One day you arrive home and you find that the house is flooded by a water leak. Some pipe burst and water is flowing out into the kitchen and around the house and all the furniture is getting soaked. You are not able at first to see where the actual breakage is so you do the first thing you need to do to stop the water rushing out and you turn off the main supply. This may help to stop the damage but it does not in itself solve the problem or sort out the issue. Then, oddly, when the plumber starts to see to it, he proudly announces to you that you don’t have a problem because the water supply is working.
Much the same way that Robert Abela stands before the cameras and informs the country that by the latest development in the investigation into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, we can say that the institutions are working. That is his main objective. Not the impunity of persons around him who continue to be implicated in one way or another. Not that justice can be done. No. The proud moment for him is to say that the institutions are working, when, clearly, that is a secondary issue and does not normally need mentioning.
No matter that the Commissioner of Police has taken it upon himself, either, to definitively state that all the bad guys are now in custody. It’s the All-in-One Package, purchased at a discount that can now bring investigations to a close and give us the full confidence we expect to have and the trust that can set us free to go and enjoy the summer.
If there is one thing that we have been chewing on over these past two years at least, it is the rumours, the allegations and evidence in court about events, persons, political and non-political that surround the enquiry into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia and the preliminary hearing into the person accused of it. Behind the actual deed, there are layers of conspiracy, of suspected reasons for wanting her killed, information gathered from individuals who were involved or linked to the case, directly or indirectly. Naturally, people tire of hearing but this is the truth we are looking for and so, giving up is not an option.
For Robert Abela and Commissioner of Police, Angelo Gafa’, though, their passage to serenity is booked. With clear conscience and strong conviction, they turn the page or close the book and lead us to believe that with the state’s evidence of Vince Muscat, the whole case has been wrapped up.
It is perhaps, the more sophisticated form of demanding that the enquiry close its hearings and come to their conclusions. Other persons who are charged and facing justice over the case can safely watch the final episode and be secure in the knowledge that the institutions indeed do work. The language they speak, however, depends on who interprets the conclusions.
In films, gangsters get as they say “stitched up”. This process goes on day in and day out in the system that is all around us, in institutions, in commerce, in the Cabinet, in named persons, from the small to the big, from the fake to the frightened. Maybe because it so closely resembles a gangster or mafia film, the first thing that comes to people’s minds is, that the witness Vince Muscat will need police protection so he will not fall victim to any unfortunate accidents that may happen to him.
Is this normal? Should a civilised, democratic country have to deal with such possibilities? Why can’t we relax in the knowledge that justice will prevail and that every citizen is protected by rights and duties enshrined in our constitution? Are we in a Mexico land now? Instead we experience a kind of PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder) and find it difficult to silence the voice in our head telling us that something in Abela’s declarations is very, very, off.
When you learn something, it is very hard to unlearn it. Over these years we have learnt that trusting Labour, whether it is ex-PM Joseph Muscat or continuity PM Robert Abela and their organisation and brand of success, is like trusting a scorpion to ride on your back to get to the other side of the river.
Many choose to get on with their lives and rise above the noise and the dirt. They have every right to do that and benefit from their choices. Others are behind the PM and believe that he is doing a good job whilst friends stand shoulder to shoulder. The rest have to commit again each and every day, to question what they are hearing and to live in the real world. That may mean starting again from scratch in the fight for justice. Or it may mean, persevering to change the perception presented for public consumption.
From the onset, the self-defence by the government regarding the actual commissioning of the murder has been to make it clear that no politician is involved. It is as though they could see a mirror reflecting on themselves and immediately edited the image by blocking it out. All the mechanisms that could be brought into play to cancel that image were used, from the media to the police. One could say that the police had to multi-task in this investigation and use several exits and strategies to eliminate anyone or anything that compromised the No-politicians theory.
Closure can never be found if questions remain around names and motives. The people and the victim are owed answers and cannot simply be expected to stay silent and accept the status quo. Maybe Abela and Gafa’ think we are still living in that time of male supremacy and a quiet word from the police to the victim can settle the matter so that it does not uncover uncomfortable truths. The Commissioner has been determined to make big improvements to the way domestic violence complaints are processed by the police. There is now a special unit dedicated to handling these cases and institutions exist to shelter women who need protection. You would think that justice for a slain woman, murdered by a bomb placed on commission, was one of the most important cases of his life, if not the most important and that really, nothing could hold him from getting to the real culprits.
He has told us that all culprits are now known. Do we take his word for it or not?