Saviour Balzan on Sunday • 22 September 2002

Finger pointing

It's like playing musical chairs with politicians: you have to watch out you don't get dizzy. Austin Gatt, Minister of Justice smears the magistracy by lambasting the lifestyle of three unspecified magistrates. This newspaper lambasts the Minister for not pinpointing the culprits. Leo Brincat MLP joins the circle alleging Masonic connections among the magistrates. Austin Gatt lambasts Brincat for not being specific. Stop the music. Gatt claims that there isn't a shred of evidence in support of Brincat's claims.

Brincat outrageously claims that it would be "unethical" to name names. Gatt outrageously claims that the allegations of freemasonry in the judiciary are far-fetched and unwarranted.

His only excuse is that as far as the media is concerned, the only member who to have a connection with freemasonry is Carol Peralta.

I will not bore our readers with the details, we should leave the details of such a revelation to an in depth report, but suffice it to say that some years back the same magistrate decided that I was better off 24 hours at Kordin. I had refused to pay a Lm5 fine (equivalent to a parking ticket)

The fine was translated into one day of imprisonment. Arriving at Kordin it was decided that I would be better off at the Valletta lockup.

Being younger, and more abrasive I had joined Joe Azzopardi, Toni Abela and several others in a protest at Ta’ Cenc.

Being the country we are, the people, the press, the opposition and all the kings horses and all the king's men were satisfied when the Prime Minister gave us all his personal assurance that no judge or magistrate, including Carol Peralta, was a freemason.

He simply took Dr Peralta’s word and we were expected to take it secondhand.

Conveniently, he ignored the evidence published in the newspapers; Alternattiva and il-Helsien. A less impotent media would not have allowed this PM or any PM to get away with such a ripoff.

Then again, Carol Peralta was in the press for his business and social exploits, not only for his custodianship of the society of secret's premises at Villa Blye, Paola. The authorities chose to be deaf, dumb and stupid about it all. Now they have the gall to have us believe that it did not even exist. “Colleague Lou Bondi who has had the honour of being declared persona non grata at The Times recently interviewed me for his Tuesday TV programme urging me to name names.

Being the big mouth I am, I have complied.

Now God help me if I have to face Magistrate Peralta in Court. Back to Dr Gatt, an affable fellow by all means who has more pluses than minuses and who is definitely a doer. How would he react if I, or anyone else, would suggest that all government ministers are upright fellows apart from three that is? What if we stood on the high moral ground and swept our cape over the drunk and disorderly conduct of magistrates out on the tiles at Paceville in the small hours of the morning? What if we just pooh poohed his moral outrage and buried it for a decade?George Jnr.

If George Bush junior gets his way, expect the worst.

I have problems with Maltese politicians who go all soft whenever the question of raising concern about US policies is raised.

What is worrying them, the patrol boat freebie that will be donated to Malta later this year? Every country has its price?

I don't expect Maltese politicians to have the gall that German Social Democrat Minister has shown by equating Bush’s policies with those of Hitler, but for heaven’s sake let us say something.

The US government is irritated at being dumped in the same category of some extreme right wing monstrosities.

Actions speak louder than words and US PR regardless there is no denying that this image is slowly sinking deep into the European perspective.

Bush is raising a posse to lynch Saddam Hussein because he insists that Mr Hussein (a bastard by all means) has a war arsenal that could bring the world down.

Bush and his echo, Blair, have not produced one shred of evidence to prove this. Imagine that the proof was available, what makes other rogue states such as Israel less of a problem? Has anybody proposed bombing Tel Aviv because it doesn't respect UN resolutions? Will the Bush/Blair duo bomb themselves for possessing arms of mass destruction?

We all know that Hussein’s army could not match a stunt team from Hollywood let alone the whole US armed forces.

Bush would like us to forget what happened when his Pops was President.

Remember the Iraqi army, which we led to believe, was invincible? When the international media was let in, all one could see were skinny soldiers, willing to surrender, hungry and poorly armed.

So overwhelming was US victory, that the only fatalities in the Gulf War on the US side came from friendly fire or careless marines. The missiles, the world was led to believe, caused far less damage than a Maltese fireworks factory explosion.

Bush’s folly does not stop here. He has demonised the Palestinian leadership and continues to support Sharon, a war criminal who publicly ignores UN resolutions and has unleashed a new apartheid in Palestine. Sharon can't set foot in Belgium which is obliged to try him for war crimes if ever he comes within its jurisdiction. Bush is authorised by congress to invade The Netherlands if ever a US Citizen is arraigned before the International Criminal Court at The Hague. No kidding.

Hitler, thank God, never was put at the helm of the world's last surviving superpower endowed with the power to burn the world to a crisp several times over.