consistency

French Polynesia

An Oscar for

By Tony Doris

THE French press generally doesn’t award Oscars for anti-colonial per formances, but they recently gave

“independentiste” politician Oscar

Temaru credit for consistency. That was about all that they gave him credit for.

Temaru, 44-year-old leader of the Polynesian independence movement, was the guest of honour on June 15 of the Club de la Presse de Tahiti et Ses lies.

The Faaa mayor and member of the 41seat French Polynesia Territorial Assem bly spent an hour-and-a-half pressing his

points and parrying the questions of

sceptical, French reporters. It was a stand-off.

Temaru is one of Tahiti’s most quoted politicians outside Tahiti, because of his stands on independence and his opposi tion to France’s nuclear testing program me in French Polynesia. For years, fore

ign journalists writing on those issues

have called on him for comment. Every March he leads a five-day anti-nuclear march from one end of Tahiti to the other. It was his supporters who added their own “exhibit” to the World En

vironment Day exposition at the Museum of “Tahiti and Her Isles” on June 4: a score of anti-nuclear placards at the museum entrance. Even more re cently he called on the Territorial Assembly to organize a vote of the Polynesian population on the question of independence. The Assembly worried about a foreign “invasion” that might occur as a result of the European econo mic unification planned for 1992 has yet to announce when, or if, such a de bate will be held.

Many people in Tahiti support inde pendence in one form or another, but never more than 10 percent of the vote in any given election. It is Temaru, however who has been the most vocal, the most visible as leader of the political party, the Polynesian Liberation Front.

If it was a repeat performance June 15, it nonetheless had its surprises. “To say that it’s necessary to prepare for inde pendence before granting it is a stall tac tic,” he told the audience of 75 people, who included a few reporters and mostly members of the general public who attended the session. There are compe tent Polynesians capable of leading a non-French Polynesia now, he claimed.

To buttress his point, he presented copies of the 1960 United Nations re solution urging all nations to “respect the sovereign rights and territorial in tegrity of all peoples.” Among the sent ences underlined by Temaru was the

statement: “The lack of preparation in the political, economic or social domains or in that of education must never be used as a pretext for delaying independ ence.” If a vote were held, he claimed, 90 percent of Polynesians would vote for independence. The problem, the one that the French press jabbed at, is how to define the term “Polynesian”.

Temaru used the word “Maohi”, the Tahitian name for the original Polyne sian race in these islands. But Polynesia of the late 20th Century is a land of mixed bloods. How does one decide who is Maohi and who isn’t? A way could be defined, because the Maohis are a dis tinct people, Temaru said. “We’re not French . . . We’re Maohi.” 1 he economics of independence was another item high on the journalists’ list of questions. What did Temaru think would happen if French support were withdrawn from this overseas territory?

While not rejecting French assistance, Temaru called for Polynesian control over the economy, including control of the airport and customs operations. The current economy is a false one that arose because of the European presence, he said.

One reporter, pointing to Temaru’s call for independence from European ways, asked whether that covered reli gion as well. “We pray to a universal God,” Temaru said. “I don’t think that Christ is French . . .”