Hunting U-turn unjust, says Sant

Labour leader Alfred Sant yesterday called the government's decision to end the spring hunting season an unjust U-turn and said that law-abiding hunters had suffered because of the few "who were left to do as they pleased".

The spring hunting season was brought to an abrupt end on Thursday after dozens of protected birds were killed by hunters. Police also made several arrests.

According to Dr Sant, however, the sudden decision showed that the government was not serious in its approach. While punishments for people who hunt down protected species had been made more severe on paper, there had been no proper enforcement.

"The Gozo Ministry, for instance, insisted with the police that there should be no clampdown on hunters," Dr Sant claimed. He told MLP supporters in Mellieha that the government's decision would not have been necessary had hunters been kept at bay through proper enforcement.

Dr Sant said the MLP believed that the European Union's rules and the agreement reached between Malta and the EU on hunting and trapping had to be observed while fully respecting, however, the Maltese tradition. He did not explain what he meant by this.

He said the government did not seem to want to bear responsibility for anything and was under the impression that it could play tricks and deceive people. An example of this was Saturday's announcement that the land formerly chosen for a golf course would now be turned into a nature park.

According to Dr Sant, it was simply ironic that it had been Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi himself to announce the golf course with much pomp two years ago. After choosing Xaghra l-Hamra in the limits of Ghajn Tuffieha, and getting the Malta Environment and Planning Authority to endorse the project, the government had thrown away tens of thousands of liri. Now it was trying to find a way out.

Referring to delays in roadworks on the St Paul's Bay bypass, Dr Sant said it was unacceptable that officials at the Malta Transport Authority (ADT) were not accountable for the delays despite being the best paid among public authorities.

The government was also playing around with the livelihood of the Valletta Monti hawkers, Dr Sant said.

He challenged the government to express itself clearly if it did not want a market in Valletta, asking who the authorities were trying to please by moving the hawkers from the place they occupied in Merchants Street before access to cars was restricted in the capital.

Dr Sant also condemned the destruction of pine saplings by vandals in Mellieha earlier this week, calling the act "senseless and shocking".

A Labour delegation which included the two deputy leaders, Charles Mangion and Michael Falzon, went on site yesterday afternoon. Dr Sant promised that the party would give a donation towards the restoration of the site.

Earlier, speaking of Dr Falzon's outburst in Rabat last Sunday, Dr Mangion said the Nationalists had spent a whole week inventing stories about the Labour Party.

Dr Falzon's emotional address to MLP supporters came after he received an anonymous e-mail and letter from "within the party", a matter which he reported to the police.

Dr Mangion said the case was now closed and denied that there had been any infighting in the Labour administration, stressing that Dr Sant, Dr Falzon and he were "shoulder to shoulder" and focused on winning the next election.

Dr Sant did not mention the matter in his speech.

In a statement later, the Nationalist Party said Dr Sant's silence could in no way hide the trouble and deep rift which existed within the Labour Party.

The PN said the rift was more serious than the internal trouble that faced the party in 1995, which came out in the open when Labour came to government with Dr Sant as Prime Minister.

Despite the fact that Dr Sant was trying to give the impression that it was business as usual in the party administration, it was a fact that within Labour there was trouble between two factions.

Whereas in 1995, the MLP had managed to keep the trouble under wraps until the party was elected to government, this time round it had exploded to such an extent that the deputy leader had asked the Police Commissioner to investigate a number of people.