NEW CALEDONIA_
France tries to build settler state in the Pacific Francois Mitterrand's sudden junket to New Caledonia on January 17 highlighted the role the conflict in this island group is assuming in French politics. The direct intervention of the president himself is the ultimate political resort for a state built on a bonapartist presidency. In fact, Mitterrand has been trying to elevate himself more and more above the political divide as the 1986 legislative elections draw near. In the news conference he gave before leaving for the Pacific, he stressed that he was not affected by public opinion and "I am trying to serve France and the French."
However, the Kanak revolt is sharply polarizing French political life and showing how much the state administration has remained the same old rightist, repressive and colonialist one despite the formal rule of the left.
Thus, the proportions in the population of the territory, that is, two fifths Kanaks and three fifths non-Kanaks will be reproduced after the elections in the new Territorial Assembly and therefore in the representation for the territory in the State-Territory Committee....
"The Lemoine Law grants the French National Assembly, in which there are no Kanaks, and the State-Territory Committee in which the Kanaks would have no more than one fifth the representatives, the right to define the electorate that will exercise the right of self-determination in 1989."
Since the blowup on the island, the high commissioner has proposed a scheme for "independence-association" and a referendum sooner. But there are only two alternatives from the Kanak point of view, either maintaining the constitution, that is, direct French responsibility, or granting self-determination to the Kanaks. They reject any "third road," by which they mean an attempt to give Caledonia a new status that would confirm the position of the Kanaks as a minority in their own country and give France a legal facade for concealing its responsibility for the situation of the Kanak people. "One Algeria was enough!"
In fact, the demonstrations in Noumea during Mitterrand's visit confirmed that any independence or autonomy for a New Caledonia ruled by the settlers would be'a sort of Pacific Northern Ireland. There was a massive mobilization of the settlers, 30,000 people, under violently reactionary slogans such as "France, yes; socialism, no!" "Kanaky [a Kanak state ], never; French Caledonia forever!" "Socialists - traitors! " "One Algeria was enough!" Liberation's correspondent wrote that when he asked participants what they thought about Kanaky, the standard answer was, "Oh, you mean the Planet of the Apes."
Regular terror raids against the Kanaks ended only at the beginning of this century. In the recent conflict, ten Kanaks were killed •in an ambush organized by the settlers in Hienghene on December 5.
In both New Caledonia and in France, the right has sought to blame the crisis on the Socialist farty and the president, arguing that the victory of the lett encouraged the Kanaks to think that they could win their aspirations. That is quite true historically. And there is no way that Mitterrand can elevate himself above the dilemma, either preserve the colony, which cannot be done without giving •the right free rein, or yield to the demands of the colonized and face the fury of the right. Moreover, it is not just the French and settler right that Mitterrand has to worry about. The US ambassador in France, Evan Galbraith has felt obliged to make a statement stressing that the US does not want to see any "new Grenada" in the Pacific.
3
Gerry FOLEY
The murder of pro-independence leader Eloi Machoro on January 12 was a fine example of the traditions of the authoritarian French republic, a murder by security forces acting in concert with parallel-police rightist gangs.
The "official version" made even the "respectable left" press that has grown sluggish and sleepy under the left government gag. In the January 15 issue of Le Monde, Daniel Scheiderman took apart the high commissioner's statement point by point and showed that it not only did not hold together but contained what could only be hastily dreamed up alibis. For example, the statement said that the soldiers could not fire at Machoro's legs because of the tall grass. Schneiderman wrote: "No chance. A simple visit to the spot shows that there is no tall grass there." Genocide
Machoro's death was celebrated by European demonstrators in Noumea, the major town in the territory, who had been mobilized on the basis of the death of a European youth in an obscure clash in the countryside. In the January 15 Le Monde, Jean-Marie Colombani wrote that these demonstrations, which had led to riots, showed that "part of the European population is determined to have a bash," that is, a pogrom against the native Melanesian population.
In fact, the plan for settling New Caledonia involved a deliberate genoide against the Kanak people. In 1972, for example, Pierre Mesmer, then premier of France, wrote in a letter to his minister of colonies, "New Caledonia is a colony for settlement...in the long run, national demands from the natives will only be avoided if the communities of nonInternational Viewpoint 28 January 1984
Pacific origin become a majority." (Ct, Ce que veulent les Kanaks, Dossier Rouge, No I1, Paris, 3rd Quarter of 1984).
In the last century, the native Melanesian, or Kanak population, was confined to reservations. Recently, it has been put in a minority of about 42 percent by the French policy of settlement. Thus, the Kanak revolt, the boycott of the territorial elections last year and the subsequent attempts to make it impossible for the French authorities to govern, are a last stand by a people threatened with being overwhelmed in their own country.
One of the main objectives of the boycott of the French sponsored elections last year was to block application of the Lemoine Law, the scheme drawn up by the former high commissioner and passed by the French National Assembly in July 1984.
The plan called for the establishment of a State-Territory Committee made up of one half of representatives of the various parties in the territorial legislature, in accordance with their strength in that body; and one half of representatives of the French state. This committee would then organize a referendum for 1989 in which the residents of the territory would vote on its future.
The Kanak liberation front, the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) rejected the Lemoine Law specifically because it saw it as ratification of the French government's longterm plan to create a new Caledonian entity in which the native people would be a minority.
In a statement, the Caledonian Union, the major component of the front, said, "No consistent reform of the Caledonian electoral system is envisaged [in the plan ].
Rouge
NEW CALEDONIA-
ELOI MACHORO