A milestone on the road

For the Kanak Socialist national Liberation Front (FLNKS) this year’s South Pacific Forum meeting in Suva represents a major milestone.

The forum decision to sup port the territory’s re-inscription on the United Nations decol onisation list does not mean independence is just around the comer.

However, it does represent an important moral victory for the front and a considerable source of pressure that the Chirac administration in Paris will find difficult to ignore.

The unanimous vote by the 13 forum members has given the front a new credibility that it could mot otherwise have achieved. The UN committee of 24 probably won’t consider the issue before January. But already the new status that the forum decision has conferred

With France and the forum on a collision course over New Caledonia, tension is mounting again in the territory. At the same time, the UN has been brought into the debate for the first time a notable lobbying coup for the pro-independence FLNKS. Here, PIM writers survey the scene.

on the FLNKS has begun to take effect.

A delegation from the front was likely to be granted a hearing in the US State Depart ment in Washington as a direct result of the forum decision, It’s understood the arrange ments were made through the US embassy in Fiji between the FLNKS forum delegation and US officials, The FLNKS and the New

Caledonia issue was also likely to be raised at a conference of the non-aligned movement last month. Vanuatu had been charged by the forum with the responsibility to bring the kanaks’ case before the meeting.

An FLNKS delegation led by Jean-Marie Tjibaou and Yann Celene Uregei also planned to attend the Zimbabwe meeting to lobby in the FLNKS interest.

Jean-Marie Tjibaou was to travel to Washington after the Harare meeting. Such a repre sentation of the kanak case can not be easily dismissed de spite the French show of in dignation immediately after the forum decision. Noumea loyal ists who had also sent a delega tion to Suva in an effort to nullify the FLNKS presence, accused the forum members of meddling in French affairs.

“The future of Caledonia is up to the Caledonians,” said the president of the territorial congress, Dick Ukewei, a mem ber of the anti-independence RFCR party.

The French minister re sponsible for the New Caledo nia portfolio, Bernard Pons, claimed the forum decision showed a lack of understanding of the territory’s problems among its regional neighbours.

Once the issue is before the Committee of 24, however, France is unlikely to win much sympathy with such sentiments and re-inscription (New Cale donia was on the list until 1947 when it was taken off in a unilateral action by France) is virtually a foregone conclusion.

Little appreciated as it was by France, the forum decision has also helped maintain a certain equilibrium in New Caledonia.

It was certainly a major factor keeping the FLNKS from quit ting the territory’s political in stitutions the four regional councils and the territorial con gress.

At least two powerful parties within the front FULK and UPN had wanted the FLNKS to pull out in protest at the new plans for the territory’s future which, they had been convinced, clearly showed the Chirac government’s intention of keeping New Caledonia firm ly under French rule.

However, at the FLNKS con gress at Lifou in August the biggest party, Union Caledo nienne, led by Jean-Marie Tjibaou, successfully argued that the regions three of which the front controls had become an “important tool”

and that the front should, at least for the time being, continue to take part.

Had the congress opted out, there is little doubt that trouble would have erupted again. That is something the front does not , However, the congress made it clear that it was prepared for that risk if the French government refuses to play ball. The meeting passed a motion reaffining the front’s position that only the kanak population should be allowed to vote in next year’s independence referendum.

Should the French government ignore this demand, the referendum will be boycotted, the political institutions dumped and “civil disobedience” recommenced.

Certainly, the referendum is shaping up as the next major

hurdle for New Caledonia. The forum vote and the likely re inscription on the UN list are likely to increase the pressure on France for electoral reform in time for the referendum, So far however there is no sign that France will submit to pressure Pons is adamant that all those on the electoral roll will vote despite the FLNKS de mand which > he sa V s - is ridicu

ous -

But it’s not yet clear that these seemingly entrenched and opposed positions are final.

Both sides have said they are willing to negotiate, but if the provocative rhetoric, taken as gospel by the territory’s volatile and passionately involved population, continues, how much ground will either side be

able to give?

Sue Williams.

A Kanak takes time out in Thio. Now the graffiti is disappearing.

Photo: AP.