The Ornis committee (OC), composed of "unscientific" people to give "scientific" advice, is dead. The OC's first chairman was Saviour Balzan, who calls Maltese hunters "troglodytes" or cavemen. If the "bargaining" he carried out with the EU on hunting was equalled by his knowledge of troglodytes, that explains the present debacle over Maltese hunting.

What is certain about the caveman is that he was an artist. The paintings in the caves were drawn by an artistic hand, the hand of prehistoric man. A billion apes in a billion years could never create the art in those caves. Some 21st century humans imagine themselves to have evolved from apes. To judge by some "modern" art, they could be right. One specimen, a Gozitan from New York, displayed his "art" (a toilet behind bars) in Malta's museum of fine arts. True descendants of the troglodytes, however, recognise art immediately they see it, and throw what is not art into the rubbish bin. One such, a cleaner-woman, did just that to an "artwork" in the "enlightened" city of London.

Even name-calling, by people with superficial, bigoted minds, is not what it seems.

Mr Balzan would also deny Maltese hunters the right to hunt birds. Thankfully the EU is wiser and speaks of "the right to hunt birds". When politicians promise people retention of their rights, people take them at their word. When politicians do not keep their word, people turn against them. The Maltese government promised both publicly and privately in writing to each individual hunter that traditional spring shooting and trapping would continue even after Malta's accession to the European Union. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can ever change that truth. On March 7, 2007 thousands of hunters and trappers protested in Valletta against the government's breach of its promises. The hunters and trappers sense that the government's intention is to erode their rights gradually. The hunters and trappers have seen through the ploy and are determined to fight for their rights. The Minister for the Environment and his abolitionist lackeys have shortened the spring shooting season and banned songbird trapping and shooting at sea in spring.

The FKNK will never stop fighting against such injustice. The FKNK asks for nothing more than the retention of hunters' and trappers' rights. "No more and no less" to quote the present Prime Minister! The rope to hang the hunters is actually around the Environment Minister's neck, if he persists in allowing the fundamentalists to dictate.

No amount of ifs, buts, fact-twisting, partial truths, political spin, media manipulation, anti-hunting petitions, and childish absurd arguments by correspondents of The Times, will, or indeed can, ever change one iota of what was promised to hunters and trappers by the politicians.

One final thing. As a Maltese and EU citizen I always believed that my sovereignty as such, lies in my vote. So I never thought I would see the day when any politician, let alone a Prime Minister, would ever state anything in disrespect of votes. I therefore felt disgusted and offended, to say the least, when the day following the Valletta protest, I heard Dr Gonzi from Brussels state in a few angry words that he did not care much about my vote because I am a hunter and a trapper. Very sad indeed.

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