56 incursions in 30 days this is not good for Gibraltar!

56 incursions in 30 days - what is UK doing about it?

I have been quietly listening for over a week to different people to get a real feel of what people in Gibraltar think about the constant incursions by the Spanish para military in our British Territorial Waters.

I have been analysing the proof with the strength of feeling and then measuring that with action or rather the lack of action from our UK Government!

The lack of action from our UK Government and the Foreign Office has only made Spain go up another level in their blatant continous parading of our waters!

Yes we have had 56 incursions in 30 days. There is no doubt in my mind that this is totally unacceptable. We have as Defenders of Gibraltar written letters to Mr Cameron, Mr Lidington and Mr Hague and in fact even to Our Majesty the Queen to no avail!

Diplomacy and restraint is all that they call for - more diplomatic complaints to Spain and for what? NOTHING just more incursions. The latest complaint and due to the response from Mr Lidington actually made Spain more daring and led them to come into our waters but not the Guardia Civil this time but much more dangerous - the Spanish Warship!

The latest incursion by the Spanish warship ‘P64 Tarifa’ on Tuesday 11th June triggered another futile Foreign Office diplomatic protest after the Spanish vessel decided to spend a leisurely afternoon patrolling BGTW.

A serious incident you’d think, well no, particularly if you follow the present Foreign Office policy they apply to Spanish incursions into BGTW. You see, according to the diplomatic way of thinking in London there is no credible threat to Gibraltar’s security or defence by a Spanish warship as we saw Tuesday, or of any other vessel the Spanish government care to send into our waters which the Spaniards do to threaten and intimidate the people of Gibraltar, whilst at the same time chip away at the integrity of BGTW.

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Below is the text of the letter of response that Defenders of Gibraltar did jointly with Voice of Gibraltar Group to apply more pressure to Mr Lidington as we found his response was weak and added insult to injury!

“Thank you for your letters of 4 May requesting a meeting and setting out your concerns following my letter of 29 April to the Voice of Gibraltar Group, and for your email of 2 June. I am happy to clarify my points and I am copying this letter to Mr Julio Pons in the interests of openness and transparency.

May I first underline that I welcome your letter. The UK Government’s approach to relations with Gibraltar is based on respect for the people of Gibraltar and a wish to work as closely as possible with HM Government of Gibraltar (HMGoG) to serve Gibraltar’s interests.

I recognise the strength of feeling in Gibraltar about unlawful incursions into British Gibraltar Territorial Waters (BGTW) by Spanish State vessels. I attach the highest priority to the safety and liberty of all Gibraltarians. Indeed, the UK has responded firmly to incursions which have posed a risk to the safety of individuals. For example, when a Spanish Customs vessel sought to apprehend a Gibraltarian civilian boat in BGTW last November, we summoned the Spanish Ambassador to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to ensure our displeasure was absolutely clear and communicated directly to Madrid.

The UK Government’s overarching commitment to ensure the security, prosperity and development of all the British Overseas Territories was set out in The Queen’s Speech in Parliament on 8 May. We take this commitment seriously and I do not rule out any measures that are necessary to defend Gibraltar from a genuine threat to its security or defence.

However, as I wrote in my letter to the Voice of Gibraltar Group, I do not believe that the unlawful incursions of the Guardia Civil present any credible threat to Gibraltar’s security or defence, or to British sovereignty over BGTW. While I recognise fully and sympathise with the anger felt by Gibraltarians when they witness these unacceptable and unlawful incursions, the response of the Royal Navy and our diplomatic pressure on Spain must be proportionate and must avoid increasing the risks to the safety of those involved in challenging these vessels.

I believe these incursions are a misguided and futile attempt by Spain to assert their long-standing legal position regarding the waters. However, even if the frequency has increased in recent months, Guardia Civil incursions cannot change international law as enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Incursions will never change the fact that BGTW are rightfully British waters.

You ask who would have more to lose from escalation: the reality is that a move to retaliatory action would harm all parties but I am particularly concerned that Gibraltar would be most vulnerable. Increased or more aggressive incursions threaten the safety of individuals on the waters. I am concerned that a downward spiral could also threaten Gibraltar/Spain security cooperation. A decline in relations would also have a clear long-term opportunity cost in terms of preventing the sorts of cross-border and regional cooperation which could boost Gibraltar’s economy and help meet its security, environmental and resource challenges.

In delivering our commitment to uphold Gibraltar’s security, defence and external relations, the UK Government would not be acting responsibly if we did not weigh up these interests against the actual threat presented by the incursions. This is why we support the need for Spain to respect Her Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar’s work to find a route to resolve the fishing dispute and press for a return to the Trilateral Forum for Dialogue.

You ask whether the FCO was informed in advance of Judge Rosario Silva de Lapuerta’s appointment by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to hear two cases concerning Gibraltar. We were aware in advance that Mrs Silva de Lapuerta had been allocated to the Chamber dealing with the UK’s appeal. I wrote to the President of the Court shortly after we learned of this expressing concern that the Court’s impartiality could be called into question because Mrs Silva de Lapuerta had previously held a role in which she advised the Spanish Government on matters relating to Gibraltar. However, this was a matter for the Court to decide. The UK was not a Party to HMGoG’s separate appeal to the ECJ.

Finally, you ask for a meeting to discuss these issues. I will be pleased to meet representatives of both the Defenders of Gibraltar and the Voice of Gibraltar Group when I next visit Gibraltar. Please keep in touch with the Office of the Governor on this.”      
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 To add more insult to injury as if it is not enough that Spain bully us at Sea with their incursions by their Navy and their para military Guardia Civil - they have targeted sport and children trips to spain.

From our newspaper we have this breaking news from Panorama

BREAKING NEWS: GFA v Cuba under-20 match cancelled

The Spanish Government is said to have blocked match between Cuba under 20 and Gibraltar under 19 football due in Marbella. This is due to Spanish pressure from Madrid , said Spanish reports, although other sources say this is due to sudden sharp increase in ticket prices for the friendly match.
Cuban sources quoted as saying that it was disappointing, 'truly strange'.
It is being recalled that Spain had threatened with placing obstacles to prevent the GFA playing on Spanish soil, due to Madrid being against Gibraltar's membership of UEFA.
17.06.2013

 On the 12th June

What is happening here - Spain targeting our schoolchildren now?

I have just been reliably informed that tour buses carrying pupils from St Marys School were stopped by the Guardia Civil at the Frontier and told:

" You either pay to go into Spain or you get a Spanish bus to your destination"

To make matters worse, a young group of boys traveling to Spain for training sessions in their own transport were also told they had to pay. So....the trip was cancelled.

THIS IS NOW UTTERLY RIDICULOUS

Whats the point of having the UK as the arbiters of our external affairs and security when they cant seem to make any tangible and permanent difference to the problems we face? What is the point of having declarations of Human Rights, freedom of movement and being allies in Europe and NATO when it is us who suffer the temperamental and immature whims of the plastic democratic government next door?

UK Wake up! Where is your courage and willingness to defend Gibraltar?

Does UK not care anymore?

 Well described picture below done to show how useless United Nations is but that we could even put UK government and EU in UN place. Food for thought - it is so long as it is not them it is ok!

  

Below is the full text that our Chief Minister did in his speech to UN

50 years asking the UN to defend our rights

*FULL TEXT of address to UN decolonisation committee by Chief Minister Fabian Picardo:
This is my second appearance before your Committee as Chief Minister of Gibraltar and I am accompanied by the Deputy Chief Minister Dr Garcia.

Mr Chairman three hundred years ago next month, the Kingdom of Spain ceded Gibraltar to the United Kingdom under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 - I quote - “to be held and enjoyed absolutely with all manner of right for ever, without any exception or impediment whatsoever”.

That is an absolute cessation of a territory if ever there was one.

As many of you will know, the Treaty also prevented the presence of Jews and Moors in Gibraltar and banned trade with the adjoining areas of Spain.

Yet, no sooner was the ink dry on the parchment of Utrecht, than Spain was breaching the treaty by trying to recover Gibraltar by force and siege.

There are a number of commemorative events being planned in Gibraltar throughout the year, but we will not be celebrating a treaty which is anti-Semitic, racist and which purports to curtail our rights as a people.

Indeed, it is now fifty years since successive Chief Ministers of Gibraltar have been coming to this Committee asking you to defend our rights as a people in modern international law; under the terms of the UN Charter and the relevant decolonisation resolutions that create your Committee’s jurisdiction and engenders the “sacred trust” which requires you to act in defence of our wishes as a people.

Because it is clear to any international lawyer worth his salt from whom you might care to seek the most cursory opinion, that the clauses of a Treaty that was signed in 1713 cannot seriously be used in 2013 to restrict or curtail the right of the people of Gibraltar to determine their own future.

1713 was a time of cannon and bloodshed in Europe, when the concept of human rights did not exist and men and women were sold as slaves by kings and queens who could pass title to countries to each other at their whim.

But for the current Government of Spain, time seems to have stood still.

Only last month during the very successful seminar your committee held in Quito, Ecuador, the representative of Spain held her country up for international ridicule once again with shocking submissions symptomatic of the current Government’s compulsive blindness to the reality of modern Gibraltar and the Gibraltarians today.

Mrs Pedros-Carretero said that - and I unfortunately quote - “Spain does not and will never acknowledge any international legal status to the current inhabitants of Gibraltar nor will it ever accept their pretended right to dispose of the Rock.”

Such comments can have no place in the modern world.

This is eighteenth century language from a twenty first century democracy.

That may have made sense in 1713 or in the depths of the pre-democratic Spain of the 50s, 60s and 70s.

But today, remarks that deny the very existence of a people to whom you owe that “sacred trust” must be anathema to you, as they are to my countrymen and women and to the democratic governments of the whole world.

So I therefore take the opportunity of the 300th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht to repeat the challenge made in this forum by other Chief Ministers of Gibraltar in the past half century.

I urge the Kingdom of Spain to test their pathetic and unsustainable political view in the International Court of Justice on all matters in dispute on the question of Gibraltar.

If they will again not do so, Mr Chairman, I urge this Committee, if necessary via the 4th Committee that you report to, to seek an Advisory Opinion on the matter.

Because, the relevant international law on this issue is as you know very clear and it entirely contradicts the Spanish position.

Gibraltar was included by the United Kingdom in 1946 in the list of Non-Self-Governing Territories and the international legal status of our nation remains unchanged since then.

That is why my colleague the Hon Joe Bossano, one of the most accomplished politicians in the field of the international law on self determination of colonial peoples, reminded you last month that Decolonisation Resolution 1514(XV) was fully applicable to Gibraltar.

This means that the only options open for Gibraltar’s decolonisation are either independence, free association, integration or the tailor-made solution provided for in resolution 2625(XXV) of 1970.

Those are the only options Mr Chairman.

There is no question of Gibraltar being handed over to Spain, as she seeks.

That is not an option.

There is no separate doctrine that arises simply when one state claims the sovereignty of a listed territory.

International jurisprudence on the issue is too developed to admit of such political nonsense being adopted as law, however often it is repeated.

For our part, Mr Chairman, the people of Gibraltar are clear in seeking to exercise the fourth option for decolonisation; the tailor made solution created by resolution 2625(XXV) of 1970.

Mr Chairman, in 2006 the people of Gibraltar accepted in a referendum our current Constitution which had been agreed with the United Kingdom by our then Government and Opposition.

Time and again we have asked this Committee to tell us whether this document, in their view, embodies the fullest possible measure of self-government short of independence which would allow for the decolonisation of Gibraltar and the change in our international legal status through our removal from your list of Non-Self-Governing Territories.

This would then need to be specifically endorsed by the people of Gibraltar in exercise of their right to self-determination in a further referendum.

Yet we have had no answer to date.

You remain surprisingly mute on the issue.

Mr Chairman, with respect, we cannot have a situation where the people of the territory, whose wishes are meant to be sacrosanct, are effectively ignored and side-lined by this Committee.

This Committee exists to look after the interests of our nation; to pursue the wishes of the people I represent; to hold our hand in attaining our political aspirations.

It does not exist to pander to the territorial claims of neighbouring claimant, based on a 300 year old treaty that is gathering dust and which has long been overtaken by events.

That has been overtaken by the Charter of the United Nations, democratic principles and the rule of law.

And if there is any doubt, then Article 103 of the Charter itself clarifies beyond peradventure that “in the event of a conflict between the obligations of members of the United Nations under the Charter and their obligations under any other international agreement, their obligations under the Charter shall prevail.”

So that does for Utrecht, as for the now long dead bilateral process of dialogue known as the Brussels Process.

Because the doctrine of the United Nations and of the international community is that all peoples have the right to self-determination; and treaties that purport to interfere with that in any way are invalid in international law.

Successive Chief Ministers have repeatedly traced how that right applies to the people of Gibraltar in earlier addresses.

And you have yourselves in parts of your own UN website on decolonisation an explicit and helpful reference to your monitoring the situation in the remaining 16 territories, and WITHOUT EXCEPTION “working to facilitate the advance toward COMPLETE self-determination” of these 16 territories.

Clearly therefore the right of self determination is now at last recognised by you explicitly as being applicable to all the territories INCLUDING GIBRALTAR.

You have therefore decided the issue; whether Spain likes it or not.

You say it in writing on your website and therefore unless you explicitly say otherwise you are entirely clear in telling the world via the world wide web that this is your position.

And that there are therefore clear principles that govern how the decolonisation is to be handled – and there is not an ad hoc, state by state mechanism that you can shape to please Spain.

In that context, Mr Chairman, I am delighted to report to you that our Head of State, Her Majesty the Queen of Gibraltar, Queen Elizabeth II, told Parliament last month that the UK Government agrees with your position and will continue to defend the right to self-determination of the people of Gibraltar.

And I therefore assert to you today with absolute confidence that the future of Gibraltar will be decided only by the people of Gibraltar in the exercise of our inalienable right of political self determination.

Anybody who thinks otherwise should think again.

The die is cast: Gibraltar belongs to the Gibraltarians.

Lock, stock and barrel.

There is nonetheless a need for the Committee to move to recognising that inescapable reality and our primacy in this matter in your conclusions, not just your website, and not just repeat the same consensus decision on Gibraltar year after year.

Mr Chairman, the Secretary General of the United Nations told you on 21st February this year that the narrative of the work of this Committee cannot again be portrayed as “decolonisation deferred”.

The Government of Gibraltar agrees entirely with the Secretary General.

He and we join in urging you to start the process with us of completing self determination, as is stated on the UN website.

We cannot continue to come here again and again, year after year, and receive little or no feedback from the Committee.

You assist no-one with this dialogue of the deaf.

You advance nothing by your continued silence.

This important committee must steel itself and speak at last;

And you must act in the terms of what you have already set out online.

Your failure to speak or act or even have the courage to accept our repeated and hereby renewed invitations to visit us emboldens the bullies.

Mr Chairman, the current Government of Spain continues to display considerable hostility towards Gibraltar.

Since 2010 our territorial sea has been continually invaded by armed patrol boats of the Spanish state on the absurd premise that Gibraltar has no waters; a proposition which has no basis in international law or even in rational thought.

And the current Government of Spain continues to challenge our economic model, even when the rest of the world and the EU accepts it and it creates jobs for many Spanish citizens.

Moreover, our sporting associations continue to have to fight Spanish objections in order to be recognised internationally.

I am however delighted to tell you by way of information, Mr Chairman, that our football association has recently been admitted to UEFA after a lengthy legal battle resulting from Spain’s political and unsporting objections.

You see Mr Chairman, when the Gibraltar gets a fair and unbiased hearing, we win!

Game, set and match.

That is why we repeatedly challenge Spain to go to the international courts but she cowers away.

I also deeply regret that that the current Government of Spain has withdrawn from the Trilateral Forum of Dialogue where, together with the Governments of Gibraltar and of the United Kingdom, discussions between the three parties were progressing.

My Government remains strongly committed to the Trilateral Forum for Dialogue.

The UK has expressed identical strong commitment to that Forum.

Indeed, I go further Mr Chairman, I want to express my People’s solidarity with the people of Spain at this difficult economic time for them.

We already provide approximately 10,000 jobs for cross frontier workers who live in an area of Spain suffering 40% unemployment but have found work in Gibraltar.

We are keen to work with a Spanish Government that forgets its medieval obsession with the takeover of the sovereignty of our nation and is ready to exploit opportunities across our frontier for mutual human and commercial advantage - as we are already seeking to do with the friendlier municipal authorities in the neighbouring Spanish city of La Linea.

That would create jobs; bring greater prosperity and stability to our region and mark a step in the right direction for all of us.

Help us to do that.

Send a clear and explicit signal - that the future lies not in Spain looking back at the frontiers established by the absolute monarchs of the fragmented, violent Europe of 1713;

But in jointly looking forward to a unified Europe of peaceful peoples and nations working together, where our right to determine our future is respected as required by international law.

Mr Chairman, my Government wants to work with your Committee in order to complete the decolonisation of Gibraltar in that context.

We want to engage with the organs of the United Nations in order to map out a roadmap to the 4th option for decolonisation of our country in accordance with the principle of self-determination you agree is applicable to all sixteen remaining territories without exception.

That is our right.

That is your obligation.

You have wasted too much of our time already.

And we demand that you start proactively acting in defence of our rights now.

13-06-13
  

So all in all Defenders of Gibraltar have been and are very busy fighting our cause to Defend our land, sea and air and people!

We will keep on no matter what as we have to get our voice heard. We have a lot to do and a lot is going on in the background to be revealed very soon indeed.

Anne-Marie Struggles