  |
FULL TEXT of the letter to the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw:
|
Dear Foreign Secretary,
I write to seek clarification of the statement contained in your letter dated 28 March addressed to Mr Caruana.
I wish to bring to your notice that when we agreed to support and participate in the Select Committee of the House to review our present Constitution in 1999, it was not in response to the White Paper of that year but to formulate proposals for decolonisation.
I stated the following in the House of Assembly at the time of the motion to set up the Select Committee in July 1999:
?If we were to finish up with a modernised Constitution, that retained the status of Gibraltar as a non self-governing territory subject to Article 73(e) of the Charter of the United Nations in respect of which the United Kingdom was required to report annually to the UN until such time as we were decolonised, then effectively as far we are concerned the importance of what needs to be done would not have happened and in such circumstances our position would be that if that was put to the people in a Referendum we would campaign against its acceptance. I think it is important that that should clearly be understood because we do not want to be seen to be misleading anybody as to where we are coming from.?
This position was made clear when Bill Rammell opened the Constitutional talks at Lancaster House and I informed him that we had agreed to participate on the basis of achieving common ground in seeking the maximum level possible of self-government.
At the very start of the talks, the text of the additional Preamble was discussed. Mr Chilcott stated that determining whether the maximum level possible of self-government had been attained would be a judgment reserved for the end of the process. He added that there existed a difficulty which was Spain?s reaction. Therefore, he said, it would be a judgment for UK Ministers at the end of the process. There would be a need to ensure that Ministers were comfortable with the language aimed at delisting.
During the second meeting in Gibraltar in September 2005, I again raised the matter and asked whether the British Government had given any thought to the fundamental issue of the decolonisation of Gibraltar. Mr Chilcott answered that you had not been briefed on delisting partly due to the fact that it was important to know beforehand what level of constitutional changes had tentatively been agreed and that any decision on this would need to await the final outcome of the talks.
At the end of the process, on 17 March 2006, we were told that UK Ministers would not agree to the inclusion in the Preamble of words saying that the proposed referendum would be the exercise of our right to self-determination or that the new Constitution provided the maximum level possible of self-government. Clearly, this statement at the eleventh hour was not compatible with the answers we had received in the previous two meetings. However, since the impression was created that it was a question of choice of words rather than of substance, I proposed an alternative text to the one originally tabled and approved by the House of Assembly and was invited to explain its rationale which I did.
The alternative text used different terminology to achieve the same result.
This was taken away to be considered by you and your reply now is that UK is not inclined to agree any text for the Preamble until after the people have voted in a referendum.
With all due respect, I have to tell you that UK should have told us that in Lancaster House in November 2004 and that would have been the end of the Opposition?s participation in the process. The referendum is being promoted as an act of self-determination to choose a constitution that provides the maximum level possible of self-government. We will only support this if we are clear that the United Kingdom agrees that this is what would be taking place and what would be achieved if the new constitution were accepted.
I have to tell you that on the basis of the responses we have had from your officials during the course of the negotiations I believe we are fully entitled to expect you to come clean and tell us exactly where you stand on these issues.
We have the right to self-determination under the Charter and you have confirmed this and the UK Government?s obligation to promote and respect it. We want to exercise this right to achieve a full measure of self-government short of independence. If you are not willing to support and defend that this is what we have achieved in our negotiations, then I have to tell you that you will be failing to honour and deliver what you have promised and we will not be a party to endorsing a continuation of our status as non self-governing territory.
I trust you will able to clarify the position of the UK in the light of the above.
Yours sincerely,
Joe Bossano
Leader of the Opposition
|
|
|
|
