MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Gibraltar has new “non colonial” link, UK tells UN

Sawers criticizes UN criteria on de-listing former colonies

The British Government told the United Nations Monday that Gibraltar had entered a new “non-colonial” constitutional relationship with the UK and described as “outdated” the UN criteria on de-listing former colonies.

In delivering this message to the UN Fourth Committee on decolonisation, Britain was echoing what it had previously said in Gibraltar and in the House of Commons in London. Many in Gibraltar had feared that London would avoid such an explicit assessment before the international community so as not to offend Spain. John Sawers, the UK's permanent representative to the UN, also emphasised the well-known position that the UK would never enter into sovereignty discussions with Spain against the wishes of the people of Gibraltar. He described as "outdated" the criteria used by the UN to decide whether non-self governing territories should remain on its list of colonies. In diplomatic terms, it was a sharp critique of the benchmarks used by the UN to assess the decolonisation process. Mr Sawers repeated the phrase not just in the context of Gibraltar, but in respect of numerous other territories too. The clear implication was that as far as the UK was concerned, the UN 'one-size-fits-all' approach to decolonisation fails to reflect the reality on the ground. "The criteria used by the Committee in its deliberation on whether a non-self governing territory should be 'de-listed' fails to take into account the way that relationships between the UK and Gibraltar and other overseas territories have been modernized in a way that is acceptable to both parties," Mr Sawers said. "The British Government shares the view of the Chief Minister of Gibraltar that Gibraltar is now 'politically mature' and the UK-Gibraltar relationship is 'non-colonial' in nature". During his address to the Fourth Committee Gibraltar's Chief Minister Peter Caruana summed up progress on constitutional reform and urged the UN to remove Gibraltar from its list of colonies. He said that there was no longer a need for the UN to concern itself with the decolonisation of Gibraltar, save to remove it from the list. Whatever the position or obstacles in reaching that end, "this does not alter the political and factual reality that Gibraltar has ceased to be in a colonial relationship with its ex- administering power the UK, and has thus ceased to be a colony," Mr Caruana told the committee. "These are the inescapable realities which the UN can choose to ignore if it wishes to, but which do not therefore or thereby cease to be realities".The Chief Minister reinforced the message from the UK that the UN's de-listing criteria were outdated, a theme that ran through many of the interventions yesterday and appears to be becoming common currency at these sessions. Just last week, the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines UN ambassador Margaret Hughes Ferrari, Chairman of the UN's Special Committee on Decolonization, reminded the Fourth Committee that creative ways to complete the decolonization task must be sought. There was no "magic formula" and the different needs and expectations of each territory should be considered on a case- by-case basis, she said at the time. Mr Caruana and the British ambassador to the UN made their comments following an earlier intervention by Spain. Although the language used was mostly formal and staid, there were clear differences of position and underlying tensions in the content of each address. The Spanish representative said Spain was eager to seek a "definitive solution" to the Gibraltar question, one in which "the interests of the people of Gibraltar are taken into account". But he stressed that Madrid believed the decolonisation of Gibraltar could only come about through a bilateral negotiation between Spain and the UK. The principle of self-determination, because of the dispute over sovereignty, was not applicable to Gibraltar, he said. "Unfortunately, since the last General Assembly session [a year ago], even though my Government expressed its will on repeated occasions to resume negotiations with the United Kingdom in order to examine the issues of sovereignty relating to Gibraltar, there has not been any news in this area that would allow us to speak of progress or, for that reason, that we could be closer to reaching the decolonisation of Gibraltar in conformity with the mandate of the United Nations," he said. He later added: "My Government will continue to work loyally and hopes that at the opportune moment negotiations will be able to take place that will allow us to make real progress in the decolonisation process".