Daphne is in league with Malta Today to target Karmenu Vella and the Golden Years of Labour
Karmenu Vella, Alex Sceberras Trigona and former GWU leader Anglu Fenech behind prime minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici as he addresses a mass meeting on the Floriana granaries in 1986
Lest Saviour Balzan gets jealous and thinks that I want to collaborate only with the archives of In-Nazzjon in my PN-orchestrated campaign, directed from Castile, to target Karmenu Vella, I went to Malta Today’s online archives (they don’t have a proper archive on the premises and they probably wouldn’t allow me in anyway) and within three seconds, I’d found the piece below.
How different Malta Today was before John Dalli lost the leadership race to Lawrence Gonzi, though I must say that the writing was just as lousy.
Some background information for my younger readers, and a reminder for those older ones who have chosen to forget this episode. In the 1987 general election, Labour thugs and politicians took control of the Zejtun pollling booth and tried – with a certain degree of success – to prevent from voting those they knew would not vote Labour. There was a great deal of violence and intimidation involved.
The incoming Nationalist government ensured that the police rounded up those thugs, who were all easily identifiable because they were confident enough not to cover their faces, and had them prosecuted. This excerpt from a special report in Malta Today describes what should have been the day of their arraignment before a magistrate.
And surprise, surprise – Karmenu Vella, who to Saviour Balzan and Matthew Vella is now a clever and goodlooking moderate who was Sant’s successful tourism minister, stars here in this (pre-PN leadership race) Malta Today report as one of the protagonists along with Lorry Sant.
Moderate, my terrapin’s ass. How can a Mintoff aficionado (go to Karmenu Vella’s Facebook page and see how obsessed he is with the man) possibly, by any stretch of the imagination, be moderate?
Malta Today, Special Report, 8 December 2002
On the 19 June that year, 15 men were arraigned in court, charged with corrupt practices as well as other charges which they had committed on polling day (1987).
The case was due to be heard in front of Magistrate Michael Mallia. However, a horde of Labour thugs who had come to lend support to their friends burst into the courts and wrecked havoc.
Eight of the magistrates’ halls on the ground floor were badly damaged. Offices were also damaged and one of them was actually set on fire. Documents were sent flying all over the place and some of them were taken to the street outside and set on fire.
Because of the chaos, Magistrate Mallia had no option but to postpone the hearing to a future date. Those who actually broke into the courts were a small representation of the hundreds who had entered Valletta. The courts were breeched when a small crowd managed to open a side door. In turn, these opened the main doors.
Outside the courts, the crowd broke through the police barricade and destroyed some police vehicles. Shields were snatched out of the hands of the police, who offered little or no resistance.
WHILE THIS WAS HAPPENING, MR KARMENU VELLA AND MR LORRY SANT WERE IN THE COURT BUILDNG.
At one point, a fire broke out in the building. It transpired that the fire was in the office of Magistrate Mallia. Plaques and busts had been damaged.
Whenever one of the thugs emerged to throw out documents, the crowds outside the courthouse cheered and clapped. As these documents were set on fire, the police did not do anything to stop them. Among the casualties of this fiasco were the documents relating to the Egypt Air hijack and a Maltese flag.
The violence of the crowd spread, and a number of shop windows were smashed up. The contents of some of the shop windows were plundered. Some of the shops to be damaged were Wembley Stores, Tip Top and Square Deal. Some of the mob tried to set a couple of shops on fire.
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See for yourselves:
http://archive.maltatoday.com.mt/2002/12/08/081202sr.pdf
I can’t believe people are willing to risk all this happening all over again, all because they expect somebody else to pay their electricity bills.
If these are being hailed as having been the ‘golden years’, then they will have no qualms about going about their business in the same manner again.
But I’m glad they’re showing their true colours before the elections. They may just about shoot themselves in the foot. Perhaps there’s hope after all.
No there isn’t. That bunch is just about in.
Has anyone really accused you of being in league with Malta Today?
[Daphne – Sigh. No. Of. Course. Not.]
In his electoral program, will Karmenu Vella be including any proposals on how commercial companies will declare their income for tax purposes something like 7 to 9 years after the income arises, and after reaching an agreement with the Commissioner?
He might need some help from his predecessor in the Shadow Ministry in drafting this proposal.
Here is Malta Today’s archive again.
http://archive.maltatoday.com.mt/2008/election_special/election_special_05.pdf
Thank you, Daphne, for reminding us. I had forgotten this horrible event. I lived through those times and when I read something like this I wonder how many others have forgotten too.
Dr.Anton Buttigieg said “People forget”. How right he was.
At this moment I heard an excerpt of Karmenu Vella’s speech. I remember people queuing outside his office to apply for a colour TV. Labour’s love for its supporters wasn’t big enough to allow them normal access to a colour TV and its supporters were very happy to grovel and thank the Lord for such “kind” ministers.
Tghid fil-programm tal-PL Karmenu Vella ser jghidilna li lest jaghmel minn kollox biex jaqbad lil min qatel lill Raymond Caruana?
He might start by telling us who was driving his car on the night of the 5th December 1986 for a start.
“…Malta Today has long since become the English-language newspaper that the Labour Party always wanted, couldn’t produce and now doesn’t even have to pay for …”
“Malta Today’s – the print version – top story today is that the Nationalist Party is planning a campaign to target Karmenu Vella, and that I am part of this campaign and ‘directly linked to Castile’ because I got information from the Nationalist Party’s library and information service, Informa.”
Maltese version in:
http://www.kullhadd.com/201102052568/Ahbarijiet/kampanja-moqzieza-ta-daphne-caruana-galizia-fl-interess-tal-pn.html
What you have not explained for the younger readers was the reason why the police offered little or no resistance.
Malta was truly a police state which orchestrated the terror and tortured people who challenged the regime, and Karmenu Vella was very much a part of that regime.
It took years to clean up the police force which by 1987 was mainly handpicked on the basis of political allegiance.
Unfortunately, the clean-up was not complete, and for unclear reasons some of that scum were actually promoted by the PN government.
If I remember correctly, the accused baboons even showed up in dinner jackets, and L-Orrizont (another independent newspaper) was very proud of that fact.
And as for the “visionary” policies of the Labour government in Karmenu Vella’s time – when he didn’t have the supreme convenience of sitting there and administering the spadework done by others over seven years, as he did in 1996 – here they are:
1. a third-world “airport” which didn’t even have a luggage carousel; a tractor spewing diesel fumes would enter the actual arrivals hall and dump the suitcases onto a fixed counter, leading to a scrum for collection;
2. the Maltese would have their luggage opened, and toothpaste, chocolates, etc would be carefully hidden in underpants, and you would hand over a fiver to the customs official for him to let you go through without having your dreadful contraband of toothpaste confiscated;
3. the smart tourists of the late 1960s giving way to lager-louts;
4. no water in hotels and tourists told to take their showers between 6pm and 8pm, when there was a temporary supply;
5. no restaurants or bars;
6. nothing to do;
7. historical sites lying in ruins or given over as tacky discos and nightclubs to the sons of ministers;
8. no shops;
9. raw sewage pouring out near beaches;
10. an erratic Gozo ferry;
11. the man who owned the Comino Hotel, who was wanted by Interpol for the murder of his wife, given safe harbour in Malta because he was a personal friend of Mintoff’s, and a berth for his yacht Lotus Eater at the primitive Ta’ Xbiex marina.
Need I go on.
Pajjiz tal -Misthija, and Karmenu Vella was the visionary and part of the regime, and has the effrontary to compare himself to Eddie Fenech Adami (see today’s The Times).
On the subject of rewriting Labour’s history: What is the true story of Black Monday (Oct 15, 1979)? Wikipedia mentions an assassination attempt on Mintoff. Did this actually take place?
If so, who were the perpetrators of this attempt? Why were the Times of Malta the first victims, rather than some Nationalist Kazin?
[Daphne – Some poor sucker who had flipped over God knows what was caught, or so we are told, trying to enter through the main door of the Auberge de Castille with a gun. He wasn’t even prosecuted. He was incarcerated immediately at Mount Carmel where, to the best of my knowledge, he stayed. There were many question marks over this episode and it remains largely a mystery which perhaps Malta Today might wish to investigate retrospectively. The reality is that The Times was not burned down as a reaction to an attempt on Mintoff’s life, but after lengthy haranguing against The Times and the Nationalist Party at a Mintoff/Labour mass meeting. On the same day, the leader of the Opposition’s house was ransacked and his wife assaulted. She and her children had to escape over the rooftops to a neighbour’s house were they stayed until help arrived.]
Sorry if these are stupid questions, but I have no sources. It must be easy indeed for the PL to rewrite history when no one who remembers these days is willing to write an official account of what really happened.
Did any of this kind of antics take place while the British were ruling the island? I am thinking of from a law and order point of view.
[Daphne – The riots on 7 June 1919, when a mob marched on Valletta, burning down all the flour mills except one on the way there, and once through the gate of the city, they began ransacking private houses and throwing furniture and personal possessions out of the windows to the crowd below. Then the British brought out the cavalry, a couple of hooligans were shot, and they have been deified ever since.]
Before they left in 1979?
Jesus H. Christ, Bystander, are you thick? When the British “left” in 1979, it wasn’t the British, but their by now tiny military contingent in tiny military bases. They were not responsible for law and order in Malta.
And don’t give me the usual “but I was born after 1987” bullshit. You know how to use an ipod. You should know your current events.
Of course I am thick. What’s your excuse?
I was there in the thick of it at The Times when it was burning.
Fusellu was in charge. When a fire engine arrived, the driver, smiling, shouted to one of the policemen that he had no water. The policeman responded: “Go and fill up!”
Fusellu oversaw that the burning-down went as planned. Joe Grima, then a minister, said in parliament that he regretted The Times was not obliterated.
A few of us were saved by a ladder brought in to St Ursula Street and put up to reach us leaning out of the windows, through the efforts of Mgr (God Bless Him) Calleja from the Emigrants’ Commission a few doors away
@ A. Dimech
It is the onus and obligation of the PN to keep history alive. Daphne is doing it at a personal risk. This is not fair although very much appreciated. It is MPs who got 500 euros increase per week.
Tal-wahx!
U dawn ma jinbidlu qatt! Infatti rega dahhalhom mieghu dak il-bravu ta’ lider.
When The Times building was burnt down some employees with Labour sympathies were conveniently on sick leave.
I bet that ‘interested bystander’ is a law student.
We should all be students of the law, my friend.