New Caledonian Watergate!

From a Noumea correspondent

A Melanesian leader of the New Caledonian independence movement has charged the Governor, Mr Jean- Gabriel Eriau with backing a spy attempt against him and his Multiraciale Party.

Yann Celene Uregei denounced the alleged spying in a dramatic speech before the Territorial Assembly in mid-November in Noumea.

Mr Uregei claimed that police from the governor’s intelligence service had been caught in the act of bug ging a meeting of the Central Committee of tthe Multiraciale Party at the Dumbea Town Hall, outside Noumea.

Mr t f ii* mp B n *>. l l l nt , elll « ence garage dose to the Town HalL po™abfe e Tap«lcorde n r COV and d micronhrmp q j •

transmitted and'^co^lapeT" 0 '

& p Mr Uregei told the Territorial Assembly that the two police con fessed they were acting upon orders ed one even said, “You’ll have independence in five years, that’s expected in high places”.

Referring to Watergate and Nixon in a democratic society, Uregei de manded an inquiry over such an affair in New Caledonia? He asked: “Would those responsible be pun ished and the governor recalled by Paris?”

He said was that kind of denial of .freedom that pushed the Mela nesians to demand Kanaka indepen dence.

In his reply, Mr Claude Erignac, Secretary-General of the French Administration, representing the governor in the Assembly, claimed it was quite proper to have the party executive meeting surveyed by the

H™* mT*ErTgnac

,hat l ? e H ‘"t elli S e . nce se ™“ had taperecorded discussions at the --ting He stated that Governor Eriau had ordered an immediate m quiry into Mr Uregei’s allegations.

Meanwhile, Mr Uregei was plan ning to visit the independent Mela nesian states of Fiji and Papua New Guinea in the new year.