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How close must Guardia Civil get before
Gibraltar is properly protected?
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Early yesterday morning you would never have thought we were in the middle of a diplomatic and tense, highly volatile dispute with Spain regarding the threat to the integrity of British Gibraltar Territorial Waters (BGTW)
Unbelievably just a few metres from the breakwater by Waterport Terraces two large Guardia Civil (GC) vessels which could hardly be missed, except by the local enforcement Agencies were happily patrolling BGTW whist at the same time supervising the illegal raking of Gibraltar’s sea bed.
Not one local official enforcement body was in the area or knew about this incident!
Panorama was alerted early in the morning, just after 7.a.m. that the two GC vessels had entered very close to our shore just off the end of the runway, at the time accompanying a Spanish raker-boat, who went about doing what raking boats do best!
Panorama was informed that calls were made to the RGP who obviously did not know what was occurring. One eye-witness informed us that “when I called the police they said they already knew and that they were on the way to western side” in fact when the police did arrive it wasn’t with any great rush, because instead of sending the more high speed type semi-rigid launch to get to the location quicker, they sent the large slow patrol launch that eventually arrived and took up its position opposite the GC’s vessels - and that was it!
One hour and fifteen minutes after the GC vessels had arrived in BGTW only the RGP vessel was on site, the GDP and the Gibraltar Squadron were nowhere to be seen.
The Spanish raker boat completed all the raking manoeuvres, the boat proudly displaying the Spanish flag so there would be no confusion as to who was breaking local laws.
Here was another very blatant incident that confirmed what many people are concerned about, and which was highlighted in our report yesterday, when our columnist said that “The Spanish know already that the guardia civil vessels will not have a head-on collision or be blown out of the BGTW by the Royal Navy. It is with this level of renewed knowledge and confidence, that barring some idiot grabbing a gun and taking a pop at one of our guys, or purposely causing a serious and intentional navigational incident in the bay or somewhere. Barring anything like that, the Spaniards basically do what pleases them in and around our waters!”
NO DETERRENCE
We also said in our report that many people are becoming more than sceptical that Gib Squadron issuing warnings is in fact actually challenging or deterring the Spaniards away, because up until late last week Mr. Margallo was still in a cocky mood and sounding the you will not deter us drum when he said the guardia civil will continue to come to Gibraltar when required and this as we saw… Monday morning was exactly what Margallo had predicted.
Now, whatever coordinated operational deployment’ is in place between local enforcement agencies including the Squadron, one has to assume that included in that plan is part that covers monitoring and being on the look-out for these GC illegal incursions if the latter is in the plan, then certainly THAT PART OF THE PLAN needs looking into and quick, because either it doesn’t work, or someone must have fallen asleep on the wheel. Because how can two large GC vessels come undetected under everyone’s noses yards off Gibraltar shores…particularly under the present climate…this does not instill much encouragement that our officials are on top of their game…
Again and as Panorama said yesterday “It is obvious that the Government or the UK in particular, must come up with an innovative next step to this issue, because at the moment the present Spanish stand and their current political demeanour makes the sovereignty of the waters problem not only dangerous for Gibraltar but an unsustainable one, as they are continuously chipping away at the integrity of BGTW.
03-07-12
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