Having followed Giovanni Bonello’s internati articles and Prof. J.A. Muscat’s more moderate response, I too feel the need to comment on Dr Bonello’s submissions.

I would like to point out that I am not acquainted with neither of the two gentlemen nor am I related to any of the internati or the pro-British authorities of the time.

I must state for the record that I am intrigued by the fact that although the second world war is responsible for the taking of millions of lives, in my case, it led to my birth. I am the grandson of a surviving British Army Officer, Staff-Sergeant Thomas Cusens, RA, who served in France and Belgium with the B.E.F. under General Gort, both of whom were later transferred to Malta, where my grandfather’s arrival in September 1940 preceded that of the Governor by almost two years and had him endure the entire siege together with his now wife of 64 years and today, both happily living in Xghajra, Zabbar.

As a Maltese, I am deeply passionate about our hard earned sovereignty and independence gained from a colonial past, I take equal pride and have the utmost respect for every effort made by the besieged islanders and the colonial authorities in keeping Malta free of tyranny and oppression.

In particular, I am most concerned with the efforts, actions and events which, I qualify, served the primary interests of the islands’ inhabitants’ safety and welfare, over any of these activities that may have primarily favoured more secondary British military, political or strategic interests.

I too, as a Maltese, harbour reservations about the historically proven, unlawful and undignified treatment of any innocent fellow countrymen who may have found themselves among the internati. But I will not do justice merely by stopping there.

I take exception that such a delicate issue as was the consideration of how to deal with influential and outspoken pro-Italian sympathisers during wartime and a known planned invasion by Axis forces, should only have been tackled by “guilt-by-fact” progression, as Dr Bonello contends. The Governor had to carefully mediate between the Empire’s strategic needs as well as the islanders’ interests.

Respectfully, Dr Bonello shows similar bias when quoting Governor Bonham Carter’s frustration at the lack of evidence against the internati but does not mention that the same Governor records in his diary his lodged protest to Whitehall when, in December 1938, even before the planned invasion was known where, without his knowledge, a report on the activities of the Italian Consul-General was sent by the British Foreign Office to the Ambassador in Rome asking for a possible withdrawal of the Consul from Malta. The Governor wrote in his diary: “I can only hope, that I have been in time to prevent any action… which would have a disastrous effect on our relations with the Casertanos (Consul-General) and would do no good.”

Bonham Carter is of course also on record for having stood up for the islanders against discriminatory treatment on many other facets of daily life meted out to them by Whitehall. History marks his humanity and good nature in many instances but perhaps more by his personal lecturing every visiting battalion or warship on the importance of their behaviour to ALL Maltese because, he stated, the Maltese fully deserved recognition as civilised Europeans with most worthy attributes. He was certainly known as having been more genuinely concerned with Maltese human rights and dignity than any of the Stricklands were.

Dr Bonello displays an obvious bias, no doubt influenced not only by a legal career in the pursuit of the correct(?) interpretation of the law, (an interpretation factually proven over time to vary from judge to judge), but also by his dear father’s ordeal and that of his family, which anybody can understand.

He is equally categorical that the upholding of human rights and the rule of law in the internati’s case was to be the only recourse for a conclusion on whether the threat to national security really existed as alleged, and on which security, I repeat, the welfare and dignity of an entire nation depended.

Dr Bonello makes it expressly clear that he is unable to overcome his congenital shortcoming (his words) to avoid the company of the likes of Prof. Muscat and now myself, no doubt. This does smack of intolerance to other moderate views and is a shortcoming indeed.

But the tragic fact is that the upholding of the rule of law and the judgements delivered by those who administer it, as Dr Bonello can attest from history’s equally generous examples, is neither infallible nor able to hold against tyrannical abuse that may set in to suppress it.

Though Dr Bonello, one of our most highly acclaimed judges and legal professionals, may debate with me that the Malta wartime courts rather than, say, a referendum, should have been resorted to on matters pertaining to legal interpretation, I contend that a people’s court, as with a referendum, would have been more appropriate than Dr Bonello’s professed legal recipe for a matter that concerned the entire nation’s welfare and dignity in such a deep and personal way.

I beg to argue that both the Governor’s actions (authorising deportation when an appeal process was still underway) and the sole legal redress Dr Bonello advocates, were or would have been less appropriate than a referendum in the circumstances.

Dr Bonello shudders at reminding of the “generous …(history) examples of those who felt justified to trample on human rights in times of national security” citing the Inquisition and Nazi tyranny among others.

I do not count among his examples, the Algerian government’s suppression and denial of a democratically elected FIS fundamentalist party that intended to converge the entire nation of both secular and religious nationals under Islamic Law, the many other similar human right suppressions by the Allies, in the national interest during the entire WWII campaign – which few would deny with hindsight for the Allies that theirs was a just war for a just cause. It is also true that such events like the latter did tarnish the otherwise excellent credentials of democratic systems in general and would ideally not have been resorted to.

But now back to Dr Bonello’s highly defended argument, ie upholding the law and human rights at any time even in the run up to a planned invasion involving Italian forces besides those of Nazi Germany.

Any perfect democracy at work in wartime Malta, respectful of human rights under any circumstance and carrying out actions only based on the rule and application of the law, offered no guarantees for a positive outcome to the besieged islanders’ security and welfare, nor does such recourse offer any consolation to those suffering, oppressed or killed by tyrannical regimes that may have originally taken control by legitimate means. This is fact.

Hypothetically speaking, had the Governor, say, resorted to a (lawful) referendum, asking the entire population to decide on the deportation or otherwise of the internati, would Dr Bonello have accepted the likely outcome of a resounding yes in favour of deportation? Would he at least settle that this would have been lawful if not just, bearing in mind the mental agitations in many an islander’s mind about the looming threat of neighbouring Italy?

Would such a democratic expression by an entire nation, in whose defence the need for deportation was cited, have rendered fair justice to his dear father and any other innocent people that may have been among the deportees? Would that legitimate vote have to be respected, upheld and defended, and would all the internati, whether guilty or not, have been forever damned by history as “guilty”? “The law is an ass” goes the saying and being bloody minded about it would be, may I dare say, narrow minded.

But to dispute that none of the internati did not have any pro-fascist leanings is a distortion of the truth. Circumstantial evidence did abound and even the Bonham Carter Diaries make reference to these. By no means am I stating that enough evidence to lead to a conviction existed. The Diaries attest to the lack of this too.

However, I do take up Dr Bonello’s challenge to produce what is, at worst, more circumstantial evidence but no doubt one that may be argued to qualify as a “shred” of the type he calls for to surface. Not that it proves any of the internati were indeed guilty, but one that proves that the Maltese fascists in the various Comitati D’Azione Maltesi in Italy did vehemently glorify, support and sympathise with the internati’s plight as posters that I possess, some published here, can attest.

Does Dr Bonello have any doubt as to who is being referred to with the nostri fratelli Maltesi of il loro grido di sterminato amore alla vera grande Madre’ fame, quoted by the Comitato of Rovigo on 29 June 1942? Similarly, aren’t the implied colonial victims the same ones being referred to in the phrase “sono presenti gli spiriti tutti degli eroi immortali che oggi marciano con noi all’ombra dei gagliardetti per il trionfo di un sacro ideale” in the poster by the Comitato of Mestre, dated 9 June 1942? Incidentally, this poster’s intention was to announce the renaming of Strada Provinciale di San Dona in Mestre, on 14 June 1942 with the new name of Via Fortunato Mizzi, after the founder of the Maltese Nationalist Party and father of interned Enrico Mizzi. How coincidental.

The Maltese fascists of the various Comitati go far, in patriotic and poetic undertones, to stress the embracing and affiliation of Malta’s politically estranged as being martyrs of irredentist Malta and of the same feather as their own anti-British leanings and sentiment, harbouring the same passionate desires to see the Empire overthrown and Malta being returned to Italy, as Nerik Mizzi, editor of the anti-British and pro-Italian Malta, and later Prime Minister, had once suggested in 1912, in exchange for Italian Eritrea.

The freedom of expression granted to Enrico Mizzi’s Malta by Governor Bonham Carter was more than tolerant. The restraint on the part of the colonial authorities to the often-libellous (even by today’s standards) content was indeed commendable as several copies of Malta I possess from the mid to late 1930s can attest.

An invasion of Malta by the Axis having access to influential, willing and sympathetic people, may I too dare say, Maltese quislings, could have accelerated untold and unspeakable horror on fellow Maltese. Deportation of even “guilty by suspicion” Maltese to a far away land had to become a valid albeit drastic option therefore, citing the same national interest arguments aforementioned, with which, as history proved, the vast majority of the population at the time, agreed. If it is lawful to kill in self-defence and before the mortal blow is struck then, with the entire nation about to face a real looming strike, one may argue that the deportation even of those “guilty by suspicion” only, was indeed to qualify, as a last resort.

After all, deprivation of liberty for any suspect is the norm even these days. The question is where to confine the suspects and for how long. While in captivity, it is also a fact that as regards the lesser of two evils, the internees enjoyed far more freedom and dignity than their political counterparts held by the Axis. God forbid that any pro-Italian Maltese ever have had to witness massacres of Maltese on their own soil by invading Axis forces as Fascists had to witness of Italian women and children massacred by German soldiers on Italian soil.

May I too now exhort a challenge? A challenge for evidence to be produced that any of the internees vehemently disassociated themselves with equal passion from the Comitati’s public glorification and propaganda for them and their cause in the following two years or upon the internati’s repatriation to Malta. I wait to see these submissions with interest.

It has to be said that some of the internees would not dispute that Comitato members in Italy were acquaintances or friends of theirs who they knew well, thereby giving more credibility to the Maltese Fascists’ true knowledge about the congruency of the Fascists’ beliefs to those of some of the internati and their ideologies. I want to stress I said some and not all.

If anything, I agree with Prof. Muscat that it is not a monument that should stand for any unfortunate innocent among the internati. That will not render justice but open a wound between the two divides.

If at all, one can seek recourse to reparations or liquidated damages as the upholding of law may provide. As a citizen living in those times, I would rather have faced a hefty tax bill to finance monetary damages by the government to any innocent internati or their families for the suppression of their human rights, than have endured the wrath of Nazi tyranny to which the Fascists had also sold their soul with such devastating results.

I do harbour a personal opinion that there indeed were innocent internati as much as I do believe there were others among them who, given the chance, would have aided and abetted the enemy, if they had not already done so, for their own selfish beliefs even if their actions were to their fellow countrymen’s mortal detriment.

If the latter is proven to be the case, then these people do not qualify to be termed Maltese patriots and Maltese traitors would be a more appropriate term.

I am a firm believer that time, in due course, will tell.