“Government should seek to take appropriate and opportune steps to ensure that the state reconciles with the family of the assassinated journalist in order to start healing the serious and traumatic wound that the country went and is still going through”. This was the Caruana Galizia inquiry’s final recommendation.

Instead, Prime Minister Robert Abela contemptuously organised a Labour Party political event for today, the 5th anniversary of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s brutal assassination.

Nobody expected Prime Minister Abela to call a national day of mourning in memory of the journalist. Nobody expected him to attend any of the multiple activities to celebrate Daphne’s life, courage and defiance. Everybody knows it’s beyond the Prime Minister to show any compassion towards the journalist or her family. He’s long voiced his open hostility and disdain towards them.  The Caruana Galizia family, Robert Abela accused, is more interested in “their repugnance for their country” than finding those criminally responsible for her assassination. He accused the family of using their access to the investigation for “their political agenda”.

Such cold callousness has become expected. But for Abela to organise a political event on the very day of the 5th anniversary of her brutal assassination is unconscionable.

That Abela fails to make even the smallest gesture of reconciliation towards the family on that 5th anniversary is not suprising. To manifest his utter contempt and disrespect towards her memory is beyond belief.

Instead of finally grabbing the opportunity to start repairing the deep chasms that have rent our society apart since that horrifying crime, Abela entrenches his position of hostility and antagonism.  Abela’s decision to hold a partisan political event on her anniversary sends a clear message.  Abela will continue with his confrontational approach, he will continue to steamroll over everybody, he will continue to ignore all calls, both national and international, to implement the recommendations of the Caruana Galizia inquiry.

Abela keeps pushing his lie that his government immediately undertook “broad and inclusive consultations to ensure a swift and timely implementation of the public inquiry recommendations”. That particular lie was a declaration of intent - “we are going to lie to your face and we are going to punish anyone who calls it a lie”. That is what Abela is doing.  He is denigrating, discrediting and attacking all those critics who have called on him to allow proper public consultation before ramming through his deficient legislation.  He declared that criticism of his legislation “is being pushed by those who entered the Nationalist Party through the back door”.

He shot down criticism that there had been no public consultation, brandishing his meeting with the Caruana Galizia family as proof of his “broad and inclusive consultations”.  He wrote to Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic claiming that his meetings with the Institute of Maltese Journalists (IGM) and international organisations such as Article 19 were proof of that public consultation.

Daphne Caruana Galizia’s parents have been suffering in silence for 5 years.  But Abela’s dishonest and manipulative claims spurred them to publish a rare statement. They could not stomach Abela’s lie that he had held broad public consultation.  In their dignified politeness they called for a process of reform that is “transparent, effective and fully open to public scrutiny and participation”.  “It is disturbing that the government has to be reminded that every citizen has the right to participate in reforms,” her parents wrote. The government won’t achieve truly effective reforms by “drafting laws in secret” they insisted.  “Reforms should be implemented transparently, preceded by a period of public consultation that should not be rushed for the sake of political expediency” they added.

The IGM, which Abela boasted he had continuously consulted, was livid. They threatened to walk away from the media reform committee and called on Abela to withdraw the media reform draft law and instead publish a white paper. They protested that the government failed to open meaningful consultation” and urged Abela to hold “the widest possible consultation”.

Article 19 who Robert Abela mentioned to justify his fictitious claim that he held “broad and inclusive consultations”, were similarly compelled to issue a hard hitting statement. “One year on from the publication of the public inquiry report and almost five years since the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, we once again urge the Government of Malta to live up to its international obligations and implement the recommendations of the Board’s report… in a transparent manner without further delay and in full consultation with all stakeholders”.

Robert Abela tried to use the Caruana Galizia family, IGM and Article 19 to bolster his lies.  All three have categorically and decisively called him out. They’re not going to let Abela use them for his deception.

100 journalists, activists, artists and academics wrote to the PM imploring him to hold public consultations. The Platform for the Protection of Journalism and Safety of journalists expressed concern about Abela’s proposed media reform laws and flagged them as a Level 2 threat to media freedom. They criticised the proposals for failing to incorporate the recommendations of the OSCE and media freedom organisations. Everybody is telling Abela to change course.

Instead of stepping back from the precipice, Abela ploughs on with his distortion. Even when numerous stakeholders openly contradict his lies, he perseveres.  The truth no longer matters to him. Reality is negotiable.  Abela is deliberately degrading our democracy.

Democracy is what Daphne Caruana Galizia fought for.  She knew that truth is the foundation of democracy. Abela knows it too, which is why he’s intent on twisting it.  Democracy can’t work when you can’t distinguish true from false.

Five years after her liquidation, Robert Abela is still engaged in a fierce battle with Daphne Caruana Galizia.  As more filthy revelations confirm Caruana Galizia’s truths, Abela retaliates by undermining, concealing and distorting those truths. 

Robert Abela hasn’t yet learnt the lesson that not even a devastating bomb blast can silence the truth.  His distorted machinations won’t silence Daphne.