|
British sovereignty in Gibraltar
|
|
|
Sovereignty of the Rock
(a land area smaller than the city of Algeciras across the water) will doubtless eventually return to Spain, but at present neither side is in much of a hurry. For Britain it's a question of precedent - Gibraltar is in too similar a situation to the Falklands/Malvinas, the conflict over which pushed the Spanish into postponing an initial frontier-opening date in 1982. For Spain, too, there are unsettling parallels with the
presidios
(Spanish enclaves) on the Moroccan coast at Ceuta and Melilla - both at present part of AndalucAa. Nonetheless, the British presence is in practice waning and the British Foreign Office clearly wants to steer Gibraltar towards a new, harmonious relationship with Spain. To this end they are running down the significance of the military base, and now only a token force of less than a hundred British troops remain - most of these working in a top-secret hi-tech bunker buried deep inside the Rock from where the Royal Navy monitors the sea traffic through the Strait (accounting for a quarter of the world movement of all shipping). In financial terms this has cut the British government's contribution to Gibraltar's GDP from 65 percent in the early 1980s to five percent today, and the figure is still falling.
The Gibraltarians, however, are firmly opposed to a return to Spanish control of the Rock. In 1967, just before Franco closed the border in the hope of forcing a quick agreement, the colony voted on the issue - rejecting it by 12,138 votes to 44 (a poll which was not recognized, incidentally, by the UN). Most people would probably sympathize with that vote - against a Spain that was then still a dictatorship - but more than thirty years have gone by, Spanish democracy is now secure, and the arguments are becoming increasingly tenuous. Despite its impressive claims to law and order, Gibraltar is no model society either; its dirty jobs, for instance, are nearly all done by Moroccans, who were recruited en masse to replace Spanish workers after the border between Gibraltar and Spain was closed by Franco in 1969, and who have always been treated as second-class citizens. This was underlined in the late 1990s by tough new immigration laws stripping them of residence, pension and health care rights, which were upheld by the colony's supreme court, despite appeals against "ethnic cleansing". May 1996 saw a change in the trend of internal politics , with the defeat of Joe Bossano's Labour government (following two previous landslide victories). Voters, concerned that Bossano's pugnacious anti-Spanish stance jeopardized a viable economic future in which Spain must realistically play a role, elected a new Social Democratic administration led by Peter Caruana. However, whilst Caruana talked of opening up a more constructive dialogue with Spain during the election campaign, once in control he soon began to voice the traditional Gibraltarian paranoia. His stance has caused some dismay in Madrid and London, who were both behind Spain's offer in 1997 to give the colony the status of a Spanish autonomous region (similar to that of the Basques and Catalans) inside the Spanish state. The proposal was rejected out of hand by Caruana. After calling a snap election in February 2000, the Caruana government was returned for another four-year term with an increased majority. Caruana has also been urged by Britain (under pressure from Spain) to crack down on the smuggling of contraband cigarettes over the Spanish border and to curb the activities of the Rock's 75,000 "offshore" financial institutions - many of which Spain claims are guilty of involvement with money laundering by criminals from all parts of Europe and beyond. These claims were given some credibility by the EU's decision to start legal proceedings against a number of them in 1999. What most outsiders don't realize about the political situation is that the Gibraltarians feel very vulnerable, caught between the interests of two big states; they are well aware that both governments' concerns are primarily strategic and political rather than with the wishes of the people of Gibraltar. Until very recently people were sent over from Britain to fill all the top civil service and Ministry of Defence jobs, a practice which, to a lesser degree, still continues - the present governor is David Durie, a senior Whitehall civil servant. Large parts of the Rock are no-go areas for "natives"; the South District in particular being taken up by military facilities. Local people also protest about the Royal Navy nuclear-powered submarines which dock regularly at the naval base, and secrecy surrounds the issue of whether nuclear warheads and/or chemical and biological weapons are stored in the arsenal, probably deep inside the Rock itself. This whole issue came to a head in the late summer of 2000 when the Royal Navy submarine Tireless limped into Gibraltar with a problem in its nuclear reactor. Tension mounted over the following months as the populations of the towns surrounding the Bay of Algeciras staged angry demonstrations sparked by the British Government's refusal to give any information about the potential dangers or when the sub would be leaving. It finally departed in May 2001 but the affair was a public relations disaster for Britain and Gibraltar and caused serious diplomatic strains between Madrid and London.
Yet Gibraltarians still cling to British status - perhaps simply because they have known nothing other than British rule since the former population was displaced - and all their institutions are modelled on British lines. Contrary to popular belief, they are of neither mainly Spanish nor British blood, but an ethnic mix descended from Genoese, Portuguese, Spanish, Minorcan, Jewish, Maltese and British ancestors. English is the
official language
, but more commonly spoken is what sounds to an outsider like perfect Andalucian Spanish. It is in fact
llanito
, an AndalucAan dialect with borrowed words that reflect its diverse origins; ironically - in view of most of the colony's antipathy to their Iberian neighbour - only a Spaniard from the south can tell a Gibraltarian from an Andalucian. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
|
Gibraltar,
|