Anglo-French shuffle over New Hebrideans’ future

New Hebrideans’ future

From a Vila correspondent

Both British and French officials have, at last, made public statements referring to an “independent” New Hebrides. The statements have been made more than six months after the condominium’s first general elections, in which victory went to the National Party seeking independence for 1977.

The first Representative Assembly still had not met on June 4 when Mr H. S. H.

Stanley, Under-Secretary at the British Foreign Office, held a press conference in Noumea, before flying off to the New Hebrides.

New Caledonia’s Governor J-G Eriau, High Commissioner for France in the Pacific, was unwilling to expand upon the subject when he arrived back in Noumea from Paris on June 8. Earlier, in the New Hebrides, French Resident Commissioner Mr Robert Gauger had told islanders the country would be “neither French, nor British” as the two powers led it “to in dependence”.

Needless to say, the British official’s remarks caused wide surprise in Noumea.

Mr Stanley was quoted by the local press as saying that Britain was firmly resolved to respect New Hebridean demands for in dependence and hoped that France felt the same way, as the two nations should exer cise their joint responsibility right to the end, acting together to bring about in dependence. Mr Stanley considered that the proposed date, 1977, seemed too soon.

However, he insisted that all the New Hebrides should be independent and that Britain would not accept a situation like Mayotte in the former French-held African Comoro Islands, with Santo, for example, separating and remaining French.

The Noumea press carried Mr Stanley’s declarations on June 5, the very same day as the French press in the New Hebrides quoted the French Resident Commissioner on the same subject, although his remarks were made 12 days earlier. Mr Gauger was visiting the tiny island of Paama, which lies between Ambrym and Epi Islands. So it was to a very small, isolated audience that he happened to make the remarks “the territory will be neither French nor British. The two countries will lead it together to independence to enable it to face the problems of life”.

Twelve days later the news was cir culated by the official French news service, which meant that for the Caledonians the

shock came from the mouth of the visiting British official.

Governor Eriau reached Noumea four days later from Paris and seemed evasive over a newspaper reporter’s claim that visiting British officials had announced their visit was intended to “work out, in agreement with the French Government, the means of bringing the New Hebrides to

independence”.

Governor Eriau was quoted as saying, “These two civil servants are not authorised to make decisions one way or the other.

A joint Franco-British communique will be read out at the appropriate time during one of the meetings of the New Hebrides

Representative Assembly”.

The governor also pointed out that a judges’ decision was expected in late June over appeals lodged against the invalidation of results in four seats at last November’s elections. The invalidation was announced only in May.

Governor Eriau then flew to Vila to meet Mr Stanley. Then, following talks between Walter Lini’s National Party and

Remy Delaveuve’s UCNH (Union of Communities in the N.H.), the National Party stated it was prepared to co-operate in bringing together the Representative Assembly, even though the issue of chief tain members had not been settled. British officials were apparently working hard to solve the stalemate so that the assembly could meet by the end of June (before the next meeting of the UN committee on decolonisation) and receive a joint administration statement on the political future of the New Hebrides.

Meantime, however evasive the French may be about their real intentions in the New Hebrides, they seem to have no doubt about Australian objectives. A recent of ficial French report on Australian aid to the New Hebrides was sub-titled in English “Rule, Australia”. The report on an Australian-aid mission to the islands in late May, led by Dr J. Baker, went to some length to point out the “political” nature of such aid, allegedly intended to strengthen Australia’s near neighbours against possible Russian infiltration.