Stalin’s legacy is one of terror and murder on an industrial scale. He sent 3.7 million of his own people into Gulags where they suffered cold, hunger and torture. 800,000 were shot. He caused 14.5 million deaths from starvation in the Holodomor, arresting hundreds of thousands of citizens, executing many of them.
Yet, Vladimir Putin is now calling Stalin “a great man”. Stalin centres have been set up around the country. Putin has embarked on a mission to erase the dark memories of Stalin’s atrocities.
Back in Malta, our Labour government has inaugurated a new social housing project in Msida and named it after Patrick Holland, a minister in Dom Mintoff’s cabinets. The press release made no mention of Holland’s achievements or why Labour chose to rehabilitate him.
Together with Lorry Sant and Wistin Abela, Holland struck fear and trepidation into many who suffered from his partisan and vindictive actions. As minister for lands and housing, Holland requisitioned hundreds of private houses and flats as well as commercial properties. He abused his power, confiscating property from those perceived as anti-Labour to distribute them to cronies and Labour loyalists.
One of his victims, Emily Barbaro Sant, revealed how their family house in Attard was requisitioned by Holland. When the family protested, the minister suggested they look around for any vacant property and let him know and it would be theirs.
Holland also requisitioned a property in the heart of Rabat to hand it over to his political party to turn it into the Labour Party club. Holland changed the rent into emphyteusis, making Labour the owner of the property for a meagre sum of money.
Daphne Caruana Galizia reported about the plight of the Bonello brothers at the hands of Holland. The Bonello family ran a kiosk in Sliema on which the livelihood of their two young families depended. The Bonello brothers were evicted from the kiosk, which was then passed on to Joe Pace, depriving the Bonellos of their income. George Grech, who ran the Square Deal clothes shop a few metres away, generously supported the families financially at a time when employment prospects were dire.
While Labour thought it fit to name the new Msida social housing project in memory of Mintoff’s infamous minister, Labour hasn’t found the nerve to honour the memory of the journalist, seven years after her brutal assassination.
When the opposition requested Speaker Anġlu Farrugia name a hall in parliament in her honour, he declined: “The only interest of the chair is to act with total impartiality,” was his pathetic excuse for his disgraceful rejection. When challenged, Farrugia insisted he wanted to safeguard parliament’s “neutrality”.
No such neutrality is required when it comes to naming public projects after notorious ministers from the dark 1980s. Holland has his social housing project.
This is Labour’s Malta – a country that honours crooks and vilifies heroes- Kevin Cassar
His fellow minister, Sant has a road and a garden named after him and a monument in Paola.
Between the two of them, they robbed hundreds of people of their property.
Joseph Borg was one of those who was forced, through threats and violence, to transfer his property – half of 23 plots in Fgura – to Sant’s henchman, Piju Camilleri, described by the court as “a smokescreen for the late Labour minister”. Those plots were worth €1.1 million in 1981 when Sant corruptly extorted them from Borg.
There was far worse. Sant was found to have breached the late architect Rene Buttigieg’s human rights when he kept Buttigieg in a small room without basic sanitary facilities for four and a half months. In one of his vindictive episodes, Sant made sure that Buttigieg was the only architect who was denied a raise in his salary or any other benefits. The court concluded that Sant’s order “was intended to create hardship, in this case, mental suffering, to degrade him (Buttigieg) in front of his colleagues, diminish his dignity, embarrass and demoralise him”. In its 45-page judgment, the court concluded that: “Minister Lorry Sant used to run his ministry in a rough and quite arrogant way… aggressive towards all employees, including the highest officials.”
Buttigieg was forced to quit his job and escape to Ghana because he feared further retribution by Sant. He required anti-depressants and suffered panic attacks and died before he could get justice. When the court eventually ruled in his favour, it denied the family any compensation because “Mr Buttigieg took too long to lodge his case”. Flabbergasted, the family replied that they could only start the case after Labour was removed from power because “Mr Sant ruled with an iron fist and there would have been consequences”.
Those consequences are well known to Lino Cauchi’s heirs. Cauchi was kidnapped, murdered, his body butchered and packed into small plastic bags and then dumped in a well at Buskett. His skull was fractured in 28 places. He was only 32 and his wife was pregnant. Cauchi was Camilleri’s accountant. After two stormy meetings between Cauchi and Camilleri, Cauchi disappeared. That meeting was about a promise of sale with a developer who was forced to give up the land in exchange for building permits issued by Sant.
Cauchi’s attache case was found, forced open and empty near Chadwick Lakes. However, the police failed to open a magisterial inquiry. No fingerprints were taken. It would take another three years before the body was found by a farmer. Almost two decades later, the court condemned the State’s failure to conduct any proper investigation, highlighting the “grave failure by the police to investigate Lorry Sant”.
Instead, we have a monument for Sant and a housing estate named after Holland. The sad irony is that, while Farrugia denied the request to name a hall after Caruana Galizia, as Labour Party deputy leader he led a remembrance ceremony for Sant at his monument in Paola Square.
This is Labour’s Malta ‒ a country that honours crooks and vilifies heroes.
Kevin Cassar is a professor of surgery.