does it only count when the brits do it swordsie
The battle over Ceuta, Spain's African Gibraltar
It overlooks the mouth of the Mediterranean, a fortified port city in the shadow of a towering rock. Long notorious for its smugglers, it is now a duty-free haven, owned by a country across the sea but claimed by the sovereign nation that surrounds it.
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While Morocco claims Ceuta as its own, Spain has no intention of giving up the exclave Photo: John Robertson
By Fiona Govan, Ceuta
5:51PM BST 10 Aug 2013
And each morning thousands of people queue in searing heat to cross its international border for a day’s work before crossing back to their homes in the poorer surrounding towns whose very existence depends on it.
This could be a description of Gibraltar, the British exclave on the southern Spanish coast that was the subject of an international row last week as Madrid stepped up its claims of sovereignty over the Rock.
But in fact it is Ceuta, the tiny Spanish territory that lies just 18 miles across the water from Gibraltar in North Africa. While Morocco claims Ceuta as its own, Spain has no intention of giving up the exclave.
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The rock of Gibraltar seen from Ceuta (John Robertson)The similarities between the two are striking.
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Both are military and naval bases dominated by fortified mountains, and both contain populations which are racially mixed but united in their fervent loyalty to a crown and country whose capital lies hundreds of miles away.
In Gibraltar, the Union flag flutters from every balcony and British bobbies pace the streets past fish and chip shops, English pubs and store names familiar from every market town the length and breadth of the British Isles.
In Ceuta, on a palm tree-lined boulevard that could easily be in Barcelona or Alicante, Spaniards pick at tapas washed down with a cerveza or glass of Rioja, as the crimson and gold of their flag stirs on flagpoles in the evening sea breeze.
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Ceuta (John Robertson)And the 84,000-strong population is just as determined to remain as it is.
“We are as Spanish as people from Madrid or Valencia, it would be unthinkable to try to give the city to Morocco,” said Maria Leon, a 30-year-old born in Ceuta who like many Spanish suffering in the economic crisis is currently unemployed.
“In that way, I do feel sympathy with the people of Gibraltar. So what if our land is at the tip of another country? I think the politicians should just leave things alone and let us get on with our lives peacefully.”
The diplomatic row over Gibraltar erupted last week when Spain imposed lengthy border checks that led to queues of up to eight hours, seemingly in retaliation after Rock authorities created an artificial reef in their waters to promote fish stocks but also stop what it saw as illegal fishing by Spanish boats.
Spain’s foreign minister ramped up tension with threats to introduce a 50 euro (£43) crossing tax at the border and close Spanish airspace to Gibraltar traffic.
In the shadows of the row, Madrid is anxious that the world quietly forgets its own controversial ownership of its African enclaves and doesn’t invite comparisons.
Ceuta and its larger sister city Melilla, some 250 miles further south along the coastline, have long been a flashpoint in Moroccan and Spanish diplomatic relations.
When King Juan Carlos made his first royal tour of the cities in November 2007, he stirred up a hornet’s nest, igniting Moroccan claims that the two enclaves be returned to maintain its nation’s “territorial integrity”.
Angry demonstrations were staged on the Moroccan sides of the borders and outside the Spanish Embassy in Rabat, while the Moroccan government expressed “strong rejection and clear disapproval” of the “continued and anachronistic colonialism” shown by Spain.
“We would like to remind everyone that the two cities form an integral part of Moroccan soil and their return to their homeland will be sought through direct negotiations with our neighbour Spain,” said the then Moroccan Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi. King Mohammad VI even briefly recalled his Ambassador to Madrid in protest over the visit to the “occupied territories”.
In the parallel dynamics of the enclaves, the Moroccan reaction foreshadowed Spanish expressions of outrage at a visit by British royals to the Rock last year.
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(John Robertson)When the Earl and Countess of Wessex paid a visit to Gibraltar as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, Spain’s government expressed its “upset and unhappiness” over their presence in the disputed territory. The distinction, Spain insists, is that while Gibraltar is recognised as an overseas territory and therefore ripe for “decolonisation”, Ceuta and Melilla form an integral part of Spanish territory and have the same status as semi-autonomous regions as those on the mainland.
While Spain ceded Gibraltar to the British in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, its enclaves in North Africa were founded centuries ago, long before the Kingdom of Morocco, Melilla in 1497 and Ceuta in 1580. “Those people who want to make comparisons are uneducated,” argued Juan Jose Improda, the regional president of Melilla from the PP party last week as the Gibraltar dispute yet again made headlines.
“Gibraltar is recognised as a colony by both Spain and Britain – not so with Ceuta and Melilla, which have the same state legislation as is applied in the rest of the nation.”
He went on to argue that Gibraltar is considered a “non-self governing territory” by the United Nations, which means its status is discussed annually by the Committee on Decolonisation, while Morocco has done nothing to include Melilla and Ceuta on that list.
Samir Bennis, a Moroccan and political adviser on Arab affairs at the UN in New York, believes this is because of historical political failings by Morocco.
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The arab quarter in Ceuta (John Robertson)
, your hatred for anything British/English from past and present could quite easily be construed as 'racist', but you don't see it that way Seamus. I have every right to talk about immigration give my opinion like everyone else, some will like it some will not. But for you to keep banging on about about imperialistic Britain being cause of all the worlds problems and the current Islamic troubles is laughable and plain wrong. 
