the Maltese ‘character’.
I swore an oath of allegiance to the flag of the republic.
It’s days like these make me wonder why I ever bothered.
What is POPEM, if I may ask?
[Daphne – It was an organisation set up with Gaddafi regime funding to promote ‘Libya-Malta relations’. It was run by a nasty Labour thug called Denis Sammut, who was a bank director who gave himself loans and then ran off and defaulted on them. In 1984 I was at Saddles when he burst in with an entourage of violent peasants, ordered rounds of drinks which he didn’t pay for while his men harassed and hit other people present. Somebody ran across to the Spinola police station to get help and when they heard the name ‘Denis Sammut’ they refused to come. Denis Sammut engaged the services, in POPEM, of Meinrad Calleja, who was notorious already among my circles for his drug-dealing and his shady connections to cocaine cartels and drug-running in Brazil. Calleja was convicted of cocaine trafficking some years ago, fined Lm30,000 and sentenced to 15 years in prison. While serving his sentence, he was allowed out – not under escort – to attend a university course in Arabic. He has since been released. He was also tried for commissioning the attempted murder of the prime minister’s personal assistant, Richard Cachia Caruana, who he blamed for insisting on the resignation of his father, then head of the Maltese army, after his sister told the police that their father’s house was where her brother passed a kilo of cocaine on to her.]
Hmmm, x’ erbgha karattri ghandna Malta!
POPEM = Denis Sammut
Dennis Sammut, Executive Director of the London Information Network on Conflict and State Building (LINKS) (based in London):
http://news.am/eng/news/40695.html
I think you have confused the man. That Sammut is an OBE: http://www.johnsmithmemorialtrust.org/web/site/Articles&News/DennisSammutOBESeptember2009.asp
If Denis Sammut is an OBE than I am Margaret Thatcher ! The John Smith Memorial Trust must have got it wrong. And from the pics it is the same Denis Sammut who was a director of a local bank between 1982 and 1987. Believe you me, employees of that bank have very fond memories of Denis from those years and have not forgotten his face.
RF – You say that because you can’t believe that a someone with Denis Sammut’s past could earn an OBE.
Maybe Whitehall didn’t know it.
From timesofmalta.com
“Monday, 4th April 2011
Muscat on visit to the United States
Labour Party leader Joseph Muscat left Malta for the US yesterday on an official visit on invitation by the US government planned since last year, the party said in a statement yesterday.
Among other meetings, Dr Muscat is expected to visit the US State Department on Capitol Hill, Washington, the Labour party said. He will be discussing the relations between the two countries and the current situation in the Mediterranean and Europe.
The Labour leader will also be visiting the Maltese community in New York.
His visit will last three days.”
I know there are package tours but Washington and New York in three days beats them all. Is travelling time included in the three days ?
And the emphasis on “planned since last year” , as if leaving the country at this particular moment will lose him brownie points.
“I know there are package tours but Washington and New York in three days beats them all. Is travelling time included in the three days?”
Washington DC is 300miles away from Manhattan, NY – a 3 hour car trip. You should get your geography facts right before you criticize, or maybe you are confusing Washington DC with the State of Washington which is on the West Coast.
[Daphne – Imhawwad iehor.]
say what? Anzi id-distanza iqsar min 300 miles, its actually 228miles. Ghala imhawwad?
[Daphne – Saqsi lil tal-Maltastar, forsi jistghu jghidulek.]
What about MIA/New York/MIA ? Why bother……………
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/04/03/promises-unkept-the-latest-on-eman-el-obeidi/
God Help eman-el -obeidi
She has been released, apparently but has not been allowed to go home to Tobruk.
POPEM (Peace Oraganisation of the People of Europe and the Mediterranean) had its headquarters in Malta and its own newspaper, which was used to attack the government. This was in the late eighties and early nineties.
Evarist Saliba writes in his No, Honourable Minister: Memoirs of a Senior Maltese Diplomat:
“I asked him (Shahati, Libya’s ambassador to Malta) whether he knew that the editor of POPEM’s newspaper (Denis Sammut) was facing libel proceedings, apart from court action for alleged misappropriation of funds when he held an office of trust. I asked him if Libya knew this person at all. Soon after our meeting POPEM ceased being a toll in the hands of local persons with a hidden political ageda”
Nevertheless, it is important to elucidate further, given the particular turn of recent events in Libya. Muammar Gaddafi was actually using the local oppositon press to advertise recruitment in armies that it funded to subvert regimes in neighbouring African countries.
This is particularly telling about the nature of the man we have conveniently chosen to ignore for all these years or actually learned to embrace and felt obliged to glorify and honour. This is why the latest attempt by the Gaddafi clan to quell the rage of the international community through a token offer of resignation from power is being met by scepticism.
Gaddafi is not to be trusted, as Evarist Saliba said.
Let’s see if our government sides with peace yet again by opposing this possible action in Ivory Coast:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12960308
We can provide humanitarian aid by offering any of the injured (of both sides of course) ambulance rides from Valletta to Mater Dei where we would treat them, even free of charge perhaps. (There are other countries better equipped than us to bring them to Malta).
If then the situation there becomes ‘delicate’ we can offer to mediate between Ouattara and Gbagbo demanding that violence be stopped (on both sides).
Hear, hear!
The former diplomat has summarised the situation in layman language. Prosit.
Is it time we replaced the George Cross with a fig-leaf like the one above on the Maltese flag?