Comments on: Evarist Saliba: "Those who claim neutrality to suggest that we should mediate are not neutral at all."

By: La Redoute

La Redoute — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 09:21:48 +0000

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.

By: Anthony Farrugia

Anthony Farrugia — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 08:46:48 +0000

In reply to Anthony Farrugia. 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.

By: ciccio2011

ciccio2011 — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 19:51:02 +0000

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?

By: RF

RF — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 19:34:15 +0000

In reply to Anthony Farrugia.

I think you have confused the man. That Sammut is an OBE: http://www.johnsmithmemorialtrust.org/web/site/Articles&News/DennisSammutOBESeptember2009.asp

By: Josephine

Josephine — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 18:57:22 +0000

Hear, hear!

By: C Falzon

C Falzon — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 17:27:21 +0000

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).

By: Anthony Farrugia

Anthony Farrugia — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 10:32:19 +0000

In reply to Anthony Farrugia.

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

By: Anthony Farrugia

Anthony Farrugia — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 10:18:47 +0000

In reply to John.

What about MIA/New York/MIA ? Why bother……………

By: Etienne Calleja

Etienne Calleja — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 09:57:10 +0000

In reply to Helen Cassar. She has been released, apparently but has not been allowed to go home to Tobruk.

By: Etienne Calleja

Etienne Calleja — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 09:56:30 +0000

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.