Over the past year, a new page has been turned in Malta’s relationship with Libya. Like everyone else, I want it to be fruitful. In the process of turning the page, however, the story told in the preceded pages has often been distorted. Particularly Dom Mintoff’s relationship with Muammar Gaddafi.
Having been privileged to hear his side of many stories, often full of information and insights not publicly available, it irks my sense of justice to see history recounted glibly, as it is sometimes in public commentary. It also offends my sense of history.
Mintoff and I had an unspoken understanding. Although he did not like being contradicted or needled in front of others, he would tolerate almost anything I said when we were alone. I was even able to ask him prickly questions concerning his time in office.
I would sum up his relationship with Gaddafi in three telling episodes.
The first concerns the rumour that, when Labour was elected in 1971, there was not enough money to pay the salaries of the civil service. Apparently, it was true. Mintoff told me he had gone to Tripoli and Gaddafi gave him the equivalent of £1 million.
Mintoff insisted it was a loan. Gaddafi retorted: “It is you that I know and it is to you that I loan it.” Mintoff told me: “It was all paid back.”
One should not miss how Gaddafi attempted to turn the loan into a relationship where Mintoff would consider himself personally indebted. Mintoff’s response was to free himself of any odour of debt or obligation.
The second episode arose when, taking advantage of the fact that we were alone, while on a long walk near Gela on the southern coast of Sicily, I asked him point blank whether he didn’t think that the Libyans had obtained more out of the relationship than Malta had.
His answer was totally unexpected. “Smiles”, he said, using his nickname for me, “do you think for one moment that Europe and America would have paid attention to me if I did not have that personal relationship with Gaddafi?”
He actually used stronger language to describe Gaddafi. Mintoff always knew who he was dealing with. An arbitrary unpredictable man, made ruthless by the international politics in his region and his ability to buy almost anyone and anything.
However, Mintoff, the Maltese nationalist, saw opportunity as well as danger in this relationship. His reply to me shows how he saw the relationship with Libya. Not as a way of cutting Malta off from relations with the US and UK but as a particular way of building a relationship with them in which he, leader of a miniature state, had some leverage.
It was a high risk strategy, as we know. However, this was a time of war. The Cold War but a real war nonetheless. In general, Mintoff believed that the only way Malta’s independence could be safeguarded was by playing off one side against another. Tactical non-alignment.
The story did not end there. In 1988, Mintoff told me how Gaddafi had wanted him to act as intermediary to purchase a nuclear submarine. Mintoff was stunned and refused. Not after all his efforts, Mintoff told me, to demilitarise Malta and denuclearise the Mediterranean.
The third episode puts the lie to the idea that Mintoff’s relationship with Libya ever became too cosy. He confessed that during his lifetime the moment he felt most threatened, even fearing for his life, was on a visit to Libya.
Gaddafi’s then second in command, Abdesalam Jalloud, met Mintoff to discuss the issue of the Median Line. “It was the greatest fight of my life!” For hours they quarrelled. Jalloud shouted at Mintoff that even the waters in Malta’s Grand Harbour fell within Libyan waters!
Mintoff gave as good as he got. I suspect Jalloud retorted by pulling out a gun or making direct physical threats. Why else would Mintoff tell me, more than once, that the incident was scarier than anything else he had been through (even the episode in 1958 where he was convinced he was the target of an assassination attempt)?
Some have speculated that Mintoff had a pact with Gaddafi not to dig for oil. This is nonsense.
Malta did explore for oil under his premiership. A Libyan gunboat threatened to fire on the oil company’s platform. Mintoff greatly admired the immense bravery of the Armed Forces of Malta’s patrol boat (“biċċa qoxra” he told me, “a flimsy raft”) that sailed out to face the Libyans.
Mintoff always asserted Malta’s rights to drill for oil. He never told me if he was convinced we had any. Personally, I suspect he was ambivalent about oil as a resource.
He saw the curse as well as the blessing. He was happy for it to be available for future generations. Yet, he preferred to have a society built on jobs in manufacturing and tourism, rather than handouts from the oil industry. If I am summing up his attitude rightly, it would mean that he looked at Libya as a model to avoid.
He was also no doubt aware that if Malta discovered oil its independence and freedom would be more difficult to secure, as foreign interests would be greater.
In an article appearing on Independence Day, that is a good point to end on.
Dr Attard Montalto is a Labour member of the European Parliament.