French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls has ended an extended seven-day visit to New Caledonia with mixed feelings.

On one hand, he said he was confident his “Bougival deal” for New Caledonia’s future is now “more advanced” after three sittings of a “drafting committee” made up of local politicians.

On the other hand, despite his efforts and a three-hour meeting on Tuesday before he returned to Paris, he could not convince the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) — the main component of the pro-independence camp — to join the “Bougival” process.

The FLNKS recently warned against any attempt to “force” an agreement they were not part of, raising concerns about possible unrest similar to the riots that broke out in May 2024, causing 14 deaths and more than 2 billion euros (about NZ$3.8 billion) in material damage.

The unrest has crystallised around a constitutional reform bill that sought to change the rules of eligibility for voters at local provincial elections. The bill prompted fears among the Kanak community that it was seeking to “dissolve” indigenous votes.

But despite the FLNKS snub, all the other pro-independence and pro-France parties took part in the committee sessions, which are now believed to have produced a Constitutional Reform Bill.

That bill is due to be tabled in both France’s parliament chambers (the National Assembly and the Senate) and later before a special meeting of both houses (a “Congress” — a joint meeting of both Houses of Parliament).

Valls still upbeat
Speaking to local reporters just before leaving the French Pacific territory on Tuesday, Valls remained upbeat and adamant that despite the FLNKS snub, the Bougival process is now “better seated”.

“When I arrived in New Caledonia one week ago, many were wondering what would become of the Bougival accord we signed. Some said it was still-born. Today I’m going back with the feeling that the accord is comforted and that we have made considerable advances,” he said.

He pointed out that non-political players, such as the Great Traditional Indigenous Chiefs Customary Senate and the Economic and Social Council, also joined some of the “drafting” sessions to convey their respective input.

Valls hailed a “spirit of responsibility” and a “will to implement” the Bougival document, despite a more than three-hour meeting with a new delegation from FLNKS just hours before his departure on Tuesday.

The FLNKS still opposes the Bougival text their negotiators had initially signed, that was later denounced following pressure from their militant base, invoking a profound “incompatibility” of the text with the movement’s “full sovereignty” and “decolonisation” goals.

Also demands for this process to be completed before the next French Presidential elections, currently scheduled for April-May 2027.

The Bougival deal signed on July 12 near Paris was initially agreed to by all of New Caledonia’s political parties represented at the local parliament, the Congress. However, it was later denounced and rejected “in block” by the FLNKS.

Door ‘remains open’
Valls consistently stressed that his door “remains open” to the FLNKS throughout his week-long stay in New Caledonia. This was his fourth trip to the territory since he was appointed to the post by French Prime Minister François Bayrou in December 2024.

He pointed out that non-political players, such as the (Great Traditional Indigenous Chiefs) Customary Senate and the Economic and Social Council, also had joined some of the “drafting” sessions to convey their input.

In a statement after meeting with Valls, the FLNKS reiterated its categorical rejection” of the Bougival process while at the same time saying it was “ready to build an agreement on independence with all [political] partners”.

“I will continue working with them and I also invite FLNKS to discuss with the other political parties. I don’t want to strike a deal without the FLNKS, or against the FLNKS,” he told local public broadcaster NC 1ère on Tuesday.

He said the Bougival document was still in a “decolonisation process”.

‘Fresh talks’ in Paris
Valls repeated his open-door policy and told local media that he did not rule out meeting FLNKS president Christian Téin in Paris for “fresh talks” in the “next few days”.

Téin was released from jail mid-June 2025, but he remains barred from returning to New Caledonia as part of judicial controls imposed on him, pending his trial on criminal-related charges over the May 2024 riots.

At the time, Téin was the leader of a CCAT (field action coordinating cell) to mount a protest campaign against a Constitutional reform bill that was eventually scrapped.

The CCAT was set up late 2023 by one of the main components of the FLNKS, Union Calédonienne.

While he was serving a pre-trial jail term, in August 2024, Téin was elected president in absentia of the FLNKS.

As for FLNKS’s demand that they and no other party should be the sole representatives of the pro-independence movement, Valls said this was “impossible”.

“New Caledonia’s society is not only [made up of] FLNKS. There still exists a space for discussion, the opportunity has to be seized because New Caledonia’s society is waiting for an agreement”.

However, some political parties (including moderates such as Eveil Océanien (Pacific Islanders’ Awakening) and pro-France Calédonie Ensemble have expressed concern on the value of the Bougival process if it was to be pushed through despite the FLNKS non-participation.

Other pro-independent parties, the PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and the UPM (Union Progressiste en Mélanésie), have distanced themselves from the FLNKS coalition they used to belong to.

They remain committed to their signature and are now working along the Bougival lines.

‘There won’t be another May 13’
Valls said the the situation is different now because an agreement exists, adding that the Bougival deal “is a comprehensive accord, not just on the electoral rules”.

On possible fresh unrest, the former prime minister said “this time, [the French State will not be taken by surprise. There won’t be another 13 May”.

He stressed during his visit that some 20 units (over 2000) of law enforcement personnel (gendarmerie, police) remain posted in New Caledonia.

“And there will be more if necessary”, Valls assured.

When the May 2024 riots broke out, the law enforcement numbers were significantly lower and it took several days before reinforcements from Paris eventually arrived in New Caledonia to restore law and order.

Very tight schedule
The Constitutional Reform Bill would cover a large spectrum of issues, including the creation, for the first time in France, of a “State of New Caledonia”, as well as a dual France/New Caledonia citizenship, all within the French Constitutional framework.

Two other documents — an organic law and a fundamental law (a de facto constitution) — are also being prepared for New Caledonia.

The organic law could come into force some time mid-October, if approved, and it would effectively postpone New Caledonia’s crucial provincial election to June 2026.

The plan was to have the freshly-produced text scrutinised by the French State Council, then approved by the French Cabinet on September 17.

Before the end of 2025, it would then be tabled before the French National Assembly, then the Senate, then the French special Congress sitting.

And before 28 February 2026, the same text would finally be put to the vote by way of a referendum for the people of New Caledonia.

French government to fall again?
Meanwhile, Valls is now facing another unfavourable political context: the announcement, on Monday, by his Prime Minister François Bayrou, to challenge France’s National Assembly MPs in a risky motion of confidence.

This, he said, was in direct relation to his Appropriation Bill (budget), which contains planned sweeping cuts of about 44 billion euros (NZ$87.4 billion) to tackle the “danger” of France further plunging into “over-indebtment”.

If the motion, tabled to be voted on September 8, reveals more defiance than confidence, then Bayrou and his cabinet (including Valls) fall.

In the face of urgent initial plans to have New Caledonia’s texts urgently tabled before French Parliament, Bayrou’s confidence vote is highly likely to further complicate New Caledonia’s political negotiations.

Pro-France leader and former French cabinet member Sonia Backès, who is also the leader of local pro-France Les Loyalistes party, however told local media she remained confident and that even if the Bayrou government fell on September 8, “there would still be a continuity”.

“But if this was to be followed by a dissolution of Parliament and snap elections, then, very clearly, this would impact on the whole New Caledonian process”, she said.

“The Bougival agreement will be implemented,” Valls said.

“And those who think that the fall of the French government would entail delays on its implementation schedule are mistaken, notwithstanding my personal situation which is not very important.

“I will keep a watch on New Caledonia’s interests.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Caledonia’s largest pro-independence party, the Union Calédonienne (UC), has unveiled the main outcome of its congress last weekend, including its plans for the French Pacific territory’s political future.

Speaking at a news conference on Thursday in Nouméa, the party’s newly-elected executive bureau, now headed by Emmanuel Tjibaou, debriefed the media about the main resolutions made during its congress.

One of the motions was specifically concerning a timeframe for New Caledonia’s road to independence.

Tjibaou said UC now envisaged that one of the milestones on this road to sovereignty would be the signing of a “Kanaky Agreement”, at the latest on 24 September 2025 — a highly symbolic date as this was the day of France’s annexation of New Caledonia in 1853.

‘Kanaky Agreement’ by 24 September 2025?
This, he said, would mark the beginning of a five-year “transition period” from “2025 to 2030” that would be concluded by New Caledonia becoming fully sovereign under a status yet to be defined.

Several wordings have recently been advanced by stakeholders from around the political spectrum.

Depending on the pro-independence and pro-France sympathies, these have varied from “shared sovereignty”, “independence in partnership”, “independence-association” and, more recently, from the also divided pro-France loyalists camp, an “internal federalism” (Le Rassemblement-LR party) or a “territorial federation” (Les Loyalistes).

Charismatic pro-independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Emmanuel’s father who was assassinated in 1989, was known for being an advocate of a relativist approach to the term “independence”, to which he usually preferred to adjunct the pragmatic term “inter-dependence”.

Negotiations between all political parties and the French State are expected to begin in the next few weeks.

The talks (between pro-independence, anti-independence parties and the French State) are scheduled in such a way that all parties manage to reach a comprehensive and inclusive political agreement no later than March 2025.

The talks had completely stalled after the pro-indeoendence riots broke out on 13 May 2024.

Over the past three years, following three referendums (2018, 2020, 2021, the latter being strongly challenged by the pro-independence side) on the question of independence (all yielding a majority in favour of New Caledonia remaining part of France), there had been several attempts to hold inclusive talks in order to discuss New Caledonia’s political future.

But UC and other parties (including pro-France and pro-independence) did not manage to sit at the same table.

Speaking to journalists, Emmanuel Tjibaou confirmed that under its new leadership, UC was now willing to return to the negotiating table.

He said “May 13 has stopped our advances in those exchanges” but “now is the time to build the road to full sovereignty”.

Back to the negotiating table
In the footsteps of those expected negotiations, heavy campaigning will follow to prepare for crucial provincial elections to be held no later than November 2025.

The five years of “transition” (2025-2030), would be used to transfer the remaining “regal” powers from France as well as putting in place “a political, financial and international” framework, accompanied by the French State, Tjibaou elaborated.

And after the transitional period, UC’s president said a new phase of talks could start to put in place what he terms “interdependence conventions on some of the ‘regal’ — main — powers” (defence, law and order, foreign affairs, currency).

Tjibaou said this project could resemble a sort of independence in partnership, a “shared sovereignty”, a concept that was strongly suggested early November 2024 by visiting French Senate President Gérard Larcher.

But Tjibaou said there was a difference in the sense that those discussions on sharing would only take place once all the powers have been transferred from France.

“You can only share sovereignty if you have obtained it first”, he told local media.

One of the other resolutions from its congress held last weekend in the small village of Mia (Canala) was to reiterate its call to liberate Christian Téin, appointed president of the FLNKS (Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front) in absentia late August, even though he is currently imprisoned in Mulhouse (north-east of France) pending his trial.

Allegations over May riots
He is alleged to have been involved in the organisation of the demonstrations that degenerated into the May 13 riots, arson, looting and a deadly toll of 13 people, several hundred injured and material damage estimated at some 2.2 billion euros (NZ$3.9 billion).

Tjibaou also said that within a currently divided pro-independence movement, he hoped that a reunification process and “clarification” would be possible with other components of FLNKS, namely the Progressist Union in Melanesia (UPM) and the Kanak Liberation Party (PALIKA).

Since August 2024, both UPM and PALIKA have de facto withdrawn with FLNKS’s political bureau, saying they no longer recognised themselves in the way the movement had radicalised.

In 1988, after half a decade of a quasi civil war, Jean-Marie Tjibaou signed the Matignon-Oudinot agreements with New Caledonia’s pro-France and anti-independence leader Jacques Lafleur.

The third signatory was the French State.

One year later, in 1989, Tjibaou was shot dead by a hard-line pro-independence militant.

His son Emmanuel was aged 13 at the time.

‘Common destiny’
In 1998, a new agreement, the Nouméa Accord, was signed, with a focus on increased autonomy, the notions of “common destiny” and a local “citizenship” and a gradual transfer of powers from France.

After the three referendums held between 2018 and 2021, the Nouméa Accord prescribed that if there had been three referendums rejecting independence, then political stakeholders should “meet to examine the situation thus generated”.

On Thursday, Union Calédonienne also stressed that the Nouméa Accord remained the founding document of all future political discussions.

“We are sticking to the Nouméa Accord because it is this document that brings us to the elements of accession to sovereignty”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

SPECIAL REPORT: Samidoun

On Friday, July 5, France announced the continued provisional detention on mainland France of 5 Kanak defendants, out of seven pro-independence “leaders” who had been deported from Kanaky New Caledonia on June 23.

The subsequent announcements of the arrest of 11 pro-independence activists, including 9 provisional detentions (including Joël Tjibaou and Gilles Jorédié, incarcerated in Camp Est) and 7 incarcerations in mainland France (Christian Tein, Frédérique Muliava, Brenda Wanabo-Ipeze, Dimitri Tein Qenegei, Guillaume Vama, Steve Unë and Yewa Waethane), more than 17,000 kilometres from their homeland, revived the mobilisations that had begun a month earlier as part of the fight against the plan to “unfreeze” the Kanaky electoral body.

Suspended after President Emmanuel Macron announced the dissolution of the National Assembly, this project actually aims to reverse the achievements of the Nouméa Accords signed in 1998.

It is part of the strategy of strengthening French colonialism in Kanaky by extending the ability to vote on local matters, including independence referandums, to an even greater number of settlers, making the indigenous Kanaks a de facto minority at the ballot box.

On July 11, 10 Centaur armoured vehicles, 15 fire trucks, a dozen all-terrain military armoured vehicles and numerous army trucks were landed by ship in Kanaky, where the population remains under curfew.

This entire sequence bears witness to the manner in which France, through its colonial administration, deploys a repressive security arsenal that on the one hand protects the settlers on the land and their reactionary militias, and on the other, attempts to destroy the country’s Kanak independence movement.

Imprisonment and incarceration are a weapon of choice in this overall colonial strategy.

Imprisonment is one of the key weapons of choice in colonial strategies to try to stifle independence and national liberation struggles, from the Zionist regime in Palestine to allied imperialist countries and colonial empires such as France.

While the figures are incomparable due to differences between the populations and conditions, in the West Bank, according to Stéphanie Latte Abdallah, one in three Palestinians has experienced one or more incarcerations during their life since 1967, or 35 percent of the population, while in Kanaky, the Nouméa prison, known as Camp Est, is populated by 95 percent Kanaks, while they represent only 39 to 43 percent of the Caledonian population.

Nicknamed “the island of oblivion” by the prisoners, the Camp Est prison locks up many young Kanaks excluded from the economic, educational and health systems, and symbolises the French colonial continuum, especially as the building partly occupies the space of the former French penal colony imposed there.

Silence of sociologists
Few studies exist of this over-incarceration of the Kanak population, and as Hamid Mokadem reminds us:

“The silence of sociologists and demographers on ethno-cultural inequalities is inversely proportional to the chatter of anthropologists on Kanak customs and culture.”

The incarceration rate is significantly higher than in mainland France, so much so that a new prison has been built.

The Koné detention center, and a project to replace Camp Est was announced in February 2024 by the Minister of Justice. He promised a 600-bed facility (compared to the 230 cells available at Camp Est) that would emerge after a construction project estimated at 500 million euros (NZ$908 million).

This is the largest investment by the French state on Kanak soil, a deadly promise that at the same time reaffirms France’s imperialist project in the Pacific, driven by its financial and geopolitical interests to retain its colonial properties there.

While waiting for this large-scale prison project, new cells have been fitted out in containers on which a double mesh roof has been installed, many without windows, and where the conditions of incarceration are even harsher than in the other sections of the prison, including those for men, women and minors, pre-trial detainees and those who have been convicted and sentenced.

The over-representation of the Kanak population has only increased, since incarceration has been one of the mechanisms through which the French government attempts to stem the movement against the plan to “unfreeze” and expand the electoral body, with 1139 arrests since mid-May.

The penalty of deportation
Local detention was supplemented by another penalty directly inherited from the Code de l’Indigénat: the penalty of deportation.

On June 23, after the announcement of the arrest of 7 Kanak independence activists in metropolitan France, the population learned that they were going to be deported 17,000 km from their homes.

A plane was waiting to transfer them to metropolitan France during their pretrial detention, all seven of them dispersed across the prisons of Dijon, Mulhouse, Bourges, Blois, Nevers, Villefranche and Riom.

This deportation of activists in the context of pre-trial detention directly recalls the events of 1988, and more broadly the way in which prison and removal were used in a colonial context.

From the 19th century and the deportation of Toussaint Louverture of Haiti to France, thousands of Algerians arrested during the uprisings against the French colonisation of Algeria at the same time as the detention of the prisoners of the Paris Commune in 1871, the Vietnamese of Hanoi in 1913, were deported to Kanaky or other colonies such as Guyana.

More recently, the Algerian revolutionaries, were massively incarcerated in metropolitan colonial prisons. From a principle inherited from the indigénat, and although today we have moved from an administrative decision to a judicial decision, the practice of deportation remains the same.

Particularly used in the context of anti-colonial resistance movements, the deportation of Kanak prisoners to metropolitan colonial prisons has been used on this scale since 1988 in Kanaky.

Ouvéa cave massacre
After the massacre of 19 Kanak independence fighters who had taken police officers prisoner in the Ouvéa cave, activists still alive were imprisoned, then deported, then released as part of the Matignon-Oudinot Accords.

Twenty six Kanak prisoners came to populate the prisons of the Paris region while they were still in preventive detention — while awaiting their trials and therefore presumed innocent, as is the case today for the CCAT activists currently incarcerated.

In the 1980s, French prisons were shaken by major revolts, particularly against the racism of the guards, who were mostly affiliated with the then-nascent Front National (FN), and more broadly against the penal policy of the Mitterrand left and the massively expanding length of sentences imposed at the time.

In 1988, as former prisoners wrote afterwards, some made a point of showing their solidarity with the Kanaks by sharing their clothes and food with them.

Because many of the activists were transferred in T-shirts, shorts and flip-flops, in trying conditions, with their hands cuffed during the 24-hour journey, underhand repression techniques of the Prison Administration that are still in force.

Similar deportation conditions were described by Christian Téin, spokesperson for the CCAT incarcerated in the isolation wing of the Mulhouse-Lutterbach Penitentiary Center. The  shock of incarceration is all the more violent.

Added to this is the pain of the forced separation of parents and children, which is found not only in the current situation in metropolitan France but also in Palestine. Also there is great difficulty in finding loved ones, in attempting to find out which prisons they are in, or even if they are currently detained, continually encountering administrative violence, with the absence of information and the cruelty of official figures.

Orchestrated psychological impact
All this is orchestrated so that the psychological impact, in the long term, aims to induce the prisoners and also their families to stop fighting.

At the time of the events in Ouvéa, the uprooting of independence activists from their lands to lock them up in mainland France was commonplace, and the Kanak detainees joined those from the Caribbean Revolutionary Alliance such as Luc Reinette and Georges Faisans, incarcerated in Île-de-France during the 1980s alongside Corsican and Basque prisoners.

Since then, this had only happened once, in the context of the uprisings in Guadeloup in 2021, where several local figures, mostly community activists, had been deported and then incarcerated in mainland France and Martinique in an attempt to stifle the revolts in which a large number of Guadeloupean youth were mobilised.

Here again, we could draw a parallel with Palestine. As Assia Zaino points out, since the 2000s, the incarceration of Palestinians has systematically been synonymous with being torn away from their families and loved ones.

Zionist prisons, located within the Palestinian territories colonised in 1948, “are integrated into the civil prison system [. . . ] and entry bans on Israeli soil are frequently imposed on the families of detainees for security reasons,” which in fact aims to attack the relatives of detainees and destabilise the national liberation struggle.

From prison, the struggle continues
This mass incarceration is confronted by the powerful presence of prisoners as symbols of courage and resistance.

We know that in Palestine, as during the Algerian war of national liberation, incarceration is an opportunity to learn from one’s people, to forge national revolutionary consciousness but also to continue the struggle, very concretely, by mobilising against incarceration.

Because the Palestinian prisoners’ movement has transformed the colonial prison into a school of revolution: each political party has a prison branch whose political bureau or leadership is made up of imprisoned leaders.

These branches have real weight in the decisions taken outside the walls, and they are the ones responsible for leading the struggle in the colonial prisons, in particular by declaring collective hunger strikes and developing alliances of struggle that can mobilise several thousand prisoners, but also for organising the daily life of revolutionaries in prison.

It was this movement of prisoners that played a major role in driving the Palestinian resistance groups to unite under a unified command with the total liberation of historic Palestine as their compass, and to overcome internal contradictions.

Historically, the prisoners also constituted a significant part the most radical elements of the Palestinian revolution, notably by massively refusing any negotiation with the Zionist state at the time when the disastrous Oslo Accords were being prepared.

Resistance in colonial prisons can also take cultural forms, as illustrated by the very rich Palestinian prison literature, composed of literary works written in secret and smuggled out by prisoners to bear witness to the outside world of the vitality of their ideals, their struggle and the conditions of detention.

Courage of the children
An example is Walid Daqqah, a renowned writer and one of the longest-held Palestinian prisoners, who was martyred on 7 April 2024 during his 38th year of detention in colonial prisons.

In short, from the children and adolescents who wear courageous smiles as they leave their trials surrounded by soldiers, to the women of Damon prison who heroically stand up to their jailers, to the resistance of the prisoners who fight by putting their lives and health at risk while having a central role in the Resistance outside, it is the daily struggle of the prisoners’ movement that makes detention a place where resistance to the colonial regime is organised, continuing even inside detention.

As Charlotte Kates, Samidoun’s international coordinator, said:

“Despite the intention to use political imprisonment to suppress Palestinian resistance and derail the Palestinian liberation movement, Palestinian prisoners have remained political leaders and symbols of steadfastness for the struggle as a whole.”

In Kanaky, it was the announcement of the incarceration of CCAT activists on June 23 that relaunched the movement, who became the driving forces behind this new round of mobilisation.

On May 13, while the population was setting up roadblocks on the main roads of Nouméa, a mutiny broke out in the Camp Est prison in reaction to the plan to unfreeze the electoral body.

The prison was therefore directly part of the mobilisation, and three guards were taken hostage on this first day of struggle. They were quickly released after the RAID (French national police tactical unit) intervened.

But during the night of May 14-15, another revolt took place in the prison, rendering no fewer than 80 cells unusable.

It is therefore in this context of uprising and intifada throughout Kanaky, both in prisons and outside, that the announcement of the deportation of the 7 Kanak leaders took place.

In addition to these highly publicised deportations, there were also dozens of similar cases of transfers from Camp Est.

Completely ignored by the government, these took place both before May 23 and during the month of July, including participants in the prison uprisings as well as long-term prisoners transferred to relieve congestion in the Kanak prison.

Silence which masks the scale of these colonial deportations only intends to make the task of the families and political supporters of the Kanaks even more difficult in their attempt to show solidarity with the prisoners.

Furthermore, upon their arrival in mainland France, the CCAT activists were separated into 7 different prisons, directly recalling the policy of dispersion already at work in Spain at the end of the 1980s against ETA prisoners, in reaction to the effectiveness of their prison organising.

Today as yesterday, the colonial power dispatches prisoners throughout the mainland to prevent a collective counter-offensive. The prisoners’ connections with one another, but also with the outside, are consequently largely hampered.

This isolation directly aims to break the movement by tearing off its “head” and preventing any form of common struggle against this confinement. We therefore know that the momentum of struggle outside seems to respond to a hardening of detention conditions inside prisons, as evidenced by the isolation in which the CCAT activists are kept.

Likewise in Palestine, where since last October 7, mass arrests have escalated to the development of military concentration camps characterised by inhumane conditions of incarceration where severe torture is a daily, routine occurrence.

Currently, both for the more than 9300 Palestinian prisoners detained in the 19 Zionist colonial prisons, and for the thousands of prisoners from Gaza arrested during the genocidal offensive of the occupying forces on the Strip incarcerated in military camps, the conditions of detention have deteriorated significantly.

If in the colonial prisons Palestinian prisoners suffer hunger, collective isolation, overcrowding, violence and physical and psychological torture, conditions which have led to the martyrdom of at least 18 prisoners since October 7, in the military detention camps the situation is even more extreme.

The thousands of prisoners from Gaza held there are handcuffed and blindfolded 24 hours a day, forced to kneel on the ground, motionless for most of the day, raped and sexually assaulted and tortured daily, which leaves the released prisoners with enormous trauma.

Sick prisoners are crammed in naked, equipped with diapers, on beds without mattresses or blankets, in military airplane hangars and warehouses and without any medical care.

In all cases, isolation reigns, in prisons as in military detention centers, and the Zionist regime aims to cut off the Palestinian prisoners — and their collective movement — from the outside world.

Stories of prison escapes
Beyond the heroic prison uprisings, many stories of escapes from colonial prisons also fuel resistance and demonstrate the resilience of prisoners.

In Palestine, to cite a recent example, we recall the “Freedom Tunnel” operation, where six Palestinian prisoners freed themselves from the Zionist-occupied Gilboa high-security prison by digging a tunnel using a spoon.

The six Palestinians — Mahmoud al-Ardah, Mohammed al-Ardah, Yaqoub Qadri, Ayham Kamamji, Munadil Nafa’at and Zakaria Zubaidi — became Palestinian, Arab and international symbols of Palestinian resistance and the will for freedom.

While they were all rearrested, their escape exposed the weaknesses under the colonial myth of “impenetrable Israeli security”, plunging the occupation’s prison system into an internal crisis.

In France, the CRAs (Administrative Detention Centres) represent an ultra-violent manifestation of racism and the management of exiles. People are locked up in terrible and therefore deadly conditions.

Thus, faced with colonial management of populations, particularly from former French colonies, resistance is being organised.

For example, on the night of Friday, June 21 to Saturday, June 22, 14 people held at the CRA in Vincennes managed to escape (only one person has been re-arrested since).

This follows the escape of 11 detainees in December from this same place of confinement. However, these detention centres are often recent and very well equipped.

From Palestine to the Hegaxone and the colonial prisons in Kanaky, the resistance fighters fight day by day within the prison system itself, and the escapes and uprisings in the prisons are events that weaken the colonial propaganda and its myth of invincibility and total superiority.

Resistance continues
Despite the tightening of detention conditions and the security arsenal that is deployed against liberation movements, it is clear that the resistance is not stopping and that, on the contrary, organizing is becoming even more vigorous.

In Kanaky, new blockades in solidarity with the prisoners have spread well beyond Nouméa since June 23, demanding their immediate release and repatriation to Kanaky, since “touching one of them is touching everyone”.

In mainland France, numerous gatherings have also taken place since Monday at the call of the MKF (Kanak Movement in France), and among others led by the Collectif Solidarité Kanaky in front of the Ministry of Justice in Paris, and also in front of the prisons where the activists are still incarcerated.

Their prison numbers have been made public so that it is possible to write to them and so that broad and massive support can be communicated to them in order to provide them with the strength necessary for this fight from metropolitan France.

From now on, tributes to the Kanak martyrs who fell under the bullets of the colonial militias and the French State are joined by banners for the freedom of the prisoners.

Marah Bakir, a representative of Palestinian women prisoners, arrested at the age of 15 by the colonial army and imprisoned for 8 years, made these comments during her first interview given upon her release on 24 November 2023:

“It is very difficult to feel freedom and to be liberated in exchange for the blood of the martyrs of Gaza and the great sacrifices of our people in the Gaza Strip.”  

The Kanaky ‘martyrs’:
Stéphanie Nassaie Doouka, 17, and Chrétien Neregote, 36, shot in the head on May 20 by a business manager.

Djibril Saïko Salo, 19, shot in the back on May 15 by loyalist settlers at a roadblock.

Dany Tidjite, 48, killed by an off-duty police officer who tried to impose a roadblock.

Joseph Poulawa, 34, killed on May 28 by two bullets in the chest and shoulder by the GIGN (the elite police tactical unit of the National Gendarmerie of France)

Lionel Païta, 26, killed on June 3 by a bullet to the head by a police officer at a roadblock.

Victorin Rock Wamytan, known as “Banane”, 38 years old, father of two children, killed on July 10 by a shot in the chest by the GIGN on customary lands

In Kanaky, the names of these martyrs, just like the 19 of the Ouvéa cave, will remain forever in the memory of the activists and people, and as one could read on another banner in Noumea: “The fight must not cease for lack of a leader or fighters, this direction remains forever. Kanaky”

This article, by Samidoun Paris Banlieue, was published first in French at: https://samidoun.net/fr/2024/07/la-question-carcerale-dans-la-colonisation-de-la-kanaky-a-la-palestine/. During the protests in Kanaky in May and ongoing, French military forces targeted demonstrators, imposed a countrywide ban on TikTok, and have seized multiple political prisoners from the Kanak independence movement. This article is republished from Samidoun.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Many platitudes about media freedom and democracy laced last week’s Pacific International Media Conference in the Fijian capital of Suva. There was a mood of euphoria at the impressive event, especially from politicians who talked about journalism being the “oxygen of democracy”.

The dumping of the draconian and widely hated Fiji Media Industry Development Act that had started life as a military decree in 2010, four years after former military commander Voreqe Bainimarama seized power, and was then enacted in the first post-coup elections in 2014, was seen as having restored media freedom for the first time in almost two decades.

As a result, Fiji had bounced back 45 places to 44th on this year’s Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index – by far the biggest climb of any nation in Oceania, where most countries, including Australia and New Zealand, have been sliding downhill.

One of Fiji’s three deputy Prime Ministers, Professor Biman Prasad, a former University of the South Pacific economist and long a champion of academic and media freedom, told the conference the new Coalition government headed by the original 1987 coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka had reintroduced media self-regulation and “we can actually feel the freedom everywhere, including in Parliament”.

The same theme had been offered at the conference opening ceremony by another deputy PM, Manoa Kamikamica, who declared:

“We pride ourselves on a government that tries to listen, and hopefully we can try and chart a way forward in terms of media freedom and journalism in the Pacific, and most importantly, Fiji.

“They say that journalism is the oxygen of democracy, and that could be no truer than in the case of Fiji.”

Happy over media law repeal
Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Information and Communication Technology Timothy Masiu echoed the theme. Speaking at the conference launch of a new book, Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific (co-edited by Professor Prasad, conference chair Associate Professor Shailendra Singh and Dr Amit Sarwal), he said: “We support and are happy with this government of Fiji for repealing the media laws that went against media freedom in Fiji in the recent past.”

But therein lies an irony. While Masiu supports the repeal of a dictatorial media law in Fiji, he is a at the centre of controversy back home over a draft media law (now in its fifth version) that he is spearheading that many believe will severely curtail the traditional PNG media freedom guaranteed under the constitution.

He defends his policies, saying that in PNG, “given our very diverse society with over 1000 tribes and over 800 languages and huge geography, correct and factful information is also very, very critical.”

Masiu says that what drives him is a “pertinent question”:

“How is the media being developed and used as a tool to protect and preserve our Pacific identity?”

Another issue over the conference was the hypocrisy over debating media freedom in downtown Suva while a few streets away Fijian freedom of speech advocates and political activists were being gagged about speaking out on critical decolonisation and human rights issues such as Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua freedom.

In the front garden of the Gordon Street compound of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC), the independence flags of Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua flutter in the breeze. Placards and signs daub the walls of the centre declaring messages such as “Stop the genocide”, “Resistance is justified! When people are occupied!”, “Free Kanaky – Justice for Kanaky”, “Ceasefire, stop genocide”, “Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world” and “We need rainbows not Rambos”.

‘Thursdays in Black’
While most of the 100 conference participants from 11 countries were gathered at the venue to launch the peace journalism book Waves of Change and the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review, about 30 activists were gathered at the same time on July 4 in the centre’s carpark for their weekly “Thursdays in Black” protest.

But they were barred from stepping onto the footpath in public or risk arrest. Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly Fiji-style.

Surprisingly, the protest organisers were informed on the same day that they could stage a “pre-Bastllle Day” protest about Kanaky and West Papua on July 12, but were banned from raising Israeli’s genocidal war on Palestine.

Fiji is the only Pacific country to seek an intervention in support of Tel Aviv in South Africa’s case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague accusing Israel of genocide in a war believed to have killed more than 38,000 Palestinians — including 17,000 children — so far, although an article in The Lancet medical journal argues that the real death toll is more like 138,000 people – equivalent to almost a fifth of Fiji’s population.

The protest march was staged on Friday but in spite of the Palestine ban some placards surfaced and also Palestinian symbols such as keffiyehs and watermelons.

The Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji and their allies have been hosting vigils at FWCC compound for Palestine, West Papua and Kanaky every Thursday over the last eight months, calling on the Fiji government and Pacific leaders to support the ceasefire in Gaza, and protect the rights of Palestinians, West Papuans and Kanaks.

“The struggles of Palestinians are no different to West Papua, Kanaky New Caledonia — these are struggles of self-determination, and their human rights must be upheld,” said FWCC coordinator and the NGO coalition chair Shamima Ali.

Media silence noticed
Outside the conference, Pacific commentators also noticed the media hypocrisy and the silence.

Canberra-based West Papuan diplomacy-trained activist and musician Ronny Kareni complained in a post on X, formerly Twitter: “While media personnel, journos and academia in journalism gathered [in Suva] to talk about media freedom, media network and media as the oxygen of democracy etc., why Papuan journos can’t attend, yet Indon[esian] ambassador to Fiji @SimamoraDupito can??? Just curious.”

At the conference itself, some speakers did raise the Palestine and decolonisation issue.

Khairiah A. Rahman, of the Asia Pacific Media Network, one of the partner organisers along with the host University of the South Pacific and Pacific Islands News Association, spoke on the “Media, Community, Social Cohesion and Conflict Prevention” panel following Hong Kong Professor Cherian George’s compelling keynote address about “Cracks in the Mirror: When Media Representations Sharpen Social Divisions”.

She raised the Palestine crisis as a critical global issue and also a media challenge.

In his keynote address, “Frontline Media Faultlines: How Critical Journalism Can Survive Against the Odds”, Professor David Robie, also of APMN, spoke of the common decolonisation threads between Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua.

He also critiquing declining trust in mainstream media – that left some “feeling anxious and powerless” — and how they were being fragmented by independent start-ups that were perceived by many people as addressing universal truths such as the genocide in Palestine.

PJR editorial challenge
Dr Robie cited the editorial in the just-published Pacific Journalism Review which had laid down a media challenge over Gaza. He wrote:

“Gaza has become not just a metaphor for a terrible state of dystopia in parts of the world, it has also become an existential test for journalists – do we stand up for peace and justice and the right of people to survive under the threat of ethnic cleansing and against genocide, or do we do nothing and remain silent in the face of genocide being carried out with impunity in front of our very eyes?

“The answer is simple surely . . .

“And it is about saving journalism, our credibility, and our humanity as journalists.”

Professor David Robie’s keynote speech at Pacific Media 2023.  Video: The Australia Today

At the end of his address, Dr Robie called for a minute’s silence in a tribute to the 158 Palestinian journalists who had been killed so far in the ninth-month war on Gaza. The Gazan journalists were awarded this year’s UNESCO Guillermo Cano Media Freedom Prize for their “courage and commitment to freedom of expression”.

Undoubtedly the two most popular panels in the conference were the “Pacific Editors’ Forum” when eight editors from around the region “spoke their minds”, and a panel on sexual harassment on the media workplace and on the job.

Little or no action
According to speakers in “Gender and Media in the Pacific: Examining violence that women Face” panel introduced and moderated by Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) executive director Nalini Singh, female journalists continue to experience inequalities and harassment in their workplaces and on assignment — with little or no action taken against their perpetrators.

The speakers included FWRM programme director Laisa Bulatale, veteran Pacific journalists Lice Movono and Georgina Kekea, strategic communications specialist Jacqui Berell and USP’s Dr Shailendra Singh, associate professor and the conference chair.

“As 18 and 19 year old (journalists), what we experienced 25 years ago in the industry is still the same situation — and maybe even worse now for young female journalists,” Movono said.

She shared “unfortunate and horrifying” accounts of experiences of sexual harassment by local journalists and the lack of space to discuss these issues.

These accounts included online bullying coupled with threats against journalists and their loved ones and families. stalking of female journalists, always being told to “suck it up” by bosses and other colleagues, the fear and stigma of reporting sexual harassment experiences, feeling as if no one would listen or care, the lack of capacity/urgency to provide psychological social support and many more examples.

“They do the work and they go home, but they take home with them, trauma,” Movono said.

And Kekea added: “Women journalists hardly engage in spaces to have their issues heard, they are often always called upon to take pictures and ‘cover’.”

Technology harassment
erell talked about Technology Facilitated Gender Based Violence (TFGBV) — a grab bag term to cover the many forms of harassment of women through online violence and bullying.

The FWRM also shared statistics on the combined research with USP’s School of Journalism on the “Prevalence and Impact of Sexual Harassment on Female Journalists” and data on sexual harassment in the workplace undertaken by the team.

Speaking from the floor, New Zealand Pacific investigative television journalist Indira Stewart also rounded off the panel with some shocking examples from Aotearoa New Zealand.

In spite of the criticisms over hypocrisy and silence over global media freedom and decolonisation challenges, participants generally concluded this was the best Pacific media conference in many years.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The voters in the second round of France’s national elections last weekend staved off an expected shift to the far-right. But the result in the Pacific territory Kanaky New Caledonia was also in many ways historic.

Of the two assembly representatives decided, a position fell on either side of the deep polarisation evident in the territory — one for loyalists, one for supporters of independence. But it is the independence side that will take the most from the result.

Turnout in the vote was remarkable, not only because of the violence in New Caledonia over recent months, which has curbed movement and public transport across the territory, but also because national elections have been seen particularly by independence parties as less relevant locally.

Not this time.

The two rounds of the elections saw voters arrive in droves, with 60 percent and 71 percent turnout respectively, compared to typically low levels of 35-40 percent in New Caledonia. Images showed long queues with many young people.

Voting was generally peaceful, although a blockade prevented voting in one Kanak commune during the first round.

After winning the first round, a hardline loyalist and independence candidate faced off in each constituency. The second round therefore presented a binary choice, effectively becoming a barometer of views around independence.

Sobering results for loyalists
While clearly not a referendum, it was the first chance to measure sentiment in this manner since the boycotted referendum in 2021, which had followed two independence votes narrowly favouring staying with France.

The resulting impasse about the future of the territory had erupted into violent protests in May this year, when President Emmanuel Macron sought unilaterally to broaden voter eligibility to the detriment of indigenous representation. Only Macron then called snap national elections.

These are sobering results for loyalists.

So the contest, as it unfolded in New Caledonia, represented high stakes for both sides.

In the event, loyalist Nicolas Metzdorf won 52.4 percent in the first constituency (Noumea and islands) over the independence candidate’s 47.6 percent. Independence candidate Emmanuel Tjibaou won 57.4 percent to the loyalist’s 42.6 percent in the second (Northern Province and outer suburbs of Noumea).

The results, a surprise even to independence leaders, were significant.

It is notable that in these national elections, all citizens are eligible to vote. Only local assembly elections apply the controversial voter eligibility provisions which provoked the current violence, provisions that advantage longstanding residents and thus indigenous independence supporters.

Independence parties’ success
Yet without the benefit of this restriction, independence parties won, securing a majority 53 percent (83,123 votes) to the loyalists’ 47 percent (72,897) of valid votes cast across the territory. They had won 43 percent and 47 percent in the two non-boycotted referendums.

Even in the constituency won by the loyalist, the independence candidate, daughter-in-law of early independence fighter Nidoïsh Naisseline, won 47 percent of the vote.

These are sobering results for loyalists.

Independence party candidate Emmanuel Tjibaou, 48, carried particular symbolism. The son of the assassinated founding father of the independence movement Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Emmanuel had eschewed politics to this point, instead taking on cultural roles including as head of the Kanak cultural development agency.

He is a galvanising figure for independence supporters.

Emmanuel Tjibaou is now the first independence assembly representative in 38 years. He won notwithstanding France redesigning the two constituencies in 1988 specifically to prevent an independence representative win by including part of mainly loyalist Noumea in each.

A loyalist stronghold has been broken.

Further strain on both sides
While both a loyalist and independence parliamentarian will now sit in Paris and represent their different perspectives, the result will further strain the two sides.

Pro-independence supporters will be energised by the strong performance and this will increase expectations, especially among the young. The responsibility on elders is heavy. Tjibaou described the vote as  “a call for help, a cry of hope”. He has urged a return to the path of dialogue.

At the same time, loyalists will be concerned by independence party success. Insecurity and fear, already sharpened by recent violence, may intensify. While he referred to the need for dialogue, Nicolas Metzdorf is known for his tough uncompromising line.

Paradoxically the ongoing violence means an increased reliance on France for the reconstruction that will be a vital underpinning for talks. Estimates for rebuilding have  exceeded 2 billion euros (NZ$3.6 billion), with more than 800 businesses, countless schools and houses attacked, many destroyed.

Yet France itself is reeling after the snap elections returned no clear winner. Three blocs are vying for power, and are divided within their own ranks over how government should be formed. While French presidents have had to “cohabit” with an assembly majority of the opposite persuasion three times before, never has a president faced no clear majority.

It will take time, perhaps months, for a workable solution to emerge, during which New Caledonia is hardly likely to take precedence.

As New Caledonia’s neighbours prepare to meet for the annual Pacific Islands Forum summit next month, all will be hoping that the main parties can soon overcome their deep differences and find a peaceful local way forward.

Denise Fisher is a visiting fellow at ANU’s Centre for European Studies. She was an Australian diplomat for 30 years, serving in Australian diplomatic missions as a political and economic policy analyst in many capitals. The Australian Consul-General in Noumea, New Caledonia (2001-2004), she is the author of France in the South Pacific: Power and Politics (2013).

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The situation has remained tense in the French Pacific territory of Kanaky New Caledonia more than a month after protests and riots erupted in response to the passage of a bill in France’s National Assembly that would have diluted the voting power of the Indigenous Kanak population.

Nine people have already died, with 212 police and gendarmes wounded, more than 1000 people arrested or charged, and 2700 tourists and visitors have been repatriated.

Riots led to looting and burning of shops which has caused an estimated 1 billion euros (NZ$1.8 billion) in economic damage so far. An estimated 7000 jobs were lost.

Eight pro-independence leaders have been arrested this week for charges over the rioting but no pro-French protesters have been arrested for their part in the unrest.

French President Emmanuel Macron arrived on May 23 in an attempt to defuse tension in the Pacific territory but his visit failed to quell the unrest as he merely suspended the enforcement of the bill instead of addressing the demand for a dialogue on how to proceed with the decolonisation process.

He also deployed an additional 3000 security forces to restore peace and order which only further enraged the local population.

Pacific groups condemned France’s decision to send in additional security forces in New Caledonia:

These measures can only perpetuate the cycle of repression that continues to impede the territory’s decolonisation process and are to be condemned in the strongest terms!

The pace and pathway for an amicable resolution of Kanaky-New Caledonia’s decolonisation challenges cannot, and must not continue to be dictated in Paris.

Asia Pacific Report editor David Robie on the Kanaky New Caledonia unrest. Video: Green Left

They also called out French officials and loyalists for pinning the blame for the riots solely on pro-independence forces.

While local customary, political, and church leaders have deplored all violence and taken responsibility in addressing growing youth frustrations at the lack of progress on the political front, loyalist voices and French government representatives have continued to fuel narratives that serve to blame independence supporters for hostilities.

Joey Tau of the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) recalled that the heavy-handed approach of France also led to violent clashes in the 1980s that resulted in the drafting of a peace accord.

The ongoing military buildup needs to be also carefully looked at as it continues to instigate tension on the ground, limiting people, limiting the indigenous peoples movements.

And it just brings you back to, you know, the similar riots that they had in before New Caledonia came to an accord, as per the Noumea Accord. It’s history replaying itself.

The situation in New Caledonia was tackled at the C-24 Special Committee on Decolonisation of the United Nations on June 10.

Reverend James Shri Bhagwan, general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, spoke at the assembly and accused France of disregarding the demands of the Indigenous population.

France has turned a deaf ear to untiring and peaceful calls of the indigenous people of Kanaky-New Caledonia and other pro-independence supporters for a new political process, founded on justice, peaceful dialogue and consensus and has demonstrated a continued inability and unwillingness to remain a neutral and trustworthy party under the Noumea Accord.

Philippe Dunoyer, one of the two New Caledonians who hold seats in the French National Assembly, is worried that the dissolution of the Parliament with the snap election recently announced by Macron, and the Paris hosting of the Olympics would further drown out news coverage about the situation in the Pacific territory.

This period will probably not allow the adoption of measures which are very urgent, very important, particularly in terms of economic recovery, support for economic actors, support for our social protection system and for financing of New Caledonia.

USTKE trade union leader Mélanie Atapo summed up the sentiments of pro-independence protesters who told French authorities that “you can’t negotiate with a gun to your head” and that “everything is negotiable, except independence.” She added:

In any negotiations, it is out of the question to once again endorse a remake of the retrograde agreements that have only perpetuated the colonial system.

Today, we can measure the disastrous results of these, through the revolt of Kanak youth.

Meanwhile, the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) has reiterated its proposal to provide a “neutral space for all parties to come together in the spirit of the Pacific Way, to find an agreed way forward.”

Mong Palatino is regional editor for Southeast Asia for Global Voices. He is an activist and former two-term member of the Philippine House of Representatives. @mongster  Republished under Creative Commons.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Don Wiseman, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

A group of 32 civil society organisations is writing to the French President Emmanuel Macron calling on him to change his stance toward the indigenous people of New Caledonia.

The group said it strongly supported the call by the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) and other pro-independence groups that only a non-violent response to the crisis will lead to a viable solution.

And it said President Macron must heed the call for an Eminent Persons Group to ensure the current crisis is resolved peacefully and impartiality is restored to the decolonisation process.

Don Wiseman spoke with Joey Tau, of the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), one of the civil society bodies involved.

Joey Tau: Don, I just want to thank you for this opportunity, but also it is to really highlight France’s and, in this case, the Macron administration’s inability of fulfilling the Nouméa Accord in our statements, in our numerous statements, and you would have seen statements from around the region — there have been numerous events or incidents that have led to where Kanaky New Caledonia is at in its present state, with the Kanaks themselves not happy with where they’re headed to, in terms of negotiating a pathway with Paris.

You understand the referendums — three votes went ahead, or rather, the third vote went ahead, during a time when the world was going through a global pandemic. And the Kanaks had clearly, prior to the third referendum, called on Paris to halt, but yet France went ahead and imposed a third referendum.

Thus, the Kanaks boycotted the third referendum. All of these have just led up to where the current tension is right now.

The recent electoral proposal by France is a slap for Kanaks, who have been negotiating, trying to find a path. So in general, the concern that Pacific regional NGOs and civil societies not only in the Pacific, but at the national level in the Pacific, are concerned about France’s ongoing attempt to administer Kanaky New Caledonia [and] its inability to fulfill the Nouméa Accord.

Don Wiseman: In terms of stopping the violence and opening the dialogue, the problem I suppose a lot of people in New Caledonia and the French government itself might argue is that Kanaks have been heavily involved in quite a lot of violence that’s gone down in the last few weeks. So how do you square that?

JT: It has been growing, it has been a growing tension, Don, that this is not to ignore the growing military presence and the security personnel build up. You had roughly about 3000 military personnel or security personnel deployed in Nouméa on in Kanaky within two weeks, I think . . .

DW: Yes, but businesses were being burned down, houses were being burned down.

JT: Well as regional civil societies we condemn all forms of violence, and thus we have been calling for peaceful means of restoring peace talks, but this is not to ignore the fact that there is a growing military buildup. The ongoing military buildup needs to be also carefully looked at as it continues to instigate tension on the ground, limiting people, limiting the indigenous peoples movements.

And it just brings you back to, you know, the similar riots that had [in the 1980s] before New Caledonia came to an accord, as per the Nouméa Accord. It’s history replaying itself. So like I said earlier on, it generally highlights France’s inability to hold peace talks for the pathway forward for Kanaky/New Caledonia.

In this PR statement we’ve been calling on that we need neutral parties — we need a high eminence group of neutral people to facilitate the peace talks between Kanaks and France.

DW: So this eminent persons to be drawn from who and where?

JT: Well the UNC 24 committee meets [this] week. We are calling on the UN to initiate a high eminence persons but this is to facilitate these together with the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. Have independent Pacific leaders intervene and facilitate peace talks between both the Kanak pro=independence leaders and of course Macron and his administration.

DW: So you will be looking for the Eminent Persons group perhaps to be centrally involved in drawing up a new accord to replace the Nouméa Accord?

JT: Well, I think as per the Nouméa Accord the Kanaks have been trying to negotiate the next phase, post the referendum. And I think this has sparked the current situation. So the civil societies’ call very much supports concerns on the ground who are willing, who are asking for experts or neutral persons from the region and internationally to intervene.

And this could help facilitate a path forward between both parties. Should it be an accord or should it be the next phase? But we also have to remember New Caledonia Kanaky is on the list of the Committee of 24 which is the UN committee that is listed for decolonisation.

So how do we progress a territory? I guess the question for France is how do they progress the territory that is listed to be decolonised, post these recent events, post the referendum and it has to be now.

DW: Joey, you are currently at the Pacific Arts Festival in Hawai’i. There’s a lot of the Pacific there. Have issues like New Caledonia come up?

JT: The opening ceremony, which launches [the] two-week long festival saw a different turn to it, where we had flags representing Kanaky New Caledonia, West Papua, flying so high at this opening ceremony. You had the delegation of Guam, who, in their grand entrance brought the Kanaky flag with them — a sense of solidarity.

And when Fiji took the podium, it acknowledged countries and Pacific peoples that are not there to celebrate, rightfully.

Fiji had acknowledged West Papua, New Caledonia, among others, and you can see a sense of regional solidarity and this growing consciousness as to the wider Pacific family when it comes to arts, culture and our way of being.

So yeah, the opening ceremony was interesting, but it will be interesting to see how the festival pans out and how issues of the territories that are still under colonial administration get featured or get acknowledged within the festival — be it fashion, arts, dance, music, it’s going to be a really interesting feeling.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

French President Emmanuel Macron’s surprise dissolution of the National Assembly and call for snap general elections on June 30 and July 7 has implications for New Caledonia.

Grave civil unrest and rioting broke out on May 13 in reaction to a controversial constitutional amendment, directly affecting the voting system in local elections.

The National Assembly decisively voted for the change on May 14. A few weeks earlier, on April 2, the Senate (Upper House) had approved the same text.

However, the proposed constitutional change — which would open the list of eligible voters to an extra 25,000 citizens, mostly non-indigenous Kanaks — remains in limbo, as it needs to go through a final stage.

This final step is a vote in the French Congress, during a special sitting of both the Senate and National Assembly with a required 60 per cent majority.

Macron earlier indicated he would summon the Congress some time by the end of June.

During a quick visit to New Caledonia on May 23, he said he would agree to wait for some time to allow inclusive talks to take place between local leaders, concerning the long-term political future of New Caledonia — but the end of June deadline still remained.

There is also a technicality that would make the adopted text (still subject to the French Congress’s final approval) impossible to apply in its current form: with a now dissolved National Assembly and snap elections scheduled on June 30 (first round) and July 7 (second round), the French Congress (which includes the National Assembly) will definitely not be able to convene before mid-July.

Yet, the constitutional law, as endorsed in its present form by both Houses, is formulated in such a way that it “shall come into force on 1 July 2024” (article 2).

Since last month, there have been numerous calls from pro-independence and pro-France parties, as well as religious and civil society leaders, to scrap the text altogether, as a precondition to the return of some kind of civil peace and normalcy in the French Pacific archipelago.

Similar calls have been issued by former French prime ministers who had been directly in charge of New Caledonia’s affairs.

‘The end of life of this constitutional law’ – Mapou
New Caledonia’s President Louis Mapou, in a speech at the weekend, mentioned the controversial text before Macron’s dissolution announcement.

Mapou said the current unrest in New Caledonia, mostly by pro-independence parties, had de facto “signalled the end of life of this constitutional law”.

But he also called on Macron to clarify explicitly that he intended to withdraw the controversial text, perceived as the main cause for unrest in New Caledonia.

He said that the text, which he said had been “unilaterally decided” by France, had “reopened a wound that has taken so long to heal”.

The constitutional law, he said, was “against the current of New Caledonia’s recent history”, and was “useless because it has to be part of a global project”.

“In my humble opinion, this constitutional law, therefore, cannot continue to exist.

“By saying (last month in Nouméa) that it will not be forced through, the French President too, between the lines, has signified its death and its slow abandonment . . .

“It is difficult to imagine that the President would still want to table this constitutional bill (before the French Congress),” Mapou said.

Does the dissolution now mean the proposed voting system change is dead?
What the French Constitution says is that all pending bills left unvoted on by the Lower House are cancelled because the dissolution signifies the end of the legislature and therefore of the current ordinary session.

In the particular case of New Caledonia’s constitutional text, which has already been passed by both Houses, the general perception is that it would probably “die a beautiful death” after being given the dissolution final coup de grâce.

Obviously, now that the French National Assembly has been dissolved, the French Congress cannot sit.

“We’re now in caretaker mode and all outstanding bills are now cancelled,” outgoing National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet said on French public television France 2 on Monday.

Local political reactions
On the local political scene, a few parties have been swift to react, with the pro-independence platform FLNKS (an umbrella group of pro-independence parties) saying it was now preparing to run for New Caledonia’s two constituencies in the French National Assembly.

FLNKS is holding its national congress next weekend 15 June 15.

New Caledonia’s two seats are held by two pro-France (loyalist) leaders, Nicolas Metzdorf and Philippe Dunoyer.

Daniel Goa, president of the Union Calédonienne (UC, the largest and one of the more radical components of the FLNKS), said the “mobilisation” at the heart of the current civil unrest would not stop.

But in order to allow movement during the snap general election campaign which is due to start shortly, he said there could be more flexibility in the roadblocks.

The barricades still remain in many parts of New Caledonia, and especially the capital Nouméa and its suburbs.

“We will reinforce our representation at (French) national level,” Goa said, anticipating the results of the forthcoming snap general election.

But there are also concerns regarding the way New Caledonia’s current crisis will be handled during the “caretaker” period, and who will be in charge of the sensitive issue in the next French government.

A “dialogue mission” consisting of three high-level public servants stayed in New Caledonia from May 23 to last week.

It was tasked to restore some kind of talks with all local parties and economic, civil society stakeholders.

Last week, it returned to Paris to provide a report on the situation and the advancement of talks aimed at finding a consensus on New Caledonia’s political future.

When they left last week, they said they would return to New Caledonia.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Don Wiseman, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

A group of 32 civil society organisations is writing to the French President Emmanuel Macron calling on him to change his stance toward the indigenous people of New Caledonia.

The group said it strongly supported the call by the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) and other pro-independence groups that only a non-violent response to the crisis will lead to a viable solution.

And it said President Macron must heed the call for an Eminent Persons Group to ensure the current crisis is resolved peacefully and impartiality is restored to the decolonisation process.

Don Wiseman spoke with Joey Tau, of the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), one of the civil society bodies involved.

Joey Tau: Don, I just want to thank you for this opportunity, but also it is to really highlight France’s and, in this case, the Macron administration’s inability of fulfilling the Nouméa Accord in our statements, in our numerous statements, and you would have seen statements from around the region — there have been numerous events or incidents that have led to where Kanaky New Caledonia is at in its present state, with the Kanaks themselves not happy with where they’re headed to, in terms of negotiating a pathway with Paris.

You understand the referendums — three votes went ahead, or rather, the third vote went ahead, during a time when the world was going through a global pandemic. And the Kanaks had clearly, prior to the third referendum, called on Paris to halt, but yet France went ahead and imposed a third referendum.

Thus, the Kanaks boycotted the third referendum. All of these have just led up to where the current tension is right now.

The recent electoral proposal by France is a slap for Kanaks, who have been negotiating, trying to find a path. So in general, the concern that Pacific regional NGOs and civil societies not only in the Pacific, but at the national level in the Pacific, are concerned about France’s ongoing attempt to administer Kanaky New Caledonia [and] its inability to fulfill the Nouméa Accord.

Don Wiseman: In terms of stopping the violence and opening the dialogue, the problem I suppose a lot of people in New Caledonia and the French government itself might argue is that Kanaks have been heavily involved in quite a lot of violence that’s gone down in the last few weeks. So how do you square that?

JT: It has been growing, it has been a growing tension, Don, that this is not to ignore the growing military presence and the security personnel build up. You had roughly about 3000 military personnel or security personnel deployed in Nouméa on in Kanaky within two weeks, I think . . .

DW: Yes, but businesses were being burned down, houses were being burned down.

JT: Well as regional civil societies we condemn all forms of violence, and thus we have been calling for peaceful means of restoring peace talks, but this is not to ignore the fact that there is a growing military buildup. The ongoing military buildup needs to be also carefully looked at as it continues to instigate tension on the ground, limiting people, limiting the indigenous peoples movements.

And it just brings you back to, you know, the similar riots that had [in the 1980s] before New Caledonia came to an accord, as per the Nouméa Accord. It’s history replaying itself. So like I said earlier on, it generally highlights France’s inability to hold peace talks for the pathway forward for Kanaky/New Caledonia.

In this PR statement we’ve been calling on that we need neutral parties — we need a high eminence group of neutral people to facilitate the peace talks between Kanaks and France.

DW: So this eminent persons to be drawn from who and where?

JT: Well the UNC 24 committee meets [this] week. We are calling on the UN to initiate a high eminence persons but this is to facilitate these together with the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. Have independent Pacific leaders intervene and facilitate peace talks between both the Kanak pro=independence leaders and of course Macron and his administration.

DW: So you will be looking for the Eminent Persons group perhaps to be centrally involved in drawing up a new accord to replace the Nouméa Accord?

JT: Well, I think as per the Nouméa Accord the Kanaks have been trying to negotiate the next phase, post the referendum. And I think this has sparked the current situation. So the civil societies’ call very much supports concerns on the ground who are willing, who are asking for experts or neutral persons from the region and internationally to intervene.

And this could help facilitate a path forward between both parties. Should it be an accord or should it be the next phase? But we also have to remember New Caledonia Kanaky is on the list of the Committee of 24 which is the UN committee that is listed for decolonisation.

So how do we progress a territory? I guess the question for France is how do they progress the territory that is listed to be decolonised, post these recent events, post the referendum and it has to be now.

DW: Joey, you are currently at the Pacific Arts Festival in Hawai’i. There’s a lot of the Pacific there. Have issues like New Caledonia come up?

JT: The opening ceremony, which launches [the] two-week long festival saw a different turn to it, where we had flags representing Kanaky New Caledonia, West Papua, flying so high at this opening ceremony. You had the delegation of Guam, who, in their grand entrance brought the Kanaky flag with them — a sense of solidarity.

And when Fiji took the podium, it acknowledged countries and Pacific peoples that are not there to celebrate, rightfully.

Fiji had acknowledged West Papua, New Caledonia, among others, and you can see a sense of regional solidarity and this growing consciousness as to the wider Pacific family when it comes to arts, culture and our way of being.

So yeah, the opening ceremony was interesting, but it will be interesting to see how the festival pans out and how issues of the territories that are still under colonial administration get featured or get acknowledged within the festival — be it fashion, arts, dance, music, it’s going to be a really interesting feeling.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Kanak people in Aotearoa New Zealand are lamenting the loss of family and friends in Kanaky New Caledonia, following mass rioting and civil unrest since mid-May prompted by an electoral reform believed to threaten dilution of the indigenous voice.

A fono (meeting) at Māngere East Community Centre welcomed Kanak people who have been staying in Aotearoa since November last year and were here when the independence protests-turned-riots broke out on May 13.

The fono on the King’s Birthday holiday was in solidarity with the Kanak struggle for independence from France and drew connections between Kanaky, Aotearoa and Palestine.

A young Kanak spoke at the fono in French which was translated by a French speaker on the night.

Te Ao Māori News has chosen not to reveal the identity of these Kanaks.

“We’re here but we’re not really here because most of us are hurt,” a young Kanak man said.

“Young brothers and sisters are being killed but we know that our brothers and sisters don’t have weapons.”

“Some of our families have been killed,” said another young Kanak man whose brother had died.

“It’s difficult for us ‘cos we’re far from our land, from our home.”

Officially, seven people had died during the unrest, four of them Kanak and two police officers (one by accident). However, there have been persistent rumours of other unconfirmed deaths.

Tāngata whenua on mana motuhake for all
Bianca Ranson (Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa) was one of the speakers at the fono and spoke with Te Ao Māori News the following day.

Ranson is part of Matika mō Paretīnia, a solidarity group that organises in support of the Free Palestine Movement.

“One of the key messages that we were wanting to to get across or to be able to open up discussion around was settler colonialism . ..  whether that’s for us as tangata whenua here, with the current government, the attack that we’re seeing on our health, on education, whether it’s our treaty, the environment,” she said.

“But also you know when you really look at the tip of the spear, and of settler colonial violence that’s happening in other places around the world, the people of Palestine and the people of Kanaky are really on the frontline.”

Tina Ngata has also linked the struggles between Aotearoa and Kanaky and the shared visions of self-determination for Kanak and tino rangatiratanga for Māori, the French government derailing their decolonisation process and the “assimilation policies” that threaten Māori tino rangatiratanga and the right the self-determination.

Yasmine Serhan, a Palestinian raised in Aotearoa and speaker at the fono, said a highlight was Ranson inviting the Kanak community to her marae.

“I just thought that’s like the purest form of connection and solidarity to basically open your home up. Any activism that we do in Aotearoa is essentially the extension of the manaaki of tangata whenua,” she said.

“So seeing that in live action was really beautiful.”

The humanisation of resistance
Serhan also drew the connection between Kanaky, Aotearoa, and Palestine through the shared experience of settler colonialism and violent land dispossession.

“The space was set up to make it clear that our indigenous struggles aren’t in isolation and they’re not coincidental. They’re all interconnected and the liberation of one of us will lead to the liberation of all of us,” Serhan said.

“People who spoke from the Kanak community shared that they’re resisting with their bare hands. Basically, that is against an armed military force that’s been sent by France.

“It’s very similar to what’s happening in occupied Palestine, where they’re sending armed, Israeli occupational forces and people are resisting with their bare hands — basically, for their homes to be safe for their kids, for their schools, for their hospitals.”

Serhan emphasised the importance of fighting for the humanisation of resistance.

“The humanisation of our resistance happens when we share our stories, and when we continue to exist and be present in spaces.

“As a Palestinian person, my people have been resisting our erasure for 76 plus years, and for the Kanaks, it’s 150 years of living under French colonial rule.

“And we’re still here. We are the grandchildren, the mokopuna of ancestors that they’ve tried to erase and haven’t been successful in erasing.

“So our existence and presence here today is a very firm standing in our resistance.”

The barricades and unarmed Kanaks
One of the Kanaks who spoke at the fono said: “The French government has created organised militia. They have militias of local police to exterminate us.”

It was reported this week that France had deployed six more Centaures — armoured vehicles with tear gas and machine gun capabilities — to help police remove barricades.

However, a young Kanak at the fono said: “The barricades are built to protect the areas where people live. We got a video two days ago, 48 hours ago of the gendarmes, the French police, going into the suburbs where people live.

“They threw homemade gas bombs. People have found weapons from the militia, grenades, bombs and heavy artillery.”

Jessie Ounei, an Aotearoa-born Kanak woman told Te Ao Māori News there’s a lot of unchecked violence happening in Kanaky.

“It’s not being reported and the French forces are being left to their own devices.”

Ounei said there was a video released in the last few days of a young Kanak man who was going to the gas station and was shot in the face with a flash ball.

“There are right-wing civilians who see as a threat who want to . . .  I guess exterminate us is the nicest way to put that.

“I just want to say that they’re not being stopped and they’re not being addressed. That’s part of the reason why we have all these checkpoints and barricades, to keep our families safe.

“To keep our people safe. We have seen that it’s not the French forces that are going to keep us safe. We have to keep ourselves safe.”

Nuclearisation and militarisation of the Pacific
Ranson talked about imperialism regarding the extraction and exploitation of Kanaky resources that has directly benefitted the settlers and disregarded Kanak leadership or their care for the whenua.

Nickel mining in Kanaky started in 1864. Kanaks were excluded from the mining industry which has led to pollution, devastated forests, wetlands, waterways, and overall destruction of Kanaky’s biodiversity.

“There’s also the positioning of France in the wider Pacific,” Ranson said.

“We have to ask ourselves, why? Why is France in Kanaky? What does that serve in the overall agenda of the French colonial project.”

At the fono speakers made the connection between France and nuclearisation.

The French have undertaken nuclear tests in Fangataufa and Moruroa of French Polynesia which media had reported an estimated 110,000 people who had been affected by the radioactive fallout between the 1960s and 1990s.

In Aotearoa, Greenpeace was protesting the French nuclear tests in Moruroa with their protest fleet the flagship Rainbow Warrior was bombed by French spies in Opération Satanique which led to the death of Portuguese-Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira.

Ranson also mentioned the coalition government’s positioning of New Zealand.

“Whether it’s with AUKUS or strengthening our connections with US, there’s some serious, serious concerns that we as indigenous people have. The implications on tāngata moana throughout Te Moana Nui A Kiwa are immense if we are heading down the dangerous pathway of moving away from being a nuclear-free and independent Pacific.”

An article published by The Diplomat discussed New Zealand and France’s “shared vision for the Indo-Pacific”, which is the strategy launched by the Biden-Harris US administration in 2022 and has been more recently adopted by the French government.

The US has also conducted nuclear tests in the Pacific in the Bikini Atoll and the Marshall Islands, and is now part of the AUKUS security pact that will lead to nuclear proliferation in the Pacific and militarisation through advanced military technology sharing.

Opponents of AUKUS argue it compromises the Rarotongan treaty for a nuclear-free zone in the South Pacific.

Susanna Ounei, the late Kanak activist and mother of Jessie Ounei, has also made the connection between decolonisation and denuclearisation of the Pacific.

Susanna delivered a speech in Kenya 1985 as part of the United Nations Decade for women.

Ounei said the colonial government claimed there were 75,000 Kanaks when they arrived, but Kanaks said there were more than 200,000 and only 26,000 after French invaded. This indicated a mass genocide.

The future of Kanaky
When asked about her dreams for Kanaky, Jessie Ounei said she wanted an independent Kanaky.

“I want our people to choose and thrive. I want our people to have the resources to discover their gifts and share it with the world. I don’t want our people to make 90 percent of the incarceration rates or 70 percent of poverty rates.”

At the end of the night, one of the young Kanaks said: “We just want our freedom. Thank you very much for your support, we all have the same fight.

Said another Kanak youth: “We are so happy that you have a thought for the young Kanaks here. That you are with us. We’re not feeling that we’re left alone because you are behind us.”

Although much of what was discussed was heavy and saddening for those in the crowd, the night ended with the crowd dancing and cheering together in solidarity with each other’s struggles and the strength to keep resisting.

Te Aniwaniwa Paterson is a digital reporter with Te Ao Māori News.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz