Washington D.C. – As the Spanish demands for the return of Gibraltar under their territorial control grow louder, so should the Moroccan calls for the liberation of Ceuta and Melilla. There should be no negation about the future of Gibraltar without open, honest talks on the return of the two enclaves to Morocco. Rabat should remain alert as Madrid tries to manipulate Brexit to win territories in the Rock.
For the record: the Spanish monarchy officially and voluntarily ceded Gibraltar to Great Britain permanently under the Utrecht Treaty of 1713, while Spain and Portugal violently and forcefully occupied Ceuta and Melilla in 1415 and 1497.
The shameless contempt of the Spanish political establishment for Morocco’s historic demands on the former Spanish Sahara and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla has reached a new peak. Reports of Spain’s attempt to subvert the will of Gibraltarians by lobbying the US Congress to adopt a plan giving Madrid shared ownership of the Rock is proof that the Spaniards do not care about self-determination.
Furthermore, the accounts of a Spain-UK quarrel over the building of new development on the Rock is another example of Spain’s bad faith and vanity. As Richard Buttigieg, leader of the Self Determination Group for Gibraltar, put it ”the Spanish don’t seem to want to accept the democratic wishes of Gibraltar, nor the basic international laws of human rights, and the right of Gibraltarian to define their own future.”
Spanish politicians who complain about Gibraltar building on their territorial waters are the same ones who claim that the occupied Laila Island (Isla Perejil), less than one mile off the coast of Morocco, is Spanish.
One of the main voices of the return of the Rock to Spain is none other than Javier Ortega Smith, the right-wing Islamophobe leader of the Vox party. He claims that Gibraltar belongs to Spain “by right and by history” but denies the same rights in Morocco on Ceuta and Melilla.
If Smith considers Gibraltar to be the «last colony of the European Union», the Moroccans believe that Ceuta and Melilla are the last colonies of the African Union. The arrogance of the Spanish political elite does not seem to have an end as far as the status of the British territory and the two occupied cities are concerned.
The lofty aspirations of Spain and Europe to promote self-determination and freedom apply only to non-European countries. But these concepts don’t make a lot of sense if you’re Spain going after Gibraltar.
Spain’s support of the people’s right to self-determination is a travesty. Madrid that insists on sovereignty for the people of the “Western Sahara” has rejected self-determination referendum results for the Catalan who voted to break away and the Gibraltarians who twice rejected, with more than 98% against, a joint UK-Spanish rule.
The Moroccan authorities should follow Spain’s demands on Gibraltar within the EU and emulate them for Ceuta and Melilla. In addition, Rabat should use the arguments of Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya to deprive Gibraltarians of their right to self-determination in order to denounce her government’s misleading positions on the Sahara conflict.
It is the height of hypocrisy to witness Spain appealing to the US Congress to back a plan to strip Britain of the sole sovereignty over Gibraltar, while it is lobbying the Biden administration to reverse the US recognition of the Moroccan sovereignty over the “Western Sahara”.
Laya’s attempt to overturn the US position on the Moroccan Sahara has made it easy for Morocco to make a significant turn in its foreign policy toward Spain and the EU. Rabat will redirect its economic, intelligence, and political collaborations with non-European nations while reinforcing its current cooperation with France and the United Kingdom.
While Spain continues to plot against Gibraltar and provoke the United Kingdom, Morocco must develop a strategy to help the Rock remain sustainable and accessible. In addition, Moroccan naval forces are expected to coordinate with the Royal British Navy to protect Moroccan and British territorial waters from Spanish incursions.
