Yeiwene calls for

a “true referendum”

As tension mounts in New Caledonia over the referendum FLNKS leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou said in Paris that the territory would eventually be come independent but he hoped the poll would not be a source of trouble. Mr Tjibaou was speaking after a delegation of FLNKS leaders had met with the French President Mr Mitter rand for talks on the issue. Mr Mitterrand will also meet with an anti-independence delega tion also in Paris to attend the French parliamentary debates on the New Caledonia referen dum plans. And Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Mr Wingti warned that continued French rule and its military build- up in New Caledonia are potentially the most destabilis ing influences in the Pacific region. Mr Wingti said that if France did not take immediate steps to make New Caledonia independent in terms accept able to Kanaks, then it would be forced to quit the territory . Meanwhile in Noumea, FLNKS spokesman Mr Yeiwene Yeiwene told the Territorial Congress that the

FLNKS rejected the proposed referendum .The congress was giving its opinion on the plans and the RPCR dominated con gress voted in favour of the Pons plans.“ One thing is now perfectly clear”, Mr Yeiwene said, “there won’t be a referen dum but rather a simple domes tic vote on a new statute - the 4th in three years. ” The elector al reform which requires three years residence in the territory won’t change anything in this sham of a poll. ” But, Yeiwene pointed out,the FLNKS rejec tion was not a rejection of everything.“We call for a true referendum, ie, a self-de termination poll where only the colonised people will be con suited on their future, inde pendently of the mass of im migrants who were encouraged to come here to make us a minority according to the Mess mer (French conservative PM at the time) instructions of 1972.”

He warned that the FLNKS would not take part in any further votes on new statutes, even for autonomy, nor in any institutions resulting from a new statute.