Due to my professional attachment and sense of loyalty, it took me a very long time to realise the blatant opportunistic and deceiving character of Evarist Bartolo. In a Facebook post replete with lies and disinformation, the ex-Foreign Affairs Minister is complaining about the Royal Air Force using Cyprus as a base to unblock the Red Sea from the Houthi and Iranian terrorist militias. He says that this should be a warning for us Maltese not to join NATO and decries those Maltese individuals who want Malta to join NATO. Evarist Bartolo’s comments come as Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan condemns the attacks.
Apart from being superficial and infantile in his world-views, yet pretending that he has some knowledge of worldly affairs (Varist is a teacher with pretences of being a “media expert” and also a University lecturer without any qualifications or relevant history), he also thinks he is a historian.
In 2020, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, Varist behaved like a Turkish tool, and at one point, when Turkey wanted to land its troops in Libya, Evarist Bartolo gave the go-ahead for the Turkish navy to pass through Maltese waters in exchange for patrolling the Maltese maritime border. His action breached a long-held custom and tradition to outsource and coordinate national security work with the French Security Services. Evarist Bartolo went on to strengthen his relationship with the Turkish government and today he is also an occasional guest to Turkey by the Turkish government in conferences and whatnot. He also put at risk Malta’s financial and national security by supporting the sale of Maltese passports to Russian oligarchs after Russia invaded Ukraine – a position which the Maltese government was forced to retract by the EU Commission. Varist is the last person who could preach about neutrality and military protocol.
As for the actual historical details, which he seems to be completely ignorant, Malta has been used as a base by various powers during the past decades and recent history. US naval ships involved in the Iraq War of 2003 passed through Malta, the French security services used Malta as a coordination base in NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011, and Russian warships even used to dock freely in Malta at Palumbo’s shipyards during Joseph Muscat’s administrations. British and US naval ships heading to their operations against ISIS also docked and harboured in Malta. But Evarist Bartolo, who today is a volunteer spokesperson for the Erdogan Turkish government, is concerned about neutrality because the RAF jets leaving Cyprus are hitting terrorist militias. Varist is the last person who should speak about neutrality.
Malta does not need to be in NATO to be used as a base. The Houthis in Yemen are a terrorist group who control a minority of the population and are not the legitimate government of Yemen. The UK does not need to request permission from the Cypriot government to use its base either – it’s considered their domain with their exclusive use (they are considered as Sovereign Base Areas as regulated by the Treaty of Establishment). In addition, the Greek Cypriots are mostly supportive of the British presence because it serves as a security guarantee against Turkey which practically rules the Eastern side of Cyprus.
No one in Malta is as of yet proposing to join NATO, but its consideration should be made in a wide and sensible discussion to understand our current risks and security situation. Even if Malta is not used as a base by anyone, it still has many security and defence vulnerabilities and basically, it can still be attacked by a belligerent nation. If you look closely at the fundamentals of history, Russia has attacked and invaded, so far, Georgia and Ukraine, both of which are not members of NATO. You have to be adamantly stupid or a tool of foreign interests to refuse to accept that the NATO deterrent has worked.
Now, refusing NATO membership would mean as a sovereign nation that we should have our own defence capabilities, but of course, this will not be accepted by someone who is a guest at pro-Erdogan events and scaremongers about NATO. You can’t have the national interest at heart if you are outsourcing your defence capabilities to an autocrat who is an ally of terrorists, and war criminals and is waging belligerent wars himself. Varist is insane and completely delusional.
In the end, this is ultimately about a terrorist group sponsored by Iran that has closed the entrance to the Red Sea, disrupted the world’s supply chains, and caused skyrocketing freight prices. If the Red Sea is not unblocked by the UK and US navies, ordinary people would be at risk of suffering once again skyrocketing prices of goods. But, no, it’s a problem if the RAF uses Cyprus as a base because of neutrality, and peace, and also Gaza and because Free Palestine, and I am a guest of honour in Turkey.
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Historian and Publisher
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