From Dr F. Saliba

The sanctions by the Broadcasting Authority against the Bondiplus 17 December 2007 televised review of Evarist Saliba’s memoirs illustrate the danger of any form of censorship placed in the hands of people who may have a vested interest in suppressing dissenting opinions.

Professor Dominic Fenech plays different roles in this dispute. He is the Acting Chairman of the Editorial Board of the PBS, but he is also a former General Secretary and Administrative Secretary of the Malta Labour Party and a professor of history to boot. He broadcast some outlandish and biased version of Malta’s role in obstructing the signing of the final document of the Madrid CSCE conference for weeks. Evarist Saliba, Malta’s representative at that conference, had written to Professor Fenech protesting that his version of events was not historically correct and that he would be giving a detailed, correct version in memoirs he was going to publish shortly. These memoirs became the subject of the contested Bondiplus broadcast. There can be no doubt that Dominic Fenech would have a vested interest in obstructing the dissemination of Evarist Saliba’s authoritative and dissenting account of Malta’s shenanigans and deception so vividly described in his book.

The main MLP protagonists directly involved in the CSCE conference were invited to participate in the broadcast interview and it is highly significant that they declined the offer. They must have had their very good reasons for doing so but the subsequent charge of imbalance by the Broadcasting Authority would appear to be unwarranted and unjust in the eyes of a mature television audience. Whether Lou Bondi actually invited Professor Fenech to participate or whether he failed to receive the invitation is a minor side issue of scant relevance.

The surprising end result of this altercation is the Draconian imposition of a resented administrative fine that is going to be contested in court and the irritating insistence by the Broadcasting Authority that the PBS broadcast, more than once, a synopsis of its decision and of Dominic Fenech’s bland disclaimer that he had received the invitation that Lou Bondi swears in an affidavit that he had sent him. This deplorable state of affairs can only shake the public’s confidence in watchdogs that exercise multifarious functions with high potential for conflicts of interest and resulting abuses.

Francis Saliba

MELLIEHA