Josep Esteve Rico Sogorb
Writer and journalist
There are doubts that offend. The possibility that the Spanish president softly raised of a shared sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla with Morocco was improper and inopportune. Indignant and offensive, which, far from appeasing the humiliated spirits and feelings of Ceuta and Melilla residents, has aggravated them. Thus, Zapatero played with the patriotic fervor of both autonomous cities by adding more fuel to the fire. His response may have hidden subliminal intentionality, little knowledge of the social reality of Ceuta and Melilla, or little political-diplomatic intelligence. You be the judge.
And that makes thirteen. One more. To the reiterated and old request for Moroccanity for years by the Alaouite kingdom, now joins the possibility of shared sovereignty with Morocco. That's all we needed. More wood. As if we add dynamite to the gunpowder. The result would be a more powerful explosive to finish aggravating things. The Moroccan claim united and the shared sovereignty - if it became reality, let's hope not - would mean the total surrender and cession, the renunciation and abandonment of the own Spanish identity -Ceuta and Melilla-. of both autonomous cities. A shot below the waterline of that ship we call the Constitution. An attack or assault on the very statutes of autonomy of Ceuta and Melilla; on the rights of its citizens, their honor, their history and civic feelings.
The case of Ceuta and Melilla is not comparable with the proposal of a free associated state or shared sovereignty of Ibarretxe. It is not valid or useful and the Ceuta-Melilla reality is very different from the Basque situation. Neither its factors nor the protagonists are identical. Therefore, shared sovereignty - not even talking for the sake of talking - would be appropriate. It's nonsense. Moreover, it is non-negotiable, and even less so with Morocco. The Spanishness of both cities, demonstrated with interest and unanimously felt by its inhabitants, is indisputable and unquestionable because their ancestors decided in popular consultation by hand vote to be Spanish, unlike the other regions - today autonomies - resulting from royal weddings, wars, conquests or annexations.
Zapatero should publicly retract his unfortunate allusion to shared sovereignty, apologizing to the people of Ceuta and Melilla and promising for their peace of mind that his Government will not carry it out. He would also have to raise a formal complaint to Morocco for those shot dead whose witnesses and police evidence point to the Moroccan police. A violation of Human Rights, common in the Alaouite kingdom. So, shared sovereignty? No, thank you. Not at all. And if we have to push it, hypothetically, Ceuta and Melilla, before independent cantons than Moroccan. Do not forget it Zapatero.