Please read this
“240015″,”12/15/2009 16:31″,”09VALLETTA537″,”Embassy Valletta”,”CONFIDENTIAL”,””,”VZCZCXYZ0012
PP RUEHWEB
DE RUEHVT #0537/01 3491631
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 151631Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY VALLETTA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2466
INFO RHMFISS/CDR USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE PRIORITY
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO PRIORITY 0056
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
“,”C O N F I D E N T I A L VALLETTA 000537
SIPDIS
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/14/2019
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, OVIP, PARM, MT
SUBJECT: SECURITY COOPERATION DILEMMA: WITH LABOR PARTY IT
MAY BE A NO-GO, WITH RULING NATIONALIST PARTY A SLOW-GO
Classified By: Ambassador Douglas Kmiec, Reasons 1.4(b) and (d)
1. (C) SUMMARY. During a November meeting with U.S. Ambassador to Malta Douglas Kmiec, Labor Party leader Joseph Muscat and former Labor government FM George Vella declared that the country’s reactivated membership in PfP was invalid, as it failed to comply with Malta’s Treaties Act.
Though expressing a willingness to accept PfP membership, Muscat’s and Vella’s comments also signaled Labor’s continuing opposition to membership in NATO and make Labor Party acquiescence to any Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) doubtful.
The party leaders did express their hope for improved Labor Party relations with the U.S. and the embassy. A subsequent question by the Ambassador concerning the GOM’s ability to support President Obama’s invitation for nations to contribute to peace and stabilization in Afghanistan has ignited public debate over the meaning of ”neutrality” in the Maltese constitution and prompted the GOM to suggest a small step forward in our efforts toward closer security cooperation and a Status of Forces Agreement.
END SUMMARY.
2. (C) In November, Ambassador Kmiec met with Labor Party (PL) leader Dr. Joseph Muscat, and with former PL leader and ex-Foreign Minister, George Vella. This was an initial courtesy call, intended to allow a discussion of issues of general concern. Muscat welcomed the Ambassador warmly, saying it was important for PL to improve relations with the U.S. Embassy and with the USG, adding that any reservations he had harbored had been ”wiped away” by the new U.S. administration’s multilateral approach.
3. (C) During the conversation, the question of whether PL members would be allowed to participate in an International Visitors Program (IVP) visit to NATO HQ on the subject of Mediterranean Dialogue and other NATO-sponsored programs arose. At this point, former party leader Vella announced that PL considered Malta’s current participation in the Partnership for Peace (PfP) to be invalid, since Labor had withdrawn from PfP in 1996, and the current government had no way to rejoin PfP without parliamentary approval.
Vella added that since the PL government led by then-PM Alfred Santhad executed a ”complete unconditional withdrawal” from PfP (Vella claimed to have himself approved the letter to NATO in his capacity as Foreign Minister), it would have been improper for NATO to have characterized the action as a suspension, and the current Nationalist Party (NP) led government could have had no basis for ”reactivating” Malta’s membership in PfP.
4. (C) Vella lamented that the current Nationalist Party (PN) government had ”circumvented” Malta’s Treaties Act, which requires either a resolution or other act of Parliament to ratify any international agreement. PL, Vella indicated, had come to the conclusion that PfP membership was not contrary to the neutrality clause of Malta’s constitution, and would have been willing to work with the government to rejoin. PL remained silent following the government’s declaration of renewed membership, Vella said, because of that belief. It did not mean that they accepted the act as valid, however.
PL leader Muscat, who had taken a clear second seat to Vella in the discussion, added that while PL was ready to change, it could not accept politically being ”taken for granted” or ”humiliated.”
5. (C) POST COMMENT. PL opposition to NATO membership is a long-standing position, based on Labor’s interpretation of the neutrality clause in Malta’s constitution. However, Vella’s statements that Malta’s PfP membership is invalid are unexpected and troublesome, particularly in view of his acknowledgment of the PfP’s intrinsic value and its consistency with Labor’s goal of neutrality. It appears to presage continuing PL efforts to focus on partisan advantage without reference to broader national security objectives.
Hopes for Labor’s buy-in for a SOFA agreement – whether PfP or bilateral – may be a casualty of this attitude.
The meeting also raises the issue of how secure Joseph Muscat’s position as PL leader is. At 35, ex-TV and radio personality Muscat is the youngest person to have served in his position. He was elected as leader following PL’s defeat in 2008 General Elections, replacing long-time leader Alfred Sant, who served from 1992-2008. Muscat’s ceding the lead in this discussion of Malta’s national security policy to old-line Labor politician Vella may suggest that he has some way to go to consolidate party control.
6. (C) Subsequent to this meeting, Ambassador Kmiec used a public presentation at the Mediterranean Diplomatic Academy (MEDAC) to ask the question: ”What does Malta mean by Neutrality?”
The Ambassador queried: ”neutral as to what?” He speculated that some might see this language as precluding direct military assistance to the ISAF forces in Afghanistan, but urged that it ”certainly ought not be construed to say Malta is neutral as to the cost of terrorism.”
He concluded by asking, ”Will Malta answer the President’s call or not? Will Malta supply humanitarian assistance or technical assistance in the form of agricultural training or instruction in the organization of governance?”
Later, in an email communication with the Foreign Minister (Borg), Ambassador Kmiec urged the GOM to take steps to make it possible for the U.S. Navy to come to a Maltese port by signing the PfP/NATO SOFA which is an expected step for PfP participants.
While the Nationalist Party-led government had no immediate formal response, the Prime Minister’s Defense Advisor and effective Defense Minister, Vanessa Frazier (PROTECT) said the PfP/NATO SOFA can’t be signed without parliamentary approval, and opined that the PM could not deliver that.
Frazier suggested that the best course would be to execute the SOFA incrementally by means of dip notes, and indicated she would contact the Embassy with a proposal (which would have the approval of the PM’s Chief of Staff).
7. (C) Comment: The dip note offer could be a useful interim step for Malta (if acceptable to Department and USEUCOM) as it would reacquaint Malta with the value — economic and associational — of ship visits. This approach would also be compatible with a memorandum prepared by Admiral Stavridis’ staff following Ambassador Kmiec’s visit to EUCOM in October 2009 requesting that EUCOM agree to grant SOFA waivers for scheduling at least 5 or 6 ship visits to keep the matter alive while good faith SOFA discussions are ongoing.
8. (C) Comment continued: The ”outing” of the neutrality issue seems to have been a watershed moment. There has been positive editorial commentary noting the Ambassador has raised an issue necessary for Malta to decide.
Significantly, PL leader (Joseph Muscat) is quoted as saying that the constitution requires ”modernization” going forward, though he then took away some of the significance of this by proclaiming the need to act only multilaterally.
KMIEC
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They want us to commit ourselves to their illegitimate, perpetual wars. And some kooks here are eager to oblige.
Yes please, Kevin. Illegitimate, perhaps, but everybody’s doing it. We cannot be the perpetual outcasts.
Oh yes Kev and the aliens with big beards will come and rape our women and ravage our temples and we will reply with a round of murtali tal-erbgha u kaxxa infernali.
…and steal our jobs…
Kevin won’t reply with anything of the sort. They don’t do murtali in Brussil.
“Vella indicated, had come to the conclusion that PfP membership was not contrary to the neutrality clause of Malta’s constitution, and would have been willing to work with the government to rejoin.”
In other words, Labour’s ex and soon-to-be foreign minister George Vella doesn’t mind a U-turn on PfP membership, but “ex-TV and radio personality” Muscat, who “had taken a clear second seat to Vella in the discussion”, added that while PL was ready to change, it could not accept politically being ”taken for granted” or ”humiliated.”
“Muscat’s ceding the lead in this discussion of Malta’s national security policy to old-line Labor politician Vella may suggest that he has some way to go to consolidate party control.”
Party control? What party control?
http://www.thepuppetstore.com/photos/GL1904-2T.jpg
This is Kmiec’s interpretation, of course. I would rather have Muscat and Vella spelling it out to us than this American caricature.
What you’re saying here is that Kmiec is not telling the truth to his president.
I agree with you – he played it down.
We know how sensitive this devote and scrupulous Catholic US ambassador is. He could have been a lot less subtle and tactful than he was.
Kmiec was careful in his choice of words about Vella, who gets hot under the collar in no time when talking about neutrality.
Vella and Muscat will try to sweep this under the carpet.
I prefer the unadulterated Wikileaks for one simple reason: this is what US ambassadors truly think about us, in secret.
kev, do you think any politician ever ‘spells it out’?
Politicians care more about image and perception than recording the truth. Kmiec thought this diplomatic report was private and so is not playing to public opinion. It’s a report to his bosses in Washington. I think historians would class it as an objective and reliable source of events.
Please watch THIS:
Former 4-star U.S General Wesley Clark admits to America Foreign Policy Coup: http://youtu.be/MMAONc7GeIc
“ex-TV and radio personality … Muscat’s ceding the lead in this discussion of Malta’s national security policy to old-line Labor politician Vella may suggest that he has some way to go to consolidate party control.”
Totally out of his depth. Didn’t he say George Vella’s his mentor? It seems he’s just a ventriloquist’s puppet, but there’s more than one hand up his seat.
“PL leader Muscat, who had taken a clear second seat to Vella in the discussion.”
Says it all really. A diplomatic way of saying ‘out of his depth’.
Please note that Malta only re-applied for PfP membership in 2008. That’s a full ten years after PN’s re-election in 1998.
Imagine this Joseph Muscat trying to handle a cabinet meeting.
What did he expect? That those who put him there weren’t able to see through his conceit?
Why do you imagne that governments have ministers and the opposition has shadow ministers?
They all have delegated fields, and they are expected to specialize in them.
Do you expect the P.M. or the leader of the opposition to be ‘know all’ in every sector?
I would rather have a leader who listens to his experts, than talk about everything under the sun just because he is the boss.
Handling of a cabinet meeting, or any other, does not mean that he should be the only one who speaks, more importantly is the one who takes the decision and shoulder the responsibilty.
That, Jozef, is called leadership.
[Daphne – You’re quite wrong, Silvio. Each cabinet minister or shadow minister has a portfolio, but the prime minister/opposition leader is responsible for policy and should be on top of all that. It’s the details he’s not expected to be concerned with, but policy is his pitch. It’s Muscat who should decide on Labour’s stance on PfP membership, not Vella. The buck stops with Muscat, not Vella. But apart from that, when the opposition leader is accompanied to a meeting by one of his shadow ministers, the leader leads the ‘delegation’ and also the discussion. The shadow minister defers to the leader and not the other way round. This is basic manners and protocol, aside from anything else. George Vella’s job is to bolster up the presence of his boss and his persona as a leader, not take over.]
This is makes interesting reading :
‘One document, provided by the embassy in Malta, suggests that a number of Libyans who allegedly met with Goma Gomati (now the ambassador to London) should be kidnapped.’
Taken from :
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/09/2011911884360946.html
“PL remained silent following the government’s declaration of renewed membership, Vella said, because of that belief. It did not mean that they accepted the act as valid, however.”
This is warped thinking of the first degree.
The first thing that the Nationalist government did when elected in 1998 was to re-activate the PfP.
Now we know that the Labour Party remained silent, not because it agreed.
Ten years later and with a new leader they still haven’t changed their mind and discuss the subject with the American ambassador. Why weren’t we ever informed of their reasoning? The subject was good enough to be discussed during private meetings but not with the electorate.
With regard to the star comment “ex-TV and radio personality”,our Joey must really be enjoying the compliment.
He forgot to mention, or perhaps does not know, that prior to working in television he was a hotel receptionist at Malta’s own ‘Fawlty Towers’ in Qawra. With a CV like that what else do you want, I wonder.
I am correcting my previous comment.
Baxxter, thank you for pointing out that Malta only re-applied for PfP membership in 2008.
I was really under the impression that it was taken care of as soon as the Nationalists were back in government. Was any reason ever given for such a late re-application?
My argument that the PL should have been clear with the electorate still stands, regardless of the date.
“PL leader Muscat, who had taken a clear second seat to Vella in the discussion… ”
“Muscat’s ceding the lead in this discussion of Malta’s national security policy to old-line Labor politician Vella may suggest that he has some way to go to consolidate party control.”
Well it’s pretty clear who wears the pants in that relationship.
Wow…we have a “Defence Minister”…unelected and going by the name of Vanessa Frazier….can Ms Frazier please come out into the light now? Thanks.
[Daphne – https://opm.gov.mt/direttorat-affarijiet-difiza?l=1 ]
She is not a minister. She’s simply a civil servant in the Office of the Prime Minister.
Now, a word on our defence policy (will Kevin leave the room, please?).
Not once, not ONCE, has the PM, who is responsible for defence, or Vanessa Frazier ever visited the AFM on deployment, either overseas or on Maltese territory or territorial waters.
We snigger when leaders like Medvedev pose alongside their country’s troops in full kit. But I’d rather have that – jingoistic though it may be – than a political class which thinks the military is infra dig.
..a Defence Minister whose activities and interests include “Hobz biz-Zejt” and “Guido de Marco”. (Courtesy of Facebook).
[Daphne – I don’t know her from Adam, but I dare say it’s a damn sight more acceptable, and certainly less dangerous, than a prime minister with a track record as a ‘TV personality’ and little else. Anyway, not so fast to diss her on the assumption that her political pedigree isn’t what you would wish. Frazier is her married name. Her maiden name is Grima Baldacchino and her mother Maria, a spectacularly good-looking woman at the time, was a great friend of your hero Dom Mintoff.]
And she is also related to George Vella, yes the same person mentioned in this report.
Albert, Vanessa Frazier’s mother is the woman in this photograph, with ‘Soho landlord Jean Agius’ and Dom Mintoff.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/maltatodaypics/4862737621/in/set-72157624534674993/
The US embassy also seems to be unaware that Vanessa Frazier’s maiden surname Grima is the same as that of George Vella’s wife, for the simple reason that they belong to the same family.
A person holding a sensitive office like that and having some good sense would give wide berth to anything that exposes his personal life such as social networks.
A seasoned diplomat (which is purportedly Mrs.Frazier’s background) would run miles from Facebook. Her membership of that site speaks for itself with regard to her grasp of professional ethics.
Her contacts with the US Embassy show an even poorer diplomatic “savoir faire”, still less of the workings of democracy.
Take for instance, her suggestion to incrementally increase the benefits to military staff working for NATO who visit Malta (because NATO is the other party to the contract and not the US at all, make no mistake, the US is just acting as a broker here).
Any such transaction would amount to the evasion of proper parliamentary scrutiny and the bottom line is nothing less other than trying to surreptitiously circumvent due parliamentary process which would be required by a formally concluded SOFA with NATO.
That is what her suggestion of small increments, discretely agreed via diplomatic letters, boils down to.
Is this acceptable from a senior civil servant privy to matters of state that are top secret and confidential?
Some might argue that colluding with a Third State to the detriment of your own country’s legislative institution is tantamount to high treason, precisely because the person making such a suggestion is the effective Defence Minister of Malta.
Others, probably Mrs. Frazier herself, might just consider this a plain waste of time and dump all distinctions for the institutional roles played by the legislative, executive and judiciary bases in a democracy.
The title of this specific cable says it all.
“SECURITY COOPERATION DILEMMA: WITH LABOR PARTY IT MAY BE A NO-GO, WITH RULING NATIONALIST PARTY A SLOW-GO”
It is quite interesting to note the similarity of comments by Ambassador Kmiec to those by Daphne and many others such as:
Joseph is a young inexperienced twerp.
Joseph is no match to the hardliners he himself resurrected from their slumber.
That the likes of George Vella is a bad omen if he is ever a PL government minister.
That the PL is directionless, has no perceptible roadmap for leading Malta.
That the LP/GaddafiPL has not changed one iota.
All these observations were made by an independent diplomat, unless of course, he was deemed by the PL as having been in Gonzi’s pocket.
The more we read such comments from people who had the fortune of not being politically brainwashed by Maltese politicians, the more it becomes apparent that toying with the idea of electing Labour in 2013 will be an act of suicide.
Silvio,
I expect the future prime minister to be in the know about every detail of his party’s take on foreign policy.
Especially if he presents himself to the American ambassador.
Companies wishing to invest in Malta look for stability and clear cut policies. They refer to their foreign affairs ministries for advice regarding these criteria.
The information available is the responsibility of the ambassadors residing in that country.
It is the basis of any rating.
When Sant started messing around with taxation, foreign direct investment dried up within months, leading to the mother of all deficits.
You seem to have an interest in things Italian, albeit disingenuous.
Guess what? Berlusconi laments the fact that he doesn’t have the powers of a prime minister and Italy is the lowest rated country in Europe for foreign investment.