Xuereb is serving his three months’ retirement notice, mandatory in the Maltese army
Manuel Mallia, Corto Farrugia and Martin Xuereb
Xuereb is still the army’s commanding officer because AFM regulations stipulate that three months’ retirement notice must be served.
Unfortunately, this merely highlights the cowardly, self-serving hypocrisy of his decision to retire rather than make a proper statement by resigning.
Xuereb is one of those individuals who attempt to have it both ways. Like some others, he does understand that the hallmark of true leadership – especially in the army, but in politics too – is standing up on a matter of principle even at, especially at, a significant cost to oneself.
His behaviour now illustrates just how unfit for the post he was to begin with, and how he should never have been appointed to it in the first place. There is no room for self-serving cowards in any army’s top command.
I think some people who were in the previous administration have been shocked into having to admit to themselves how poor their judgement was of this man’s character and personality, however nice, ingratiating and polite he might have been on a one-to-one basis (hence, no doubt, the moniker ‘Mary Grace’, which did not come out of nowhere).
Standing up on a matter of principle is particularly important when the matter does not involve you so much as others in your administrative care and the organisation itself.
But Xuereb did not stand up in defence of his subordinates who had to suffer the abusive promotion through two ranks in as many weeks of their card-carrying Labour colleagues. No. Instead, he chose to defend his own narrow, personal interests and those of an abusive cabinet minister.
If Xuereb really did not approve of those promotions, then he should have resigned not retired.
Retirement – especially when you make a point of saying that you have served 25 years and allow the army minister to say in your name that you will carry on working for the government – does not make a statement. It is not at all the same thing as resignation.
Retirement is the coward’s way out, and Xuereb has shown himself to be a coward. Precisely as no officer should do, he has saved himself while watching others go down, and worse still, he wishes to be liked for doing it, and is currently seeking to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.
Xuereb may not be comfortable with what is happening in the army. But at the same time, he does not wish to criticise what is happening or make a statement against the perpetrators by resigning. Instead, he curries favour with them, and has curried it so well that the Army Minister has thanked him publicly for his “personal loyalty”.
Any attempt by the Nationalist Party or any of its fellow-travellers to avoid the implications of this bald, raw, unpalatable fact would be misguided. Xuereb did the one thing it is completely unacceptable for any soldier, still less the army’s top command, to do: he put himself first. He looked after No. 1.
And he did so shamelessly, while trying to keep in as many people’s good books as possible, a road that runs the risk of having him despised by all, including those who praise his ‘personal loyalty’.
As I like to say, when people know they have been able to buy you, they will think nothing of selling you.
Comparisons are odious most times, but in this case, an illustrative comparison simply must be made. Compare Xuereb’s actions to those of his then deputy commander, Colonel David Attard, last June. Told that he was to be removed from the post of Deputy Commander AFM and put in charge of the army’s detention service, Colonel Attard immediately sent in his letter of resignation and never wore his uniform again. He resigned as Deputy Commander AFM and not as head of the detention service.
Not only did he not try to negotiate with Manuel Mallia for another job elsewhere, but he had no job to go to. As he put it to me at the time, when I rang for a comment on his resignation: “In the army, when you are faced with a decision you don’t agree with, you have just two choices: to obey, or to resign.”
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Good article. Puppazz. as the picture clearly depicts.
Martin Xuereb: an officer, yes, but not a gentleman.
And from my impressions of him not a particularly bright officer, either. Let me just say that operationally, the AFM under his command has made some dubious acquisitions in terms of hardware.
They get equipment that can do much less for a higher cost than most. I don’t even think it’s corruption, rather manufacturers benefiting from lack of know-how and expertise on this island.
Please allow me to say it in Maltese “It-tigrija sal-barkun” In this case the lighter was only in sight. I agree with Mr. Briffa. Mr Xuereb did not make it. He failed. Shame on him.
Honour and Glory to Colonel David Attard.
Man or mouse?
A white feather has been a traditional symbol of cowardice, used and recognised especially within the British Army and in countries associated with the British Empire since the 18th century.
Colonel Attard is a true gentleman and Xuereb is a laghqi bil-provi. Shame on you Mr Xuereb for not defending as you you should have done our army. You just negotiated a job for yourself in return. You are a small man.
If you were right in your views this does not reflect well on whoever appointed the brigadier. On the other hand I think there is another point of view on this issue and that the Brigadier is not necessarily at fault. Soldiers are trained to obey practically blindly their superiors.
[Daphne – David, you are one of the few people who really wear me out. The Commander AFM has no superiors; that is why he is called the Commander. The fact that he is appointed and serves at the will of politicians, as we have so dramatically seen, does not make those politicians his superiors. It’s a difficult concept, but in time you may come to understand it. I can’t say I blame you, though, because much of the problem with this perception that many people share is the result of it being made far too obvious that there is political interference in the army. This sort of interference is associated with undemocratic states. You would never be able to suggest, in more developed democracies, that politicians elected for five years are the superiors of the supreme commander of the armed forces, or the equivalent.]
Civil servants usually also have a sense of loyalty and duty which means that they often implement decisions they may not agree with but still feel they should continue working for their country.
[Daphne – Soldiers/officers are not civil servants, David. The military does have its civilian employees, yes, but they are separate to the actual military structure. They might include secretaries and accounts clerks, that kind of thing. They are in an entirely different position and governed by different regulations.]
Therefore the brigadier may have felt that he cannot defy his superiors or just resign but must continue working with the current authority as he feels it is his duty to do so to and continue to serve in the army until or unless he is asked to resign.
[Daphne – I don’t really know where to begin with that last statement, David, but let’s try. 1. Brigadiers, in the Maltese military system, have no superiors. There is only ever one (the others are retired) and he is right at the top, the commanding officer. 2. While undue political interference makes it seem to people in Malta that the commanding officer of the army must take orders from his political masters, in reality he should not – no more than the Police Commissioner should. The Commander AFM is the supreme authority in his field just as the Police Commissioner is (or should be) in his. Of course, there is an anomaly in our system in that both the Commander AFM and the Police Commissioner appear to come into being and survive at the leisure and pleasure of temporary holders of cabinet office, creating the impression that these are the ‘superiors and masters’ of both the Police Commissioner and the Commander AFM. The Commander AFM and the Police Commissioner cannot be asked to resign unless there has been a serious transgression. They can only be removed. This happens because the Maltese system lacks democratic safeguards against the depredations of those who cannot be relied upon to respect ethical/democratic norms. In reality, a politician would not – for example, in Britain – be able to remove the supreme commander or the top policeman, still less for political reasons.]
Since I have no superiors but the Truth, I’ll fix my bayonet and wade in.
In Western democracies, the role of the chief of the armed forces (i.e. the highest-ranking officer in the services, the AFM Commander in Malta, the Chief of Defence Staff in the UK, the Generalinspekteur der Bundeswehr in Germany, the Chef d’État-Major des Armées in France, etc.) is defined as the execution of the political will of the Commander-in-Chief.
Now the Commander-in-Chief is usually the head of state. In some Western Democracies, the head of state is also the executive head of government. In the UK, she’s not. In Germany, he’s not.
But you get the point. The chain of command goes like:
Head of government -> chief of military.
And that’s that.
The role of the defence minister is to PROVIDE THE TOOLS FOR THE EXECUTION OF THOSE ORDERS. That is why the defence minister is responsible for the defence budget and the allocation of resources.
The three – CiC, armed forces commander and minister – have to work together.
But at no point is the armed forces commander subordinate to anyone.
I expect such nuances will be lost on most of my fellow citizens. There was a ginormous outcry recently in France because Hollande changed the terms of reference for the defence minister in a way that could imply the minister was actually the one giving the orders to the CEMA. The short-arsed nincompoop Hollande had to come out and explain himself to the media to clarify that he was merely giving more budgetary discretion to the minister, not command over the armed forces, which would always be under the President’s authority.
In Malta, the media would have been chasing some other story such as Pope Francis’s humbleness, the ascent of Everest by Ira Losco in a bikini, or Etoile and Soileil’s matching Hello Kitty outfits.
The point is that in Western democracies, such nuances are part and parcel of daily political debate and on everyone’s radar. But then is Malta a Western democracy?
Those who are making light of the farcical accelerated advancement through the ranks towards commander of the AFM would be well advised to recall the tragedy of the Egyptair hijack on 23 November 1985.
On that occasion the inept handling of that emergency by an MLP lawyer politician who disdained the expert assistance of the USA Delta Force and relied on the “expertise” provided by an ersatz MLP colonel commandant of the Task Force resulted in the most inglorious record of the most tragic hijack in aviation history up to that date.
Will we never learn?
I presume that “personal loyalty” starts with “loyalty to one’s own personal interests”.
Knowing most of the top brass in the Armed Forces, what real gentleman they all are, it is very sad and tragic to watch things as they happen.
It is being assumed that these gentlemen know their codes of honour and all the Utopian stuff.
They also know that in our system hardly ever does anyone assume the responsibility of his office, pack up and go. Now that this the practice of the Maltese governments, whose members never pack up and go, having assumed political responsibility why should any of their subordinates go by the diktat?
I do understand the responsibility of officers toward their subordinates which at times comes at a very high cost which the family of the officer will have to bear the brunt of. I experienced this on a personal level.
Just to mention one instance, a policeman had two bad eggs thrown at him in my presence. I immediately issued charges for prosecution. I was directed by my superior officer to withdraw the case. I refused. After the umpteenth time of disobeying that order with as many transfers that followed, I am faced with my Personal Dossier.
That is the red light glowing in the path of disciplinary action.
I challenged my superior and wrote bluntly that if, like me, he had all the proof, it was his duty to proceed to the Public Service Commission and the Criminal Courts (the claim was that I was disobedient, insubordinate and rebellious – serious charges against a police officer) in the same manner that I did when I had proof at hand.
The question arises, having been loyal to my service, faithful to my men and my duty, what would have happened had I been dismissed? What about my family? What about their future? Their education? Their daily bread and butter?
So let us not be rash and let us take the opportunity to go a step ahead and farther in establishing procedures and rules.
In this particular instance, the Brigadier would have stood for his men, would have done what everyone is wishing here he would have done. Bravo. Come the Minister and ORDERS him to hand in his resignation. What then? Who would be defending the Brigadier`s men?
We must not forget the Effie Bencini case in the Police Force. He tried to take a stand only to find that Mintoff was demanding his resignation. How far have we come in all these years? As Dr Saliba states, have we learned anything since? Is there political consensus regarding matters such as these?
Have we forgotten the de Grey case of ’58 and Mintoff`s reaction? Are we oblivious to the humiliation de Grey was made to go through? I still do not see any monument to honour any Police Commissioner or Army Brigadier.
I do believe that rather than take sides, waste time, let us start building from the foundations up and analyse the events past and present and establish what these high-ranking officers should be doing within the framework of our invasive politics, which has permeated and seeped into everything going on in this land.
Finally, may I be allowed to express my understanding of these very difficult moments for all the officers of the Army and their families who surely are not enjoying the ride. My solidarity with all of you, for old times’ sake.