From the Bastille

Opinion

From the Bastille to Ouvea

THE MURDER of any individual is a brutal crime, always tragic and never justified. When a muraer has a political motivation, it becomes an assassination a word that seems to offer some justification for the crime. Pundits and opponents will suggest that victims knowingly put themselves at risk by taking a public stand. Such killings are lamentable, they say, but are part and parcel of politics. Leaders who attempt to change their society may encounter the ultimate resistance; it is a risk they recognise and knowingly take. The pages of modern history bear the names of many such victims Gandhi, Kennedy, King, Sadat.

They become martyrs to their cause, martyrs to change and progress that is often abruptly and permanently terminated by the assassin’s gun.

Two more names are now added to the list; Jean-Marie Tjibaou and Yeiwene Yeiwene were gunned down on Ouvea on May 4 as they left a ceremony to mark the end of mourning for 19 Kanaks killed a year ago during an assault by French paramilitary forces. The unlikely assassin, Dioubelly Wea, died of wounds sustained during the attack. As leaders of New Caledonia’s Kanak independence movement, Tjibaou and Yeiwene had been at the forefront of the push for change. Were they victims of the inevitable struggle between ELNK elements unwilling to trust the French and their Matignon accord? Were the killings master-minded by the French right wing in an attempt to discredit the Rocard Government? The speculation continues and may never end.

The killings caused deep concern in Paris where politicians saw them as a renewed threat to the Matignon accord, and thus their own slim mandate. It is unlikely the Rocard Government could survive the electoral damage of a new wave of violence in its Pacific territory.

These murders carry special poignancy for France as it prepares to commemo rate its bicentenary the 200th anniversary of the storming of the under populated and poorly defended Bastille that marked the beginning of the re volution. Edmund Burke wrote with alarming insight in 1791 that France had, by the Revolution, overthrown legality, traditional loyalty and religion as the basis of governmental authority. Reason the professed oasis of authority, was too contentious and so the Frencn would come to rely more and more on armed force to command obedience until a powerful dictatorship took control. The course of the Revolution followed Burke’s prediction almost to the letter, with the tyrrany of the Jacobin reign of terror and the eventual rise of Napoleon.

The French Revolution was proclaimed in the history books as the birth of enlightened European democracy. This may well be so but it is unlikely that the tens of thousands who went to the guillotine would agree. For them and the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Revolution, the period was nothing more than a bloodbath of rape and carnage. The common people were being encouraged and organised to take a direct and influential part m politics, but few could afford the price.

The lesson of history is seldom learned. France now has an opportunity to heed the lesson of the event it is about to commemorate. Independence in New Caledonia is inevitable. It can be achieved by two paths peaceful negotiation or bloody uprising. The slaying of two FLNK leaders is early warning of an impending uprising. Such violence can be avoided if all interested parties com mit to and work toward independence and self-determination. The only alterna tive is the carnage of the French Revolution or the murder of New Caledonians be they leaders or innocent bystanders.

It falls to Prime Minister Rocard to take the sort of step into the unknown that has sealed the fate of many a world leader. He must demonstrate France’s respect for the integrity of New Caledonia’s journey to independence and facili tate every step along that twisting path. The French must recognise in the FLNKS’ struggle the same desires that inspired their own forefathers in 1789 and realise the danger of inaction in the face of such energy.

France must relinquish the colonial days and treat the nations of the Pacific as equal partners in global co-existence. The mid-May detonation of a French nuclear device at Muroroa was an unnecessary step in the wrong direction one that will earn the enmity of an increasingly environment-aware world com munity and encourage violent uprising in its Pacific territory.