Wartime deportation drama

Victor J. de Bono's justification of the deportation of Maltese citizens during the war (January 3) was an attempt at distorting history. The internati (internees) drama so eloquently described in Herbert Ganado's Rajt Malta Tinbidel and in other war history books, was nothing but an injustice of the first order, executed by the then British colonial masters and fanned by certain imperialist circles in Malta which, unfortunately, harboured also some Maltese citizens.

The anxiety and sufferings endured by the families of the deported patriots were endless. The deported included the Chief Justice Sir Arturo Mercieca, the head of the Maltese judiciary, the Leader of the Opposition Nerik Mizzi, the president of Catholic Action, H. Ganado, Vincenzo Bonello, curator of the local museums, and Mgr Pantalleresco, a distinguished prelate, to mention but some of the leading people deported - all of them exiled to a faraway country without trial.

Indeed, they were sent to Uganda against their will even though proceedings in court were pending, contesting the validity of the internees' deportation.

Even when the Maltese Court of Appeal declared their deportation to be unlawful, null and void, the internees were not returned to Malta until 1945 when the war had practically ended.

There was nothing legal or lawful in such deportation. It was a pure act of vindictiveness, a blot in British colonial history.

To justify it now, apart from being a treacherous act of anti-patriotism, would amount to a distortion of history.