One of the traits of a psychopath that is also applied by authoritarian regimes is to blame the victim for the aggression inflicted upon them. Jeremy Camilleri, a previous trade unionist with the General Workers’ Union and currently a public official on the government’s payroll went on Jon Mallia’s podcast and alleged numerous lies to portray me as an opportunist. Jeremy didn’t say I am an opportunist, but that’s what he implied as he said that “I started a war against the Labour Party” after I lost my position as a government executive.
So, now, Jeremy is taking the position of the Labour purist who believes that ex-Labour Party activists who criticise the Party and the government today have no legitimacy whatsoever. We, those who have been purged from the government and the Party understand Jeremy’s words very well, only that we would have never expected that it would be him, among of all people to take such a position. So much for the “independent socialist”. Basically, Jeremy is telling us that the Labour Party is telling us to go fuck ourselves. We know how the Labour leadership feel about us. Yet, my bet is that Labour will be hitting the ground running out of office as soon as the demographic changes the paradigm (sooner than later), so I and other dissidents are not very bothered about how Labour perceives us.
I am not happy that I have to bring back the traumatic episodes I have been through, but I feel compelled to, once again, bore my readers with my story, simply to state the facts as they are, and not as the Labour Party wants to deliver them. And I am quite shocked, honestly that Jeremy would have the cheek to go on Jon Mallia’s podcast and brazenly lie about what happened to me. You see, Jeremy and I were friends, but Jeremy stopped speaking to me altogether after Robert Abela took over the Labour Party. At that time he also unfriended me on Facebook. The thing is that after Robert Abela took over the Party, many knew very well that Robert Abela’s intentions were to purge his critics, so, literally, the minute that Robert Abela took over the party, many previous friends of mine cut off contact from me either gradually or immediately. Jeremy is one of my previous friends who dissociated himself from me out of cowardice and pure opportunistic reasons. Another previous friend who chose to dissociate himself from me after Robert Abela took power was Evarist Bartolo, my previous employer. After Robert Abela took over I was completely isolated from the Party and all alone. I sent formal emails to Robert Abela requesting to meet him, doing the right thing as a government executive despite the fact that I campaigned against him in the leadership race. Robert Abela went on record in an interview with Reno Bugeja saying he wanted to meet me. In reality, Robert Abela never replied to my emails. I was very well aware at that time that he was lying and that I was going to lose my job. I was fired twice from my job and stayed on in my job with the support of my stakeholders until my contract expired.
I never started a war against the Labour Party. Why would I? I love the Labour Party and I loved my job and my life. I had everything going for me. I was also very active in the Labour Party and loved doing a lot of voluntary work in the community, in the library and in the archives. I imagined I would stay in the Labour Party for the rest of my life, living in my tiny house in Senglea until I die. When Daphne Caruana Galizia was bombed, I was not only compelled to speak out but it was my duty. I was the executive chairman of the National Book Council and the law obliges the executive chairman of the National Book Council to speak in favour of authors and publishers. By speaking out against government corruption and criminal conspiracies which surrounded Daphne’s murder, I was literally fulfilling my role and public duty as the Executive Chairman of the National Book Council.
In the Summer of 2019, a mutual friend of mine and Joseph Muscat visited me in Senglea and brought me a message. Joseph Muscat was willing to offer me an ambassadorship. The request was indecent and had dishonest aims, so I rejected the offer. By then, I knew that the government wasn’t happy to have me around. Back then someone had started a war against free speech and killed a journalist. My position was strictly and always consistently against those who started the war against us journalists, writers and publishers. When in November 2019 we knew who was allegedly involved in Daphne’s murder, I did my public duty and spoke against my own Prime Minister. I cancelled the National Book Prize at the Office of the Prime Minister and when the ceremony opened the following year at the President’s Palace I dedicated my speech to justice for Daphne.
I kept speaking on justice for Daphne despite pressure from many Labour sources telling me that I should stay silent. I received many threats that I was going to be fired. I kept speaking up. Contrary to Jeremy Camilleri’s lies, I never ever committed myself to staying silent. The corrupt Minister of Education, Justyne Caruana, once found a small weakness in me and tried to fire me over it: I made some insults in public to Yorgen Fenech’s lawyer. I was forced to apologise for my insults, but I never committed to staying silent. Lies and deceit.
When my contract expired they humiliated me on purpose. After eight years of public service, getting paid a salary that was not at all equivalent to other government executives, I was literally asked to hand my keys to the employees – the same employees I trained and employed over the years (the Council was empty when I entered office). I was not allowed to take my belongings from the office and I was locked out of my email immediately without being given the opportunity to remove my personal data. As per protocol, executives are supposedly given 30 days before their email is shut down – mine was shut down immediately. In my email, I accidentally saved a lot of personal information in my drafts folder, such as the personal addresses of my property abroad. The Ministry of Education back then hired a contractor who worked for the Maltese security service, copied all of my emails and gave it to the Ministry. I know who is the person who has been contracted to do this job as well. I was never under investigation about anything and this move was done deliberately and forcefully without any official authorisations.
In order to choose my replacement, the then corrupt permanent secretary, Frank Fabri, called up his friends at the Office of the Prime Minister and literally told them
“I have a good Labourite who is a deputy headmaster who is also named Mark Camilleri. Let’s make him the Executive Chairman so that the National Book Council will still have Mark Camilleri as chairman.” The officials at Castile were laughing and spreading this joke like wildfire and in a couple of days, everyone was joking that I was not fired, but only changed into a different and more submissive form. My replacement has no experience whatsoever working in the book industry and is basically dismantling my legacy.
My successor revealed quite clearly what he and Labour’s top brass think of me in a conversation he was having with Labour’s pseudo-intellectuals. I am known and described by Labour’s top brass and Labour’s pseudo-intellectuals as the “exile” not in the tragic sense, of course, but in a derogative sense. Basically, I am shamed by the Executive Chairman of the National Book Council for having to look after my own security after Labour began a perpetual war against journalists.
After I lost my job, I kept doing what I have always done and work in publishing. I started my own publishing house. Currently, the National Book Council discriminates against my publishing house in the most flagrant manner and is doing its best to support and finance all my competitors in the industry at my own expense. I have a case in court against the National Book Council in a related manner, but as I am constantly humiliated by being refused subsidies which are then given to my competitors and other book industry stakeholders, I am compelled to fork out more money from my personal funds to take the National Book Council to court to address the material damages I am being inflicted upon. This is what I have to deal with it on a daily basis whilst reliving my traumas of the past, constantly as I try to access public finance and resources which I can not access simply because of who I am and my past.
Yet, Jeremy has the gall to go on record to say I started a war against the Labour Party.
No, Jeremy, you have it all wrong. I never started a war against the Party I loved, I am only defending myself and it will be in my ultimate security interest that the Labour Party no longer remains in power. And I can also say that it is very hard for me to fight against something which I had previously loved. I wish things were different but here we are.
I could have been an opportunist. I could have taken care of myself, taken an ambassadorship and fucked off to Latin America. I literally had this option one mobile message away. I stayed, instead. I left only when they made it impossible for me to stay.
Fuck you Jeremy and go suck a dick. Fucking coward.
Rispett kbir lejk Mark. Jien li kbirt niddefendi lil Sant il-Junior College ma naraf xejn socjalist f’dan il-gvern.
Thank you for setting the record straight. Some of us are interested in the facts.
Stay strong Mr Camilleri. Time is on your side. We may be a minority but we are on your side. There are many socialists who voted labour in the past but are now disappointed and cannot find any common socialist ground with the present PL as it is.
Who the fuck is Jeremy Camilleri?? In conformity with what Benny wrote..there are many diehard socialists who militated, risked their lives and livelihood and always voted labour up to now, who are disillusioned with the current state of the Labour party and the Government. The Labour partyhas been rendered dysfunctional and doomed to remain so even when it finds itself in opposition.