Dom Mintoff, 96, Malta’s mercurial socialist leader
NEW YORK — Dom Mintoff — a fiery postwar socialist leader of Malta who closed NATO bases, evicted British interests, courted China and Libya, and even banned The Times of London to chart an independent course for his tiny Mediterranean island nation — died Monday. He was 96.
His death was announced by the Maltese government.
Mr. Mintoff was secretive, unpredictable, and, to enemies, a ruthless tyrant. But to admirers, he was the father of modern Malta, a charismatic Labor Party fixture for 35 years who was prime minister from 1955 to 1958, when Malta had limited self-rule as a British colony, and from 1971 to 1984, when his vision of a nonaligned, self-sufficient republic was substantially realized.
In an often-conquered land used as a strategic military garrison by the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Knights of St. John, Napoleon Bonaparte, and, since 1814, the British, Mr. Mintoff fiercely sought an end to Malta’s exploitation by foreign powers, a revival of national dignity, and ties with nations that could underwrite Maltese neutrality.
Mr. Mintoff, an architect and civil engineer, helped rebuild Malta after devastating bombing by Axis powers in World War II. He rose to prominence as a socialist legislator in the late 1940s and led his party to power in 1955.
By 1984, when he resigned, Mr. Mintoff had eliminated foreign military bases in Malta; signed pacts for economic cooperation with the United States, China, and other countries; and set his nation on a road to self-sufficiency.
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