Widows Seek Justice

Kanak women plead for a retrial of the killers.

By David Robie.

ACQUITTAL of the Hienghene killers last October has often been cited by pro-independence Kanak leaders as a key factor in the April insur rection. Eight days after the rebellion be gan, one of the accused, Jose Lapetite, 31, was shot dead by Kanak snipers on his farm near Voh. His three brothers, father and two other men who who took part in the Hienghene ambush also appear likely targets.

The Hienghene affair still casts a pall over the French judicial system more than three years after the massacre that shocked New Caledonia. Five widows and the families of 10 Kanaks who were killed in an ambush just after nightfall on Decem ber 5, 1984, are now appealing to the Eu ropean Court of Human Rights for a retrial of the accused. Among the 16 legal peti tioners are FLNKS leader Jean-Marie Tji baou, who lost two brothers in the slaughter, and seven survivors, including another of Tjibaou’s brothers, Vianney.

The seven accused were acquitted by a predominantly European jury after a 10day trial last October and set free. Their acquittal shocked Kanaks and prompted condemnation by world human rights and justice groups.

The massacre at Wan’yaat, near the east coast township of Hienghene where Tji baou is mayor, has been unprecedented since reprisals following a Kanak rebel lion at the time of World War I.

The families of the victims have no right of appeal, so the petitioners’ lawyers have now turned to international tribunals.

The lawyers, including International League of Human Rights vice-president Michel Tubiana, allege the trial violated the UN Human Rights Convention in two ways: the families and survivors did not have their case examined fairly by an in dependent and impartial tribunal, and the court never considered their civil rights.

The Hienghene appeal petition points out that seven of the nine jury members were white, one was mixed race and the other of Javanese descent. No Kanaks were included. “It is quite shocking that an eth nic group particularly concerned in this affair 10 people from this group were killed should be totally excluded from the judicial process,” the petition says.

“It was equally shocking that the Eu ropean population, mostly hostile to emancipation of the Melanesians, re garded the deaths of these victims as sym bolic and for the case to become a political game. Thus it was quite impossible for an impartial trial ”

The seven accused mixed-race settlers were set free in spite of their self-incrimi

nating testimony before an examining magistrate, in which they admitted killing the unarmed pro-independence militants in a dynamile-and-rifle ambush on De cember 5, 1984.

All 17 Kanaks who were attacked were passengers in two pickup trucks whose path was blocked by a coconut palm felled across the track between Hienghene and Tiendanite village. The seven survivors scrambled into hiding in bamboo thickets or swam across Hienghene River; four were wounded.

Among sworn statements made by the killers before examining magistrate Fran cois Semur, were: Maurice Mitride (regarded as the ringleader; the ambush took place outside his homestead): “The fusillade lasted for a few minutes of brisk firing and was fol

lowed up in the meadow where the members of the FLNKS fled. Certain Me lanesians were shot at point blank range by some of us.”

Raoul Lapetite: “The fu sillade on the track lasted at the most about three min utes ... A second fusillade

then began [in the meadow]. Indeed the panic-stricken fugitives were caught in the crossfire of at least four guns ...

“There we fired on all that moved, on all the shadows... I can assure that it was a shooting out of hell. Nearly all seven of us possessed automatic rifles . . ”

Jean-Claude Lapetite: “Just in front of me, I saw some Melanesians jump into the water ... I fired three shots. I was unable to fire again because my gun had no more cartridges in it... They were wounded and fell, and immediately afterwards they were fired on again . . . We continued to fire on [the wounded] until they didn’t move any more.”

The case made world headlines when magistrate Semur freed the accused on September 29, 1986, amid accusations that he was under political pressure. The ac cused had been charged with the murder of 10 Kanaks and with the attempted mur der of the seven others.

Semur gave a non-lieu ruling: no case to answer.

Released from Cap Est prison before dawn on October 1,1986, the accused were taken to a secret hideout in Noumea. Pho tographs of them were splashed across the front page of Les Nouvelles Caledon iennes, and they appeared on state-run television defending the massacre.

Identified by survivors and other wit nesses on the night of the ambush, the ac cused escaped to the west coast township

of Voh after burning down Tjibaou’s home near Hienghene River. They were helped by other settlers to elude police. After five days, Maurice Mitride gave himself up on December 10, 1984, saying he couldn’t live with his conscience.

The following day, stockily built Raoul Lapetite, 58, four of his five sons Jacques, Jean-Claude, Jose and Jesse and Robert Sineimene, 24, were also ar rested near Voh. Lapetite’s fifth son, 14year-old Jerry, was apprehended in Nou mea but later released as a minor.

At least another eight mostly white at tackers including a woman identi fied as having taken part were never charged.

Several of ringleader Maurice Mitride’s ancestors came from Reunion, a French possession in the Indian Ocean. He is slight

“The seven accused were acquitted by a predominantly European jury and set free”

and dark-skinned; his sons could easily be mistaken for Kanaks. Sineimene’s mother is a Kanak from Lifou; his father Ja vanese. Yet all seven fervently consider themselves European, and it was appar ently the Mitrides’ loyalty to the European notion of land ownership that inspired the violence, following Kanak suggestions to Mitride and Lapetite that their land should be shared again with the traditional indig enous owners.

After the uproar over the release of the accused, an appeal tribunal later rejected Semur’s verdict and ruled on November 20, 1986 that the seven accused must face trial. Under a legal anomaly they were al lowed to remain at liberty until the trial.

The trial began almost a year later on October 19, 1987.

Three leading French civil rights law yers and a local Tahitian lawyer repre sented the survivors and victims’ families.

Calling for sentences of nine and seven years for the accused, public prosecutor Henri Lacazau described the killings as ritual execution. The ambush, he said, was planned and premeditated: “All the dead were found face down on the ground or in the river, and were riddled with bullets and lead shot.”

Ten days after the trial began, the jury of nine acquitted the accused, returning a verdict of “legitimate self-defence”.

And now the widows of the victims de pend on a European court for justice. □