MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Fiery UN Committee 24/Gibraltar debate

The United Nations Special Decolonization Committee of 24 faced Tuesday its toughest criticism to date at the hands of Gibraltarian delegates. And in what proved to be a fiery debate by UN standards, there were clear divisions of opinion as to whether it was possible to decolonise Gibraltar without delisting it from the UN list of colonies, reports the Gibraltar Chronicle.

In New York Gibraltar Chief Minister Peter Caruana was unambiguous with his message and accused the UN of "40 years of lethargic inactivity in relation to Gibraltar".

The accusation drew an immediate response from Julian Hunte, the Committee's Chairman, who was clearly at odds with elements of the Chief Minister's speech.

"That is an accusation which we strongly reject" Mr Hunte said as soon as Mr Caruana had finished his address.

The Chief Minister had maintained that the Committee's failure to act decisively in Gibraltar's case had created a situation where people in Gibraltar saw the UN as "irrelevant" to their future. "Mr Chairman, this is why we have proceeded, by ourselves and of our own motion and initiative, to seek to decolonise by the only means apparently available to us," he said.

"That is, by exercising the right to self-determination by means of a referendum to accept and approve a new constitutional relationship with the UK, which is not colonial in nature, and which gives us that maximum degree of self government beyond which there is only independence." And he later added: "The UK has already declared that the new Constitution establishes a relationship between Gibraltar and the UK that is non-colonial." "The UK will, I believe, also recognise and accept that the referendum will constitute an exercise of that right of self-determination." "We hope that you will take the same view."

At the end of the session, Mr Hunte read from a prepared statement in response to queries received by the Committee as to the mechanics of the process of delisting.

He highlighted that the administering power ? the UK in the case of Gibraltar ? was "obligated" to advise the UN on any changes in political status of a territory and to provide a detailed review of those changes.

"De-listing is not the goal, but rather the result of the attainment of a full measure of self-government," the Chairman said.

He added that if new constitutional arrangements in a given territory resulted in "mere colonial reform" rather than decolonisation, without meeting the international criteria of a full measure of self government set out in UN General Assembly agreement, "these new arrangements will be acknowledged".

"It would be difficult, however, to see how the international community would declare such an arrangement to be one of full self-government," Mr Hunte said.

"The political status that was the subject of the Tokelau referendum earlier this year, for example, was indicative of an arrangement that contained all of the necessary attributes for a full measure of self government," he said, highlighting that New Zealand, the administering power in that case, had engaged fully with the Committee during the process. Without stating it explicitly, he left little doubts that the UK had not engaged with the Committee in that way in respect of Gibraltar.

For his part, Opposition leader Joe Bossano delivered a speech to the Committee that focused heavily on the ongoing debate about the constitutional preamble.

While he was also critical of the Committee's docile approach to the issue of Gibraltar's decolonisation, the main thrust of his ire was aimed at the UK.

"We want the UK to endorse the process [of constitutional reform] in Gibraltar as the use of our inalienable right to freely determine our own future," he said. "And that is what they have refused to do to date."

If the vote for the new constitution did not terminate Gibraltar's international status as a non self governing territory, "it would not be de-facto decolonisation but de- facto endorsement of a continuation of the colonial status? [and] it would, in my judgement, amount to the endorsement of the Spanish line that there is only one option open to us."

"That in our case self determination only means being able to accept integration with Spain and that unless and until we do that, our status in international law and under the Charter of the United Nations must remain unchanged."

Deconstructing the Spanish position had been a prominent feature of much of Mr Caruana's address.

Spain believes that the process of decolonisation, as applied to Gibraltar, must necessarily be conditioned by the principle of territorial integrity.

The Chief Minister said that such a concept was "a legal and conceptual nonsense" and that the international principles entrusted to the Committee had become "contaminated by the territorial ambitions of certain states."

"We will never surrender our right to decide our own future and we will never subjugate it to Spain's sovereignty claim," Mr Caruana told the Committee. "Spain believes that because of the existence of its sovereignty claim, the only manner of decolonisation that the UN will endorse in the case of Gibraltar is that our sovereignty should be transferred to Spain," he said. "You systematically fail even to dispel that view and consequently, the people of Gibraltar do not relate to this Committee or see it, or the UN, as relevant to their decisions about the way forward for Gibraltar."

But the Spanish delegation, represented by its most senior figure at the UN, had pre-empted Mr Caruana's strike. Even before the Chief Minister began his speech, the Spanish Permanent Representative to the UN, Juan Antonio Yáñez-Barnuevo, had delivered a detailed assessment of Spain's position.

"I am afraid that you could hear in this venue, as in previous occasions, reproaches to this Committee for not defending the supposed rights of Gibraltarian people," he said. "But we all know, Mr Chairman, and Spain wishes to make a specific statement for the record, that this Committee has acted in a decisive and effective manner during the vast work completed by the United Nations in the area of decolonisation."

And in a final statement, he delivered a pointed assessment of Spain's view on the process of Gibraltar's constitutional reform within the context of delisting.

The Spanish UN ambassador concluded that "though we are delighted that the constitutional reform of Gibraltar is a good text for the governance of this territory, we would like to remind the members of the Special Committee that such reform is irrelevant to the effects of the decolonisation of Gibraltar