Oct 10 - Picardo Calls on Spain to ‘Stop Chasing Quixotic Windmills’ in UN Address
Addressing the United Nations Fourth Committee yesterday in New York Chief Minister Fabian Picardo touched upon the notable 50th anniversary of former Chief Minister Sir Joshua Hassan’s speech to the Committee of twenty four, on the same issue, decolonisation.
Mr. Picardo was joined by Ministers Gilbert Licudi and Dr. Joseph Garcia, as well as a selection of A Level students, who he insisted, were chosen to attend the meeting because of their interest in the importance of the work of the United Nations.
Mr Picardo told the delegation that fifty years on from Sir Joshua’s speech, which detailed Gibraltar’s desire to achieve full self-government, Gibraltar has now achieved a status under the 2006 Constitution which he believes is one potential modality of a status granting Gibraltar a full measure of self-government short of independence.
He then went on to note that if the Constitution does not, in the view of the C24, grant Gibraltar a full measure of self-Government short of independence, then he requested for the delegation to note where they consider the deficiencies lie, ‘so that [they] can engage with the United Kingdom to address any such shortcomings.’
Mr. Picardo continued, ‘what makes no sense, Mr Chairman, is a continued deafening silence by the C24 and a continued reference to a consensus decision between the United Kingdom and Spain which does nothing to advance our progress towards decolonization.
What makes even less sense are some of the statements which have been attributed to the His Excellency Rodolfo Reyes Rodriguez, Chair of the C24, that he had stated that some colonial situations are defined as “special and particular” because they involved sovereignty disputes.
Mr Chairman, that statement is based on the entirely false and unsustainable premise that different principles could apply to the decolonization of the people of non-self-governing territories simply because a neighbouring state might stake a claim to the territory in question.
There is no trace in any one of the resolutions of the United Nations to such nonsense.
There is no customary rule of international law that, however stretched, might give rise to such a principle.
What there is, however, is a concerted effort by Spain and Argentina - working closely together as the two states that are staking claims to Gibraltar and the Falklands respectively – to try to create such a doctrine in order to avoid the application to our people of the inalienable right of self-determination.’
The Chief Minister went on to explain that it is only through giving effect to the wishes and aspirations of the people of Gibraltar that the territory will ever be decolonized. He then outlined the current dispute between Gibraltar and Spain and some of the recent issues that have come about as a result of the dispute, including lengthy frontier queues, the June incident that saw a Guardia Civil officer fire shots at a Gibraltarians jet skier in BGTW. Mr. Picardo insisted that, ‘
The worst and most harrowing manifestation of the effect of this campaign of hatred against the people of Gibraltar has been a video posted on YouTube of Spanish teenagers acting out a play in which three dressed as Guardia Civil Officers relish with glee a military invasion of our territory and the assassination of three young Gibraltarians.
That is the effect of the campaign of incitement to hatred through lies, which has dominated the summer months.’
Commenting on the Sir Joshua’s former speech the Chief Minister went on to say ‘tet when you look at the reality of the Gibraltarians a people – as Sir Joshua Hassan told you fifty years ago - we “ask for nothing except to be allowed to live our lives the way we want to live them without interference from outside, in friendliness with all peoples and in cooperation with our immediate neighbours for what, I assure you, can only be our mutual good, socially, culturally, economically, and in every other way.”
We already provide approximately 10,000 jobs in our economy for cross frontier workers from Spain.
If the current Spanish Government spent one tenth of the time that it spends attacking us instead of working with us, we could easily envisage increasing those numbers.
Nonetheless, and despite that background of incitement to hatred against our people, the Government of Gibraltar has remained steadfast in offering to engage in dialogue with the
Government of the Kingdom of Spain on all issues which are not related to Sovereignty and which would be in the interest of the people who live on both sides of the frontier.’
He reiterated Gibraltar and the United Kingdom’s strong commitments to the Trilateral Forum, for Dialogue established by the three Governments of the United Kingdom, Spain and Gibraltar in 2004. ‘The present Spanish Government of the Partido Popular,’ Mr. Picardo insisted, ‘have unilaterally turned their backs on that Forum and want to unravel the agreements reached under it.’
He went on to discuss the recent proposition of ‘ad hoc’ talks between the three countries. ‘We trust that these contacts will be established soon in order to address matters that may deliver benefit to the people of our region.
What will never happen will be talks between the United Kingdom and Spain under the Brussels Process to negotiate a transfer of sovereignty to Spain.’
The Chief Minister called on Spain to ‘stop chasing quixotic windmills’ in pursuit of gaining sovereignty rights over Gibraltar and requested that if they wish to continue the intellectual arguments on the Sovereignty of Gibraltar, they should do so in the ‘relevant and objective international tribunals, with competence to determine these matters.’
In his Conclusion the Chief Minister claimed that Gibraltar’s destiny is not to become a colony of the Kingdom of Spain, and they will therefore continue to call on the Committee for Gibraltar to be removed from the list of non-self governing territories. ‘Because, Mr Chairman, the people of the Rock are a tenacious people. Fifty years have passed since we first made our case to you.
Maybe another fifty years will have to pass until we succeed in our endeavour; but this story will not end until we succeed.’
