When neutrality meets NATO

The commander of the United States Naval Forces Europe-Africa and Allied Joint Force Command, Naples, Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III had spelt out Malta's modern strategic importance to NATO when on an official visit to the island last November.

"With more than 33% of the world merchant traffic passing between Malta and Sicily, and more than 80% of Europe's energy resources travelling near the island nation, Malta's role in maintaining maritime domain awareness is critical," Admiral Locklear said.

Locklear, who has since been promoted to chief of US Pacific Command, was given full military honours and a troop review by Malta's armed forces commander Brigadier Martin Xuereb at the AFM's Luqa barracks.

During his visit to Malta, Admiral Locklear also held meetings with Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and the director for defence matters at the Prime Minister's Office, Vannessa Frazier. Details on what was discussed during the meetings were kept under wraps, but Admiral Locklear's visit to Malta was a follow-up to another high-profile unannounced appearance of a full uniformed NATO commander: US Admiral James Stavridis, Supreme Allied Commander Europe and also the US European Command's top commander.

Admiral Stravidis visited Malta in June 2011 at the height of the Libyan uprising, practically 90 days after NATO launched its attack on Col. Gaddafi's troops.

When landing, Stavridis tweeted praise to what he described as: "Malta's superb help to NATO w/emergency landings & airspace & response to refugees as Libya ops continue."

His talks with Prime Minister Gonzi focused on the Libya campaign, and later told the media in Valletta that he was "very happy with the US engagement with Malta" during the campaign on Libya.

Pentagon cash

Two months after, when the going got tough with Libya, the guided-missile destroyer USS Carney spent four days in the Grand Harbour, while the Pentagon announced that same week in August that it was sending US$25 million in military equipment, small boats and other assistance to Tunisia and Malta.

In its news wire dispatch announcing the Pentagon's financial vote for Malta and Tunisia, the Associated Press commented that the money was being sent to nations that "flank Libya and are key allies in the tumultuous region".

Six days before Gaddafi was captured and killed, NATO signed an air corridors agreement with the Transitional National Council of Libya in Malta. During the preceding seven months, all the air traffic NATO allowed over Libya was being coordinated from Malta.

The signing took place at the Hilton during a conference which grouped air traffic controllers from Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Nato and Malta. Libyan Provisional Government Transport Minister Anwar El Feitori signed for Libya and Lt General Ralph J. Jodice for NATO.

In December the same year, the AFM hosted more than 100 naval and coast guard representatives from several countries for workshops to begin the week-long Eurasia Partnership Capstone 2011 conference, co-hosted by Commander, Armed Forces of Malta and Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa, and Commander, U.S. 6th Fleet.

Silence

But while the international campaign that ousted Col. Gaddafi seemingly bolstered Malta's relations with NATO, when the alliance's most senior figures flew over and met with senior government officials, an eerie silence from the Opposition was deafening.

For months, a variety of NATO planes and naval assets landed or birthed in Malta, all were directly involved in the attacks on Libya. Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Foreign Minister Tonio Borg repeatedly acknowledged Malta's neutrality, and went as far as declaring that on the basis of such a constitutional clause, "Malta was not going to lend its territory as a military base for NATO assets engaged over Libya".

The statement was categorical from both men, but added a proviso: "We are neutral yes, but cannot be neutral to genocide."

Strategically placed at the centre of the Mediterranean, Malta served as a lifeline for humanitarian supplies to Misurata, but also as a coordination centre for 'aiding' the rebels in toppling Col. Gaddafi's 42-year regime.

Operatives and specialist equipment flown in from all over the world was shipped out to Libya from the Grand Harbour camouflaged as 'humanitarian' aid on board chartered fishing boats, whose Captain's were briefed on radio signals to NATO assets, which provided them with maritime and aerial escorts as they approached Libyan waters.

The cause was good. But it also served as a reminder to the country of how a historically obsolete neutrality clause can be over-ridden in many ways.
Perhaps due to alienation, the people and the political class remained silent, or complacent to an unfolding reality, that far from neutral, Malta was becoming increasingly engaged in overseas  military operations.

US embassy cables

The crescendo in NATO interest in Malta went unnoticed, until on 5 September 2011, MaltaToday revealed how US embassy cables which came to light through WikiLeaks showed how the Maltese government spent five years devising a stealthy strategy to reactivate the island's membership in NATO's Partnership for Peace.

With no public pronouncement ever made on his intention to rejoin PfP - after a previous Labour government had withdrawn participation from the programme in 1996 - Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi even informed former US ambassador Molly Bordonaro that he would join PfP if he won the election as early as 31 January 2008 - two months before the general elections.

One of the revealing aspects of the cables is the key role played by Malta's permanent representative to the EU Richard Cachia Caruana in pushing for Malta's entry to NATO's Partnership for Peace, known for his closeness to US affairs.

Since joining the EU in 2004, Cachia Caruana had complained of Malta's inability to attend EU defence meetings, where classified NATO information is discussed, which meant that Maltese officials had to leave the room during such discussions ("something that has been a source of embarrassment for the government since EU accession," Bordonaro notes in one cable).

The cables were out for months, and the media exploited each and every single sentence, but not one word was uttered by the Opposition, until one article was exhumed two weeks ago, linking the US-Malta diplomats conversations with Turkey's quest to join the EU.

Coercion?

In his blog this week, military affairs expert Nick Rozoff wrote about what he described as: 'Malta - a case study in NATO subversion and coercion'. 

Rozoff reconstructed the US cables, and gave them an interpretation in the wake of Labour's call for Cachia Caruana's resignation over what it described as "dragging the island nation back into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's Partnership for Peace programme by circumventing the national parliament".

He argues that Malta had joined PfP in 1995 at a time when NATO used the programme to integrate 12 Eastern European states - Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia - into full membership in the decade beginning in 1999, representing a 75% increase in the bloc's membership.

Partnership for Peace obligations entail joint military exercises and training, visits by leading NATO and US military commanders and naval forces, the creation of NATO bases, training centres and liaison offices, and the deployment of troops for the Alliance's war in Afghanistan, Albania and Croatia were tapped for military contingents for NATO's first Asian war before joining NATO in 2009 and current Partnership for Peace members Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Finland, Georgia, Ireland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Sweden, Switzerland (until 2008) and Ukraine have also supplied troops for the over ten-year-long conflict.

Rozoff says that last week's statement by NATO's Turkish naval Captain Abdulhamit Sener who sailed into the Grand Harbour aboard fleet flagship TGS S. Mehmetpasa, heading NATO's Mine Countermeasure Group 2, that PfP membership does not impinge on a country's neutrality is "a colossal lie," and goes on to say that this only applies to the partnership's other 21 members as fully as it does to Malta.

"As no NATO members or partners, collectively over a third of the nations in the world, will be allowed to withdraw from their commitments, the bloc itself will have to be dissolved, entirely and post-haste," Rozoff claims.

But Malta's abrupt withdrawal from the Partnership for Peace program in 1996 also marked a precedent that has yet to be replicated. It was the first time since NATO's founding 63 years ago that any member or any of its over 40 partners around the world had ever left the alliance or any of its military partnerships.

Despite the fierce opposition by respective populations, as in Iceland in 1949, or lack of support among the populace, as with Greece in 1952, once a country is brought into NATO it never leaves. It is not permitted to leave.
Rozoff says that "the surreptitious strong-arm tactics used by Washington to complete the subordination of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea basin to the military bloc it dominates have been applied to fellow island nation Cyprus, where in February last year the country's opposition parties conspired - in collusion with Brussels and Washington - in the parliament to demand that Cyprus join the Partnership for Peace as well".

Cyprus remains the only European state, excluding five microstates (Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican), that is not a NATO member or partner.

Cyprus is also one of only four Mediterranean nations - in addition to Libya, Syria and Lebanon - that is not a NATO member or partner. Libya, Syria and Lebanon are being eyed for incorporation into NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue partnership.

Cyprus and Malta are the only countries to have joined the European Union since NATO's post-Cold War expansion drive without first having joined NATO: The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined NATO in 1999 and the EU in 2004. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia joined NATO in 2004 and the EU the same year. Bulgaria and Romania joined the military alliance in 2004 also and entered the EU in 2007. NATO is the gateway to the EU and the EU may be considered as "bait to lure erstwhile non-aligned nations into NATO".

Nick Rozoff makes a startling remark as he assesses the situation with Malta and Cyprus.

"The U.S. and NATO intend to correct the two exceptions by using all means fair and foul, mainly foul, to recruit Malta and Cyprus into NATO through the Partnership for Peace mechanism," he says.

Joseph Muscat's Labour Party is accusing Cachia Caruana of conspiring with the US in 2004 to make the nation a potential troop contributor and base provider for NATO wars abroad, stating: "This is manipulation, and goes against democratic principles as it places the interests of a foreign country above ours."

"Although the Labour Party has subsequently 'adjusted' its position toward NATO integration, much like the Scottish National Party's Alex Salmond - who is touted to be on course to deliver NATO its 29th member - it is pursuing what is at least a point of procedure argument that the U.S. and NATO - which preach democracy and wage war - used underhanded methods in bringing its only stray sheep back into the fold," Rozoff concludes.