GOING APE OVER THE MACAQUES

Over the years I have written a lot of column inches on Gibraltar’s macaques. The last two pieces were in April were I stated: “Culling is a hot topic at the moment as the people of Canada have found out to their apparent surprise with the high profile coverage given to the licensed slaughter of the seals on that country’s ice fields.

Now could Gibraltar be the next in the international spotlight after the government’s decision to cull a number of the Rock’s macaque population. Gibraltar’s minister for the environment, Ernest Britto, has announced a culling of around 25 apes in the Catalan and Sandy Bay area. This action has been decided upon following repeated complaints from residents.

The famous macaques have been roaming wild in theses area rummaging through rubbish bins and creating a public nuisance. Britto stated that once the cull was completed the overall ape population would be around 200.”

Well in to that debate charged a lot of people. Linda Wolfe of the Department of Anthropology at East Carolina University in the USA said she was disheartened to learn that Gibraltar is planning to kill 30 of the Barbary macaques. She appealed to the government for the decision to be reviewed.

The UK’s International Primate Protection League revealed that it has been investigating the plight of the macaques to ascertain whether the cull would go ahead. The organization said it was considering calling on UK citizens to boycott visiting Gibraltar until the government pledged to stop using culling as a method of population control and instead invested in alternative methods. GONSH (that is responsible for caring for the macaques), the GSPCA and ESG environmental group all voiced their opposition to the cull.

Then all went quite apart I guess from various apes being shot or the cry of anguish from those family members left behind.

That is to last week when the matter was again raised in Gibraltar’s Parliament. The minister of the environment, Ernest Britto, had refused to give information on the cull as he deemed it not to be in the “national interest”.

This saw a big beast of the Rock’s political jungle, Fabian Picardo, go ape. The opposition spokesman who includes the environment in his portfolio blasted: “This is an issue on which there is a clear partisan division, with the GSD insisting on killing apes because they have not been successful in managing the problem of the growing ape population and the Opposition being firmly on the side of better management of the ape population.”

He added that the Minister’s answers to the Parliament “belie the fact that clearly the GSD government has authorised the killing of a number of apes since the matter was last debated in the Parliament. Given that the GSD have gone ahead with the killing of apes in the face of both national and international protest, it is really quite unacceptable for Minister Britto not to confirm the number of licences he has signed for the killing of apes. This is a very serious issue affecting the killing of sentient mammals simply because the GSD have not known how to deal with this issue more effectively.”

Fabian Picardo then struck a chord which I am sure resonates with every person and organisation that has the macaques’ welfare at heart. He stated: “The Minister should not be seeking to hide behind ‘secrecy’ and purported ‘national interest’, which is actually just his own interest, to avoid providing the public with the information on the number of apes he has licensed the killing of.”

If the apes could speak I’m sure they would shout “Hear, Hear.”

NATIONAL FOOT SHOOTING DAY

Remember that old marcher’s chant – “The People United Will Never Be Defeated”? Well today Gibraltar celebrates its National Day and a people united they are not.

In recent years there has been a National Day rally in Gibraltar’s Casemates. This consisted largely of leading politicians from the Rock’s major parties taking the stage to declare Gibraltar’s nationhood and the right to self-determination. There were also usually a number of British politicians on an away-day that made speeches which would largely have been treated with derision in their home constituencies.

This year the GSD government of Peter Caruana has knocked the Casemates rally on the head. His view is that now that Gibraltar has a new constitution and its colonial status is at an end the traditional National Day rally is redundant. Instead there will be a civic rally in John Mackintosh Square addressed by the mayor, Solomon “Momy” Levy, with music and choirs.

This has caused uproar from the opposition parties – the GSLP and Liberals – as well as the unelected PDP. Adding their voices have been the Self Determination Gibraltar Group (SDGG) and Voice of Gibraltar. They argue that Caruana is wrong and that despite the new constitution nothing has changed and hence the National Day rally should continue in its past form. Of course a cynic might say they were just upset at being denied a political platform for the day.

Step forward the SDGG to organise a rival rally in Casemates that of course is being attended by all of the above. It is timed for 11.00 the same hour that the official government ‘civic’ celebration is held further up Main Street. What will happen is that members of the GSLP, Liberals, PDP, SDGG and VoG will head to Casemates whilst the GSD supporters will be in John Mackintosh Square. This will leave the politically neutral on the Rock – basically one man and his dog – to choose which event they will support although the dog will probably favour the government’s celebration as there is free food.

At the end of all this the two sides will sit down and decide which rally was the most popular and therefore who has bragging rights for the coming year. They will conveniently forget the people who didn’t attend either rally and opted to spend the public holiday having lunch in Spain instead.

Of course the wider world, or rather the real world, will say that if the 28,000 Llanitos can’t come together to celebrate their Gibraltar National Day then they are still a long way off being a nation. However look on the bright side – “shooting yourself in the foot” is now truly established as the Rock’s national sport.

NATIONAL DAY TURNOUT

In today’s (September 11) report in the Gibraltar Chronicle the police estimated that over 4,000 people attended the Government’s “civic” ceremony in John Macintosh Square known locally as the Piazza. The police placed the figure at the SDGG organised political rally in Casemates at 850. You can read reports of the National Day celebration at http://www.chronicle.gi or by clicking Panorama on the links section.

NO PROSTITUTION, OFFICIAL

In my recent blog, Hello Sailor, I told of how although Gibraltar has been and is a major naval port there is no prostitution on the Rock. I said that was certainly the case ten years ago when I first wrote on the subject and I suspected nothing had changed in the interim.

Now I have heard from Ian McGrail, the Royal Gibraltar Police Media Officer. He told me: “Prostitution has not come to the Gibraltar Police's attention for a very long time, certainly not for the past 25 years which is the time I have served in the Force. There have not been any complaints in this respect from members of the community and neither have we received any intelligence to suggest that any prostitution takes place in the jurisdiction.”

So there you have it.

HELLO SAILOR

Yesterday I stated how startled I was that Spain generates 50 million euros a day on prostitution. Today I said I would reveal an interesting statistic on prostitution in Gibraltar and I will - it doesn’t have any!

Around ten years ago it struck me that here was a major naval port and yet I’d never seen any signs of “working girls” or boys for that matter. I had read the hilarious autobiography by George Melly entitled “Rum, bum and concertina”. It covered his World War II years in the Royal Navy and several pages were dedicated to his warship’s call in to Gibraltar on its way back to Blighty.

Sadly I don’t have a copy to hand but it gave a graphic and wonderfully funny picture of Gibraltar just as the war had ended and prostitutes there were a plenty.

Now the whole world knows all the girls love a sailor – and none more so than the girls of the night. So why weren’t there any prostitutes on the Rock?

John D Stewart had been a senior Civil Servant in Gibraltar for 10 years and in 1967 he published “Gibraltar – The Keystone”. This is what he says about prostitution:
“Another social problem, prostitution, was banished from The Rock about half a century ago, and Gibraltar became, the sailors tell me, the only whoreless port in the Mediterranean Sea. Can we give the churches and their earnest adherents the credit for this reform? Catholic countries around the world seem well furnished in this respect. Can we credit the British administration then? I think not, for the world’s supermarket for whores is Hong Kong, where the Anglican British are in undisputed authority.

“As I see it, Gibraltar was simply too small, crowded and intimate to contain the trade. The brothel quarter was right in the heart of the city, naturally known to every citizen, regardless of sex or age. A local septuagenarian told me, without remorse, how he used to go there as a little lad on his way home from school and see an impressive peepshow for a penny... So notorious a place, hemmed in on all its approaches by respectable private houses, could have been of little use to the manly citizens. It served only as a magnet for soldiers and sailors, and became a resort of drunkenness and noisy debauchery, with the inevitable fighting which attends such occasions, and it was ended easily, like Gibraltar’s other social problems – by export.”

So where did it go? – across the border to La Línea in Spain of course. John D Stewart continues:
“When the law was passed the professional ladies, some Spanish, some British moved to La Línea. The frontier was not much restricted at that time, and their clients could find them. The migration covered not much more than a mile as the crow flies and in the circumstances, as they knew, he flies fast and straight. In La Línea they colonised a whole street, a street which points straight at The Rock and, perhaps for that reason, but some say for nostalgia, was called La Calle de Gibraltar.”

And there it seems to have stayed. Not in the calle Gibraltar, which much earlier had been at the heart of the tobacco smuggling trade, but is now part of La Línea’s thriving town centre. However there are certainly “working girls” in the border town and they used to parade along the road to Campamento although I suspect the now tougher police regime has moved them on.

I spoke to a Royal Gibraltar Police officer when I did my original article and he told me there was no prostitution on the Rock and indeed, in all the years he had been on the force, he couldn’t remember there having been such a case. I have seen no suggestion of any change unless, of course, you know different.

COULD CEUTA AND MELILLA BE TRADED FOR GIBRALTAR?

Over the years I have long argued that the day may come that sees Gibraltar in some form become Spanish and both Ceuta and Melilla become part of the state of Morocco.

The two enclaves on the north coast of Morocco have been Spanish for centuries. Melilla was occupied by Spain in 1496 whilst Ceuta was captured in 1580. Gibraltar in contrast was taken for England in 1704 and ceded in perpetuity under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.

The status of the Spanish enclaves and Gibraltar are very different. Ceuta and Melilla are integral parts of Spain – as Spanish as the mainland provinces of Málaga and Cádiz to which they have close ties. By contrast Gibraltar has been an often ill-used British colony. It is probable that the Rock is no longer a colony as such, although opinion is divided on that point.

Ceuta and Melilla play a part in the every day life of Spain voting in the nation’s general elections. Gibraltar has been considered little more than a military base, its strategic importance ebbing and flowing with the tide of world affairs, where the views and opinions of the residents have been given scant regard with no official voice at Westminster.

Spanish politicians and the Royal Family visit the enclaves on a regular basis. Only British politicians involved in the day-to-day affairs of Gibraltar visit there and no monarch would contemplate a visit for fear of offending Spain.

However both Ceuta, Melilla and Gibraltar share something in common. All three are coveted by Morocco or Spain. The visits of Spanish royals to the enclaves cause outrage in Morocco but Madrid doesn’t care. As I said no British monarch would visit Gibraltar because the Foreign Office in London would quake in its boots at the mere suggestion. Gibraltar has never been an integral part of Britain hence London’s indifference to defending the Rock’s interests over its own.

It is probably true to say that the people of Morocco do want to see the Spanish enclaves become part of their nation. As it is not a democracy it is hard to tell. In contrast the majority of Spaniards, except those in the Campo de Gibraltar, have no strong views on the Rock other than a vague sense that it should be Spanish.

This is reflected in a recent survey in El Mundo were just 12 per cent of Spaniards said they would not mind if Ceuta and Melilla were handed over to Morocco, so long as Gibraltar became Spanish. Only 5 per cent believe the enclaves should be handed over to Morocco immediately. In contrast 70 per cent take the view that the Spanish Government should protect Ceuta and Melilla “because they are as Spanish as any other cities” in mainland Spain. I should add that I do not believe that the man and woman on the Clapham omnibus hold any such strong views on Gibraltar. Llanitos may look to Britain but if Britons look in this direction at all it is to the holiday resorts of mainland Spain and its islands.

Whilst Gibraltar is not high on the agenda of the Spanish public, even if it registers at all, the fact is the Rock is a political Holy Grail. No party, especially on the right, is going to give up the sovereignty claim, and no party on the left is going to be accused of doing so, especially when there are so many other real issues to make a stand on.

However the problem remains. Gibraltar will always be a thorn in Anglo-Spanish relations especially as Britain has been seen to weaken and seek some form of joint sovereignty. Morocco has been given no such joy by Spain but these two nations face each other across the Strait of Gibraltar and peace, harmony and joint development is very much on the agenda.

I still believe that if Britain allows Gibraltar to become Spanish in some form then the pressure from Morocco will force Spain to move on Melilla and Ceuta. Or, if Morocco exerts strong pressure on Spain, a deal will be needed on Gibraltar to save face in Madrid. The decision might even be made on a tri-nation basis with, I suspect, joint-sovereignty being the key. I fear that when the time comes for such an international deal the views and wishes of the people of Gibraltar, Ceuta and Melilla will be given scant regard. The interests of thousands will not be allowed to stand in the way of the will of millions; they never have even in democracies.

AN IMPOSSIBLE TASK

The role of mayor in Gibraltar has always been a political one. That commanding figure of politics on the Rock, Sir Joshua Hassan, once held the post. Until recently the position was held by a member of the government in the House of Assembly so you knew where you stood. In recent years the post has either been GSLP or GSD.

Now that has changed. Gibraltar has a parliament and the chief minister, Peter Caruana, announced that in future politics would be separated from the position of the city’s mayor. All parties were happy to unite behind Solomon ‘Momy’ Levy who at the end of July, in an emotional ceremony, was installed as mayor.

To think for a moment that in the village of Gibraltar politics could be divided from every day life would be a naive act. So ‘Momy’ has found out as he walks in to his first political storm of his year in office. Don’t worry there will be plenty more!

You or I may wonder what all the fuss is about. Last week in an interview with the Rock’s broadcaster, GBC, the mayor advocated setting politics to one side on National Day. This, incidentally, is what the ruling GSD of Peter Caruana had proposed. Hence the GSLP/Liberal opposition have taken exception to “Momy’s” words and accused him of “abusing his position as Mayor,” and supporting the policy of the ruling GSD party.

What Momy Levy apparently said was: ‘Now as far as the general comments going round town, I feel that we have politics 365 days a year and for one day for Gibraltar to be united. Forget politics. We are Gibraltarians. Forget Britain. Forget Spain.’

In a statement the GSLP/Liberals said: “Momy Levy, speaking as Mayor of Gibraltar, has said that National Day should be a day of unity in which politics is put to one side. The Opposition very much regrets his comments, which go to the heart of the ongoing controversy between the Government and the Opposition surrounding the downgrading of the National Day political rally.”

Now you or I again may view “a day of unity in which politics is put to one side” as a very worthwhile day indeed but then you are probably not Gibraltarian.

The GSLP/Liberal statement continues: ““The justification given for Mr Levy’s selection was that he is supposedly neutral and would not involve himself in politics. By defending and justifying the decision of the GSD Government to hold a “civic gathering” at the John Mackintosh Square to replace the traditional “people’s public rally” at Casemates, he is supporting the policy of one political party and criticising the views of the other three parties that contested the last general election.

“He is entitled to do that as an individual citizen who supports the GSD, but he is abusing his position as Mayor by providing the support of the office to the policy of the GSD Government. He can hardly be considered an unbiased and neutral political person when he is the very person at the centre of the disagreement. As far as the Opposition is concerned, the statement by Mr Levy as Mayor of Gibraltar invalidates the terms on which he is supposed to be conducting himself in carrying out his Mayoral role.

“It is not the political parties who should keep politics out of the debate on National Day, it is Mr Momy Levy who should keep party politics out of the role of Mayor of Gibraltar.”

It should be pointed out that it was the GSD government that decided to take the politics out of National Day and to propel the mayor to the fore. As a non-political figure but a proud Gibraltarian it is natural that Momy Levy should welcome politics being set aside for one day. However, if he had disagreed with the decision, should he have spoken out in support of the opposition view? Apparently not because he “should keep party politics out of the role of Mayor of Gibraltar.” He’s in a no-win situation.

Waiting in the wings as the deputy mayor is Olga Zammitt who will take over from Momy Levy next July. Given what she is seeing you couldn’t blame her for fleeing for the hills. Unfortunately the nearest hills are across the border in Spain so that too would be a political act!

GIBRALTAR, CEUTA & MELILLA

I understand that the Spanish Foreign Ministry has produced the latest edition of its hand book on Gibraltar. Whilst much is forward-looking, such as the Forum of Dialogue to improve relations between Gibraltar and the wider Campo de Gibraltar region on the Spanish side of the border, one policy is set in stone.

“The Spanish Government maintains its claim for the return of the sovereignty over Gibraltar as irrevocable.”

Nor will this change. Gibraltar is in a mix with the Spanish enclaves in North Africa of Ceuta and Melilla. These were taken by Spain in 1580 and 1496 respectively. Morocco claims them both in the same way that Spain maintains its sovereignty over Gibraltar that was taken by the English in 1704 and ceded in perpetuity in the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713.

Geographically Gibraltar is part of the Iberian Peninsula and the enclaves are parts of Morocco. The politics are of course different. Ceuta and Melilla are integral provinces of Spain. Gibraltar was/is a British colony (that is debatable it seems even at the British Foreign Office) and many Gibraltarians view themselves as a nation.

Now if Morocco renounced its claim to Ceuta and Melilla then Spain might follow suit with Gibraltar – but that is not going to happen. Nor is either country going to renounce their claim to the enclaves or Gibraltar independently.

However if Spain could regain sovereignty over Gibraltar then, having saved face, it might be prepared to give away Ceuta and Melilla. Indeed the pressure on it to do so would be overwhelming.

All this is some years off and will involve wider political relations between Britain, Spain and Morocco and the EU. Come though I am convinced it will and we must just make sure that the political wishes of the people of Gibraltar are upheld and not cast aside in a wider political fix.

THE LAST STRAW

The Labour Government is in deep trouble, its summer, Parliament is on holiday so the conspiracy theorists have come out to play.

Will Brown go or stay? Will Jack Straw succeed him as an interim measure? What of David Miliband? Enough there alone to keep us going till the autumn.

Memories are long in Gibraltar and the prospect of Jack Straw taking over, even as an interim measure, is causing concern.

My eye recently fell on an article in the Gibraltar daily ‘Panorama’. I suspect it was penned by the paper’s respected editor, Joe García.

He wrote: “As a senior Labour minister, Straw is seen as the most likely person to be pushed into a leadership stake.

“If he were to take the plunge and succeed, Britain would have a prime Minister who wants Gibraltar’s sovereignty to be shared with Spain. When he visited Gibraltar at the time of the 2002 sovereignty plan, he was jeered in the streets. Later, it emerged he was leading what the Tories labelled a sell-out.“Straw spent a year in secret conclave with the Spanish working out the joint sovereignty deal.

“The then Europe minister Peter Hain was close to clinching the deal, but at the last moment the Spanish pulled back on instructions from Prime Minister José María Aznar, who was to sack his foreign minister Josep Pique.“We have made significant progress towards a solution, Straw told Parliament in July 2002. He was foreign secretary at the time.

“The planned joint declaration would have been a comprehensive package to include a new draft treaty which would be ratified after a referendum in Gibraltar.“But Britain had its ‘red lines’ that needed to be upheld by Spain, including the referendum and particularly that joint sovereignty would not extend to the military base.

“There were cries of ‘sell out’ when Straw referred in Parliament to the deal including that Britain and Spain would share sovereignty over Gibraltar, including the disputed territory of the isthmus.”

Well the world has moved on since then and much that was offered as a carrot to Gibraltar to share sovereignty has been gained under the Córdoba Agreement and Tripartite talks between Spain, Britain and the Rock.

With a relatively short period between now and the next British election, the prime minister, be it Brown or another, has enough to concentrate his (or her) mind without offering joint sovereignty on Gibraltar. Also was Straw pursuing his own policy or merely doing what he was told by Blair? I suspect the latter is far more likely.

If I was a betting man, and I’m not, I suspect that Brown will cling on and lead his party to the election.

If he is ousted, I can’t see the electorate rallying around Jack Straw – the man of straw – who shook hands with Robert Mugabe not realising who he was. Hardly a safe pair of hands.

Miliband and others may want the leadership, but with Labour odds on to loose power, he and they will probably keep their powder dry and pick up the pieces after Brown has overseen the electoral disaster.

Would the voters rally round a Labour Party under yet another leader anyway? I suspect not – this game is up.

And what of the much loathed Peter Hain? Known for his perma-tan this was probably due to his Southern Africa genes and his holiday home in the Costa del Sol town of Estepona rather than a sun bed. Ironically now he is spending ‘more time with his family’ he can sit on his Spanish terrace, sip his gin and tonic, look at Gibraltar on the horizon and dream of what could have been.