By Roch Wamytan, leader of the FLNKS delegation

First of all, allow me, Madam Prime Minister, to greet you on behalf of the Front de Liberation Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) delegation for this first meeting with you.

Despite the difficult situation prevailing in France, you were able to take some time in your busy schedule to discuss with our delegation and we recognise your significant consideration of the situation of New Caledonia (NC). We have also had the opportunity to communicate with you by phone with some of our delegation members and I thank you.

Today is the first time that we meet, and it is important to be able to discuss face-to-face and try to understand each other. It is a huge responsibility has been passed on to you, that of an ancient civilization characterised as “the Kanak people of Melanesian and Austronesian descent” which has been present in the Caledonian archipelago for more than 3000 years.

Close to 250 years ago (1774), this ancient people crossed the path of Europeans through James Cook, and then that of the French on September 24, 1853, the date of the possession of the islands by France. It is from this time onward that the chaotic history of relations between France and us, the Kanak people, began.

Almost 170 years later, we are still debating these relations that bind us: You as the representative of France, and us, the members of the FLNKS delegation, led by two of the signatories of the Nouméa Agreement, Victor Tutugoro and myself, accompanied by Gilbert Tyuienon, Mickaël Forrest, Jean Pierre Djaïwé, Digoue, Aloisio Sako, Jean Creugnet and our technical team.

As you know, Madam Prime Minister, the FLNKS represents the national liberation movement of the colonised Kanak people, since the re-inscription in 1986 of New Caledonia on the United Nations’ list of countries to decolonise. Therefore, we stand in front of you as the representative of the governing authority of France, according to international law.

On February 26, 2023, the popular congress of the FLNKS and the nationalist and Indigenous movement has validated the unique and unitary trajectory for the country’s achievement of full sovereignty and independence, through negotiation with the governing authority, France, which is the governing power since the possession of New Caledonia on September 24, 1853.

For 170 years (September 24, 1853) we have lived under the governance of France, which has become since 1986 the administering power of the New Caledonia, the latter being considered a non-self-governing territory. This governance has never been accepted by our people and the genealogy of the struggle to free ourselves of it is well known. Allow me to share some key dates:

● From 1774 (arrival of James Cook) to 1853 (formal possession): People had to struggle against the harmful effects of microbial epidemics introduced by the first Europeans, faced with a population which lacked immunity. As a result, close to 90 percent of the population was eradicated. Survivors organised themselves and survived thanks to their ancestral resilience when faced with diseases and European invasion. Then, colonisation followed.

● From 1853 to 1924: The violent possession of land, the settlement of convicts and deportees, the revolts of chiefdoms and the bloody repression of the colonial army with its massacres, ethnocide, population displacement and transportation.

● From 1925 to 1946: The population reaches its lowest point, approximately 25,000 people. It is the point of departure for a rebirth, through reconstruction, the restructuring of chiefdoms with catholic and protestant missions.

● From 1945 to 1946: New Caledonia misses its first opportunity to achieve independence. Indeed, the President of the United States of America, [Franklin D.] Roosevelt, was of the idea that the French defeat would de facto, lead to the end of its empire, then in ruin. He was therefore planning on changing the status of Dakar, Indochina and other French possessions and was advising France to progressively give up its
possessions in Asia and Africa.

When it came to New Caledonia, this colony was to be removed from France and placed under the governance of the USA, similarly to Palau, before giving it its independence back. That is what the work of Marie Claude Smouts, researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), shows in her book La France à l’ONU.

● From 1946 to 1958: It is the end of the Native Code, the Kanak people are granted citizenship and enter institutions. It also marks New Caledonia’s second missed opportunity to become independent since in the 1958 constitutional referendum where the electoral roll was predominantly Kanak.

Under the influence of the Catholic and Protestant churches supported by the European section of the Union Calédonienne (UC) party, this party opted for YES, and therefore to remain within the French Republic. The framework law or autonomy law was in turn put in place.

● 1963-1968 and 1975-1984: Abolition of the framework law and birth of the Kanak pro-independence movement. 1975 was the year of the “Mélanésia 2000” cultural revolution, and the creation of the Front Indépendantiste in 1979.

● 1984 – 1988: It was the semi-failure of the Nainville-les-Roches discussions, the creation of the FLNKS, and the Kanak nationalist insurrection and revolts which lasted four long years.

● 1988 – 1989: [This] was the year of the signing of the Matignon Agreement and one year [later] the murder of Jean-Marie Tjibaou and Yeiwene Yeiwene since they did not have the FLNKS mandate to sign this agreement. An agreement which aimed to restore peace and initiate the rebalancing, but not to settle the issue of independence.

● 1988-1998-2018: the country enters a process of emancipation and decolonisation with the Matignon and Nouméa agreements by having “rebalancing” and “the impartiality of the state” as guiding principles.

● 2018-2022: this was the series of three referenda which resulted, according to France, in three NOs to full-sovereignty and independence. A progression of the YES to full sovereignty and independence between the first and second consultations is, however, notable. The third one is not recognised as politically legitimate by the FLNKS and its regional and international support due to 60 percent of non-participation, which includes the almost entirety of the Kanak people.

This explains the procedure at the International Court of Justice at The Hague. It is possible to estimate that the participation of the Kanak population to a third referendum organised in normal and transparent conditions, with an impartiality of the State would have allowed the country’s achievement of independence.

However, it marked the third missed opportunity to reach independence in our chaotic history of relations with France.

This brief historical reminder traces a trajectory that began with the arrival of the Europeans in Oceania in 1774 and which will continue until the achievement of full sovereignty in the coming years as part of a renewed relationship with France and Europe for a country that will be fully integrated in its geographical area. This has been its history for 3000 years, and this will be its future.

Indeed, experience has demonstrated that in the history of decolonisation in the Maghreb region, in Asia, in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world: the colonised never give up on the question of their asserted identity. It is the same for our people which have always fought against an oppressive and forced assimilatory system.

While it fought against a system, the Kanak people respect France and its inhabitants. France has a history that we respect: it is a great nation which defends universal values. Moreover, hundreds of our youth have given their life during the two world conflicts. France has brought us [the] Catholic and Protestant religion[s] as well as education. That is what the preamble of the Nouméa Agreement acknowledges.

Due to being unheard in its struggle against a colonial system, we can consider that the nationalist movement which started in the early 1970s was a response to the abolition of the framework law put in place by the 1958 constitution, then removed in 1963. The movement peaked in 1984-1988, with the painful events of Ouvéa, where the special troops of the French armed forces intervened to maintain the public order.

The number of Kanak leaders having lost their life during this period up until 1989 is significant, especially considering their quality and our small population. In light of this dead-end situation, the handshake between Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Jacques Lafleur, and Michel Rocard, as planned, allowed for peace to be restored.

And the rebalancing included in the Matignon Agreement approved by the national referendum of 1988.

This ten-year period between 1988 and 1998 was meant to be an opportunity for a more balanced development of the territory. The no. 1 text of the Matignon Agreement is entitled: “The condition for a lasting peace — The impartial State at the service of all.” The press release of June 26, 1988, also insists on this point: “The impartiality of the State must be guaranteed, the security and protection of all must be ensured”.

And on August 20, the Minister of Overseas Departments and Territories, Louis Le Pensec, declared before the agreement signing ceremony: “France can only be a referee if its spoken word inspires trust”.

In 1998, the Matignon Agreement gave way to a new agreement, the Nouméa Agreement, which won the support of the Kanak people but was rejected by the non-independence majority of the South[ern] Province. This agreement has received an almost unanimous approval from the Kanak people for several reasons:

– It maintained peace and allowed for the continuation of rebalancing policies;
– It allowed the construction of a project of society that would take colonialism
into account, following the Nainville-les-Roches Agreement in 1983; [and]
– Its preamble and guidance document de facto recognised Kanak identity and committed to the establishment of a new governance of New Caledonia, in the form of a sui generis collectivity with autonomy, in a perspective of independence.

New Caledonia, whose vocation for independence was recognised following the 1988 national referendum, was taking the path of the construction of a common destiny resting on a “Caledonian citizenship” and the irreversibility of the process of decolonisation and emancipation.

Thus, for the colonised Kanak people, the responsibility of the State as the third partner of the Nouméa Agreement is to guarantee this irreversible and sincere process, allowing New Caledonia to endorse its vocation to be a sovereign state, like the other sovereign states in the region. That is the meaning of the massive YES which was given by the Kanak people at the referendum to ratify this agreement on November 8, 1998.

It was the same for the national referendum of November 6, 1988. Under no condition can these two referenda be considered a reason for yet another status of integration of New Caledonia within France.

For the Kanak people, the process of self-determination must continue to follow up on the two referenda of 2018 and 2020. The Nouméa Agreement, which remains the basis on which the future of New Caledonia must be permanently built and sealed, is clear and unambiguous both in the preamble and the guidance document: Decolonisation is the way to rebuild a sustainable social bond between the communities that live in New Caledonia.

A new step must be taken to mark the full acknowledgement of Kanak identity, conditional to the reviewing of the social relationship between all the communities that live in New Caledonia and through the sharing of sovereignty with France before the full sovereignty of the country to be.

The culminating point of this Agreement is completely unambiguous because: “The State recognises the vocation of New Caledonia to benefit from a complete emancipation at the end of this period.” This Agreement will then remain at its last development stage without the possibility of going back in the event that the consultations do not lead to the new political organisation suggested. This irreversibility being a constitutional guarantee.

However, based on the decisions concerning the third referendum specifically, and the statements made by French government officials, the Kanak people observe that once again, the French State never follows through with its promises, and that in the last moment, it systematically aligns its interest as a “great power” to the French population it has settled in New Caledonia.

It was the case in 1963, when the French government unilaterally decided to cancel the framework law which had granted a wide autonomy status to New Caledonia, thus reflecting General De Gaulle’s desire to rely on New Caledonia and French Polynesia for France’s ambitions as a great world power. It also reflected the wishes of the [New] Caledonian colonial Right. This rupture unilaterally decided by Paris, created the conditions for the birth of Kanak nationalism from the 1970s, followed by its radicalisation in 1984-1988.

Today, almost forty years after 1984, it would seem that we are witnessing the same scenario, especially since the use of the concept of Indo-Pacific, with a renewed alliance between the President of the Republic and the Caledonian loyalists. Clearly, since 2021 and the Minister [Sébastien] Lecornu, the organisation of the third referendum has been the scene of the tipping of the State’s position towards the “No to independence” camp, undermining the very principles of the Matignon and Nouméa Agreements, the impartial State at the service of all, which resulted in a deadly loss of trust.

Since the possession of the islands by France, everything is done or organised based on French, European or Western norms, usages, traditions, or social structures, with an almost blind application of them in the context of a traditional society that is fundamentally different. Thus, basic organisations, structures, concepts, or processes, which are not that of Oceanian societies, continue to be imposed, without question as to the degree of constraint or acceptation that it implies.

However, this society, like any Oceanian society, carries deep values, drawing on the spiritual world, nourished by the sacred and inhabited by a way of thinking in harmony with nature and the cosmos as it has been valued, anchored mythological corpus on par with the great Mediterranean civilizations. We have not invented all this, it has been made explicit and rehabilitated by academia and anthropological research.

For a long time, the representatives of the Kanak people, whether it be the great chiefs, political leaders, or religious leaders have asked the question “but why does France, the governing power, not hear us?” It remains deaf to our points, to what the Kanak people wants, because it is its right to recover its lost sovereignty. But France does not think so and does not respect the recommendations made by the United Nations. It does exactly the opposite or interprets what is presented to it within the framework of the defence of superior national interests.

Could France, for once, carry a process of decolonisation through? This unfinished process of decolonisation carried on into the third referendum, which the FLNKS considers a “stolen” referendum. Has France forgotten the history of the colonisation of this people
and of its millennial civilisation?

The Melanesian civilisation is not an invention of the mind, it was demonstrated, scientifically confirmed by the community of researchers in the field of anthropology. Indeed, within the context of anthropology and approaching “deep nthought”, academic research led on the path of understanding the spirit of man and his relationship with the material and spiritual world around him. The aforementioned work provides for the first time an exploration and in-depth reading of the mythical thought of the Kanak people; thus, this research establishes the sacralising vision of ancient Kanak myths and an integral landscape of life in the Kanak world, the visible and the invisible; rehabilitating the power of myth in the 21st century and by attributing it an academic dignity, it valorises the cultural capital of people.

This work has been welcomed as a true exploration, both novel and original, it underlines the height and strength of Kanak deep thought and highlights fundamental themes such as cosmological knowledge, the power of symbols and archetypes, etc. This observation encourages the total recognition of the qualitative aspect of this people. However, the current evolution is not going in this direction and has never acknowledged these immaterial and intellectual resources. Therefore, its formalisation and institutionalisation is suggested, since the State cannot ignore the fundamental elements of Kanak society which can infer the proclamation of a prior sovereignty.

One cannot deny that the French presence in New Caledonia, the successive leadership and the institutional changes have never integrated in writing or in speech the “pre-eminence, the full and legitimate connection to their land (existential and ontological link, startling for the Cartesian mind, Kanak belong to their land, land does not belong to them) and the sacred and inalienable character of the presence and existence of the Kanak people, as well as the sovereignty they possess: the later comes from the people and is complementary to the immaterial heritage . . .”

On this note, customary senators expressed their deep gratitude to an academic researcher in structural anthropology, whose novel work was welcomed as having valued and sacralised the fundamentals which structure Kanak civilisation. This original contribution fills a gap and demonstrates that “others” can understand, respect, and give the Kanak people their essential and existential values back. Above all, this contribution disrupts the one directional relation, which prevents the establishment of a real exchange, and which leads to forceful imposition, regardless of the qualities and values of the other. We seriously believe that France can take a step that it has never taken before to show that it is a great nation capable, like the Kanak who welcomes others, of recognising “a timeless and original sovereignty”, an essential condition for sharing in acceptance and understanding.

Indeed, it constitutes a new approach because a part of Kanak civilisation was destroyed in its anthropological foundations and its sociocultural organisation by the violence of French possession and the imposition of a “pax romana” without any counterpart. The impacts are known: the annihilation of the history which precedes September 24, 1853, the loss of identity in relation to languages, land, culture, beliefs, etc. Kanak people’s ancestral land was considered “terra nullius”. This “terra nullius” status was assigned to make it “lawful” for better armed countries which pretended to be “more civilised” to seize, colonise and exploit territories and resources. That is in spite of the fact that, in our traditions, not one centimeter of land or maritime territory escaped the ontic link of belonging between the human and their land.

But in the meantime, the impacts on the being and doing of Kanak people have been of a great violence and these harms are still present in 21st century Kanak society. Some of these impacts have been acknowledged notably in the preamble of the Nouméa Agreement, but no solution followed, through a holistic approach which could have defined some “just” measures to implement so that the Kanak people could recover its dignity.

It is time for France to react because in New Caledonia, a sly colonialism or neocolonialism is currently at play, attempting to erase and negate the natural sovereignty of the Kanak people on its territory, condemning it to eternally look for a lost paradise. We do not want to die assimilated like a sugar cube in water and we will resist to survive. Fortunately, some moral voices make themselves heard to denounce this unjust system, as is the case with the Vatican.

In its “colonial” history, the Vatican shared discovered lands with different European Christian countries, among which Portugal, Spain, France, etc. It ended up ubi et orbi declaring the abandonment of the doctrine of discovery, which operated from the 16th century and provided a framework to lay possessive claims, to appropriate and to colonise, due to the destruction, damage, and other ills of colonisers. More recently, Pope Francis declared in a message addressed to the participants of the “colonisation and neocolonialism: a social justice and common good perspective” forum, which took place on March 30th and 31st, 2023 that neocolonialism is sly, that it is a crime, and that there isn’t any possibility of peace in a world that rejects some people in order to oppress them.

We even remember the unforgettable sentence marked by the “presidential” seal, of candidate Emmanuel Macron in Algeria, stating that colonisation is a crime against humanity. This gives more weight to the papal message. Restorative action is thus unavoidable and must lead to a deep reflection: Which people has suffered? To whom do we owe reparation and apology before imposing and controlling?

We do not ask for pity, nor do we beg or repent, a confessional notion. We only ask for justice through a holistic and recognised approach, that of transitional justice with its four pillars, to reinvigorate a damaged people, which drags generation after generation, the negative impacts on its being and its doing, as Solgenystine and other experts remind us on the topic of colonialism.

But we are also aware of the “cultural” difficulty for the great colonising countries to go in the direction of colonised countries. As evidence, in the work of French anthropologist François Pouillon on this issue:

Nations states hardly appreciate Native peoples, even more so when the latter
manifest some inclination toward autonomy, or worse, independence. At stake is the
power of sovereign states over the territories they govern and from which they most
often exploit the Native populations which are marginal in their eyes. If they resist,
they break the law and expose themselves to economic, juridical or even military
sanctions.

Contemporary centralised states are more so convinced of their efficacy and legitimacy as they promote ideologies and values which they are always proud of: the development of their technical and medical knowledge, the “universality” of their confessional or secular beliefs, their “influence” in the world and, at last, their advanced position in the evolution of humankind, all of this supported, more prosaically, by a solid armament.

Native peoples, in their emphasis on their own territories, memories, institutions and knowledges, would only slow them down on their path to perfection.

This tyrannical self-satisfaction feeds on the conviction, as François Pouillon underlines, that “if others, abroad, sometimes have an enviable quality of life, in their closeness to nature and the spiritual warmth of their group (which, however, does not protect them from bloody dictatorships, ethnic cleanings, natural disasters and great modern pandemics), they are, we believe, in a pitiful political state and remain, after all, ‘backward’.” (Anthropologie des petites choses, Le Bord de l’eau, 2015)

Colonial attitudes feed off this “naïve evolutionism” from which contempt originates. From the lack of consideration to enslaved people in the Code Noir (royal decree passed in 1685 aiming to define the conditions of slavery and its practices in the French colonies) to the dehumanisation of Jewish and Tzigane [Roma] people in extermination camps, through the stigmatisation of “primitive” people and other “indigènes” of the colonies, the same deadly chant is sung: May impure blood water the fields of the civilization we embody.

These references are not historical since, today, Amazonia has been transformed into a gigantic inferno where the last Indians die, while Uighurs, Rohingya, Roma, Aboriginal people, African Americans, Native Americans and many others suffer a thousand deaths under the rule of nation-states convinced of being at the top of social and human progress.

Will Kanaks of New Caledonia also pay the price of the narcissism of the powerful? And thus, of France?

“Rebalancing” policies all over the Pacific, Native populations have already historically undergone a spectacular demographic decline (due to epidemics, massacres, poisonings), land spoliation from non-Indigenous people, both rural and urban, exclusion from the benefits of new economic initiatives (mining, extensive breeding, exportation) and the moral attacks of Western monotheisms.

The paradox of New Caledonia is that France has recognised parts of its faults by committing, from 1988, to important “rebalancing” policies aimed primarily at Kanaks. Michel Rocard, when he was Prime Minister from 1988 to 1991, then Lionel Jospin, from 1997 to 2002, also supported the industrial ambitions of pro-independence leaders by enabling them to acquire a mine and to successfully extract, process and export nickel. At the same time, strong support for the expression of Kanak identity has marked the last thirty years with the creation of the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in May 1998, the revival of the Customary Senate [Kanak advisory assembly] and taking into account the Indigenous point of view in the courts.

These significant developments, which have never been questioned by the successive governments of the French Republic, have noticeably appeased the minds and improved the daily life of all Caledonians in general, and Kanaks in particular.

They were combined with unprecedented institutional measures: the scheduling of three referenda for self-determination, the creation of a special electoral roll used for polls open solely to Caledonians who had settled before 1994 and the urge to all the communities living in the archipelago to elaborate a “common destiny”. Alternative forms of sovereignity.

This momentum did not lead to New Caledonia’s access to full sovereignty in the first referendum on November 4, 2018, but it signaled a surprise surge in votes in favour of independence (43.3 percent), a cause which Caledonian of European, Asian or Oceanian descent have evidently joined. This trend was confirmed on October 4, 2020, with 47 percent of the population expressing their wish for New Caledonia to become independent. If this progression is significant, these results won’t change the outcome. The issue is not purely electoral or numerical.

It refers to much deeper forces. Oceanians, despite being victims of a denial of existence, have created social organisations, practices and knowledge related to their doing and being that are specific to them. Through relations to land, legitimacies to power and counter power, strategies of political and matrimonial alliances, whether near or far, connections to the past, and visual and narrative creations, they have developed an alternative form of sovereignty to the monolithic and absolute one that is glorified by nation-states. The challenge of French and British colonisation has matured this nuance and complex political thought, which is a source of resistance and projects for the future. These gains are ineradicable and will not be phased by the ephemeral results of a referendum.

In this context, how can we forge a genuine dialogue?

It seems to us that it is high time for the governing authority to look at the “other” in order to have a mutual understanding, the basis of trust to create, promote, and walk together with the ability and willingness to share a “modus operandi” through the discussions and negotiations to come on the topic of other forms of governance.

Consensus proves to be a fundamental element in the important choices that we had to make for the evolution of New Caledonia in light of the challenges of 21st century.

You have no other choice than to integrate this practice specific to the Pacific or miss out on a successful statutory development project for New Caledonia.

Madam Prime Minister, your government would gain from being in a “win-win” approach, because everyone can assess what New Caledonia represents in this part of the world. We are ready to discuss it.

Building new relationships of trust between our two countries, committing to stability for the populations which have chosen to participate to New Caledonia’s prosperity, and lastly, mastering the stakes, notably environmental, that we will have to face are all challenges that we are willing to undertake. Therefore, the unique trajectory assumed by the FLNKS for the accession to full sovereignty and independence offers the outline that we wished to present to you.

The past 30 years of social stability have provided a conductive environment for the unprecedented development of our country. The irreversible process of decolonisation put in place by the Nouméa Agreement has placed New Caledonia in front of its growing responsibilities, leading us to be standing at the doors of the “concert of nations”.

Considering our emancipation process, the FLNKS believes that we are ready to assume the attributes of our sovereignty. Through a co-construction approach, we propose that the adoption of a political treaty enabling to seal a political basis for this final phase of statutory evolution be studied.

This political agreement will guarantee:

● Reaching an independence bilaterally negotiated with the governing power;
● The continuation of the irreversible process of decolonisation of New Caledonia;
● Obtaining an ultimate process that implements a programme of accession to
full sovereignty and independence; and
● Constitutionalising the political agreement and the accession to independence status, which includes the transition phase, the sovereignty act and the proclamation of the birth of a new state.

Since 1986, New Caledonia has been on the UN list of non-self governing territories. This acknowledgement on the international stage guarantees us rights without which our deepest aspirations would not have been heard. And as long as our ultimate conviction will not be respected, we will continue to make our struggle known.

Madam Prime Minister, this year will mark the 25th year since the Nouméa Agreement. It is our duty to cultivate this consensual state of mind, which has guided all the stakeholders to this juridical innovation that recognised “the shadows of colonisation”.

Madam Prime Minister, we will have to stand by the choices we make for our future generations. As far as we are concerned, it is our duty never to surrender our right to independence and we are convinced that the French State can succeed in the statutory evolution of New Caledonia, within the context of the UN’s Fourth International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism.

To conclude, Madam Prime Minister, this long introduction allows us to place in front of you a historical and political trajectory for the country to access full sovereignty and independence is a logical destiny. We would like to know the ambitions of the central government.

Thank you for your attention.

Roch Wamytan
Head of Delegation

This statement has been lightly edited for publication style.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

After three decades of frustratingly slow progress but with a measure of quiet optimism over the decolonisation process unfolding under the Noumea Accord, Kanaky New Caledonia is again poised on the edge of a precipice.

Two out of three pledged referendums from 2018 produced higher than expected – and growing — votes for independence. But then the delta variant of the global covid-19 pandemic hit New Caledonia with a vengeance.

Like much of the rest of the Pacific, New Caledonia with a population of 270,000 was largely spared during the first wave of covid infections. However, in September a delta outbreak infected 12,343 people with 280 deaths – almost 70 percent of them indigenous Kanaks.

With the majority of the Kanak population in traditional mourning – declared for 12 months by the customary Senate, the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) and its allies pleaded for the referendum due this Sunday, December 12, to be deferred until next year after the French presidential elections.

In fact, there is no reason for France to be in such a rush to hold this last referendum on Kanak independence in the middle of a state of emergency and a pandemic. It is not due until October 2022.

It is clear that the Paris authorities have changed tack and want to stack the cards heavily in favour of a negative vote to maintain the French status quo.

When the delay pleas fell on deaf political ears and appeals failed in the courts, the pro-independence coalition opted instead to not contest the referendum and refuse to recognise its legitimacy.

Vote threatens to be farce
This Sunday’s vote threatens to be a farce following such a one-sided campaign. It could trigger violence as happened with a similar farcical and discredited independence referendum in 1987, which led to the infamous Ouvea cave hostage-taking and massacre the following year as retold in the devastating Mathieu Kassovitz feature film Rebellion [l’Ordre at la morale] — banned in New Caledonia for many years.

On 13 September 1987, a sham vote on New Caledonian independence was held. It was boycotted by the FLNKS when France refused to allow independent United Nations observers. Unsurprisingly, only 1.7 percent of participants voted for independence. Only 59 percent of registered voters took part.

After the bloody ending of the Ouvea cave crisis, the 1988 Matignon/Oudinot Accord signed by Kanak leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou and anti-independence leader Jacques Lafleur, paved the way for possible decolonisation with a staggered process of increasing local government powers.

A decade later, the 1998 Noumea Accord set in place a two-decade pathway to increased local powers – although Paris retained control of military and foreign policy, immigration, police and currency — and the referendums.

In the first referendum on 4 November 2018, 43.33 percent voted for independence with 81 percent of the eligible voters taking part (recent arrivals had no right to vote in the referendum).

In the second referendum on 4 October 2020, the vote for independence rose to 46.7 percent with the turnout higher too at almost 86 percent. Only 10,000 votes separated the yes and no votes.

Expectations back then were that the “yes” vote would grow again by the third referendum with the demographics and a growing progressive vote, but by how much was uncertain.

Arrogant and insensitive
However, now with the post-covid tensions, the goodwill and rebuilding of trust for Paris that had been happening over many years could end in ashes again thanks to an arrogant and insensitive abandoning of the “decolonisation” mission by Emmanuel Macron’s administration in what is seen as a cynical ploy by a president positioning himself as a “law and order” leader ahead of the April elections.

Another pro-independence party, Palika, said Macron’s failure to listen to the pleas for a delay was a “declaration of war” against the Kanaks and progressive citizens.

The empty Noumea hoardings – apart from blue “La Voix du Non” posters, politically “lifeless” Place des Cocotiers, accusations of racism against indigenous Kanaks in campaign animations, and the 2000 riot police and military reinforcements have set a heavy tone.

And the damage to France’s standing in the region is already considerable.

Many academics writing about the implications of the “non” vote this Sunday are warning that persisting with this referendum in such unfavourable conditions could seriously rebound on France at a time when it is trying to project its “Indo-Pacific” relevance as a counterweight to China’s influence in the region.

China is already the largest buyer of New Caledonia’s metal exports, mainly nickel.

The recent controversial loss of a lucrative submarine deal with Australia has also undermined French influence.

Risks return to violence
Writing in The Guardian, Rowena Dickins Morrison, Adrian Muckle and Benoît Trépied warned that the “dangerous shift” on the New Caledonia referendum “risks a return to violence”.

“The dangerous political game being played by Macron in relation to New Caledonia recalls decisions made by French leaders in the 1980s which disregarded pro-independence opposition, instrumentalised New Caledonia’s future in the national political arena, and resulted in some of the bloodiest exchanges of that time,” they wrote.

Dr Muckle, who heads the history programme at Victoria University and is editor of The Journal of Pacific History, is chairing a roundtable webinar today entitled “Whither New Caledonia after the 2018-21 independence referendums?”

The theme of the webinar asks: “Has the search for a consensus solution to the antagonisms that have plagued New Caledonia finally ended? Is [the final] referendum likely to draw a line under the conflicts of the past or to reopen old wounds.”

One of the webinar panellists, Denise Fisher, criticised in The Conversation the lack of “scrupulously observed impartiality” by France for this third referendum compared to the two previous votes.

“In the first two campaigns, France scrupulously observed impartiality and invited international observers. For this final vote, it has been less neutral,” she argued.

“For starters, the discussions on preparing for the final vote did not include all major independence party leaders. The paper required by French law explaining the consequences of the referendum to voters favoured the no side this time, to the point where loyalists used it as a campaign brochure.”

‘Delay’ say Pacific civil society groups
A coalition of Pacific civil society organisations and movement leaders is among the latest groups to call on the French government to postpone the third referendum, which they described as “hastily announced”.

While French Minister for Overseas Territories Sebastien Lecornu had told French journalists this vote would definitely go ahead as soon as possible to “serve the common good”, critics see him as pandering to the “non” vote.

The Union Calédoniènne, Union Nationale pour l’independence Party (UNI), FLNKS and other pro-independence groups in the New Caledonia Congress had already written to Lecornu expressing their grave concerns and requesting a postponement because of the pandemic.

“We argue that the decision by France to go ahead with the referendum on December 12 ignores the impact that the current health crisis has on the ability of Kanaks to participate in the referendum and exercise their basic human right to self-determination,” said the Pacific coalition.

“We understand the Noumea Accord provides a timeframe that could accommodate holding the last referendum at any time up to November 2022.

“Therefore, we see no need to hastily set the final referendum for 12 December 2021, in the middle of a worldwide pandemic that is currently ravaging Kanaky/New Caledonia, and disproportionately impacting [on] the Kanak population.”

The coalition also called on the Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama to “disengage” the PIF observer delegation led by Ratu Inoke Kubuabola. Forum engagement in referendum vote as observers, said the coalition, “ignores the concerns of the Kanak people”.

‘Act as mediators’
The coalition argued that the delegation should “act as mediators to bring about a more just and peaceful resolution to the question and timing of a referendum”.

Signatories to the statement include the Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era, Fiji Council of Social Services, Melanesian Indigenous Land Defence Alliance, Pacific Conference of Churches, Pacific Network on Globalisation, Peace Movement Aotearoa, Pasifika and Youngsolwara Pacific.

The Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) secretariat has called on member states to not recognise New Caledonia’s independence referendum this weekend.

Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, which along with the FLNKS are full MSG members, have been informed by the secretariat of its concerns.

In a media release, the MSG’s Director-General, George Hoa’au, said the situation in New Caledonia was “not conducive for a free and fair referendum”.

Ongoing customary mourning over covid-19 related deaths in New Caledonia meant that Melanesian communities were unable to campaign for the vote.

Hopes now on United Nations
“Major hopes are now being pinned on a Kanak delegation of territorial Congress President Roch Wamytan, Mickaël Forrest and Charles Wéa who travelled to New York this week to lobby the United Nations for support.

One again, France has demonstrated a lack of cultural and political understanding and respect that erodes the basis of the Noumea Accord – recognition of Kanak identity and kastom.

Expressing her disappointment to me, Northern provincial councillor and former journalist Magalie Tingal Lémé says: What happens in Kanaky is what France always does here. The Macron government didn’t respect us. They still don’t understand us as Kanak people.”

Dr David Robie covered “Les Événements” in New Caledonia in the 1980s and penned the book Blood on their Banner about the turmoil. He also covered the 2018 independence referendum.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By RNZ Pacific

Commemorations have been held in New Caledonia over the weekend to mark the 30th anniversary of the assassination of the pro-independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou and his deputy on 4 May 1989.

Tjibaou, leader of the pro-indeoendence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), was killed along with Yeiwéné Yeiwéné.

The two Kanak leaders were gunned down on the island of Ouvéa by a local independence advocate Djubelly Wéa who was upset with the signing of the 1988 Matignon Accord which ended years of unrest.

READ MORE: Blood in the Pacific: 30 years on from the Ouvéa massacre

Wea was in turn shot dead by Tjibaou’s bodyguard.

On the island of Ouvéa, there was also a remembrance of the 19 Kanaks killed by French commandos in the Ouvéa cave hostage crisis a year earlier.

In Hienghène in the north east of the main island, where Tjibaou used to be the mayor, this year’s Tjibaou Cup sports events have been timed to conincide with the anniversary.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

On Saturday, 30 years ago in 1988, I smelled death for the first time – literally.

A sickening, almost suffocating, stench assaulted my nostrils in a dank cave where 21 men – 19 Kanak militants and two French military – had been killed the previous day in what lives on infamously as the “Ouvéa Island massacre” in New Caledonia.

Our feet sunk deep into the loose layer of moist loam the gendarmes had shovelled from the jungle outside onto the cave floor to cover the blood and waste of the dead.

On what we trod it was impossible to know. I dry retched.

My ABC cameraman Alain Antoine, sound recordist Stewart Palmer and I were the very first of the first group of journalists to be allowed inside the Gossannah cave complex on Ouvéa where the Kanaks had died in an assault by French Special Forces.

We’d been flown from the capital Nouméa in a French military helicopter. As we’d scrambled onto the Ouvéa tarmac we bumped into a giant Kanak prisoner sporting red shorts, yellow T shirt and manacles being led the other way by French military (pictured below).

A few days earlier on the main island I experienced for the first of many times in my career the shock of having a cocked, loaded gun pointed at me. We’d happened upon the helicopter evacuation of a French officer wounded in an ambush. He later died.

Not worth shooting
A frightened, angry adrenalin-charged soldier raced up to our car screaming and pointing his automatic weapon before being calmed by a superior who chose to believe we were civilian journalists, not rebels and not worth shooting.

They were tense days.

The Ouvéa event is still cloaked in controversy (French President Emmanuel Macron visited Ouvéa yesterday for the 30th anniversary but, under pressure from families of the dead, refrained from laying a wreath at the graves of the 19 Kanaks).

The action and its context is described by respected Pacific author David Robie in Pacific Journalism Review (2012, pp. 214-215):

“I wrote the following in my book Blood on their Banner[1989, pp. 275-278] – the “blood” being that symbolised by the Kanak flag as being shed by the martyrs of more than a century of French rule:

“Mounting tension as the French security forces were built up in New Caledonia to 9500 for the elections finally erupted on Friday, 22 April 1988, two days before the poll. Kanak militants, arguably the first real guerrilla force in the territory, seized a heavily armed Fayaoué gendarme post on Ouvéa, in the Loyalty Islands.

“Armed with machetes, axes and a handful of sporting guns hidden under their clothes, they killed four gendarmes who resisted, wounded five others and seized 27 as hostages.

“They abducted most of their prisoners to a three-tiered caved in rugged bush country near Gossanah in the north-east of the island; the rest were taken to Mouli in the south.

As almost 300 gendarmes flown to Ouvéa searched for them, the militants demanded that the regional elections be abandoned and that a mediator be flown from France to negotiate for a real referendum on self-determination under United Nations supervision. They threatened to kill their hostages if their demands were not met.

“Declaring on Radio Djiido that he was dismayed by the attack, Tjibaou blamed it on the “politics of violence” adopted by the Chirac government against the Kanak people.

“‘The [colonial] plunderers refuse to recognise their subversive lead,’ he said. ‘From the moment they stole our country, they have tried to eliminate everybody who denounces their evil deeds. It has been like that since colonialism began.’

Appeal for calm
“(French President) Mitterrand appealed for calm and a halt to spiral of violence; (Premier) Chirac condemned the ‘savage brutality’ of the attack, claiming the guerrillas were ‘probably full of drugs and alcohol’.

“The guerrillas freed 11 hostages but remained hidden in their Wadrilla cache with the others. Another hostage, who was ill, was later released.

“[French Minister for Territorial Affairs Bernard] Pons portrayed the guerrilla leader, Alphonse Dianou, as a ‘Libyan-trained religious fanatic’. In fact, he had trained at a Roman Catholic seminary in Fiji and was regarded by people who knew him as ‘a reflective man, found of books and non-violent’. He spent hours explaining to his captives why they had been seized.

“At dawn on Thursday, May 5, French military and special forces launched their attack on the Ouvéa cave and killed 19 Kanaks in what was reported by the authorities to be a fierce battle. The hostages were freed for the loss of only two French soldiers.

“If the military authorities were to be believed, their casualties were from the 11th Shock Unit of the DGSE. (This unit was formerly the Service Action squad, used to bomb the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour on 10 July 1985).

“The assault came just three days before the crucial presidential vote, and hours after three French hostages had been freed in Lebanon following the Chirac government’s reported payment of a massive ransom.

“To top it off, convicted Rainbow Warrior bomber Dominique Prieur, now pregnant, was repatriated back from Hao Atoll to France.

Massacre ‘engineered’

Leaders of the [pro-independence] FLNKS immediately challenged the official version of the attack. Léopold Jorédie issued a statement in which he questioned how the “Ouvéa massacre left 19 dead among the nationalists and no one injured” and the absence of bullet marks on the trees and empty cartridges on the ground at the site”.

Yéiwene Yéiwene insisted that at no time did the kidnappers intend to kill the hostages – ‘this whole massacre was engineered by Bernard Pons who knew very well there was never any question of killing the hostages”. Nidoish Naisseline also condemned the action:

“Pons and Chirac have behaved like assassins. I accuse them of murder. They could have avoided the butchery. They preferred to buy votes of [Nationalist Front leader] Le Pen’s friends with Kanak blood.”

The following extract sums up claims and counter claims:

According to a later report of Captain Philippe Legorjus, then GIGN leader: “Some acts of barbarity have been committed by the French military in contradiction with their military duty”. In several autopsies, it appeared that 12 of the Kanak activists had been executed and the leader of the hostage-takers, Alphonse Dianou, who was severely injured by a gunshot in the leg, had been left without medical care, and died some hours later. Prior to this report, Captain Philippe Legorjus was accused by many of the GIGN agents who took part in the operation of weaknesses in command and to have had “dangerous absences” (some even said he fled) in the final stages of the case. He was forced to resign from the GIGN after this operation, since nobody wanted him as chief and to fight under him anymore.

The military authorities have always denied the version of events given by Captain Philippe Legorjus. Following a command investigation, Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Minister of Defence of the Michel Rocard government, notes that “no part of the investigation revealed that there had been summary executions”. In addition, according to some participants of the operation interviewed by Le Figaro, no shots were heard on area after the fighting ended.

Legorjus said French Premier Jacques Chirac, who was challenging Mitterrand in the French presidential elections, wanted to stage the assault. And Pons said that he had acted throughout the drama on the orders of Chirac, who believes the “separatist” movement should be outlawed.

Radio NZ on Saturday: “The two-week hostage crisis in 1988 was a turning point in the separatist campaign of the indigenous Kanaks because it ushered in reconciliation talks, which led to the 1988 Matignon Accord.

The Accord and its subsequent 1998 Noumea Accord allowed for the creation of a power-sharing collegial government and the phased and irreversible transfer of power from France to New Caledonia.”

Whatever the truth, the blood of 1988 will stain this territory for a long time yet.

Max Uechtritz is managing director of Kundu Productions Pty Ltd and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission. Photos thanks to France TV Outre-Mer and revolutionpermanente.fr

References:
Robie, D. (2012). Gossanah cave siege tragic tale of betrayal. Pacific Journalism Review,  18(2), 212-216.
Robie, D. (1989). Blood on their banner: nationalist struggles in the South Pacific (pp. 275-280). London, UK: Zed Books.

Southern Cross radio comment about the Ouvéa visit on 5 May 2018 by President Macron.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

French President Emmanuel Macron has visited the island of Ouvéa in New Caledonia on the 30th anniversary of the bloody end of the 1988 hostage crisis, reports RNZ Pacific.

Facing opposition by some Kanak families, the president altered Saturday’s programme marking the May 5 ending to the two-week cave siege and refrained from laying a wreath at the grave of the 19 Kanaks killed by the French security forces.

Macron is the first French president to visit Ouvéa but members of one tribe warned that his presence on the anniversary was unwanted and would be seen as a provocation.

Instead, he took part in a ceremony at the site, planting a coconut tree.

He said to forget the events would be another wound for the mourning families.

Earlier in the day, he paid tribute at the tomb of the French security forces killed during the hostage drama.

Macron then also went to the grave of the two Kanak pro-independence leaders, Jean-Marie Tjibaou and Yeiwene Yeiwene, who were assassinated a year later on 4 May 1989.

Tight security
Security was tight, with police blocking an access road and checking travellers amid concern over possible disturbances.

The hostage crisis in 1988 was a turning point in the pro-independence campaign of the indigenous Kanaks because it ushered in reconciliation talks which led to the Matignon Accord.

The Accord and its subsequent Noumea Accord allowed for the creation of a power-sharing collegial government and the phased and irreversible transfer of power from France to New Caledonia

The Accord expires this year with a referendum on November 4 on whether New Caledonians want to attain sovereignty and assume the remaining powers, such as defence, judiciary, policing and monetary policy.

The Ouvéa hostage crisis, which also claimed the life of six French gendarmes, has remained a sensitive issue.

A feature film based on the events, which happened to coincide with the French presidential race between Francois Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, could not to be filmed on Ouvéa.

The film Rebellion (English title) was subsequently shot in French Polynesia, but on its release in 2011 cinema operators in Noumea refused to screen it.

At the time it was alleged it could cause resentment and weaken the forces of consensus.

The film was screened in the NZ International Film festival.

This article has been republished as part of the content sharing agreement between Radio New Zealand and the AUT Pacific Media Centre.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz