PAY BACK TIME FOR THE IRA

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has talked of revenge against NATO nations for the no-fly zone and military operations currently being carried out against his regime in Libya under the UN motion.

Of course Gaddafi has his hands full on his own turf without being able to plan outrages in Britain or France. However that is not to say his surrogates will not do his work for him.

British Intelligence has for long stated the major threat in the UK comes not from Muslim inspired terrorism but rogue elements amongst Irish Republican groups. These members of the IRA and INLA do not accept the peace agreement and power sharing accords and are carrying on the fight long abandoned by their brothers and sisters in arms and Sinn Fein.

To see just how an important role Libya played in arming the IRA we have to go back to 1986 when Gaddafi resumed supplying arms to the Republican terror organisation because Britain assisted the USA in the bombing of Tripoli. Sound familiar?

In fact the first arms delivery was discovered back in 1973 when the Claudia was intercepted with guns and ammunition off the Irish coast. Experts say the most significant weapon supplied by Gaddafi to the IRA was Semtex which was used to create landmines for attacks against British soldiers in Northern Ireland. Before Libya’s intervention the IRA was fighting a modern war with ancient weapons.

At the time of the decommissioning of the IRA’s weapons it was estimated the organisation still held 2.5 tonnes of Semtex with a shelf life of another 20 years. Some of that would have gone, perhaps the vast majority, but enough may remain for dissident Republicans to plant another bomb in London in support of their aims and as a thank you to their embattled arms supplier. Even if the Semtex has gone they are not short of a bomb or two.

As I was writing this British Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, was being interviewed by The Guardian. In the interview he said the dictator could stage another Lockerbie-style terrorist attack: “The British people have reason to remember the curse of Gaddafi - Gaddafi back in power, the old Gaddafi looking for revenge, we have a real interest in preventing that...”

Clarke is envisaging an attack should Gaddafi survive in Libya. I am suggesting it may come before that.

EXPLAIN THIS TO ME!

There is widespread chaos in the UK on Saturday. It has snowed so roads and airports are closed – trains are disrupted.


This is a major problem because apparently it’s the big get away weekend with many Britons heading for foreign climes for Christmas and the New Year.

Many of these will be going skiing or to snow resorts.

So explain this to me!

How come Britain is snowed in whilst the ski resorts of France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Germany and even Spain – which have serious snow – are operating normally?

The roads are open. Trains are running. Flights are landing. People are a-skiing.

As for me - “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones we used to know!”

CALL MY BLUFF!

I have written here oft times before about the confrontations in Gibraltar’s waters between the Guardia Civil on one hand and the Royal Gibraltar Police - Royal Navy patrols on the other. Yesterday Gibraltar’s GSLP – Liberal Opposition issued the following statement which highlighted comments made to the Spanish daily “El Mundo” by a Guardia Civil officer. First the key parts of the statement:

“The Opposition is concerned at the fact that, according to the Spanish Guardia Civil, their patrol boats are now challenging British sovereignty and jurisdiction in the territorial waters of Gibraltar practically on a daily basis. It is obvious that despite the professions of friendship and cooperation that we continue to hear so much about, the Spanish Government continues to increase the tension in the waters that surround Gibraltar.

“A Spanish Civil Guard has told the newspaper “El Mundo” that one of these days something very serious is going to happen in the waters around Gibraltar. They have also revealed that incidents between the Civil Guard and the Royal Navy or the Royal Gibraltar Police are now happening “on a daily basis”. The Civil Guard claim that since the summer they have been harassed by British patrol boats within the three-mile limit around the Rock which “they consider to be their area of influence”. The Civil Guard have repeated the well-known position of the Spanish Government that Gibraltar has no waters on the basis that none were explicitly ceded by the Treaty of Utrecht except those inside the Port.

“The Opposition consider that it is the height of hypocrisy for the Civil Guard to claim that they are being the victims of harassment when everyone knows that it is they who have been harassing and intimidating local boat owners in waters which are outside Spain’s jurisdiction. The Civil Guard have in the past stopped, questioned and requested papers from the occupants of Gibraltar registered boats barely a few metres from the Rock and well inside the three-mile limit. In fact, this harassment on their part led the Gibraltar Government at the time to call on boat owners to set off a flare gun or call the Royal Gibraltar Police when they were challenged in this manner.

“It is clear that there is an orchestrated campaign on the part of the Spanish Government and its agencies to undermine the sovereignty of British Gibraltar Territorial Waters. This was seen last year when the Spanish proposed a designation of our waters as if they belonged to Spain in an EU directive. The acceptance of this by the EU then had an immediate, practical effect in the waters around the Rock. It was followed by an incursion by a Spanish navy fisheries protection vessel in May this year and by frequent incursions by Civil Guard patrol boats who continue to behave as if our waters belonged to them.”

The report in the centre right “El Mundo” comes from an unattributed Guardia Civil source. Hence it could be fact or fiction destined for home consumption to strengthen the snipping from the Partido Popular who accuse the government on going soft on the Rock.

It also has to be said that neither the Royal Gibraltar Police, Royal Navy, Gibraltar nor British Government have publicly spoken about these daily confrontations in Gibraltar’s waters. This doesn’t mean to say they do not happen – just that there has been no comment from Gibraltarian or British sources. Indeed on the few occasions when Spain has put its toe in to Gibraltar’s internationally recognized waters it has pulled it out promptly and left the scene peacefully when confronted by the RGP or RN patrols.

However if “something serious did happen” it would escalate the dispute into a major incident. If the armed Guardia Civil tangled with the RGP or Royal Navy patrols it would be a confrontation between Spain and Britain. In addition it has to be remembered that the Rock’s port is a NATO facility hence British Royal Navy warships plus those from the USA frequently visit as do nuclear submarines. It would be all too easy for them to be caught up in the pistol fire.

I am a firm supporter of the Córdoba Agreement and I certainly believe that jaw-jaw beats war-war. For its part this Spanish Government has invested much time and effort in seeking to build bridges with the Llanitos. If that bridge collapsed it would leave its policy towards Gibraltar in disarray. None-the-less these discussions can only continue if Spain respects Gibraltar’s institutions and boundaries. If it chooses not to then Britain should call Spain’s bluff and suspend the process until it does. And if it doesn’t…

HOW CORRUPT CAN YOU GET? SOMALIA

Transparency International has issued its world corruption league table for 2008 and Somalia comes bottom of the list. It will be no surprise to learn that Myanmar, Iraq, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe are close rivals for this dubious honour.

The least corrupt country is Denmark with the UK coming in at 16 and the USA at 18. Spain slips from 22 to 28 in its rankings sharing that spot with Qatar plus Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, which sounds like a 50s pop group.

TI indicates that corruption is widespread in Spain. It affects most the political parties followed by the private sector, then Parliament, the media and lastly public employees and the legal system.

TI says its Global Corruption Report 2009: Corruption and the Private Sector (GCR) shows “how corrupt practices constitute a destructive force that undermines fair competition, stifles economic growth and ultimately undercuts a business’s own existence.”

In the case of Spain it is the town planning scandals that have seen its rating drop – a situation that will surprise few Spaniards or foreign residents living in the country. This was confirmed by Jesús Lizcano, TI’s president in Spain who singled out town planning as the principal cause of corruption in his country.

In presenting the document Lizcano said that some laws had been introduced to help in the fight against corruption but conceded there were still major deficiencies. He pointed to the 2007 law on the financing of political parties that had progressive measures prohibiting secret donations.

However he added that local parties were not sufficiently integrated in to the accounting system of the central organisations so illicit payments could still be made at that level.

In addition the law governing the issuing of contracts in the public sector had not yet incorporated the new directives laid down by the European Parliament and Council. Indeed the system of adjudicating contracts for works, services and supplies needed global reform in Spain.

It should be stressed that it was not all negative news. Towards the end of 2007 the Guardia Civil formed a special unit to tackle town planning crime and its investigations are bearing fruit. TI also recognised that Spain was improving its legal capacity to tackle corruption and this was largely due to international accords although it was noted that Spain had not yet ratified its civil and criminal conventions on corruption brought in by the Council of Europe.

To visit the TI website and to view the league table click here.

DON’T TALK ABOUT ME WHEN I’M GONE

We should know later today whether the Tripartite Talks between Britain, Gibraltar and Spain will take place on the Rock on July 20 – 21. If they do it will be an historic occasion. The talks will be attended by Spain’s Foreign Minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, the first Spanish government minister to visit Gibraltar in an official capacity.

However the scheduled pow-wow has already caused ructions. Whilst Britain has assured Gibraltar that any talks about the Rock will be held on a strictly tripartite basis there have been suggestions that Moratinos and his British counterpart David Miliband could also meet bilaterally.

A spokesperson for Gibraltar’s Chief Minister, Peter Caruana, immediately stamped on that suggestion: “There is no question of a Miliband - Moratinos bilateral in Gibraltar or about Gibraltar.”

One can understand Gibraltar’s sensitivities on this issue. If there are talks in Gibraltar or about Gibraltar then they want to be there. Equally Spain would welcome a bilateral if only to demonstrate that in the end the issue of Gibraltar’s sovereignty is from a Madrid viewpoint a matter for the two governments.

However it could be also argued that as Miliband and Moratinos are meeting face to face it is only natural that they want to slip off and discuss the many other issues that concern the two EU nations. Logical maybe but not from the Gibraltarian standpoint – so any such chinwag will have to take place in a hotel bedroom wardrobe or across the border in a La Línea bar.