What their Mintoffian parents didn’t tell them – read it here, FZL
This comment beneath was posted by IWasThere. The only bit of information missing is that the convoy of lorries which carried those drydock workers into Valletta to sack the law courts was led by THE PRIME MINISTER.
Yes, that’s right. Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici led the people who sacked the law courts.
THAT’S HOW WE LIVED, YOU MORONS. AND THEN YOU WONDER WHY WE SAY THAT THOSE YEARS WERE HELL. Oh, didn’t il-mami and id-detti tell you?
Tsk tsk, what a shame.
————
I was there in Valletta when the Law Courts were attacked.
I heard a lot of commotion and walked that way to see what was going on. The scene was incredible.
There were around two hundred louts in front of the main entrance. Most were wearing tank-tops and construction helmets and some were in boiler suits. The door of the Courts was smashed in and somebody was out in the top window throwing court documents onto the cheering crowd.
There was smoke coming out of the windows too.
I saw a small group of three or four smashing the window of the clothes shop to the right of the court building. They stole all the clothes in the window and were parading around in them to impress their friends.
Two policemen stood a few metres away and they simply smiled at them. Nobody was wearing masks or in any way hiding his identity.
A police bus was parked across Republic street just beyond the clothes shop. Behind this bus, facing the palace, there were around a hundred policemen in uniform and a few wearing anti-riot gear.
To my sheer amazement I realized that the police were there not to stop people ransacking the courts but to stop anyone who tried to prevent them doing so.
In front of the policemen there was an angry group of Valletta shop-owners all terrified that their property would be next.
Incredibly the police were stopping THEM and not the louts destroying the Law Courts.
Now, does anyone think that the hundred policemen were all corrupt? Doesn’t it dawn on you that they were ordered to behave this way? I was there and saw this with my own eyes and to this day I am still shocked at what I saw.
36 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
Under the Labour government, it was the criminals who ruled over the law courts, and not the other way round.
Isthu jekk tafu.
tidher li qatt ma kellek xi kaz il qorti bhala vittma…..ghax vittma terga tohrog..Anke il-Prim imhallef instab hati ta korruzzjoni habib…
Int fejn qed tghix?
If I remember correctly the Law Court incidents happened when Dr K Mifsud Bonnici and the Labour Party was no longer in government. All those who have know or have met Dr Mifsud Bonnici certainly can assure you that he is the opposite of a violent person. Besides as a lawyer he surely would not approve the break up of the law courts.
[Daphne – Oh yes, right. The law courts were sacked under a Nationalist government. Din gdida. Kemm tifilhu tkunu tac-cajt.]
Daphne, he is partially right. The Law Courts were ransacked in June 1987 when the Zwieten were being accused of corrupt practices during the previous elections a few weeks before. Of course the ransacking was under the blessing of that dwarf Wistin Abela.
[Daphne – We are not talking about the same incident, then. I am talking about the time they went at the law courts after going at the Curia.]
As far as I recall there were no incidents at the Law Courts after the Curia incidents. Besides was anyone accused of these June 1987 incidents and if there were persons accused, were they pardoned?
Yes he did, he called it a ‘dimostrazzjoni spontanja’.
KMB was also recorded giving orders to the SMU and the Police at Tal-Barrani.
If Dom Mintoff, Agatha Barbara, Guze’ Cassar and others all shared an idea outlined in the manifesto, that the use of violence in the name of the cause is legitimate, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici implemented it in the name of the state.
David how old are you? 16?
“KMB was/is the gentlest of persons. He’ll listen to you and reason with you,but then he behaves in a totally different manner – split personality”?
It was HE who led the drydocks workers on their rampage For all his Domenico Savio appearance and behaviour he instigated some terrible things.
Any one who met him at those times had one question in mind, how can such a gentle well mannered man ( I would say the hallmark of the MIfsud Bonnicis) do such horrible things?
I actually think it is true that it happened during the first few months of the Nationalist Government.
[Daphne – Yes, the law courts were ransacked a few weeks after the PN came into government. That was not the same incident. There is clearly some confusion here. The drydocks workers also towed that vessel called the Copper Mountain across the mouth of Grand Harbour to prevent the HMS Brazen from entering, again in the first few months of the PN government. They had this resistance campaign on. They couldn’t accept that Labour was out of government.]
nghiduha kif inhi: It’s easy to get confused, at the time we were spoiled for choice of lootings.
I believe it was the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, that dockyard workers prevented from entering harbour, not the HMS Brazen.
The Brazen came to Malta earlier, when Labour was still in power.
[Daphne – That’s right. And Alex Sceberras Trigona was photographed in a sailor’s cap.]
It was the first Royal Navy ship to return to Malta after 1979, either in late 1986 or early 87. That was the time when Alex Sceberra Trigona was photographed wearing a Royal Navy Brazen cap, prancing about like an utter and total prat.
The Curia and the law courts were ransacked on the same day. It was September 1984, possibly the 24th. It was meant to be my last day at work as a pupil-worker, before returning to sixth form, only St Aloysius’ College did not reopen again until November that year, thanks to KMB.
http://www.doi.gov.mt/en/commentaries/2000/07/naz14.asp
The law courts were first attacked by the “Aristocracy of the Workers” while KMB was prime minister.
Later, they were attacked again in the incident involving the Zwieten and their corrupt practices.
David, I was 17 years old at the time, working a few metres down from the law courts in Sta Lucia Street.
One of my colleagues – a few years my senior and a known Laburist, yet a decent person with whom I am still in touch – had come back to work after running an errand, slamming the heavy wooden door violently behind him.
I recall telling him off for doing so, and was met with him running up the stairs, terrified, shouting “gejjin ifarrku tad-Dockyard!”.
The sights and sounds that followed will never be erased from my memory.
We had barricaded ourselves in the office, and yet, through a window, I was able to see KMB aboard one of the large, heavy, dockyard trucks accompanying the workers waving heavy metal equipment and chains around.
They were like savage, violent animals; KMB was docile as a mouse, almost obliviious to all that was going on around him, signing autographs for and handing flowers to the women who approached him from Strait Street.
It was definitely September 1984, possible the 24th, though the actual date is irrelevant. KMB was prime minister at the time. Yes, they ransacked the law courts in 1987, too, but that was a different occasion.
After that, the dockyard workers had gone on to the Curia, smashing up the chapel and defaecating in it.
Saying that KMB is not a violent person is one thing, but denying that these things ever happened under Labour is an insult to people who lived through them.
Eddy this is one of the negatives you must have omitted in the balance analysis of Mintoff’s qualities. He was a criminal in so many aspects. An accomplice and inciter of crime.
Issa ahjar ghax iridu jmeru is-sewwa mgharuf.
Sur David, mela allura mhux veru li wara li kissru il qorti baqghu sejrin quddiem il-police HQ biex ikissru il-Curia? Forsi tfixkilt. David, intik ragun ghax mhux l-ewwel darba li kissru il-qorti.
I was at Valletta Terminus waiting for a friend at exactly the same time the trucks loaded with drydock workers entered Valletta and yes, they were headed by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici (he was standing on the first row of the first truck).
At that time KMB was Prime Minster and this happened in late 1984.
The workers were banging with chains and metal pipes against the truck.
I was 16 at the time and as soon as I saw that commotion, I was terrified and caught the first bus heading for home.
Of course I had to excuse myself with my friend and explained why we never met. Later on, the news reported that the Curia and the law courts were ransacked.by these people.
I was with my mother on the bus coming in from Sarrija, we only made it up to the gates of the mall, everywhere was blocked, trucks coming up past the petrol station.
She bundled me off the bus and marched me across the fosos to the cafeteria at the Catholic institute. It was a sunny morning.
The noise of metal tubes against the truck was deafening.
I know exactly what you meant about the noise of the metal pipes … and chains too. I clearly remember the sound, and the feeling of fear about it all.
I remember that day.
I was in Valletta but not near the law courts – at the Malta Union of Teachers HQ. We were discussing our own problems with the government.
On my way I saw a big lorry with a red flag and the Labour prime minister riding in pride of place.
When I arrived, word had already got round that the Curia had been ransacked and the elite of the workers were on their way to the courts.
The meeting was cancelled for fear the thugs would end their vandalism spree at the MUT.
I remember also the solidarity of members of the MUM who offered to give medical assistance for free to teachers on strike and their family.
They were very bad times but they also brought to the fore the generosity of many including the business comunity who donated money to fund teachers who had been locked out.
I must not forget the generosity and courage of the administartors of those church schools who allowed the MUT to hold meetings at their schools so that teachers could be kept au courant of what was happening.
I dreaded every Sunday when Prime Minister KMB would give the weekly rant about the arrogance of the teaching profession. Teachers on their way to the Teachers’ Institute were spat at and insulted.
When you go past this building you can still see the special iron gate, made on purpose by the late Mr. J. Camilleri, to keep out any marmalja Mintoffjana.
This is MIntoff’s horrible legacy. R.I.P. if you can Dumink – I cannot, for your legacy is till alive and I’m afraid, that if we’re not wise enough those times will return.
In 1976, Mintoff told the merry mob to do as they please.
‘Morru u ghamlu li tridu’.
When The Times was burnt to the ground, he didn’t even have the nous to publicly condemn these acts, preferring to write a letter to Mabel Strickland instead, damage control no doubt.
He couldn’t care less about what happened that same day to the leader of the opposition.
He delegated the dirty work to preserve his own persona, such was his deceit.
It shows in anything he attempted to do, bluff, back down and blame someone else. The result was that everything he had a hand in required major restructuring, reform, restoration and redoing. It was the corruption, ground up, that helped convince him this to be a feasible way, a last ditch attempt to maintain a modicum of control over his own. He soon found it easier to endorse the method, it sated his ego. Brutal control redirected onto the rest of us.
We were mere spectators of his detente with the ‘aristocracy’, hijacked by the reciprocal blackmail.
Now that he’s dead, and they’re still raring to have another go, will they accept they don’t mean anything but a repeat of the same?
Yana insisted Joseph walk with her up to St.John’s, and broke protocol by sitting him next to her. I doubt this won’t be appreciated. Who’s financing Labour?
This is why Eddie’s words were insulting to us who lived those episodes. I’m still waiting for an explanation from him or the party.
“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120824/opinion/The-Mintoff-that-I-hugged.434157
This is what John Attard Montalto has to say about Mintoff.
Isn’t it interesting that Mintoff’s best buddy was a “tal-pepe” from Sliema who he called “Smiley” and with whom he travelled around European cities on cultural tours and encouraged to windsurf?
Attard Montalto tells us that Mintoff called his wife “Babs”. Mintoff sent his daughters to English colleges. So much so that on national TV his daughter didn’t manage to string together three words in Maltese.
Is this the working class Salvatur that his herd believe him to be?
Then why did he not befriend one of his Cospicua Macina crowd, call him “ir-ras” and yell “MOJRAAAAAAAAaa f’oxx dik il-l***** ommok” to call his wife, and make Buskett ghax-“xalata” ta’ wara l-festa his favourite excursion?
This is typical of communist despots.
They all woo the uneducated working class because they can only hope to gain and unconditionally retain support and veneration from brainless idiots who do not have the self-confidence or grey matter to think objectively.
Do communists then choose the company of such people? No, on the contrary, they generally despise them.
They are no challenge to the great dictator, they are only rungs which serve to ascend the power ladder.
Once the communist dictator is right up there he will make every effort to destroy all intellectual capacity of the next generation, in such way that he will never be made to descend from his throne.
Mintoff was no different.
He was a great orator and appealed to the masses and convinced them that he was the same as them but, in fact, he was only using them and forty years later, they still do not see it.
Of course, they raised other generations whose vocabulary and debating skills are limited to “qahba” “ja sahhara” “kemm int kera” and a string of obscenities.
They still think that attack is the only form of defense. This is what Mintoff thought them. Mintoff is dead but these days have clearly evidenced that unfortunately the Salvatur’s legacy lives on.
Hear, hear!
Who s legacy are you living by , You call us a HERD, and These people . , you assume the working class is vile .
In my working class family we always greet each other as Ras and ask where our F…k…g mother is when we need her.
Tal PEPE are not vile ,
You vex me .
[Daphne – Wow! “You vex me”. This one’s hit the dizzjunarju: ‘select words that include X but are not FOXX’.]
Ghax nahseb intom tlajtu tajjeb u uliedkom….L-ewwel attakk hareg min fomm Nazzjonalista bil kliem ( May they rot in hell )
Kull kumment iehor huwa hela ta hin ghalija li naghmlu ghax tant intom arroganti li tahsbu li intom xi generazzjoni ta nies superjuri li anke il hsieb li dan vera tahsbuh jispjega ezatt min fejn gejja l-arroganza kolla tal gvern prezenti…
Ma tafux ahjar, ghax hekk ghalmukom.
Eddie seems to be suffering from memory loss, like other Nationalist politicians and spokesmen. So is the Archbishop.
Le habib, Ma nahsibx li EFA u in-nies li semmejt insew il passat ghax kull minn jgholli idejh ghandu xi jxomm…
kemm il partit tieghek kif ukoll il-knisja…
I was in Valletta the day Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici led that parade down Republic street and on into Floriana.
He kissed roses and threw them to the ‘aristocracy of the workers’ – the same people who thrashed the law courts.
The noise was unbelievable. People who knew the back way out of the courts poured out that way and ran down the hill and a gaggle of laburisti holed up in an office nearby almost choked with delight at what they saw.
And one of those laburisti let out an excited cackle and said ‘issa immorru nsibu xi business u niehduh ahna’.
She thought the way to get into business was to steal someone else’s – truly a die-hard follower of Mintoff.
Eddie is a forgiver, a forgeter and a let’s moveonner. He never lived in the past and only cares about the future. He is will not hold a grudge as it will shadow the way forward.
Oh I wish I had such wisdom.
Mela mhux bhal Gonzi ghax kuljum isemmi il-Passat….
Mintoff’s boast, that he forced the British out of Malta in 1979, is a big lie.
It’s pure propaganda.
Even in 1971 the UK Government was talking about withdrawing from Malta after Mintoff started being difficult about whether a meeting with the Defence Secretary should take place in London or Valletta.
Here’s Hansard, a transcript of a Parliamentary debate in the House of Lords, from 1971:
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1971/jul/15/malta-defence-and-financial-agreements
That was Mintoff. Full of bullshit.
Thanks for that link.
Just one clarification.
KMB did lead the corteo from the Drydocks to valletta however he was not prime minister – Mintoff was.
The ransacking of the Curia and law courts happened the 27th september 1984 when KMB was deputy prime minister and minister of education.
He took office of Prime minister on the 22nd December 1984, he was the christmas present from Mintoff to the Maltese.
f I remember correctly even under a PN administration the law courts were attacked when Lorry Sant was going to be accused of something or Lorry Sant was there because of a case involving Lejburisti. It was after this event that the Law Courts had a fence and a gate installed at the front entrance.