Vanuatu: Philippe writes Paul

an Open Letter

The policies of France in the New Hebrides-Vanuatu transition period have already given rise to some memorable polemics between major French actors in the drama. We believe we have already demonstrated this by publishing for the first time in the English-language press the exchanges between the Noumea-based French barrister MaTtre Jean Leder and the last French Resident Commissioner in the New Hebrides Jean-Jacques Robert (RIM Mar pl 7). The document published below presents another aspect of the tangled story. It is an open letter by Philippe Delacroix, who probably came as close as anyone to being the master-mind behind the Santo secession, to French Secretary of State for Overseas Departments and Territories Paul Dijoud. Whereas Me Leder maintained that France had done altogether too much to encourage the Santo secessionists, Mr Delacroix says it didn’t do nearly half enough. Their viewpoints could hardly be further apart. However, whether one agrees with Mr Delacroix or not, even his worst enemy would agree that with his open letter he has made a notable contribution to the not-so-simple art of political invective. The letter was first published in the Noumea daily La Presse Caledonienne.

Sir, After the woefully inaccurate statements about Vanuatu that you saw fit to make recently to the National Assembly in Paris, can you still look at yourself in the mirror without blushing?

You probably can. A pro fessional politician such as you pride yourself on being would be incapable of any sense of shame or remorse when matters come down to guaranteeing his

electoral survival or political career. In ensuring that these purposes are served, truth doesn’t count for much.

However, sir, history tells us that in the long run truth will out.

You had been charged by our country’s government with pre paring the New Hebrides for independence. You failed in your mission. So you had to find somebody upon whom you

Crudely-painted slogans appeared on walls in Port-Vila in June and July last year as the then New Hebrides approached its independence day of July 30. Purporting to be the handiwork of the ‘OAS’, or Organisation de I’Armee Secrete, they revived memories of the underground terrorist body which opposed the granting of independence to Algeria by the late President de Gaulle in the early 19605. ‘OAS’ leaflets were also distributed clandestinely in Port-Vila promising cut throats for the British and the Vanuaaku Party, and calling for the safeguarding of the French language. It was widely believed in Port-Vila at the time that Philippe Delacroix, author of the letter on this page, and some of his friends, were no strangers to the activities of the short-lived Port-Vila ‘OAS’.

could unload the burden of your mistakes. That has now hap pened: how easy and tempting it was to shove the load falsely on to your compatriots who’ve been chased out of Vanuatu.

But, Mr Dijoud, you were lying. One of your childhood friends told me at the time you were appointed to your present post; ‘Dijoud’s a bulldozer.’ He forgot that a bulldozer has to be driven, if not it careers every where, crushing and destroying everything in its path. That’s what you’ve been doing and continue to do.

Do you remember May 27 1980? Where were you on that date? In Noumea wasn’t it?

Where, fuming at the fact that Father Lini, chief minister of the New Hebrides, had refused to come to meet you, you practically gave the green light for what came to be called wrongly the Santo rebellion.

With the agreement of the French authorities the Pro visional Government of Vemarana and the Confeder ation of the Northern Islands were proclaimed on May 28, and you know perfectly well that right up to the last minute, to July 30, we were working desperately for a federal sol ution, the only viable one, against the stubbornness of the British Government and the indecision of the French Government, as it tried to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.

Since you have no qualms, Mr Secretary of State, about throwing accusations at men who are prevented from making themselves heard and vindicat

ing themselves in Paris, you will perhaps agree that it is only fair that you should find yourself placed in the dock as the accused.

I accuse you, Mr Dijoud, of incompetence in the discharge of your duties.

I accuse you, Mr Dijoud, of having at every turn yielded to British pressure and giving in to their demands.

I accuse you, Mr Dijoud, of being solely responsible for the failure of New Hebrides inde pendence.

I accuse you, Mr Dijoud, of having reneged on all the prom ises you made to the moderate parties in the New Hebrides.

There has never been any political movement opposed to the independence of the New Hebrides. There were, on the one hand, advocates of a totali tarian state committed to an extreme form of centralisation on the bad condominium model.

We can see now where their victory is leading.

And there were supporters of a state organised along federal lines, adapted to the particular realities of an archipelago with a multiplicity of dialects and with diverse customs and tra ditions. And this in no way inhibited, or a fortiori opposed, the creation of a unified state.

But your outdated, inept Jacobinism could not grasp that. For that matter, is there anything you have ever under stood about the New Hebrides?

Recent experience clearly shows that there is not.

At the end of a kind of verbal marathon (you hold the secret to this type of performance) you

A typocal Port-Vila wall slogan at the approach of independence.

'Br+VP' means cut throats for the British and the Vanuaaku Party. Voice of the New Hebrides picture.

forced the New Hebridean op position to sign a lame duck constitution. 1 write ‘forced’ advisedly, in view of your table thumping. It was five o’clock in the morning and everyone was exhausted. It was in this way that, together with your British accomplice who was rubbing his hands with glee while he let you add to your tally of blunders (which served his purposes), you ‘prepared’ the future of a new country. Then you swore that the draft constitution would be submitted to a popular referendum. But referenda are not customary procedures in England. So you gave in for the first time there would be no referendum. The constitution envisaged that regional powers, a watered-down version of fed eralism, would be defined and submitted to the New Hebrides parliament after independence.

England didn’t take at all kindly to the idea which would have set a bad example for Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. So you capitu lated for the second time, thus disavowing your own signature, formally committing our

government, which appears at the end of the constitution.

You also let down the Del egate Extraordinary of the French Republic in the New Hebrides by dictating to him the false statements and false promises he was to make to the Santo population at the end of July 1980 in order to secure an uneventful departure of the British and French troops, who had come to make the bed for the Papuan forces.

With these actions you ruined the trust that thousands of Vanuatu inhabitants had put in France. For that, sir, you cannot be forgiven. For, in the eyes of those people, now aban doned, you represented the France in which they could have faith. They were not to know that you represented only a government, which is never more than an episode in the history of a country. You did not represent France, Mr Dijoud; you merely represented a sorry and shameful episode.

And now we learn that you are planning to come ‘to Noumea and meet the refugees.

Do you think they have the

slightest desire to see you? Do you believe that your chronic verbal ravings can win them over? Aren’t you afraid, on the other hand, that in their anger and bitterness they might be led to show you the toes of their boots in a way you will long remember?

For did you not, Mr Sec retary of State, refrain from telling the National Assembly that more than 1500 ni- Vanualu had been arrested and imprisoned in the various islands of the north, and not only on Santo? That the only crime of these people was to have been members of the opposition and to have voted against the government of Walter Lini? In short, they were imprisoned for having different opinions. Such is the ‘demo cratic’ regime that you, through your mistakes, your incom petence, your capriciousness, your backslidings, have helped to install: an authoritarian theo cratic republic, with a gut hatred of French Popery.

Was it as much in the majority as you claim, sir. this party now in power in Vanuatu,

which has been able to assert its authority only through the in tervention of foreign troops?

Left to its own devices it would have had to compromise and Vanuatu would now be a con federation where everyone had his place, without ostracism, and everyone would be subject to the same laws. So, you’ve made a mess of everything, Mr Dijoud. So, Mr Secretary of State, when one has endured ad nauseum the endless floods of your mischief-making elo quence, one is tempted to say, parodying Zazie in the Metro, ‘Talk, talk, talk, that’s all you know how to do’.

Not being in the habit of ending my letters with impolite expressions, it only remains for me to sign my name.

Philippe Delacroix

PS: 1 would point out that I, together with my friends George Cronsteadt, Jimmy Stevens, Albert Ravutia, Guy Prevot and many others, have participated in the political life of the New Hebrides from 1968 to 1980, and that when speaking of Vanuatu I know better than you what it’s all about.