MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Gibraltar press C24 to take action on self-determination.

Gibraltar Chief Minister Peter Caruana and Opposition Leader Joe Bossano urged this week the United Nations Committee of 24 for Decolonisation to ?take action' and discharge its duties to the colonized people of Gibraltar.

In a UN building bustling in anticipation of the Security Council meeting on Iraq, the Chief Minister of Gibraltar repeatedly asked the chairman whether it was the Committee's role to assist the colonial people to uphold their rights or to act as a neutral observer in a sovereignty dispute between the United Kingdom and Spain. Mr. Caruana accompanied by Chief Secretary Ernest Montado and Labor Party leader Daniel Feetham said it was important that the C24 needed to take action so as to help colonized peoples achieve self-determination, but pointed out that, despite the annual submissions by the Gibraltar delegation, the Committee does not engage in action or even reflect any statements or views in its annual resolutions. "The people of Gibraltar could do no more in participating in their own decolonization; addressing the Committee every year, passing unanimous resolutions in parliament seeking the UN's involvement, petitioning the committee directly, inviting it to visit Gibraltar and inviting it to refer the disputed legal issues to the International Court of Justice for an opinion".

"Same old resolution which wholly ignores rights"

"Yet we have received no response or action, indeed we have received no response or action at all from the Special Committee, which limits itself to an annual repetition of the same, old resolution which wholly ignores the rights, aspirations and position of the only party whom your mandate requires you to protect." "This committee is not the political committee of the UN. It has no mandate to administer sovereignty disputes. But it does have a mandate, indeed a sacred trust to advance the decolonization of all its remaining listed territories". Further on Mr. Caruana said the committee's annual resolution did nothing to assist the colonial people of Gibraltar, and put the question to the chairman: "does the committee see itself as the guardian and promoter of the political rights of its colonial people as a listed self-governing territory or does the committee see itself as a referee in a sovereignty dispute between our administering power and our neighbor?" Mr. Caruana said that there was no proper basis or law in UN doctrine to Spain's contention that the self-determination rights of a colonial people are cancelled and overridden because there is a sovereignty claim by her. "It is a misconceived and self serving invention by the Kingdom of Spain."

Court referral and UN visit

The Chief Minister once again called for the C 24 to refer the matter to the International Court of Justice, saying that it was the only body which could authoritatively opine on the proper position in international law. If the position was that Gibraltar enjoys rights to self-determination, then the committee should help Gibraltar to exercise those rights. If not, "then it would suit everyone for that to be established and known as soon as possible." Mr. Caruana reminded that in October he had delivered to the committee a petition signed by 80% of the Gibraltar electorate calling for a visit to Gibraltar to ascertain the economic, political and cultural truths for themselves, and assess the worthiness of the people of Gibraltar to enjoy the right to self-determination. He added that no response had been received from the committee, and asked why this was, since the colonizing power had not objected to it. He said Spain's objection to the visit was based on a fear that her invalid arguments would be under threat. Spain's contention that the third party in a sovereignty dispute must be consulted if there is to be a visit, he said, was absolute nonsense and another example of Spain seeking to confuse issues of decolonization and sovereignty. Mr. Caruana called on the committee to stop supporting the bilateral discussions between Britain and Spain over Gibraltar, which he said betrayed Gibraltar's right to self-determination "and represents instead the language of a sovereignty dispute between two member states as if the people of the territory had no political rights of their own". He pointed out that the British Government had said following the 2002 referendum result that ?the chances of achieving an agreement? are simply zero'. "Well Mr. Chairman, what is the point of continuing with a bilateral process of dialogue in which those very same Gibraltarians, whose agreement is acknowledged to be essential, are not properly and fully represented?"

Cruise liners and Tercentenary

Mr. Caruana took the opportunity to inform the committee on Spain's recent ban on cruise liners heading from Gibraltar into Spanish ports, calling for an indefinite lifting of the ban. He told the committee that the Gibraltar and UK Governments were poised to challenge the EU decision to treat Gibraltar as a region of the UK for the purposes of taxation, describing it as a violation of the UN charter to treat a colony as a region of its administering power. Finally, the Chief Minister informed the committee that Gibraltar was this year celebrating its 300th year of its development as a people, and that this week would be voting in the European elections, a right they had to win in the European Court of Human rights.

Perpetuation

For his part, Mr. Bossano told C 24 that the committee and the UN were responsible for the perpetuation of the colonial status in the case of Gibraltar, and stressed the need for the committee to arrange a visiting mission. He stressed that it was not the committee's job to recommend to which of the sixteen territories on the list for decolonization had the right to self-determination and which didn't. "When it comes to the question of Gibraltar, this committee has acted in the past as if its role were the perpetuation rather than the eradication of colonialism," he said. The Opposition leader called on the newly elected socialist Government in Spain as well as the Labor Government in UK to recognize and accept that Gibraltarians are a genuine colonial people to whom the decolonization declaration and the UN charter fully applies, as the C24 has already accepted.

Kofi Annan's words and C 24' duty

Mr. Bossano accompanied by Opposition member Fabian Picardo and GSLP Executive Committee chairman Joe Sanders, said that for forty years he had been witnessing Gibraltar's struggle for the right to self-determination and recalled the words of Secretary General Kofi Annan spurring the committee into action in January 2003; "It is essential that the choice be the result of the freely expressed wishes of the territorial people." Mr Bossano ended his speech by playing on the sympathies of former colonial peoples. "To those of your Excellencies that have yourself experienced colonial rule at first hand, remember what it meant to you, side with us: the colonial people. It is us you are supposed to be defending and protecting and not the interests of UK and Spain. Make clear to both of them that this is what this committee will do."

Territorial integrity

Delivering his address at the opening of the session, Spanish representative Roman Oyarzun pointed out that we are approaching the second decade of the eradication of colonialism, and Gibraltar was a case of a decolonization dispute over the sovereignty between two states, the UK as an administering power and Spain as a claimant to sovereignty. Mr. Oyarzun indicated the colonial presence in Gibraltar was contrary to the UN Charter and that according to UN resolution 1514 "any attempt aimed at the partial and total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the UN". Mr. Oyarzun also quoted UN resolution 2353 which states that the colonial situation in Gibraltar disrupts the national unity and territorial integrity of Spain. The delegate pointed to the Seminar for Decolonisation in Madang (Papua New Guinea) where the resolution reiterated the principle of territorial integrity. Mr. Oyarzun concluded that the only way to continue making progress on the issue of Gibraltar was to "act with imagination towards a global solution which can be acceptable to the UK and to Spain, and which guarantees a flourishing future for Gibraltar". During his address Mr. Caruana reacted to this statement by saying that Spain's submission of territorial integrity was ?misconceived', and that a potential solution needed to be acceptable not only to the UK and Spain, "as if the Gibraltarians were only bystanders in a 300-year-old sovereignty claim". Also reacting to the Spanish statement, Mr. Bossano rejected the view that the territory of Gibraltar could be separated into two separate claims, that of the city and that of the isthmus. "There is only one Gibraltar and it is all ours," he asserted. (Chronicle)