Continued from page 15

average working couple up by five times.

As for the land rights bill, Kanaks will be able to claim any land which does not belong to the state, which is not zoned as an urban or military area, or which is has not been desig nated for public works in the next five years.

Land used for nickel mining can also be claimed, but the mining rights cannot. Com panies would instead pay the owner tribes a leasing fee and/ or royalties.

The other hot potato is the law covering compensation for those who have lost property or suffered some injury in the events of the past 12 months.

Any bill up to about Austs2o,ooo will be fully paid but after that the compensation rate drops dramatically, so that for the average house, worth between $60,000 and $lOO,OOO, compensation will be only 60 per cent.

The compensation arrange ment has been particularly criti cised by the anti-independence forces. In protest, the R.P.C.R. again used its majority in the congress to block any discus sion on the proposed amnesty law, saying that no such mea sure would be considered until ”a just compensation law had been put into place.”

Despite the right’s huffing and puffing on the subject, there is nothing it can do to stop laws passed by the French parliament from being intro duced in New Caledonia. They will just have to wear the higher taxes, the land reform, com pensation rates, and the amnes ty bill.

They are now taking the line that the new statutes for New Caledonia will be but a tempor ary measure and that all will be ’’put right” when the right-wing wins power in the legislative

elections in France next March.

The F.L.N.K.S. view the R.P.C.R. antics in the congress with wry amusement. They appear unruffled by the pros pect of a new French govern ment and are quite convinced the new Paris administration will not risk too many changes to the status quo in New Cale donia.

They also did not miss the significance of November 18, and timed their fourth congress, held at Oundjo, to wind up on the anniversary date.

As in earlier congresses, the independence movement reaf firmed its unity in the struggle for independence, although it has become clear there is much disunity between the various parties which make up the Front as to how independence should come about and how the development of the regions should be carried out.

To this end some of the Front’s committees have been restructured to help give the more radical groups a bigger say in the planning.

“Bienvenue", “Welcome”, says this sign at New Caledonia’s Tontouta international airport. But each new act of terrorism such as the blowing up of Noumea’s courthouse on December 3 (see panel this page) ensures that several thousand more tourists from throughout the world never see the sign.

Photo Bulletin de la CCI, Noumea.