Malta now has to live with peace

Press, 12 April 1979, Page 17

Malta now has to live with peace

Britain has closed its last military bases in Malta, severing what was once a vital link in its Empire and leaving this small island to fend for itself for the first time in modern history. The withdrawal of the remaining 500 servicemen ended a British Military presence which dates back to the capture of the island from the French during the Napoleonic Wars in 1802. The British, who only two years ago had up to 3500 men and their families stationed on the island, are handing over installations in accordance with a timetable agreed with Malta’s socialist Government. They leave behind a nation which has seen conquerors come and go for centuries — Phoenician settlers, Romans, Normans, Arabs, Knights of St John, French and British — and which is now determined to stand on its own. “We have prospered too long on war and its threat. We must now find a way to survive without blood money,” a spokesman for Prime Minister's Dom Mintoff’s Government, Toni Pelligrini, says. “Our economy has always been geared to war. Malta flourished when there was trouble in the Mediterranean. At the height of the British military presence here almost every job was dependent upon the garrisons and docks. That was no viability for an independent nation.” The navy docks alone at one stage employed 20,000

men. So the transformation of the isalnd from a tool of war to an instrument of peace has left Malta with a serious financial problem which will require all of the Prime Minister’s tough bargaining skills to overcome. The British-educated Dom Mintoff, who began working for the shut-down of N.A.T.O. and British Garrisons when he came to power for the second time in 1971, needs about S76M a year to fill the gap in lost earnings from the bases. He is seeking aid from Western Europe,

Algeria, and the Libyan Jamahiriyah, and the indications are that he will get most, if not all, of what he is seeking. The strong pro-British lobby in Malta reacted initially with anger against the closure of the bases; and their feelings were fanned in Britain and in the British press. “There are still a lot of Colonel Blimps in Britain.” Mr Pellegrini says, using the popular English name for diehard militarists. “They find it hard to accept that the Empire has gone.” Most of the 310,000 islanders today seem to have come to terms with the British military withdrawal. They agree that Britiain’s shrinking defence commitments since the Second World War have been made withdrawal inevitable. The leader of the opposition Nationalist Party, Eddie Fenech Adami,

accepts that Malta had to find a way of paying for itself without relying on income from foreign military bases. But, he adds, there is a danger of achieving one form of independence at the expense of becoming a colony of another kind. "We are not entirely satisfied with the way in which the transformation is taking place.” Fenech Adami says. "Mintoff is on record as saying in 1972 that Malta was entering into a new agreement to enable it to stand on its feet by 1979 without economic assistance.

“Now he is seeking aid to the tune of some 28 million Maltese pounds (59.2 M and this could mean a new form of colonialism.” The Nationalist Party has specifically attacked Mintoff for threatening to rely entirely on Libyan aid if Western Europe does not agree to his terms. “To our mind, security can only be guaranteed by Western European countries,” Fenech Adami says. Western diplomatic sources, however, have indicated that Europe is prepared to share the aid commitment with North Africa. The Maltese Government has also stated that it is ready to survive without aid if necessary. “We are not for sale,” Pellegrini says. “If there is no money on the table after April 30, we will continue our policies. These are not dependent upon outside money.”

By

BRIAN MOONEY,

, NZPA-Reuter