Jun 15 - Picardo Gets C24 Chairman A Plane Ticket To Gibraltar – “The Gibraltar Ball Is Now Firmly In Your Court”
YGTV in New York
The Chief Minister brandished a first class plane ticket at the end of his address to the United Nations’ Special Committee on Decolonisation (C-24) in a bid to convince its Chairman to visit Gibraltar.
“It is booked for the 8th of September this year so that you can arrive in time to see for yourself the celebrations of our National Day on the 10th of September when we celebrate the first referendum in which we exercised our right of self determination. There is no possible impediment now to your visit. We want you to see and understand our reality,” he said.
Xavier Lasso Mendoza, Chairman of the Committee, watched as Mr Picardo came to the end of another impassioned appeal that Gibraltar’s case be heard fairly and in accordance with the spirit of the Committee’s own professed aims to respect the wishes of colonial people across the globe.
EVACUATION
In a nod to the numerous commemorative events this year, Mr Picardo’s speech started with a tribute to the Evacuation generation. The Chief Minister linked their sacrifices and their battle to return home to an emergent sense of national self-consciousness.
“Their efforts have led us ultimately, some generations later, to the attainment of our current Constitution of 2006 which represents the current measure of self-government reached by Gibraltar.”
He then moved on to put across the Gibraltar delegation’s customary call for the Committee to consider Gibraltar’s political and constitutional set up and provide advice as to how it falls short of current decolonisation criteria. Mr Picardo noted that these repeated calls have, up to now, been met with “a deafening silence.”
This was the first of several raps on knuckle keenly delivered by the Chief Minister. Next was a repetition of Minister Bossano’s recent attempt to correct a mistaken conclusion reached at the Fiji Seminar on decolonisation held last year.
“I fully expect, indeed, I demand, on behalf of the Government and People of Gibraltar that your conclusions are amended to reflect that Gibraltar is not seeking the creation of a quatripartite process. That is not the policy of the Government, Parliament or people of Gibraltar. Our policy is that we remain committed to the Trilateral Forum for dialogue,” he stressed.
Mr Picardo said that he would not allow such an inaccuracy to stand “as if it were agreed or agreeable to Gibraltar.”
He said the Committee owed a “sacred trust” to the people of non-self governing territories and told the Chairman to remember whose side he was meant to be on.
YBANEZ PRIVATE MEETING
Mr Picardo further rebuked the Chairman for having had a private meeting on Gibraltar with Ignacio Ybáñez, Spain’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and asked for a report on what was discussed.
“I am sure,” he said, “you do not want to hear only one side of the stories he will have told you” adding that Spain could not possibly update the Committee of 24 on anything other than ”the current dire state of the [her] claim to re-colonise our nation.”
CALL FOR VISIT
Mr Picardo further argued that the Committee was, by ignoring the numerous invitations to come to Gibraltar, neglecting its duties imposed by a General Assembly Resolution passed last December to “examine ways to ascertain the wishes of the peoples of the Non-Self-Governing Territories.”
The Resolution also “affirms its support for the aspirations of the peoples under colonial rule to exercise their right to self-determination.”
Mr Picardo said that this right was universal and not subject to any restriction and that only the Committee, the Administering Power and the Territory were the relevant parties which could facilitate the implementation of the Committee’s mandate.
After showing him his plane ticket, and calling on the Chairman to come to the Rock as part of a visiting mission, the Chief Minister said that such a visit would make this “a decade of decolonisation and success, and not another decade of continued colonisation and abject failure.”
His final message left no doubt as to Gibraltar’s message: “…[t]he Gibraltar ball is now firmly in your court. Have the courage to run with it. Or leave it to those of us who do.”
CHAIRMAN TURNS DOWN INVITATION
After hearing Mr Picardo’s address, the Chairman said that he would not use the ticket: “Thank you for airline ticket but I’m not going to use it…and you know that I’m not going to use it.”
Mr Lasso Mendoza also said that there was “nothing clandestine” about his meeting with Snr Ybáñez.
“As part of my duties here, I have to meet with many people representing all sorts of views,” he said.
He told Mr Picardo that he would be happy to meet him in his office in the Ecuador Permanent Mission to the United Nations.
SPANISH CONTRIBUTION: SMUGGLING BY SEA INCREASES
Smuggling via the Gibraltar land frontier has experienced a drop thanks to Spanish border checks but this has only led to an increase in seaborne contraband by “organized mafias” – this was one of the many accusations made during the Spanish delegation’s contribution.
Spain’s delegate, Javier Guitierrez, started off by noting that the Gibraltarian intervention had “lacked respect for Snr Ybáñez” and then repeated many of the points made in previous years.
He said that Gibraltar’s decolonisation could only proceed via bilateral negotiations between the United Kingdom and Spain adding that the UK was still occupying territory that had never been ceded in the Treaty of Utrecht.
Nevertheless, the Spanish delegate stressed that Spain was willing to explore avenues for regional cooperation.
Pics: Top left: Mr Picardo with the plane ticket. Middle: Chair of the C24, Xavier Lasso Mendoza. Bottom: Deputy Chief Minister and Chief Minister prepare for the session.
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