Trouble in the French Tropics
KNIBB, DAVID G.
SITTING ON AVOLCANO Trouble in the French Topics BY DAVID G. KNIBB Mururoa Atoll sits in the tropical Pacific, the part of the world many regard as the closest thing on earth to paradise. Its...
...But other than those two rebellions, colonialism went unchallenged in New Caledonia until the Nazis occupied Paris...
...For one thing, it fails to take into account any commitment the French may feel toward the settlers who have been promised over decades that "to live in New Caledonia is to live in France...
...But they realize that their living standards depend on both—that until French Polynesia becomes self-sufficient or decides to make do with less, national sovereignty is an illusory goal...
...In New Caledonia, the five-party Independence Front (FI), led by the French-man Pierre Declerq, propelled the Kanaka movement into a political force...
...Amid the general breakdown of the former order, Kanakas coming off their reserves were exposed to unprecedented wealth and freedom, just as their New Hebrides cousins were...
...Nearby nations may not take this too seriously—if anything, Vanuatu's credibility has been hurt by its overtures to Communists— yet the headache New Hebrides gave France has not disappeared with independence...
...Although the natives—who were called Kanakas by white settlers and subsequently adopted the name—are increasingly at odds with New Caledonia's Europeans, neither side has a clear enough majority to govern...
...When Europeans rushed to take control of the South Pacific during the golden age of imperialism, the final hoisting of the flags found France claiming a scattered realm in what had become a mostly Anglo-Saxon sea...
...The Front, which has pressed unsuccessfully for electoral changes increasing the representation of Melane-sians, now demands that only they be allowed to vote...
...Eventually it became the world's third largest producer, with exports topping $20 million a year...
...For besides the French, and the Asian mineworkers, the colony had earlier become the home of Indochinese expatriates, as well as of growing ranks of islanders from Tahiti, Wallis and Futuna, attracted by its robust economy...
...By the end of 1981, France had fired 11 tests and Tahiti's Assembly was in an uproar...
...In July 1981 Defense Minister Charles Hernu arrived in Papeete to announce the President's reversal of that decision, and then Hernu flew on to Mururoa to observe the first neutron bomb experiment...
...After Gaston Flosse, leader of the local pro-French party, introduced a test-ban resolution, he was elected to French Polynesia's highest office...
...What is more, nowhere were the protests louder than in Papeete, Tahiti, the capital of French P olynesia...
...That shot may have set the process of total independence in irreversible motion...
...The caldoche see the policy as "opening the door to independence...
...In June 1982, after a group originally favoring a middle course of autonomy switched its support from the anti-independence forces to the Front, an FI government headed by Jean-Marie Tjibaou was installed without elections...
...The arrangement was soon dubbed a "pandemonium" by the locals, because their colonial rulers were too preoccupied with keeping track of one another's activities to run the country...
...Exactly the reverse is true in New Caledonia, of course, where a stroll through the Anse Vata district of Noumea will quickly reveal that mining has made many settlers rich...
...The New Hebrides condominium should have been dealt with differently, for the loyalties of the local populace were divided between the French and British models of government and both sides were really half-schooled in the business of running their own affairs...
...Neighboring Vanuatu (the former New Hebrides) won independence from France on July 30,1980...
...A few moderates among the French were disturbed by New Caledonia's history of repression...
...New Hebrides, though, was a headache from the start...
...Paris tried to steer a neutral course through the growing polarization...
...Every group in New Caledonia has opposed Mitterrand's plan to steadily expand autonomy over a five-year period and hold a referendum on self determination in 1989...
...Its momentum seemed to be building until, on the evening of September 19,1981, an unidentified assassin shot and killed Declerq while he was working at home in a Noumea suburb...
...Frangois Mitterrand's successful 1981 presidential campaign included promises of greater autonomy in the overseas territories, and specifically of self-determination for the Kanakas...
...In fact, the imperial powers' lack of interest in New Hebrides was exceeded only by the concern of each that its rival would lay claim...
...Whatever the relevance of the analogy, certainly the last thing any of the nonindigenous people wanted was independence from France...
...Once the War ended and the Paris officialdom returned, the Kanakas shared the nationalistic discontent of French subjects elsewhere...
...It was therefore quite predictable that Vanuatu would be the first of France's Pacific possessions to win freedom...
...Thus the Front has issued warnings that now may be the "last chance to find a peaceful road" to national freedom...
...The already rioting caldoche and their allies responded with more violence and a general strike...
...But the independence ceremony was almost postponed by a secessionist revolt on Santo Island...
...In 1940, when French territories everywhere began running their own affairs, Noumea became the Allied headquarters in the South Pacific...
...Angry that they were not consulted in the '60s when the installation was built, Tahitians were un-placated in 1975 by the shift from atmospheric to underground tests...
...Budding nationalism burst into full bloom in 1980, nourished by the establishment of Vanuatu...
...But more than pride may be clouding its judgment...
...Some FI leaders, flushed by their gains, declared a deadline for independence...
...Bitter that President Charles De Gaulle of all people had, as they saw it, turned his back on them, they sympathized with the caldoche—second- and third-generation ranchers on Grand Terre's savannahs who vowed that the disgrace of Algeria would never be repeated in New Caledonia...
...But the atoll was quiet for only 58 days...
...The caldoche would not participate in the talks until an election was held...
...It denounces the presence of the French in New Caledonia and hosts an annual "independent nuclear-free Pacific" conference...
...Political tensions have been rising there as a separatist party representing the indigenous Mel-anesians has stepped up its activities...
...Most of its 80 islands remained unexplored even after France claimed New Caledonia to the south and Britain took the Solomon Islands to the north...
...Adding to such fears was the strong opposition throughout the region when Paris moved its nuclear testing base from the Sahara to the Pacific...
...At the same time, particularly in largely Westernized Tahiti, there is a strong abhorrence of the nuclear program on Mururoa Atoll...
...This has not mitigated the hostility of Lini's government...
...Before these developments, little had been heard from this steamy group of islands that served as the stepping stones to Guadalcanal...
...In July they invaded the Territorial Assembly chamber to assault their opponents, injuring three FI deputies...
...They continue to demand studies of radiation and its effects, and despite the millions of francs nuclear testing provides for their economy, they want it stopped...
...Its resources, like most of the South Pacific's—coconuts, livestock, fishing, a little timber, plus some mining and tourism—are valuable largely in relation to labor...
...It has spread to New Caledonia...
...In 1906 they finally agreed on a j oint rule " condominium...
...After the War, Britain's dismantling of its vast empire included transferring most of its South Pacific possessions to Australia or New Zealand...
...Anthropologists might further point out that their culture, being more centralized than the Melanesians', places less emphasis on the individual and makes them relatively uninclined to challenge authority...
...The importance of the domino theory notwithstanding, it clearly cannot be the sole factor in French thinking...
...and Algeria's whites moved en masse to New Caledonia...
...We are, one Kanaka complained, "rather like Palestinians —strangers in our own country...
...Neither country had the slightest interest in running colonies, but seemed delighted to attend independence ceremonies almost as fast as these could be arranged...
...And should New Caledonia become independent, the French foothold would be even more tenuous...
...In fact, much of the French resistance to leaving the New Hebrides stemmed from a Paris version of the domino theory...
...example in Micronesia by granting independence to all of the possessions while reserving a nuclear zone around Mururoa...
...For another, there is the responsibility Paris has to prevent the caldoche and Kanakas from falling upon each other in a replay of the bloody religious war Britain witnessed when it left India...
...Missionaries there tended to be eatDavto G. Knibb, a new contributor, writes frequently on the South Pacific...
...Doubts remain as to whether or not Paris sanctioned the rebellion...
...The entire region, led by Polynesia, is demanding a nuclear test ban...
...Yet at the moment neither the Kanakas nor the caldoche have shown themselves capable of controlling the bomb throwers in their own camps, let alone arriving at a compromise...
...Three thousand miles away, off the coast of Australia, lies another French possession—mountainous, mineral-rich New Caledonia...
...What Paris will do in navigating the South Pacific currents is an open question...
...For the Kanakas, historically excluded from such plenty, the drive to independence is a race to beat the classic conclusion of colonial exploitation...
...To the delight of the Tahitians, Mitterrand suspended the tests immediately following his election...
...Perhaps, after all, France does not entirely understand its own complex feelings toward the overseas territories...
...Nevertheless, each side sent "observers" to the Paris discussions in July 1983...
...Indeed, all of the French South Pacific is untypically restive these days...
...The Polynesians have never been a repressed minority in their own land...
...Nor does the domino scenario explain Mitterrand's failure to copy the U.S...
...The situation in French Polynesia is quite different, albeit no less troublesome to Paris...
...Eager to shed the last vestiges of colonialism, the Kanakas have the example and support of Vanuatu...
...By 1989, Kanakas worry, the President could be out of office and his promises overturned...
...At the end of the year of rule by decree, it announced plans to explore degrees of autonomy, but was met by refusals to cooperate from both sides...
...Then Indochina erupted...
...the Front sought assurance that autonomy would be a step toward independence...
...In addition, the Melanesians gradually entered the mainstream, even electing one of their own to the French Parliament...
...Australia, meanwhile, has become one of the South Pacific's sharpest proportents of a region-wide test ban...
...Yet the Kanakas—currently 43 per cent of the population—were not completely without allies...
...But the Polynesians left Mururoa 22 years ago, and it has since shuddered over 100 times from French nuclear tests...
...Tahitians grumble, too, about tourism's erosion of their Society...
...The gun-toting settlers, much like their self-reliant counterparts in Australia's outback or America's Old West, twice suppressed native revolts...
...Its gains were substantial nonetheless: French Polynesia embraced 120 beguiling islands, and if tiny Wallis and Futuna lacked resources, New Caledonia more than compensated with its deposits of nickel and iron...
...Its sandy isles, actually the tips of an extinct submerged volcano, ring a warm, turquoise lagoon...
...By contrast, colonialism did not either exploit or subsidize Vanuatu...
...The Kanakas were pushed into reserves early on...
...Conscious of its already tenuous position in the South Pacific, France feared that the emergence of Vanuatu would embolden the Kanakas to seek their freedom, as it did...
...Two years later it gained international attention as the only South Pacific nation to invite the Soviet Union to use its ports, and last year eyebrows rose again when it recognized Cuba...
...And in the wake of an especially large blast in August 1983, Papua New Guinea summoned the French ambassador to protest his nation's "arrogant insensitivity to the people of the Pacific...
...Within months, the separatists' dreams suddenly seemed possible...
...It would consist merely of Wallis and Futuna, which hardly matter, and Polynesia, whose 10-by-30-kilometer Mururoa Atoll is seen as vital to France's retaining its stature as a world power...
...The newcomers from Algeria, moreover, were only the latest wave of arrivals to exacerbate the Kanakas' minority status...
...Many predict that France intends to exhaust the nickel deposits before withdrawing willingly...
...The colonists arriving there quickly discovered that the mountains of Grand Terre, the main island, contained vast deposits of nickel...
...During the ensuing furor, Paris announced a year of rule "by decree," suspending the settler-dominated Territorial Assembly...
...Indentured laborers from Southeast Asia, brought in to work a smelter outside the capital city of Noumea, shared the Melanesians' position of being a thriving country's forgotten people...
...The independence it won in 1962 had two results in the South Pacific that are still being felt: France shifted its Sahara nuclear base to Mururoa Atoll...
...It also sent in Christian Nucci, deputy to the Minister for External Relations, to demonstrate Mitterrand's commitment to correcting "inequities and injustices" by implementing various programs...
...Among these were the return of tribal lands, elevating the Kanakas' role in local affairs and promoting their culture...
...Meanwhile Paris, perhaps suffering something akin to lover's remorse at the thought of losing its overseas territories, seems confused about how to respond...
...With Dien Bien Phu barely over, Algeria revolted...
...With halting progress, the British and Melanesians eventually persuaded a reluctant France to relinquish authority...
...And as the new Prime Minister, Walter Lini, brought in Papua New Guinea troops to quell the uprising, French officials leaving in haste neglected to take documents containing evidence of clandestine activity Vanuatu had previously suspected: gun smuggling from New Caledonian whites to Santo secessionists...
...Little changed in New Hebrides until World War II, when American bases on Efate and Espiritu Santo islands brought jobs and unimagined largess to the locals...
...In addition, the GIs prodded them to wonder why they shouldn't be self-governing...
Vol. 67 • October 1984 • No. 19
