Submission from Mr E H Peire, Secretary,
Rock Firm (War Veterans) Group, Gibraltar
In connection with the Strategic Priority No
10 we are pleased to submit as follows: Gibraltar is one of the
smallest of the Overseas Territories (1.7 Km2) most of it occupied
by the rock itself. The last 60 years have helped to consolidate
the Gibraltarians into a distinct British democratic society which
culminated into a self-governed self-sufficient small country
with the Constitution of 1969. The United Kingdom's control of
foreign affairs, law & order and non-domestic matters has
help to protect the people against abuse by its elected leaders
and guaranteed its existence in the face of the Spanish territorial
claim, which in our view holds no valid legal, moral or historical
criteria.
Our electoral system works against independents
and minority parties. With each voter able to cast personal votes
for as many candidates as are required to form government the
strongest political party always gains power. This power is then
transferred to the Chief Minister, who becomes an autocrat, and
gets to know virtually every family by name. The media is under
his complete financial control. Radio and Television, is controlled
by the Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation heavily subsidised by
Government. Newspapers that do not follow the official line are
denied official advertising and press releases. They barely survive
with voluntary writers and anonymous sponsors. Most advertisers
are afraid to use these newspapers for fear of repression. The
governing party supporters have started a new weekly heavily supported
by Government advertising. The Foreign Office Mandarins' only
real aim as far as Gibraltar is concerned, is the maintenance
of excellent Anglo-Spanish relations, in the first place because
of trade and finance and secondly the MOD Base because of defence
and NATO. They have endorsed the granting of our highly contested
New Constitution, which validates Article 10 of the Treaty of
Utrecht, although it was only voted for by a third of the total
electorate. They have given the Gibraltar Executive more power
over the judiciary and police, in a tiny community, which has
long been complaining of the suppression of freedom of expression
and the lack of checks and balances on restrictive legislation.
Space for building is extremely scarce. Over the last eight years
the MOD has released land to the local Government on conditions
that have enabled it to sell this land to speculators for the
building of tall blocks of luxury flats to appeal to high net
worth strangers and neglected the needs of the local population.
The housing waiting lists cleared prior to the arrival of the
present Government are now longer than ever. We condemn the Foreign
Office for permitting this. All land ceded to the local government
should have had conditions attached to ensure that the use to
which they are put favours the local population especially for
the provision of affordable housing and flats for rental. The
availability of new property has enabled very many UK nationals
to come and reside in Gibraltar. The economic boom caused by the
building construction and the arrival of the gaming companies
to the Rock has also caused large immigration of British executives
and workers, many of whom have had to reside across the border
because of the high costs locally. These British people were denied
the right to vote in the referendum to the New Constitution, by
requiring them to have a residential period of 10 years! Although
sovereignty of Gibraltar is British, the New Constitution was
denying the U.K. jurisdiction over the judiciary and other areas,
which might not suit these new residents. Yet, for the New Parliamentary
elections the residential period was reduced to only six months!
The reason being that with a sound economy assured in the short
term new arrivals would not want to rock the boat. Also, many
of them resided across the border and the Opposition was known
not to be willing to make concessions to Spain and their election
might disturb border fluidity. All these non-Gibraltarian voters,
over three thousand of them, decided the result of the election.
Gibraltar has always been a separate jurisdiction of the European
Union and applied all relevant European Directives to its own
laws just like any of the other States. Until the time that Spain
joined the Common Market Gibraltar had the same responsibilities
and benefits as all the other member States although Gibraltar
itself was not a state in its own right. Spain uses the argument
of Gibraltar not being a State to dilute our status in Europe.
The Chief Minister appears unable to stop the Foreign Office to
accede to the Spanish bully's demands. This results in the continuous
deterioration of the Gibraltar status in Europe with it being
left out of many favourable conventions, although legally entitled
to them. The CM should adopt the King of Morocco's attitude; like
Nelson he will not stand for any nonsense in negotiations. ON
SOVEREIGNTY The belief of the Spanish Government of to-day as
to their chances of an eventual take-over of Gibraltar can be
gauged by comparing an article quoting Felipe Gonzalez in the
EL PAÍS on 8 March 1999 with one from alleged government
sources published by EL TIEMPO on 14 December 2008. Mr
Felipe Gonzalez was reported as saying the following: "We
cannot hide from ourselves, the Spaniards, that the contentious
issue of Gibraltar is no longer bilateral, that is to say a problem
to be resolved between London and Madrid. For some time now London
has imposed on this issue the question of self-determination of
the Gibraltarians. With this London has managed to neutralize
the long standing contention of this British colony| there is
a third party that counts, and plenty, in respect of future accords:
the very Gibraltarian people. Therefore, that situation makes
the recovery of the sovereignty of the Rock on the part of Spain,
difficult, if not impossible. I rather believe the latter ...
If the road to the recovery of the sovereignty passes directly,
necessarily, through Gibraltar we can say goodbye for ever to
this problem giving it as settled in favour of the Gibraltarians".
The G.S.L.P. Party was in office at the time.
Quoting Spanish Government sources "EL TIEMPO"
says:
"Spain is about to take an important step
forward in the Gibraltar contentious question Coinciding with
the 25th anniversary of the reopening of the fence by the Spanish
Government of Felipe Gonzalez, the Executive of Rodriguez Zapatero
wants the veteran diplomat Agustín Gervás to direct
the new Cervantes Institute on the Rock The election of Gervás
has been well thought out on the part of the Spanish Government.
They have not elected a University professor or one concerning
the Spanish language and literature, but, a career diplomat, and
the one that best knows this long Anglo-Spanish conflict. In the
eighties he led the Gibraltar Office in the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and he was later cultural attaché in London and
Lisbon His principal duty will be to direct the new courses in
Spanish and the activities carried out by the Cervantes Institute,
but he will not be limited to this. His presence as a diplomat
will enable him to expound in private the position of Spain against
any independent moves by the Gibraltarians. Besides, as semi-official
representative of Spain he will have an important role in the
political strategy towards the British colony as devised in Madrid.
The PP party acknowledges the importance of a diplomat leading
the Institute. The Socialist Executive will not grant him diplomatic
status for this new mission so his course of action on the Rock
will be limited and he will need to exercise care in public. This
way he will not need to be formally accredited to the United Kingdom
as cultural attaché and thus avoid the initial apprehension
of the Gibraltarian leading class, who sees with suspicion the
arrival of this particular Spanish Horse of Troy in the shape
of an innocent cultural entity. The reality is that the Chief
Minister of the Rock, Peter Caruana, has accepted the promotion
of Castillian in Gibraltar and now has to offer a public building
to the Cervantes Institute for its home. The local leader objected
from the start to our country owning an official site on the rock,
that is to say a piece of the Spanish State, by ceding the building
he retains the final control of the Institute. In case of grave
crisis with Spain he could play his card closing the building.
What will be inevitable will be the raising of the Spanish flag
over the building, an act of great symbolism to which only a few
will be indifferent. The leader of the Gibraltar Opposition, the
fire-proof Joe Bossano, sees the wolf's ears of this whole story
and retains his objection to a Cervantes whose objective is to
"replace" British influence for that of Spain on the
Rock".
This situation had been brought about by the
Foreign Office, using a weak-on-Spain Chief Minster of Gibraltar,
a master of spin, who has been provided with the means to create
wealth with which to generously pay his under-worked ministers
and to hoodwink and twist the minds of half of the residents of
Gibraltar by scaring them of the brave opposition by demonising
their leader. The quality of the Opposition at the last elections
by far surpassed that of the Government.
28 January 2008
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