Somebody should stick on our politicians' fence some of those spikes they use against pigeons
My God, how depressing it was watching television tonight.
First there were the closing few minutes of BondiPlus, in which the shadow foreign minister, the minister of the interior, the Labour Party’s Michael Falzon and the Nationalist Party’s Francis Zammit Dimech all avidly agreed that the prime minister should meet Gaddafi’s envoy (who arrived a few hours ago), while Simon Busuttil, in a link from Brussels, shook his head in disbelief.
George Vella: There is nothing wrong in listening. We have nothing to lose. You have to hear both sides.
Francis Zammit Dimech: The regime has lost all credibility. You meet him not only to hear what he has to say, but to tell him what you think.
Lou Bondi: What is the prime minister going to tell him if he said at the outset that the end of Gaddafi’s regime is inevitable? What’s the point of talking to somebody when you’ve said already that they have no prospect of survival?
Michael Falzon: There is nothing wrong at all with meeting him. This is part of negotiating. When you negotiate, you have to hear both sides.
Lou Bondi: The difference is that in this case, you are negotiating with somebody whose hands are stained with blood.
Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici: What’s wrong with meeting him?
Simon Busuttil: Malta has to recognise the National Council in Benghazi.
George Vella: I don’t agree with recognising (the rebels). Who are these people? I find it irritating that they go round protesting and demanding that we recognise them.
Simon Busuttil: When I said that Maltese MEPs voted for the recognition of the National Council in Benghazi, that meant even the Labour MEPs.
Michael Falzon: We shouldn’t hurry. There’s no rush to recognise them. We can talk to them as well, of course. Why not. But no rush. We don’t know who these people are. It’s been said there is an Al Qaeda influence. I think that’s why the coalition first said that they would arm the rebels and then changed their minds. We don’t know who these people are.
George Vella: Kaxxa maghluqa! (a closed box). The prime minister should not have said that Gaddafi’s end is inevitable. He was too hasty. He should have said that Gaddafi’s position is untenable.
Simon Busuttil: I don’t agree with George Vella. Not only is Gaddafi’s end inevitable, but he has taken far too long to go. He should leave immediately, before more damage is done.
———–
Then I switched to CNN, and oh boy, I was just in time to catch Guma Al Gamaty, a member of the Libyan opposition, say of Gaddafi’s envoy’s visit to Malta, Turkey and Greece:
“Gaddafi thinks these are soft countries, that they can be pushed by him to sell his agenda to the rest. But even Turkey and Greece are going to do nothing for him.”
No mention of faith in Malta’s similar refusal. Gaddafi’s envoy landed in Malta even as this conversation took place.
“Gaddafi and his sons come as a package,” Al Gamaty said. “They belong to the past and they have to go. How can anyone expect people to stay in power who have been killing us? It’s beyond comprehension.”
The next guest was Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics. “I don’t buy that ‘soft country’ theory,” he said. “You have many countries that believe the deadlock has to be broken. Regardless of the rebels’ progress, there is a military stalemate, a deadly stalemate. But there can be no political settlement as long as the Gaddafi clan stay there.”
———–
Next, Sky News.
“Gaddafi’s envoy is meeting with the Greek, Turkish and Maltese foreign ministers, offering a ceasefire as long as Gaddafi stays. But the coalition is not impressed.”
Cut to footage of Franco Frattini this morning, saying why he is not impressed.
————
And then, just after midnight, the much heralded and much delayed (so delayed that I went off and did something else and almost missed it) press conference by Musa Ibrahim/Mansour. I switched on the television again just in time to hear him say that everybody has refused to meet ministers of the Libyan government, except for Malta, Turkey and Greece.
Just fabulous. An international public relations disaster, from start to finish. You’d think that the government (forget the Opposition, which has been bought and sold by Gaddafi) would have worked out that with Malta’s lousy reputation in the Gaddafi stakes, we had to work harder than anyone else at distancing ourselves from him and making it clear where we stand.
But no. Ma tarax. I’m beginning to think they don’t even realise that Malta has a lousy Gaddafi reputation. Face it, if they knew what the perception was and is, they wouldn’t have been tripping over themselves to hug him and boasting about it.
Musa Ibrahim, to international journalists, at midnight: “(Your governments) have to receive our ministers publicly and openly. How can we have a dialogue if you refuse to meet us? Our foreign minister has met with Greek and Turkish officials. He is going to Malta.”
He was already in Malta at the time. And it’s interesting that Musa Ibrahim called him the ‘foreign minister’ when the press is still talking about him as the deputy FM. Well, it figures, doesn’t it: he has nobody to deputise for because the foreign minister has deserted and is currently being debriefed in England.
“We know that some people have a personal problem with Libya,” he said. “We are saying ‘Don’t decide Libya’s future from outside.'”
Fascinating, isn’t it: “Don’t decide from the outside.” What does he think all the protesting and fighting is about on the inside? Not that they are people fighting to the death because they have decided that they don’t want Gaddafi. “As long as the decision is made inside Libya, we will welcome it warmly,” Musa Ibrahim said.
And then he moved into that parallel universe again, oblivious to the reports today of thousands of wounded people surging forward at the Misurata dock in a desperate attempt at becoming one of the 200 people to get on board a hospital ship bound for Turkey.
“We are not attacking civilians,” he said. “We have never in this crisis attacked any civilians. What do you think I and my friends here are? That we would support people who attack civilians? We are not monsters.”
No, you are worse than that: you are dangerously deluded.
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The people appearing on the panel of BondiPlus are called in Italy “nostalgici”. Many followers of disposed, and those about to be disposed, dictators who have blood on their hands, yearn to return to the past. Simon is the lone voice of reason.
On the 101 news just transmitted a few minutes ago it was reported that the PM told the Libjan envoy “Gaddafi must go”.
[Daphne – Yes, I saw that last night, and thought that it was, to borrow a word ‘inevitable’. Damned shame he had to wait until every last hope of Gaddafi’s survival had died and until Italy ditched him completely to come out with words he should have said six weeks ago.]
We had four lawyers and a doctor discussing diplomacy.
Is Malta a satellite state of Libya? Or just a banana republic?
Both.
The Christian Democratic Republic of the Holy Spirit and the Libyan/EU Jamahiriya.
I also saw all of the same programming until sleep took over around 23:30.
It seems to me that Maltese politicians are so parochial. They prance on the Maltese political stage as if international politics does not exist beyond the national entity constituted by the population of Malta and Gozo–which, in turn, talks to occasional visiting aliens (such as the Libyan foreign minister, in this case) through the mouthpiece of the PM, who also is the governing head of the national organism (known as Malta). In this “dialogue,” only two persons exists: the visiting “alien” and the PM.
There is no sense of context, either internationally [nations and peoples within nations are ignored] or nationally. Who of us citizens of Malta has the slightest idea what the PM is or would be saying about Malta’s confusing status regarding the people of Libya?. It seems that the whole world is left out of this private conversation between the “alien” and the PM.
Is Simon Busuttil (and possibly the other MEPs from Malta) the only person with perspective and sense on Libya? Perhaps the other MEPs are the same.
For a day of perspective-taking, we should exchange our national parliament for our five MEPs; shake them up a bit as our jolly-65 jostle with EU parliament, and our five MEPs wrestle with our PM. Then put everybody back in place, and then keep your fingers crossed–and pray that Maltese political behaviour is not “rock”-bound to our geographical territory, as it seems to be.
In lieu of any other suggestions, I think we have to keep screaming from the apparent sidelines, where we seem to be marginalized until the next elections, according to the perspectives of the politicians. No wonder there are demonstrations on-going throughout the Arab “Spring.” We have to be conscious of peoples, and not only of governments. These are messy, uncertain, and bloody times, and we need leaders of vision–who think beyond the box confined by their conventions.
They only care about the handful of floating voters that they need to vote for them in two years.
That’s it.
Two years is a lifetime away in politics.
Tripoli and Benghazi use Malta and Greece respectively as proxy mediators possibly for geographical reasons. Having been left out, Italy recognised Benghazi as the legitimate representative of the Libyan state.
Not having been consulted, the Benghazi authorities refused this proposal. What a patronising attitude indeed on Tripoli’s behalf, even at this stage. In my opinion, the hesitation and lowering of the tone of voice of our prime minister before wording the statement that Gaddafi and co must retreat from the “political and administrative arena” in Libya conferred a lack of resolve and conviction to the statement itself.
Those words should have been pronounced more clearly to the press.
[Daphne – I agree. The prime minister shows a total lack of emotional conviction when he speaks about the atrocities in Libya and when he said that Gaddafi must go “from the political and administrative arena” but apparently not from Libya. After watching that footage of him speaking unconvincingly to journalists on the steps of Castille, with two apprehensive aides at his side, I watched the clip of him speaking about the Labour Party’s accusation that he is preventing 2,800 18-year-olds from voting in the referendum. Such passion! Such fire! Such conviction! Such small-minded lack of perspective. I guess we’re only comfortable operating in the village.]
To the ‘other Kev’: Our society in Malta is very insular. An Island of 20 miles by 9 miles with approximately 40 towns/villages (anybody know the correct number?) the majority having two saints.
The pique between these various groupings at times is churlish and stubborn. Mix in two political parties whose members come out of these groupings and you now have a common denominator – ignorance of the greater outside world, dangerously tied to a couldn’t-care-less attitude toward events outside our shores.
This is further compounded by a large part of the population taking in their daily news only from party newspapers or party TV stations. Our ministers are locked into this cycle of local life with the results being made glaringly obvious by a little war.
“No, you are worse than that: you are dangerously deluded.”
It fits perfectly the whole Gaddafi family and clan. These are, however, propaganda tactics that have worked in history to influence cornered nations, where their leaders prefer to drag their people with them to the very end.
These are tactics that have been used in the past by other deluded leaders, even if they know that this would lead to a total annihilation of their own people.
Although in Brussels, I think Simon Busuttil is very well balanced in his ideas about Gaddafi. By the looks of it (I do not know why) it seems that our politicians here are afraid to pronounce a word against the Gaddafi regime.
As to Musa Ibrahim, I am sure he knows of the shelling of a hospital in Misurata. If he does not, then he should be told. I think it was a mistake to talk to the Libyan who said he is the Deputy Foreign Minister.
There is nothing, now, that can turn the clock back. I think the coalition should start thinking, quickly, of following Frattini’s thinking and give the so-badly-needed arms to the rebels to drive back the Gaddafi forces.
I find myself wishing that Simon Busuttil would come back home, takes over the Nationalist Party and give it back a soul.
Seeing the depressing performance of our politicians (except for Simon Busuttil) on Bondi+ yesterday, I ask again: does Gaddafi have a stranglehold on all our political class?
He has blighted our existence since 1971, been involved in financing amd arming terrorist organisations all over and we still persist in speaking up for him even if his best-by date is long past.
He is not above doing a little bit of double-crossing as well; after providing Fathi Shqaqi with a false passport and smoothing and greasing his entry into Malta, he tipped off the Israelis in a roundabout way so that they did the business on him outside the Diplomat Hotel on Tower Road; mind you, I am not into conspiracy theories myself, but I have read from several sources that Gaddafi did him in because Shqaqi was getting too big for his boots.
After a quick read of comments on timesofmalta.com, the going justification for not calling for Gaddafi and his gang to go is that – wait for it – he might, mamma mia, seek refuge in Malta. It makes one want to puke.
Is there a space where to pitch his tent?
While practically the whole free world is doing its bit to get rid of that tyrant we in Malta, Libya’s next door neighbour, are busy defending more important issues like the absence of divorce legislation.
More important than human lives, isn’t it – but then again, I wonder how many of these church-going (as opposed to Christian) people really consider Libyans\Muslims human?
A comment I heard myself –
“Mhux tort taghhom – kellhom x’jieklu taht Gaddafi l-vot x’ghandhom bzonnu – mhux tajjeb qeghdin?”
Again I say that Gaddafi and his family should leave Libya as quickly as possible in order to give the opportunity for Libyans to have a better life.
I am getting seriously annoyed that you are depicting only Malta as the Gaddafi sucker when other ‘world leaders’ have sucked up to him in the past and even sold armaments to him. So what is the difference?
[Daphne – You are free to be seriously annoyed at me. I, on the other hand, am seriously annoyed that I have lived almost my entire life as a Maltese person in the shadow of Muammar Gaddafi and this is a cathartic period for me as it is for thousands of others, mainly of my generation. This is the moment we have hoped and waited for almost as long as we have been alive and old enough to know what was happening. I was born in 1964. Malta has been in Gaddafi’s pocket since 1972. I reached the age of almost 23 with Malta part and parcel of Gaddafi’s Libya. I thought it was all over then, but to my horror, the incomers began to queue up to carry on where Mintoff and KMB left off. And then, of course, you begin to wonder exactly what was going on. As for comment about who sold Gaddafi arms, I’ll just refer you to something I wrote a couple of weeks ago, in response to somebody else who said the same thing:
The only reason that Malta did not sell arms to Gaddafi is because Malta made no arms. Had Malta manufactured arms, then Malta would have had no hesitation at all in selling them to Gaddafi. Why would it have done, when it sold him everything else? As for the morality aspect, it is not worse to sell arms to Gaddafi than to call him a close friend. The latter is much worse.]
I would not say that I am proud to be Maltese but I can in all honesty say that I do love my country and do not like it being subjected to such criticism from my own fellow countrymen/women.
[Daphne – Yes, that’s what I mean about Little Englander and US redneck thinking. It’s typical of that level of insecurity. The idea that legitimate criticism should be construed as unpatriotic denigration of the nation is very much associated with undeveloped societies (a small town in Alabama) or with totalitarian ones (China, Nazi Germany). Your alarm bells should ring when visitors to Malta – and even non-Maltese who live here – say things like ‘Oh I have no right to criticise’ or ‘I wouldn’t like to offend’. What they are saying here is that they judge Maltese sentiment to be too primitive to cope with criticism or what might be construed as negative observations. And they are right: look at how anyone with a non-Maltese name is violently and virulently attacked on the timesofmalta.com comments-board at the merest hint of criticism. Or take that columnist for the Los Angeles Times who cracked a joke about not knowing that the Maltese have a dark sense of humour, when she picked up the ‘Mirage jets for sale’ story. The Los Angeles Times comments board was literally flooded with hundreds of hysterical and ill-spelled comments from Maltese people who thought that Malta was being criticised by a foreigner. The irony was that they proved that the Maltese do NOT have a sense of humour, dark or otherwise. See also the crazy, nationwide reaction, right up to government level, to a stupid remark made by a two-bit Italian show-host on a Sunday afternoon variety show. Ridiculous and embarrassing.]
However, not to worry, I guess at the next elections one can decide then that one’s present government has deluded one and vote (heaven forbid) the PL seeing that there is no other alternative.
Westerwelle also came under attack for Germany’s decision to abstain from the United Nations Security Council resolution vote authorizing military force in Libya.
His subsequent comments, indicating that Germany could in the future choose its international partners on a case-by-case basis, angered many in Germany and raised questions abroad.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,754887,00.html
timesofmalta.com’s stance on Gaddafi must have changed as they have just uploaded this comment which I sent them earlier today.
“The usual suspects are hard at work trying to convince themselves that it is better for Gaddafi to remain in power because:
1. Horror, if ousted, he might seek refuge in Malta.
2.The alternative would be Al Qaeda; well who said this must not have read the declaration of the Benghazi Council.
Anything and anybody would be better than Gaddafi; the only good Gaddafi is a dead Gaddafi and may he rot in hell for blighting our lives since June 1971 (thanks Dom !)”
Times change for everybody !
I think the logical chain is more likely to be:
Votes < Water and electricity tariffs < Price of electricity < Price of fuel < Price of oil < Libya's benevolence < Gaddafi
where "<" = 'depends on'
But there is a clever solution: negotiate with Benghazi for the sale of oil.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12969004
I pray that Thor God of Thunder will split the earth wide open with his Hammer of War and bring forth a torrent of petroleum in Benghazi, which can be sold to the whole world. That way, Gonzi’s palaver will crumble.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110405/local/no-decision-yet-on-libyan-rebel-council-pm
Still dithering on the fence; one step forward, two steps backward.
“George Vella: I don’t agree with recognising (the rebels). Who are these people? I find it irritating that they go round protesting and demanding that we recognise them.”
Funny how this guy used this same attitude with Maltese civil society representatives (regularly elected and mandated to advocate with government institutions) when he was Minister of Foreign Affairs.
George Vella is Malta’s next Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Shoot me first.
I didn’t understand a word he said but he is another I wouldn’t trust to flush after. Is he still active in shadow role?
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Libya-Musa-Kusa-To-Be-Questioned-by-Scottish-Prosecutors-Over-Lockerbie-Within-Days/Article/201104115965531?lpos=UK_News_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_2&lid=ARTICLE_15965531_Libya%3A_Musa_Kusa_To_Be_Questioned_by_Scottish_Prosecutors_Over_Lockerbie_Within_Days
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/04/us-libya-gaddafi-idUSTRE73372N20110404?WT.t
I thank god for my old age – thus saving the pain of having to suffer George Vella as my Foreign Minister. I think I will be gone by then.
Pray that you don’t get lumped with him on the same ride to the pearly gates in the clouds mate.