22 May
The RGP has learned a number lessons from complaints at a selection weekend, which have already been fully incorporated into the procedures.
A joint statement by the Governor and the Chief Minister says that following the selection weekend held at the end of last year to select future RGP officers, one of the candidates alleged that there had been both physical and mental treatment that was inappropriate.
The Chief Minister and the Governor say they took these allegations very seriously. As a result, the Chief Minister (with the full support of the Governor) asked the GPA to conduct a full investigation. The investigation included a telephone questionnaire of all the candidates who had attended the weekend carried out by the GPA with independent invigilation and statements being taken from all the directing staff.
All bar one of the other candidates had no complaints; indeed many praised the process and the whole weekend.
PROCEDURES CHANGED
Nevertheless even that just one candidate (who had long UK police experience) might have been left with feeling that the procedures were wrong was a cause for concern and the RGP has learned a number of essons from her complaints, which have already been fully incorporated into the procedures.
At the same time there had been some more generalised allegations about police internal procedures that have been characterised as 'bullying'. Again the GPA and the RGP (supported by the Governor and the Chief Minister) took these very seriously and investigations have taken place, supported by some eminent local citizens, which have led to some internal procedural changes. Additionally the regular inspection by the HMIC team due to take place in the autumn will specifically examine these issues to provide an independent opinion and suggest any changes based on wider UK best practice.
Having said all this, including that procedural changes have been changed, "the Governor and the Chief Minister are content that ongoing processes are addressing any issues and have full confidence in both the GPA and the RGP."
22-05-15 PANORAMAdailyGIBRALTAR
Evacuation led to the foundation of nationhood
May 22, 2015 | By J C Culatto
Today Gibraltar celebrates the first ship that left our shores for an uncertain future after the shocking order given to women and children to evacuate 75 years ago. On the occasion of the anniversary of an event that has shaped the identity of our community we caught up with Deputy Chief Minister Joseph Garcia who gave Panorama readers a rundown of what was planned and what it meant for us.
"The 75th Anniversary of the Evacuation was a landmark of Gibraltarian historical and political development," said Garcia. "It's fair to say that things were never the same again for a number of reasons. Those who went away organized themselves into committees with petitions and demonstrations abroad while the men that stayed behind on the Rock to fight the war organized themselves into the AACR.
"I think there was a realisation on the part of the evacuees and on the part of those that weren't evacuated of how little control and power the people of Gibraltar had over their own affairs."
This extreme lack of self-determination was perhaps most evident when Gibraltarians were given just a few days in which to leave the Rock, and Garcia described the "trauma" this separation of families caused.
"Almost overnight the women, children, elderly and infirm left and the men stayed behind," said Garcia. "There was a voluntary notice for evacuation where anyone who could afford it should pack their things and go but that was followed by a government scheme which was put into action almost immediately."
Ordeal
The 22 May 1940 was chosen as the date to celebrate the evacuation as it was the day when the first boat left for French Morocco. But as history demonstrated this was only the beginning of the ordeal.
"France then surrendered and our ancestors were in enemy territory almost overnight," recalled Garcia. "They needed to be brought back to Gibraltar and re-evacuated. In fact, according to the secret papers the authorities wrote that it was difficult enough to get them out, let alone, in and out again.
"Most of them were sent to London apart from 2,000 to Jamaica and a lesser number to Madeira."
The latter were considered to be the luckiest of the lot as those who chose to go to the UK capital were soon subjected to the Battle of Britain with evacuation camps being hit indiscriminately by Nazi bombers. This meant that they were soon relocated to County Londonderry in Northern Ireland where they spent the remaining years of the war, some not even returning until 1951.
"The intention was to send most of them to Jamaica," said Garcia. But only two passenger ships managed to get to Jamaica because it was considered too dangerous for them with the German U-boats looking for easy targets to torpedo. "They went through unescorted and after that due to the pressure exerted by the men still in Gibraltar they decided not to send anymore."
Threat
The decision to evacuate was taken by the colonial authorities of the time, who thought that as the final British stronghold on the European mainland an attack was imminent, they wanted to get civilians to safety and have as many men dedicated to the defence of the fortress available as possible.
The imminence of attack was especially notable after the British bombarded the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir in French Algeria, which led to 1,300 French naval casualties after the Franco-German armistice of 22 June. The French Air Force bombed Gibraltar immediately after the savage attack, seen as a knee-jerk reaction to the German invasion of Britain expected forthwith.
"There was a Nazi plan to invade Gibraltar called Operation Felix, which in the end didn't happen," said the leader of the Liberal party. "The British wanted to take it back to being a fortress rather than a colony because they feared it was going to be invaded and although it wasn't, it was attacked.
"There were a number of airstrikes and mini-submarine bombings of ships in the harbour but perhaps not on the scale expected."
Memory
"While the centenary of the event will also be celebrated but realistically there won't be that many people around at that time," said the DCM. "This time we had over 800 registrations on the Government Archives' website in response to a request where each one gave their name, address and where they were evacuated to and as a consequence of that we've been able to invite them to events we've been organising."
These events include JMH exhibitions that will run until the 28 May of the evacuations to Madeira, Northern Ireland, London and Jamaica, as well as the lecture given yesterday at the Garrison Library by Dr Suzanne Francis-Brown. The curator of the West Indies Museum, that is interestingly located in the previous site of the Gibraltar camp, has completed a doctorate on the subject of our evacuees.
Today the Government will organise an event at Casemates Square which will include a choir and the reading of what could be very emotional texts for those assembled as well as testimonials of those who participated in all those three strands of evacuation experience. Straight after that, the press and guests will be asked to attend a ten-minute short film and reception at Grand Battery House.
Growth
"The people that went to London, Northern Ireland, Madeira and Jamaica learnt about ourselves, our culture and how different we were," said Garcia. "We learnt we were British but not in the same way as a Scotsman or a Welshman. It served the purpose of bringing to the fore the identity of the Gibraltarians and was a huge spur to it, while I would go as far as saying that it developed our sense of nationhood.
"On one level there were 16,000 human stories with the emotion, trauma and concern that went with them and with them the various political effects that led to our self-organisation into entities that started demanding rights."
So while evacuees were sorting themselves out to survive abroad, the concern for the families of the men who stayed behind pushed them to form the Association for the Advancement of Civil Rights (AACR) which would push for a democratic presence for our citizens for the next generation.
The event also seeks to remember all those who stayed in those countries they were sent to, many of whom we have also kept in touch with for years with their offspring being a symbol of the sacrifices we made during that time.
"While it is true to say that some of them made their lives out there, the vast majority came back," said Garcia. "I think Gibraltar came of age as a people because a traumatic experience like this one binds them closer together and that is undeniably what happened.
"The discontent of those who left and those who remained was channelled very cleverly by the AACR into a movement towards political change. There was the city council in 1945, the legislative council in 1950 and subsequent changes were connected to the evacuation and the mood it created in Gibraltar.
"It's important to remember what's happened, to honour the memory of those who are no longer with us and those who are still here, so that younger generations of Gibraltarians are aware of the sacrifices made by their forefathers because without those sacrifices we would not be here today."
22-05-15 PANORAMAdailyGIBRALTAR
Gibraltar conned by unknown 'participating members' who drew conclusions behind Gibraltar's back
May 22, 2015 | By Joe Garcia
Gibraltar has been conned by unknown 'participating' members of the Committee of 24 who attended last year's seminar, drawing concluding observations. At this week's seminar in Nicaragua, minister Joe Bossano said that last year's report referred to "participating members" and not all participants. "I assume it means those members of the C24 in Fiji, who wrote this when they returned to New York without our knowledge and behind our backs."
Mr Bossano added: "You will recall the concerns expressed last year about what would finish up in the final report of the proceedings. These unknown "participating members" state that they recalled the need to put into practice the holding of UK/Spain talks to reach a definitive negotiated solution of the controversy over my country.
"You know Mr Chairman, as the records can show, that no such view was expressed by anyone in Fiji, or as a result of anything said by me or Spain.
"Nor did anyone at the seminar support the creation of 4-sided talks to replace the tripartite forum.
"If any member wishes to debate these questions, then they should raise it here and now, when the question of Gibraltar's decolonisation is on the agenda and when participants can learn the views of the people, which is why we are here.
"This report gives a totally biased and false impression of what occurred in Fiji."
Mr Bossano went on: In my considered judgement this should not be allowed to happen, it makes a mockery of the purpose of the seminar and it makes someone like me, that has always defended the C24, wonder whether I have been wrong for the last 50 years and the UK right in its criticism of this committee.
The seminar report Annex goes on to claim that these unknown "participating members" noticed that the UK and Spain were trying to set up a quadrilateral forum.
How could they notice something that no one mentioned and is not true? he asked. The faceless "participating members" say they expressed the hope it would happen soon, where and when and to whom did they express this hope? Certainly not to me and certainly not in Fiji!
Mr Bossano then told the chairman that he hoped that this year's report will put the record straight "and that if anyone has anything to say about my country they should have the courage of their convictions and say it when I'm here and I have the right to reply and defend my people's interests as part of their elected Government."
He added: I hope after my intervention today these inaccuracies will be corrected I would therefore like to draw your attention, distinguished delegates, and especially C24 members, to Section 58: p.14 of the Gibraltar working paper.
"This states that Gibraltar recognises the relationship with UK as non-colonial.
"Spain says this of us, we do not say it.
"The UK says this about all of its 10 overseas territories.
If this were our view, we would be saying, you have no business discussing our future decolonisation because it has already happened.
"It gets worse. You claim we believe that the UN delisting and decolonisation criteria are anachronistic.
"Not true. UK says it, not us.
"For C24 to attribute the views of the administering power to the elected territorial Government is an error of a magnitude, which beggar's belief.
"The seminars have been designed so that C24 hears directly the views of the people. I have been asking you to apply the UN criteria to determine our level of self-government for years. Why on earth should I be doing that if I thought your criteria were anachronistic? In any event as Chairman Hunte said some years ago, if UN members think the criteria are anachronistic then they should change them.
"I would be grateful Mr Chairman if it the relevant paragraphs were corrected after the seminar to reflect the difference between the UK and Gibraltar government views. We are fully committed to decolonisation, which has to be the consequence of you removing us from your list because you are satisfied that in our particular case the full measure of self-government that is realistically attainable has been achieved. We see nothing anachronistic about this.
"What would be anachronistic would be that this level of self-government should be reduced because Spain believes that it is contrary to the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht the reason why it's opposed every increase in self-government in Gibraltar since 1954. This anachronistic view is not the criteria of the UN. Spain tells you that the reason why they will not accept our right to decide our future is because we are not the original inhabitants.
"Mr Chairman, the Spanish doctrine on Gibraltar would not be negated by recognising the rights of the Gibraltarians. It has already been negated by every single case of liberation from Colonial rule in North, Central, South America and the Caribbean. The descendants of the persons brought here as slaves from Africa and the settlers from Europe rebelled against the imperialist regimes of Spain, England, France and Holland. There is no single case of the will of the native indigenous people being recognised and the settlers being disenfranchised.
"Nicaragua achieved its freedom in 1838, 134 years after we broke away from Spain and following a period of Spanish rule of 316 years compared to 202 in our case. In Gibraltar's case who are the indigenous people, the Gibraltarians since 1704, the Spaniards since 1502, the Berbers since 711, Visigoths who took it from the Roman Empire, or do we need to go all the way back to the Neanderthals who had been in Gibraltar longer than anywhere else. We see how absurd the Spanish doctrine is. Gibraltar's future can only be decided by its present people in accordance with Chapter 11 of the UN Charter.
22-05-15 PANORAMAdailyGIBRALTAR
