I would like if I may to respond to the letter entitled, ‘Din l-Art Helwa responds’ which appeared in Malta Today on Sunday 17 August.
Oh dear, it seems I have upset Ms Cynthia Degiorgio in not recognising her as the backbone of Maltese heritage conservation. What can I say? Very remiss of me, I hope you can forgive me, but you have to understand that living in London I have to rely on my contacts in Malta. The reason for my ‘excavation’ of your double role with the St John’s Foundation and Din l-Art Helwa, was that in spite of being a lot more that "remotely interested" in Maltese heritage, the majority of my Maltese friends had never heard of you.
Also I wasn’t aware that I had gone so far as to "suggest or imply" any coercion between the Foundation and Din l-Art Helwa due to your involvement with both, however it seems I may have planted a little seed to that effect, one which you have kindly germinated.
I can well understand that you would not want to make any further comment regarding my letter, especially since the revelation that the Foundation had in the past objected to small shops excavating basements, shows your proposal of large-scale excavations to be untenable and extremely hypocritical. MEPA has pronounced itself clearly against the Foundation’s preferred project, the Valletta Local Council’s architect is against it, NGO's are against it, the vast majority of Maltese people who have commented in the blogs are against it and now we learn that even the Church Commission on Cultural Heritage is against it. It would seem that the only body supporting the Foundation’s extravagant and risky proposals are Din l-Art Helwa.
These facts make one wonder why. The news of the Foundation’s past objections, as well as the damage caused to the Monti di Pieta by excavations, calls for an in-depth re-assessment of the situation by your "extremely professional, well-informed and respected" colleagues at Din l-Art Helwa, not to mention some very serious soul-searching.

Francesca Meilaq,
London