Despite the fall-out between Robert Abela and Joseph Muscat, it doesn’t mean that Robert Abela will fix the institutions that he broke, namely the Police and the Attorney-General’s Office, to ensure that justice will be done. Now, Robert Abela may not be trying any new bold moves to protect Joseph Muscat either, as that responsibility also falls on his trusted confidant and Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri.
The institutions will remain broken and complicit in organised crime because this situation, apart from serving Robert Abela himself, is also essential to how the Labour Party operates today: as a criminal organization. The Attorney-General will still try to prevent the arraignment and prosecution of Christian Borg (the drug-dealer who washed his money with Robert Abela), and the Police will still refuse to pro-actively investigate corrupt Labour Party politicians (unless prompted, of course, by the Office of the Prime Minister as in the case of Silvio Grixti).
Entrusted with keeping this dysfunction in the authorities is the Home Affairs Minister himself, Byron Camilleri, who by now has become a trusted member of Robert Abela’s inner circle and for very obvious reasons. Byron Camilleri’s first stint as a government minister is his current role as Minister for Home Affairs, Law Enforcement and National Security. Quite a leap from being a government whip to handle Malta’s national security and the police at a time during Malta’s biggest political crisis in history. In fact, Byron Camilleri is the least experienced person in Robert Abela’s cabinet as his history can clearly testify.Byron feels grateful that Robert Abela has anointed him to such an important position despite his lack of experience, so today, he serves him uncritically and also criminally by consciously keeping the authorities ineffective.
All the structural problems the police have are not just the responsibility of the Police Commissioner, they are also the result of a lack of political will by political superiors to fix the Police. Now, his complacent and criminal attitude towards our institutions, can be seen from a new perspective as Europe prepares for war. Intentional dysfunction and political cover-up and incompetence at the Home Affairs Ministry is now placing Malta in further risk.
As Europe prepares for war and ramps up its defences, we are still bogged down trying to get rid of organised crime from politics. It is no coincidence that our society can’t have an honest and decent discussion about issues of national security when the government’s first and foremost priority is to behave like a criminal organisation. In other words, it’s very difficult having national security under a mafia state.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
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