Tahiti's Exiled Political
p. 39 · Read in the full issue
Leader Comes Home
Pouvanaa a Oopa, the most influential figure in Tahitian politics over the past two decades, was pardoned by Pre sident de Gaulle in November after serving more than nine years of a 15-year term of exile in France. Three of his nine years of banishment were spent in prison.
President de Gaulle used the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the World War I armistice to sign a decree of pardon for Pouvanaa, who served in the Pacific Battalion of the French Army at the Battle of Chemin des Dames in 1917.
The decree gave Pouvanaa, now 73, permission to return to his native land, and this he was expected to do towards the end of November.
In Tahiti and the rest of French Polynesia, Pouvanaa is known among the people as Te Metua (parent) and is looked upon by many as an oracle, a Tahitian David “challenging the Goliath of French rule”.