Here is the full text of Minister Bossano’s address to the UN Special Committee of 24 in Dili, Timor-Leste.

Madam Chair, 

On behalf of the Government and People of Gibraltar, I want to express our gratitude to the Government and People of Timor-Leste for hosting this seminar. 

The Timorese people fought a long battle to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and eventually achieved it. 

In doing so, they served as a shining example for those still on the list to never give up, and again in the 2011 seminar, when Timor-Leste said it continued to offer its unwavering support to the remaining territories in their just and commendable quest for independence and decolonization. 

I first became involved in the campaign for self-determination in 1964 when the C24, affirmed that the Declaration on the granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples was fully applicable to Gibraltar. 

I have been at this now for 61 years, so you could say I don’t give up easily. 

Last year, Spain told the seminar that UK had not taken into account the 96% Brexit remain vote in Gibraltar, and gave this as an example of UK’s disregard for the interests of its colony. 

I am not here to defend the Administering Power. 

However, I am here to expose how Spain deliberately misrepresenting issues. 

We entered the EU with UK and could not stay behind. 

In fact, when we approached the EU Parliament, the Spanish representative told us that the choice we had was: “leave with UK or stay under Spain”. 

The 19.300 Gibraltar vote, was not enough to change the UK result. 

However, this was not an example of colonial rule; we had the same right to vote as any citizen in UK. 

Had their margin of total votes been narrower, our vote in Gibraltar could have resulted in the whole of UK remaining in the EU. 

I have always campaigned against the holding of bilateral talks between Spain and UK and refused to participate as part of the UK when I became Chief Minister. 

Gibraltar’s decolonization is exclusively a matter between us, the People of the territory, and the Administering Power. 

It has nothing to do with our neighbour, Spain, whose arguments are in breach of Chapter 11, which provides our right to self-determination and is recognized as a “Jus Cogens” in cases of decolonization. 

Let me remind the Seminar and Committee members of Spain’s explanation at the 2012 and 2013 seminars, I quote: 

“the Spanish population of the territory was forced to leave in 1704, which is why my Government will not accept the present population taken there by the occupier should intend to decide the future of the territory that does not belong to them” 

This is Spain’s case. 

The Spanish population were in Gibraltar just over 200 years, they expelled the previous Muslim population that were there 750 years, we have been there 320 years. 

Since 1704 countless European wars have resulted in territorial boundary changes and populations replaced. 

In all the American colonies, Spain, UK and France replaced indigenous people with their own imported citizens and slaves from Africa. 

Are they not all the Peoples of the territories that have been decolonized?
They added “Therefore Spain does not and never will acknowledge any international legal status to the current inhabitants of Gibraltar”. 

However, I am happy to inform the seminar that UK, on our behalf, signed a Tax Treaty with Spain in 2019. 

The only Treaty since 1713, when Spain gave away Gibraltar in perpetuity. 

This identifies the Gibraltarian as an international legal identity different from persons of other nationalities residing in Spain and provides a more favourable tax treatment. 

The UN decolonization program has always been about the rights of the People, and not uninhabited territories. 

On 9th February 1946, in the very first meeting, the General Assembly passed a resolution on non- self-governing People and their political aspirations. 

On the 14th of December 1946, in the 64th meeting, resolution 66 recorded that UK had started transmitting 73E information in respect of the non-self-governing People of Gibraltar. 

UN recognized our status as a non-self-governing People from day one. 

The territory registered then, was the whole of Gibraltar’s 7 km, including the 1 km of our isthmus which Spain claims separately. 

The Chagos ruling has made clear the decolonization of an NSGT must apply to the whole of its territory as listed. 

In our case, that includes our isthmus, where we house half our population and assets. 

In the case of Mauritius, as far back as 1965, resolution 266 (XX) paragraph 4, reads: “invites, the administering power to take no action which would dismember the territory of Mauritius and violate its territorial integrity”. 

This shows the territorial integrity that we’re talking about is Gibraltar’s territorial integrity, not Spain’s. 

Members of the committee will know we increased our self-government in 1967, in line with the provisions of resolution 1541(XV) principle 3 and the Charter. 

Spain, reacted by imposing a siege on Gibraltar by severing communications by land, sea and air, and even telephones, apparently with the approval of the UN and C24, who never questioned Spain’s manifest breach of chapter 11. 

In 1972 UK with Gibraltar negotiated EU membership. 

Gibraltar was given special treatment by its European partners to compensate for the isolation created by Spain. 

Spain’s hostility was put down to the fact that it was ruled by a fascist dictator. 

Be that as it may, when the dictator died, the democratically elected Government which followed criticized his actions but demanded concessions for the removal of the blockade. 

The point of bringing this to your attention Madam Chair is so that C24 understands the issues as they happened and not as they are misinterpreted by Spain. 

Democratic Spain defends at the UN the 1960s policy of fascist Spain and uses the same arguments. 

They say Gibraltar has no territorial waters, no aviation rights and no right to its isthmus which joins our two countries. 

Well, in 1973, our territorial waters, airspace and isthmus became EU territory and Spain was not in the EU. 

When we left Brexit, we took with us our territorial waters, our air space and isthmus, which ceased to be EU. 

We now have a border with the EU, which happens to be the dividing line demarcating the end of Spain and the beginning of Gibraltar. 

This is the International Law that Spain refuses to accept because it seems that their mind-set is still in the world of 1704. 

In the meetings that Spain has held with UK during the last 61 years there has been one element which defies all logic. 

Every time Spain has made a proposal on transfer of sovereignty it has promised that it would retain the then existing level of self-government in the resultant decolonization. 

So Madam Chair, perhaps your committee can explain how it is that we are a listed Colony if the sovereignty is held by UK and we are decolonized and delisted under an identical constitutional relationship, if under the sovereignty of Spain. 

Our answer to Spain’s claims, has been the same from day one. 

Not one inch, not one grain of sand of our beaches, none of our airspace or our territorial waters are we prepared to give away, dilute or barter. 

We will fight to the death in the defence of our country and preserve it for future generations of Gibraltarians. 

This is our policy today.

That was our policy when we started.

That will be the policy for the future.

Until we achieve our goal of decolonization and international recognition, of our right, to our land. We are the Gibraltarians, and the Rock is ours!