Last week the Gaffarena scandal took a new twist when Dr Simon Busuttil labelled it ‘Mafia from Castille’, and assessed that the NAO's report is ‘a Mafia Story’. Labour felt affronted by the use of the term Mafia. A section of the independent media joined the Government spin in a failed attempt to divert public opinion from the true story. Labour went as far as demanding an apology from Dr Simon Busuttil, who rebutted that the entire Labour spin was one big lie.
Normally, the use of strong words is associated with Labour, in particular Dom Mintoff. These were Labour trademarks and for reasons that go beyond the personality cult, Labourites love these diatribes. The poor and those who are suffering can only identify themselves with a politician who shows strong leadership. This is what Dr Simon Busuttil is achieving at the moment.
This explains why Labour is scandalized by the use of such language. I suspect that Labour is feeling threatened after stupidly putting aside its diehards, replacing them with what in France are cheekily known as members from the “société de bon temps”.
As a historian, I am puzzled as to why Labour should feel offended that a politician like Dr Busuttil passes comments that can remotely be interpreted as a form of criticism to the Office of the Attorney General. Busuttil has categorically denied the claims. But this is not the point of my argument. If Labour acknowledges its history, this Party should stop lambasting individuals who criticize the Attorney General or any other key office.
If the Labour Party really believes in Manwel Dimech's contribution to local politics, then the party should be on the forefront to criticize the corruption of power. Manuel Dimech had the guts to criticize the operation of the Office of the Crown Advocate during colonial times. The other politician, who did not fear colonial repercussions for criticizing the attorney general’s work, was Dr Fortunato Mizzi, the founder of the Nationalist Party. Therefore, if one accepts Labour’s claim that DrBusuttil is criticizing this office, then Dr Busuttil is merely following in the footsteps of the PN historic Leader who was affectionately called by his supporters as “pater patriae”, a Latin phrase which means the father of the nation.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the office of the Crown Advocate got embroiled in a much more serious scandal than the one of Gaffarena. The Crown Advocate of the time, Sir Enrico Naudi framed an innocent person, Rużar Mizzi, known as Il-Lajs, with a murder, with the tragic consequences that Mizzi was sent to the gallows. It was the newspaper ‘Malta’ that broke the story. This newspaper was the organ of the Nationalist Party and its owner was Dr Fortunato Mizzi. It was a very powerful paper at the time but only reached the elite who could read and write in Italian. The issue was taken over by Manwel Dimech who continued to refer to the injustice by the Crown Advocate’s Office. This was one of the reasons why Dimech had no respect for this Office and the man behind this judicial imbroglio, Sir Enrico Naudi.
In a study just published on Dr Herbert Ganado, I showed that this criticism was the real motive behind Dimech’s exile from Malta, which was also backed by the Freemasons in Malta, who were very strong at the time. Dimech did not use the term Mafia, however, he certainly highlighted how rotten the judicial system was in Colonial times and how right the Nationalist Party was to oppose colonialism log, stock and barrel.
Unfortunately, the Labour Government is behaving like our Colonial masters and I am sure that if Manwel Dimech were still alive, he would have remonstrated this government in the same way and with the same words that he used to criticize the Office of the Crown Advocate in his newspaper Il Bandiera tal Maltin.
I am sure that Labour tried to adopt tactics to shift attention from the lawsuit itself, which it instituted against Gaffarena, to make the public discuss Dr Busuttil’s political discourses and his reference to the Mafia. Such a strategy has failed completely. The spin doctors advising the Labour Party should start thinking again and come up with less puerile tactics.
Looking at how the Gaffarena case has evolved, the leader of the Opposition is right to define it as a Mafia story. He is also right not to apologize for using such a term. Why should the media put pressure on a politician to apologize, when he or she is saying the truth?
Dr Busuttil has continued to sustain his point of view and has not minced words during a political gathering last Sunday at the PN club in Zejtun. He insists that he could not believe that there was no corruption when a property with a market value of less than one million was valued at nearly 4 million.
And what is quite gobsmacking is that instead of asking the Police and the Attorney General to investigate the individual who made these horrendous evaluations, our Prime Minister chose to send the police to the Lands Department who threatened the workers as though they were hardened criminals.
The same holds for the 20 points just published by the Opposition to prove that corruption has taken place in this deal. Why did the PN not mention the person who made these estimates? In my opinion, such an omission undermines the Opposition credibility.
If there was someone from the Government camp who has shown some sense in this case is the former parliamentary secretary Dr Michael Falzon. For different reasons, he endorsed Busuttil’s statement that this is a Mafia saga when he referred to the collusion between National Audit Office and the architect in question. Dr Falzon was the one to take a sensible stand when he said that he is writing to the Speaker, the University Rector and the Chamber of Architects regarding the operations of the said architect. I hope that the reply from these respectable institutions is quick and rendered public. This time, Labour did not ask Dr Falzon to apologize. Had he taken his Party by surprise?