In his article “All for a fleeting handshake” (TMIS, 6 September), Noel Grima shows a rather weak awareness of protocol. Mr Grima should know that the President of Malta does not do anything officially on his own initiative; everything is done at the behest of the Maltese government, which is why when abroad the President always has the Maltese foreign minister at his side.
If, as Mr Grima writes, the Libyan leader snubbed the President when he visited Libya for the 40th anniversary of Col Gaddafi’s coming to power, the victim of that snub was not Dr Abela, but the Maltese government and people.
The fact is that with the Nationalists in government, Malta can never have close relations with Libya. Friendly relations yes, but never close. Malta is paying today for the sick policies of the Nationalist Opposition who heaped contumely on the Libyan leadership when it helped Mr Mintoff. In government, of course, the Nationalists lick the Libyan boot for all it is worth – Libya has, after all, the largest gas and oil reserves in Africa – but all the licking, such as sending then President Eddie Fenech Adami to the desert, is not getting them anywhere.
The Nationalists could have won Libya’s good opinion, and made up for their past insults, had they even lightly defied world opinion and helped the Libyans when savage sanctions were imposed on them. Not to the extent of breaking international laws, but they could have bent those laws a little; however the Nationalists did not have the sense to do that. They just bowed to other countries’ will and let a golden opportunity pass. Today the rest of the world is wending its way to Tripoli, and Malta can only look on with envy.
Mr Grima writes that “all that Malta got out of this (the official visit by the President) was being mentioned over and over again in the world’s press as the only Western country that had not pulled out of the celebrations along with the other European leaders”.
Why should Malta care for the “world’s press” and ape “the other European leaders”. Those other leaders lead powerful countries, though they, too, today are licking Libya’s boots. Look at Gordon Brown and the al-Megrahi fiasco. Mr Brown can afford to stay away because of the power Britain still wields, but in spite of the lingering power, Britain still feels it has to go with begging bowl in hand to the Libyans – that is why the al-Megrahi fiasco happened.
Mr Grima should mock the Nationalists for not making any headway in their relations with Libya, not the President for being snubbed. The public relations disaster was not the President’s but the Nationalist government’s, and through our government, our very own.
In his short-sightedness, or his ignorant appreciation of the situation, Mr Grima does not seem to realise that.
Mr Grima also shows his true colours when he commented the way he did on the setting up of Air Malta and referred to “the old Labour boast on how it set up the national airline as if there had been no other way”.
I am sure that if the Nationalists had been in power then, they would have found other ways of setting up Air Malta. And with Eddie Fenech Adami, those ways would have been extravagantly expensive, though not one iota more successful. Because let us face it, Air Malta is a huge asset and we owe it all to Labour which, when it was booted out, left money in the national coffers.
When Joseph Muscat takes the helm, come the next election, he will have to face the huge, frightening debts the Nationalists have run up, and which threaten to sink us. I wonder why Dr Muscat bothers.
Marija Falzon
BIRKIRKARA