What about Ceuta & Melilla

I was interested to read Mr E. Murphy's call for Gibraltar to be given back to Spain (Letters 5th). To quote him, “The Gibraltarians must realise that Gibraltar is part of Spain and they should stop being ‘little Englanders' and just face facts. The time of colonies is long gone”.

In response I offer the facts below. The Rock has been fought over for centuries. First it was Spain battling Moorish invaders. Then, after several hundred years, the Spanish lost Gibraltar to an Anglo-Dutch force in 1704. The Spanish - despite formally ceding it to London in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht - have wanted it back ever since. More recently the battles have been political. In 1984 the two governments started talks, but the process eventually collapsed over Madrid's demands that the Rock should revert to full Spanish sovereignty after 50 years of shared control. In 2002 the people of Gibraltar were asked in a referendum “Do you approve of the principle that Spain and the United Kingdom should share sovereignty over Gibraltar?” The result - a 98.97% No! Spain still holds two enclaves across the Mediterranean in North Africa. Ceuta and Melilla are almost directly opposite Gibraltar and have considerable parallels. Both were retained by Spain in 1956 when the rest of Morocco - formerly a Spanish protectorate - was granted independence. Morocco wants them both but Spain is refusing to budge. I ask you Mr Murphy, who's trying to colonise whom, and hope that your law will not prevail as far as the future of Gib. is concerned, namely, “If anything can go wrong, it will”.

Yours, John Rule
Sol de Mallorca