Jun 16 – “The Committee Is Playing Into The Hands Of Spain” - Interview With The Chief Minister
We spoke to the Chief Minister Fabian Picardo straight after his annual address to the UN's Special Committee on Decolonisation
YGTV: Your speech was dedicated to the generation of Gibraltarians that was evacuated during the Second World War – what role does the Evacuation play in our narrative of self-determination and in our emergence as a people?
Fabian Picardo: Everything we have today we owe principally to the Evacuation generation – they’re the ones that fought to return to Gibraltar and became politically conscious. Sir Joshua Hassan is talked of as the person who galvanized people to bring back the evacuees but all of that leads to today and to the determination that we have that the Rock is our own and nobody is going to take it from us. The Evacuation generation had to start from scratch after 250 years of being in Gibraltar and the work they did – these are in many cases our parents and grandparents - delivered to us the Gibraltar we enjoy today. This is the Gibraltar I can come to the UN to proudly represent ready to assert its unalienable right to self-determination.
YGTV: There was a gentle rap on the knuckles for the Chairman – both for the private meeting with Ybáñez and for repeatedly ignoring your invitation to visit Gibraltar. What did you make of his response to your criticisms of him?
Fabian Picardo: Well, there’s nothing like a man rattled to see what he is feeling. I was very pleased to hear that the Ybáñez meeting had taken place because we only found out about it from a short Spanish press report. Really this was something that should not be happening behind our backs. In the lexicon of the United Nations we are the “colonial people” and the Committee owes us a sacred trust. If somebody is going to meet with a power that is not an administering power but just a predatory power that wants to take us over, the least that we can be told is that such a meeting is happening and what was said there so that we can put in writing any responses we might have to things that are either unfair or defamatory of the people of Gibraltar. It was important for me to assert that and it had the effect of making the Chairman sit up and notice – he’s obviously taken it very badly and I’m concerned that we are seeing an axis of Spanish-speaking countries developing against the interests of the people of Gibraltar and the Falklands. I’m not going to let this happen without pointing it out and repeatedly embarrassing people into realizing that we’re not going to take things idly.
YGTV: He also declined the free flight…
Fabian Picardo: It’s a pity – British Airways First Class is fantastic, or so I’m told…the Chief Minister can only travel Business Class! The man, in my view, and the Committee as a whole, need to get a grip of what their responsibilities are. They are being told by the General Assembly in a December 2014 Resolution that the visiting missions are essential – they must be carried out. The United Kingdom has confirmed that the offer to visit Gibraltar remains on the table and I have reaffirmed our own invitation. So why is it being turned down? We know why: Spain doesn’t want the Committee to visit Gibraltar. If Spain thought that, by visiting Gibraltar, its case would be advanced, it would encourage such a visit. The Committee is not made up of fools – if they were being honest they would see that Spain is asking them not to come to Gibraltar. The Committee is playing into the hands of Spain and this is why we have to be here, to constantly point it out and make it uncomfortable for those who do things behind our backs.
YGTV: Spain also claimed that organized mafias are now operating to facilitate smuggling from Gibraltar across the sea. What is your reaction this this?
Fabian Picardo: This is the most disgraceful defamation that we’ve had to hear this year. It is absolutely incredible that Spain, having been told to stop what it was doing at the frontier, should pretend that the Commission was supportive of it and that there are organized mafias smuggling tobacco from Gibraltar into Spain. As we all know, and as OLAF in its report recognized, is that the organized crime is happening in Spain and it’s happening there because Spain has decriminalized the smuggling of tobacco and because there is huge poverty in Spain because of the corruption of its political class. The authorities in Gibraltar are very focused on curbing that; there are more seizures of tobacco in Gibraltar than in Spain. That’s the reality – but you come here and make an honest case for the people of Gibraltar and the Spanish representative says you’re disrespectful…I challenge anyone to read my speech and find anything disrespectful in it while just a glance at the Spanish speech will show you how disrespectful Spain is under this current administration.
Pics: Top left: YGTV Editor Giordano Durante interviewing the Chief Minister. Bottom: Deputy Chief Minister and Chief Minister preparing for the speech.
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