The spring hunting referendum is “a war and not just a battle” according to hunting lobby which unveiled it’s ‘EU-referendum style’ campaign yesterday.
“This is a war not a battle! We will fight this, because if not then we would have lost a substantial chunk of our hobby and not just a small part,” Hunters’ Federation president Joe Perici Calascione told The Sunday Times of Malta.
He added that if the hunters ‘won the war’ they would not run riot but would have to be on best behaviour.
If we win we can’t blow it by misbehaving
“Everyone will be looking at us after the referendum. If we win we can’t blow it by misbehaving,” he said, in direct contrast with the hunting lobby’s behaviour after the temporary suspension of the autumn season last year. Back then, hunters had taken to the streets shouting profanities, assaulting a journalist and later seriously injuring a group of ornithologists in Buskett.
Yesterday’s campaign launch, at the Limestone Heritage centre in Siġġiewi, resembled a flashy rally organised by one of the main political parties and was attended by two Labour Party MPs, Joe Sammut and Anthony Agius Decelis, despite both major parties saying they would stay out of the referendum campaign. The event, which served quail pastizzi at a garden reception, was also brimming with PL youth activists, a handful of Labour local councillors and other PL candidates.
The campaign includes colourful Iva T-shirts, and extensive propaganda material, that also resemble those handed out at mainstream political rallies. One pamphlet, seen by this newspaper, features a young family laughing in a sunny green field, ironically something many may not be able to do during spring if the referendum goes the hunters’ way.
Mr Perici Calascione, who was speaking to The Sunday Times of Malta from the sidelines of the launch, said the campaign was a positive one aimed at encouraging the public to head to the polls to stop something that was “essentially undemocratic”.
“We believe that the Maltese people won’t let something like this happen,” he said. Asked why the hunters had abandoned the possibility of boycotting the vote, Mr Perici Calascione said research conducted ahead of the campaign announcement had indicated that while lobbying for an abstention may have resulted in a victory, it was not clear.
The decision, he said, was also influenced by the precedent such a referendum could set.
He reiterated the hunters’ mantra that abolishing spring hunting could result in other minorities being next on the chopping block, an argument shot down by former judge Giovanni Bonello last month.
The actual unveiling of the campaign was chaired by lawyer Kathleen Grima who said the hunting lobby was urging people to vote ‘Yes’ because, “no Maltese should be subjected to what the hunters are being made to endure”.
In a reaction, the anti-spring hunting lobby Shout (spring hunting out) yesterday challenged the hunters’ federation top brass to a public debate outside the law courts. Campaign spokesman Mark Sultana said that if the election was a war, the battleground would have to be the debating podium.
He questioned why the hunting lobby was refusing to speak to the independent media, and said this was not conducive to helping the electorate make an informed decision.
The FKNK is refusing to speak to Times of Malta other than through official correspondence, and Mr Perici Calascione’s comments to this newspaper were the first in several months.
Malta Today editor Saviour Balzan, the anti-spring hunting campaign’s main spokesman, said that although the ‘No’ campaign was only being funded by donations, he was confident the electorate would make “the right choice”.
This, he said, was because the Shout campaign was based on rational arguments and not scaremongering or fanfare.