If the last few weeks of 2024 are an indicator of Labour’s plans for 2025, we’d better brace ourselves. Labour has embarked on a campaign to tarnish the reputation of Jacob Borg, the Times of Malta journalist who relentlessly reports on Labour’s mega-scandals and particularly on Joseph Muscat’s links to them.
Labour attempted to discredit the respected journalist by reporting on its ONE news portal that “messages between Jacob Borg and exponents of the establishment such as Jason Azzopardi were revealed”. That same week, Azzopardi, a fierce critic of Labour’s widespread abuse, was dragged before the court on the most ridiculous of pretexts – allegedly filming the prime minister and his justice minister using his phone for four full seconds.
Robert Abela’s actions smack of desperation. They’re the final frantic attempts to retain the power he can feel slipping rapidly through his fingers. The dramatic events in Syria might have brought the fragility of power rudely to his attention, exacerbating his panic.
But if there’s a lesson to be learnt from Bashar al-Assad, it’s that, no matter how severe the repression, how extensive the lies and propaganda, how brutal the torture, how rampant the disappearance of critics, the end will come, faster than you can imagine. If anything, the more ruthless and callous the tyrant behaved while in power, the faster he had to run for his life.
Those garages packed full of luxury vehicles – Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Maseratis – served him little.
The luxury brand items – the Louboutin shoes, the Louis Vuitton bags, the Hermes scarves – bought using funds plundered from the state, were worthless to the fleeing dictator and his wife.
Their billion-dollar palace and their multiple luxury properties counted for nothing. Even the might of Vladimir Putin’s military couldn’t save him. In the end, he had nowhere to go – only Russia would take him. Not even Iran was safe. Assad must be thanking his lucky stars that he managed to get out in time.
Assad isn’t the only autocrat to abuse his own people for his own ends. He’s not the only dictator to target critics and stifle dissent to preserve his position of power. Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, made a show of his power when he arrested hundreds of members of the royal family at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel where they were intimidated and beaten.
Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul where he was brutally murdered and dismembered for his critical reports about the crown prince. It’s widely believed that Salman ordered the murder, although no evidence linking the crown prince to the murder has been uncovered.
Khashoggi’s violent end may look a world away from our reality. Saudi Arabia might not be Malta. But we have witnessed the horrific dismemberment of a journalist who reported on Labour’s worst excesses, who boldly uncovered the industrial-scale corruption at Labour’s heart. She met the same end.
A public inquiry found that Muscat’s Labour government created the environment that led to the collapse of the rule of law that enabled those intent on eliminating her to execute their plans.
Malta isn’t Putin’s Russia. But the systematic vilification of government critics and adversaries is similarly dangerous and irresponsible- Kevin Cassar
That inquiry found that she had been relentlessly vilified and persecuted by Labour and its leadership.
Labour still desecrates her memory. Abela publicly heaped scorn on the members of the public inquiry board. He obstinately refuses to implement any of its recommendations. He’s resisted introducing the necessary safeguards for journalists that would ensure that those in power are held accountable through adequate access to information.
Now he’s taken a step further. As his support among his cabinet members, his own MPs and the public wanes, Abela is becoming increasingly frantic.
His rhetoric is more vicious, more hostile, more antagonistic. His actions expose his fragility, his insecurity. He’s now resorting to smearing Borg. He’s ordering punitive prosecution of Azzopardi on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Abela’s abhorrent tactics are no different from those of autocrats around the world. Alexei Navalny was imprisoned, poisoned and then murdered for exposing Putin’s corruption. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, another Kremlin critic, was arrested on trumped-up charges of fraud and tax evasion. His assets were seized and his company broken up.
Boris Berezovsky, who dared criticise Putin, was mysteriously found dead in his flat near London. Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was blown up in a plane for challenging Putin. Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in the elevator of her own apartment for her journalistic work.
Malta isn’t Putin’s Russia. But the systematic vilification of government critics and adversaries is similarly dangerous and irresponsible. The targeting of journalist Borg is reprehensible. So vile was Labour’s assault on the journalist that even the French news outlet Mediapart was compelled to issue a statement condemning the ruling party’s “manipulation” of their report.
Carine Fouteau, the president and publishing editor of Mediapart, denounced the Labour Party media for “attacking individual journalists”. Mediapart condemned the malicious and dishonest weaponisation of its article to serve a political agenda and to attack press freedom.
Labour is using the same tactics they used with Daphne Caruana Galizia. Their news report included an image of Borg intended solely to intimidate him. Borg’s work exposed the millions paid by Steward to the Muscat-linked Accutor. He reported on the millions spent by Steward to fund a smear campaign against Chris Fearne and others. He exposed Keith Schembri’s secret links to Impaqt, a consultancy firm that was handed €400,000 in government contracts by Konrad Mizzi. Labour knows that Borg has many enemies for the brilliant work he does. Instead of offering protection, Labour leads a campaign of harassment and intimidation, irresponsibly demonising him and tarnishing his reputation.
We all know where Labour’s vilification of Caruana Galizia led to. Abela knows it too. Instead of reining in ONE news, he wields it as a weapon of intimidation, revenge and vengeance.
As we celebrate the new year, let us not forget that one family still grieves for their mother, daughter, sister and wife and still waits for justice.
Abela should take the opportunity of the new year to step back from the dangerous path he’s chosen and remember what’s just happened 2,000km to our east. Those massive crowds cheering and celebrating the downfall of their hated leader should make him think.
Kevin Cassar is a professor of surgery.