Dear Owen, Dear Roderick

Hope you are both well and enjoying your well deserved Sunday.

But if this open letter does indeed disrupt your English breakfast – my Sundays are usually screwed by all the awful news that I have to read in the press.  Most Sundays are taken up answering phone calls from irate politicians. 

I have to admit that I pray for the day when I can disconnect myself from all the mediocrity around me. I am sure you feel the same.

This week you, Owen, announced a public consultation to discuss the disgraceful proposal to have the local council elections put off from 2015 to 2019.

You spoke of voter fatigue and saving money.

These were your main excuses. 

You will not agree that they are excuses.

Allow me to explain why they are nothing but over-blown excuses.

As we both know, the real reason for bringing this back on the agenda is because you, or rather your very pro-hunting Prime Minister, Dr Joseph Muscat, wants to scuttle any chances of a successful turnout for the spring hunting referendum. Muscat does not like birds, which do not have a vote. He prefers hunters, who do.

He knows that voter turnout will determine whether the hunting referendum is won or lost.

To have it his way, he has masterminded the postponement of the local elections.

I am told that the real cost for the local elections is €700,000 and not two million. Even if the latter were so, democracy, it should be remembered, does not have a price. And in this case anyway, the price is far, far less than the €4.2 million paid to bail out the failed Café Premier businessmen.

But if cost is a real concern, then the very fact that the referendum is being held anyhow in 2015 should encourage the government to save some money and combine the administrative costs with the local elections.

But arguing with you, dear Owen, is rather useless. We know that your Prime Minister wants to derail the referendum process because he believes in appeasing Lino Farrugia et al and does not want to lose the hunting lobby’s vote.

The environment is not a priority for this Labour government. It never has been, for the Labour party. It is a pity, because social democracy is not all about making money, and more money.

Muscat is a successful and calculating politician, he knows that the vast majority of Maltese are against hunting but that going out to vote in a referendum to do something about it would be seen as too much of an effort. Which fits rather well with what the hunters would want: hunters, after all, have everything to lose in such a referendum.

To hunters, hunting is more important than everything else. So much so, that they remain the sole and only voter segment that votes on ‘one issue’.

The PN has of course objected to any changes to the local council dates without making any reference to hunting, and I would imagine that you (Owen) could be slightly more receptive. But once again, with a nine-seat majority, you really can get away with murder (metaphorically that is).

You believe that you have the moral authority to steamroll over everyone. That is the impression I have.

Let us face it, who would have imagined that the Prime Minister would ignore all internal criticism within his own party and employ Austin Gatt’s cousin, Lou Bondi, for the handsome sum of far over 50k. And not because Mr Bondi is some great innovator but simply because, as we all know, Mr Bondi’s political nuisance value has a price.

Since we are on the subject of spending and money it would not be a bad idea to turn to you dear Roderick, and ask you why you found it so necessary to offer a 116,000 euro contract to a private company (ECOSERV) to monitor the migration of quail and turtle dove from September until October of this year.

What a bloody waste of money!

The company, owned by a certain Joe Borg, renowned for his ‘studies’ on fisheries and tuna farming, will be handing in monitoring data which is really already available, seeing that BirdLife already have so much of it, and birders in the field, and can provide the information for free.

But of course, Mr Roderick Galdes does not want BirdLife reports. He wants to prove to the EU that hunting in spring is justified and therefore wants an ‘independent’ study. 

It would be interesting to see who Joe Borg’s company has enlisted as birders and how much he is in fact paying these ‘independent birders’ and for what. And what fieldwork they are in fact carrying out. And I hope for the love of dear God that the birders enlisted by Mr Borg are not a posse of anti-BirdLife birders.

In my long years of birding I have yet to hear of bird monitoring over four to five weeks that cost €116K. It is a bloody scandal!

Allow me, Owen, to turn to a completely different qualm – perhaps a more serious one.

You may have heard about the catechist who was accused by a young boy of sexual abuse. The M.U.S.E.U.M catechist was charged with defiling the 10-year-old.

The 46-year-old school assistant head and treasurer of the Society of Christian Doctrine (M.U.S.E.U.M) was dragged to Kordin after pleading not guilty to corrupting and defiling the boy at Bahar ic-Caghaq last Sunday.

Anthony Callus, of Siggiewi, was swimming at Bahar ic-Caghaq during a M.U.S.E.U.M event. At some point in time, it was alleged, Callus “grabbed the 10-year-old boy from his waist and lifted him out of the water” – which, according to the prosecution, then led to the accused “slightly brushing the boy’s genitalia”.  Callus has pleaded not guilty to harassment, violent indecent assault, and offending public morals.

Sources close to the case said that the boy was lifted from a deep part of the sea before he fell back in. The accused then lifted the boy again, and the boy perceived this as being tantamount to indecent assault.

Inspector Josric Mifsud told the court that when lifting the boy from the sea, the accused allegedly “used his legs to hold the boy in such a way that the man’s genitals were behind the boy’s buttocks.”

Defence lawyer Arthur Azzopardi explained to the court that both his client as well as the alleged victim agree on the version of events, but insisted that while the victim perceived the action as one “leading to abuse,” the accused did not.

“The accused merely helped the boy come out of the water, and the boy perceived this as leading to abuse and indecent assault. Both the alleged victim and my client agree on the sequence of events, but on his part, the boy is saying that his genitalia were brushed by the accused,” Dr Azzopardi has said.

Magistrate Giovanni Grixti denied the request for bail and remanded Callus in custody!

Now, dear Owen, I would suggest you turn to your cabinet colleagues and inform them that from now on, any perceived brushing of genitalia between themselves could lead to some serious legal repercussions. No joking and grabbing of the testicles please.

Oh, please dear Owen, is this really happening!

I do not know Mr Callus, I have never met him or seen him. But I smell a rat. 

I was also a teacher and a youth leader and thank God we did not have this ‘child abuse’ paranoia. 

Anyone who has children or works with young children knows where the level of intimacy becomes unacceptable. 

I remember writing one of the first stories about paedophilia in the Maltese press.  That was over 18 years ago. Paedophilia does exist but it is not as silly and ridiculous as brushing genitalia on someone’s buttocks. It is far, far worse and it is very ugly.

The incarceration of Mr Callus comes after the bungled police incarceration of a father for two years.

The home affairs minister and police did not even have the sense to discipline the police inspector who screwed up in this investigation after believing the false testimony of the man’s daughter. 

Two years in prison is a long time.

Mr Callus is in Kordin. 

The law must be changed. 

We need to protect our children from paedophiles, but not everyone is a paedophile and not all priests and religious are paedophiles.

This country goes from blue to red, black to white in shocking record time.

Dear Owen, it would help if, instead of masterminding a plan to put off the people’s referendum, you would work to ensure that those facing serious police investigations and accusations are presumed innocent.

Have a nice Sunday, and I am sure that my moans and groans will not change your way of thinking.

I have been there and seen it, with both Labour and Nationalist administrations.

French journalist Jean Baptist Alphonse Karr said "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose,” when writing on the need to abolish capital punishment.

That was 150 years ago in Paris.

Apparently nothing has changed.