Gaddafi and Malta: how and why it all began, in 1972
TIME MAGAZINE
MALTA: Gaddafi to the Rescue
Monday, Jan. 17, 1972
When one love-smitten member of Malta’s 55-man Parliament neglected legislative duties last week for marriage and a brief honeymoon, Prime Minister Dom Mintoff promptly told the entire house to take a five-day recess.
There was nothing festive about the holiday. Maltese opinion is sharply split over Mintoff’s order that British troops either pay higher rents or quit the island (TIME, Jan. 10). With tensions rising as his Jan. 15 deadline approached and with only a one-vote parliamentary advantage, Mintoff was afraid to risk a vote of confidence while the groom —one of his own Labor Party supporters—dallied elsewhere.
The legislative holiday was one in a series of bizarre events on the tiny Mediterranean island brought on by “Deadline Dom” and his decree. He wants a $33.8 million hike over the present rentals of $13 million a year that the British pay for their bases. Since Malta is no longer strategically vital, London is willing to pay an additional $11.7 million and no more.
To underscore British determination, Whitehall last week flew in a party of expert “dismantlers” to knock down its facilities. Evacuation began of 4,994 British dependents aboard R.A.F. VC-10s at Luqa Airport.
There were some signs that Britain may not want to pass the point of no return. In London, Defense Minister Lord Carrington canceled a Far East tour in order “to supervise the withdrawal of British forces”—or to be available if negotiations were resumed. But unless they are, the last troops could be out by March 31.
As the British departure began, there was a mysterious arrival. At Luqa, a Libyan air force cargo plane discharged 44 men in civilian clothes who were lugging 4-ft.-long wooden crates. Government spokesmen insisted that the Libyans were “technicians” who had come to operate Luqa when British air-traffic controllers leave; their crates merely contained technical gear.
Most Maltese considered that a most unlikely story; Libya is so inexpert at air-traffic control that its airports at Tripoli and Benghazi are run by French and Egyptian technicians. More probably the arrivals were policemen and their crates contained arms. They had apparently come in case riots break out over the British evacuation and Maltese police are unable—or unwilling—to cope.
Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi appears willing to support Mintoff financially. Gaddafi has already loaned Malta about $3,000,000 to replenish the government’s diminishing social security fund.
Now he seems ready to do more. The end of 170 years of British use of the island would mean eliminating 22,000 full-or part-time jobs and losing a $54 million annual contribution to the economy. Gaddafi recently dispatched a plane to Malta to fly Mintoff to Tripoli. The upshot of their discussions was believed to be an agreement that Libya will cover such losses
Gaddafi is more than able to do so. His oil industry, the Middle East’s richest, provides annual revenues of $2.4 billion; these will undoubtedly increase as a result of his sudden nationalization of British Petroleum’s Libyan wells last month. From this hoard Gaddafi doles out about $125 million a year to Egypt, some of which compensates for lost Suez Canal tolls, $40 million to Syria and $10 million to the Sudan. He is reportedly ready to advance Mintoff $140 million over a three-year period, just what the Prime Minister is demanding from the British.
What Gaddafi wants in return is not clear. Libya hardly needs Malta’s bases. The most plausible explanation is that the youthful Gaddafi—at 31, a xenophobic nationalist and Moslem fundamentalist who detests Communism as much as colonialism—is seizing an opportunity to neutralize Malta.
His money is payable only after the British leave and on condition that the Russian Mediterranean fleet is also barred. He particularly wants to get rid of British planes, which, he insists, have been overflying Egypt from Malta to spy for Israel. If their reconnaissance flights are ended, he recently told startled Maltese visitors, the Arab nations should be able to defeat Israel within three years.
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That’s phenomenally interesting.
“History” as we were fed, told us that Mintoff simply wanted the British out, on principle. Jum il-Helsien my *ss therefore! “Jum in-Negozjati Falluti” more like it! The GWU/Phoenicia affair is a parallel, albeit on incomparable scale.
An identical mindset on the part of the protagonists nevertheless, people who think anyone (“Is-sinjur”; “Il-barrani”) owes anyone else a living, and concurrently, that Malta is, as usual, at the centre of the Universe.
So the “Helsien mill-Barrani” bit was probably the greatest cover up for a self-inflicted crippling blow to the economy in the history of Malta.
Mintoff, who was lauded by his bootlickers as the ‘great negotiator’, was a servile puppet on the ambitious rais’s strings.
.. and silly Dom was so wise that he didn’t realise how he was being used by one half his age.
Mintoff and Gaddafi had a common enemy – colonialism, and the massive chips on the shoulder they acquired as a result of being subjects of another country.
Gaddafi claimed to be against imperialism everywhere, but he wasn’t above it himself in Malta’s case. Mintoff, on the other hand, appears to have thought of himself as Gaddafi’s equal even though his feelings weren’t reciprocated.
“as we were fed”
How right you are. We have lived through those times and yet I am realising how little we knew back then. I don’t know which word describes best what my feelings are. Should I say that I feel betrayed? Or maybe, even guilty for not trying to search more for the truth?
Well…of course you use the tools necessary to achieve your goals. If Mintoff’s aim was to dismantle the British military base, and Gaddafi also saw this as in his interest, why wouldn’t he accept help from him?
[Daphne – Albert, Albert. Mintoff’s aim was not to ‘dismantle the British military base’. It was to extract more money from Britain for the use of Malta as a base. You know how Mintoff negotiated with threats and bluff? It didn’t work with the British, who were in a stronger negotiating position and knew it. They didn’t need Malta so much that they were prepared to pay more money in rent, and so when the lease came up for renewal, they just didn’t renew. That’s why the HMS London and the commodore left on 1 April – because the last day of ‘financial year’ for the British military is 31 March, and this not just in Malta. ‘Freedom Day’, if we must insist on calling it that, is really 1 April, but that was a bit of a bummer of a date (April Fool etc) so Mintoff shifted it to the eve, knowing full well that his sucker supporters wouldn’t be able to work out what was happening. And they didn’t, because look at you now, still believing the propaganda 32 years on. Mintoff was left high and dry because he didn’t think the British would call his bluff and b**ger off. He thought he could raise the game on what he saw as Malta’s unique selling-point, and that they would have to pay up because they had no alternative. He hadn’t bothered to gather intelligence which would have told him that Britain was not likely to renew if asked for more money. The most serious problem, of course, was with HM Dockyard. Suddenly, Mintoff was left with a full dockyard and massive workforce trained and equipped to deal only with RN warships and vessels and no customers or money to pay the men. He had no contingency plan. The result was that for the next three decades, taxpayers carried the dockyard on their backs to the tune of hundreds of millions of liri, making investment in the country’s infrastructure and in schools that much more difficult. The other problem Mintoff had was how to PR this major disaster to his electorate. And so ‘the British told me to f**k off when I asked for more money, and left’ became ‘I kicked out the British and freed Malta from the colonial boot’ (this when Malta had become independent 14 years earlier and a republic four years before). To prove his point, he was desperate to get the British prime minister, James Callaghan, over to Malta to stand beside him while the Union flag went down for the last time. Callaghan couldn’t be bothered. He was fighting an election (which he lost) against Margaret Thatcher at the time and Malta and Mintoff were a closed chapter for Britain already. You should read the transcripts of telephone conversations between Callaghan and Mintoff to know just how pathetic Mintoff was, begging and pleading for Callaghan to come over, while Callaghan politely and then not so politely told him where to stuff it. I believe they were published in a newspaper here in Malta a few years ago, after becoming available under Britain’s Freedom of Information Act. So Mintoff did his usual thing: if you reject me, then I’m going to play with your enemy to spite you (how many times did he do this in various forms?), and he brought in Gaddafi. And that’s how Gaddafi came to stand beside him when the Union Flag went down: because James Callaghan refused to do so.]
I mean, the US and Britain were one with bloodthirsty dictator Stalin of the Soviet Union in WWII in order to beat Hitler.
[Daphne – A fatuous comparison. Malta was not at war.]
Politics is about achieving your goals, using dubious means if necessary, and at the same time convincing as many people as possible that you are acting out of principle.
[Daphne – Spoken like a true Labour supporter, Albert. No wonder your Labour Party is so disgusting and repulsive to all but the thoroughly unprincipled and the hopelessly ignorant.]
Ah, yes, using dubious means, if necessary. Mifsud Bonnici is on record as having said more or less the same thing.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=gGYsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Qc4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=4676,4135537&dq=malta+libya&hl=en
Mifsud Bonnici, a socialist, goes a step further. “We will go even to the devil if the devil is prepared to buy our exports,” he said recently when asked about increasing business dealings with the Eastern bloc.
This little lecture you just gave to Albert should be etched in gold and stuck very visibly and very close to that monument of shame and lies in front of a church near the Birgu marina.
After the British withdrawal the Libyans had the run of the place. They used to say openly that Malta was part of Libya. Gaddafi used to come and go as he pleased accompanied by his female bodyguards who were also seen at the Valletta monti fully armed walking among the people.
The Jerma palace hotel (a Maltese Libyan venture) was emptied of all tourists just to accommodate Gaddafi and his entourage. As soon as his plane landed the Libyans used to take over the airport. A Labour minister was once pushed aside by Gaddafi’s bodyguards at the airport. The incident of the Saipem II where Gaddafi sent warships to stop Malta digging for oil soured things to the point that Mitoff called it an act of the worst enemy. That was the end of Libyan friendship and blood brotherly love. Gaddafi got what he wanted that is the thorn in his bum was removed.
Well, what a (non)surprise.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/173316.html
http://arabnews.com/opinion/editorial/article345492.ece
But then the regime operates almost exclusively now through lies and deceit, like the false cease-fires announced or this week’s mission to Greece, Turkey and Malta – the real aim being to sow confusion among Mediterranean countries with a longstanding strong relationship with Libya and gain the regime time.
It was an obvious sham. It proposed Qaddafi’s replacement by his son Saif Al-Islam at the head of a transitional government, yet back in Tripoli yesterday Saif Al-Islam while saying yes to reform himself insisted his father must stay.
I found this article a few weeks ago and was shocked at the reference to the “Libyan Air Traffic Controllers”. Kinda makes you think how much worse things could have become.
This article was written seven years before Freedom Day. Does anyone know if the British forces started leaving the island so soon?
[Daphne – Malta became a republic in 1974, and the wind-down actually began in 1964.]
To rub salt into decent people’s intellectual wounds, Gaddafi’s minion, Mintoff had a “monument” built in Birgu. This atrocity is one of the many blemishes on our landscape which Mintoff peppered around the the island. The very active mayor of Birgu, Boxall, should be the the prime mover to have this aberration removed and the piazza be restored with the baroque church made more visible.
[Daphne – Boxall – or at least, another person called Boxall who must be a member of his family – played a key role in the 1979 ceremony on that monument. So don’t hold out any hope.]
John Boxall is a good man.
Yes, electrifying so! Isn’t he the one who was accused (and found guilty?) of stealing electricity?
What the fuck TIME knows about Malta we are a lucky Island that in our time we had one politician that knew how to use his balls,perfect no he was’nt,did fuck ups who dont but we owe all we have to Mintoff.
[Daphne – There is no hope for you, my dear. Toddle off and converse with Ronnie Pellegrini on his Facebook wall.]
His balls were up where he should have had a brain instead.
Freedom, real freedom started in 1964 and unfortunately it worked against us when Mintoff became prime minister. We went through atrocious times. The only time Malta moved forward in education, economy, standard of living etc. etc. was under Nationalist governments.
The trouble with the present incumbents is that they are becoming almost a copy of Mintoff where Gaddafi is concerned.
By the way, Freedom, the Union flag fluttered down from Malta’s flagpoles, to be replaced by our flag, on the the 21st September 1964 and was raised again in Birgu in 1972 on a make believe Labour activity pretending to be a national event.
Albert,
The US and Britain were not one with Stalin. Russia was part of the coalition in a war. The Americans and the British knew precisely what Stalin was.
It wasn’t about achieving some political end. In fact, the tenous and fragile union broke apart just as the war ended with the fall of Berlin. This was hardly the case with Mintoff and Ghaddafi. Why, even when we started prospecting for oil and the Libyan navy attacked the contractors engaged by government, off the Medina Bank, the relationship hardly cooled.
The truth about Mintoff’s reasoning, the manner of his bullying and the major bluff used to achieve his ends has been well documented in a number of publications. A few I think deserve a mention: Frendo H., “The Origins of Maltese Statehood”- Saliba E., “No Honourable Minister: Memoirs of a senior diplomat”, Frendo M., “Is Malta Burning?” are a few examples. One common theme running through these diverse and disparate tomes is the description given to Mintoffian antics and shenanigans – which really never got him (read, us) anywhere.
By this I do not mean to say that Mintoff was, as many of his most ardent supporters are, some sort of idiot or fool. Au contraire – he was a highly intelligent individual, who for some reason misplaced his genius and put it to bad use – and this to our detriment.
He managed, through his incessant abuse of authority, disregard for the law and disrespect towards his electorate, to engender a nation of spineless, opprtunistic and narrow-minded citizens. He did this with astonishing speed (which I think speaks volumes about human nature) within just one generation.
The previous one had just valiantly been awarded the GC for gallantry shown by a people fighting for a cause which was as much their own as the crisis unfolding in Libya, on our doorstep, is.
As David Eddings once wrote – we have forgotten the face of our fathers.
“The end of 170 years of British use of the island would mean eliminating 22,000 full-or part-time jobs and losing a $54 million annual contribution to the economy. ”
“(Gadaffi) is reportedly ready to advance Mintoff $140 million over a three-year period”.
Did Libya ever replace this loss to the economy? Back in 1972 our economy was roughly $250,000,000 and so this loss of $54m was a 20% hit to our economy EVERY YEAR! If we had just put the 1972 $54m in the bank, it would be worth $350m today. Then add 1973, 1974, 1975… What a vain idiot Mintoff was.
I have done some research and have a fair amount of experience in how the British government deal behind closed doors and I have for some time believed that Mintoff was used by the UK.
The way in which the UK decided to run down the MOD presence in Malta and the similarities with Gibraltar 20 years later seems to indicate that there was a sinister plan.
Antagonise Mintoff, strangle the economy through unacceptable MOD cuts and hope he kicks us out, without any cost.
I really believe the British Govt wanted to leave Malta but where afraid of the backlash in UK public opinion if they had left of their own accord and destroyed the Maltese economy.
Therefore, they used Mintoff.
They tried it in Gibraltar but fortunately, they failed because Bossano was well informed of what went on in Malta.