Withdraw Kim Il Sung’s Maltese decoration, says Nationalist Party deputy leader
Beppe Fenech Adami has called on the government to strip Kim Il Sung posthumously of his Maltese decoration, the Gieh Ir-Repubblika, given to him in 1975 when Mintoff was prime minister and Malta was a great friend of the world’s worst dictators.
If you were a vicious dictator, we loved you.
Muammar Gaddafi and Tunisian dictator Ben Ali were stripped of the Gieh Ir-Repubblika last year.
Fenech Adami said that a tyrant who was responsible for the deaths of millions of people through war, torture, execution and famine should not have been decorated by Malta or be allowed to keep that decoration (even though he is now long dead).
Of course, it begs the question as to why no Nationalist government did it when it had ample opportunity to do so, but better late than never and I suppose it is entirely appropriate that the people who thought Kim Il Sung deserved that honour should be the ones to withdraw it.
The subject came up during a debate on amendments to the Gieh ir-Repubblika Act.
Which reminds me – coming up soon: the Republic Day honours. Let’s see what the government’s list of honours recipients is going to look like – a mix of Malta Taghna Lkoll and leading switchers, no doubt.
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You do know that one of the gov’s proposals is to increase both the number and frequency of Gieh ir-Repubblikas? Iced Buns on a ribbon.
Apparently they want to remove the limit on the number of members in the Order of Merit at any one time. As Dave said, iced buns on a ribbon.
In other words, as invariably happens with everything that Labour has a hand in, turning the decoration into a worthless “medalja tal-klieb” and insulting those who deservedly already hold the award.
Will the Kitten get his ribbon?
I was listening in to parliament yesterday during Francis Zammit Dimech’s speech and the current law, he said, provides for the automatic withdrawal of the individual from the order of merit upon his or her death.
Why did this not happen in the case of Kim Il sung?
Could be because the man is not officially dead. For all intents and purposes he is still president of North Korea (which is why both his son and grandson were never granted that title), and his tomb (where he is resting) is still the official president’s palace.
Jeez, they should have done the same with Mintoff. A presidential palance at l-Gharix wouldn’t be half had, plus a dead Mintoff would probably make a better president than the current one.
Guaranteed nightmares for the rest of the week.
With all due respect the Nationalist Party had plenty of time to strip this evil man of his decoration when they were in power.
Well bugger me sideways with a telegraph pole.
I almost killed myself campaigning to have a Nationalist government withdraw Gaddafi’s Maltese decoration. When they finally did it, the man had long been dead, and it was more of a half-hearted administrative affair than anything else. Typical Nationalists.
Now they’re in Opposition and they want the government to strip Kim Il Sung of his Maltese gongs? Not bloody likely. Why didn’t they do it themselves when they were in government? Have they suddenly discovered a moral backbone? Or is the lily-livered, appeaser-in-chief Lawrence Gonzi finally out of the way?
In all fairness, while I agree with Fenech Adami on this stance, the PN in government had ample time to disown the North Korean tyrant.
So what? They’re not in government now.
Indeed no Brownie points for the Nats on this one. At least Beppe Fenech Adami needs to explain to the electorate why the inertia over 25 years. Or was it amnesia ? That said, I certainly agree that this tyrant be stripped of all honours disgracefully awarded to him by the Mintoff regime which harboured a severe dictatorship fetish.