Spain To Close Border With Gibraltar

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31672, 7 May 1968, Page 17

Spain To Close Border With Gibraltar

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) MADRID, May 6. Spain will seal its land frontier with Gibraltar today and will impose a new blockade in its campaign for the return of the British colony.

The frontier gates at La Linea border post have been closed to all motor and merchandise traffic since October, 1966.

From today not even pedestrians will be allowed across. But the gates will swing open this morning for the 5000 Spanish workers who daily cross into the colony. They were exempted from the new measure in a Government order published yesterday. Gibraltar still depends largely on Spanish labour, and although the Madrid authorities are pushing forward with industrial development plans in the hinterland adjoining the Rock, there is still insufficient employment in Spain for the workers who earn their daily bread in Gibraltar.

Gibraltar’s civilian residents who apply to the Spanish military authorities tor passes will also be allowed to cross the frontier. The Spanish Foreign Ministry yesterday said this was a concession after a visit to Madrid by a group of Gibraltarians asking for details about Spanish offers to the local population. Riots erupted when the visit of the group—called “The Doves” —become known in Gibraltar. The Spanish Foreign Ministry said the new frontier restrictions had been delayed because of “the doves.” But it was impossible to

postpone them any longer. Gibraltar leaders had been called to London today to prepare a constitutional conference, ignoring Spain and the United Nations, so Madrid had decided that the new restrictions should come into force on the same day, the announcement said. Spaip said it was closing

the frontier because Britain had declared it had no intention of heeding last December’s United Nations General Assembly vote backing Spanish claims for return of the Rock. Talks between the two countries broke down in Madrid last March. Britain insists that the wishes of the Gibraltarians must be respected. They voted almost unanimously last September to retain their links with Britain in a referendum which was disowned unjustly, according to Britain—by the United Nations.

Today’s measure will mainly hit Gibraltar’s tourist revenue.

Thousands of ■ British tourists fly to Gibraltar on cheap flights and then cross into Spain for their holidays. Thousands more British holidaymakers on Spain’s holiday coasts visit Gibraltar on sightseeing trips. British soldiers on garrison duty in the colony will also be unable to cross the Spanish land frontier.