for growing up

A time for growing up

By Al Prince

FRENCH Polynesia and her Islands have been living off the succulent, increasingly rich mother’s milk of France since 1880, but have only begun experimenting with a partial weaning process since 1984. In view of the historic and particularly recent events, the result appears to be the creation of a 111-year old child with one foot firmly planted in a safe and secure past, the other foot

prematurely searching for firm ground in

the more frightening, modern world of an adult.

French Polynesia’s seven-year-old weaning process is officially known as internal autonomy, or a limited form of self-governing, which got its real start in 1977 with a new statute from a conser vative French Parliament. One of the many ironies highlighting the relation ship between French Polynesia and France over the past 14 years is that the 1977 law that gave this French Overseas Territory its first taste of internal auton omy was quickly adopted in Paris after French Polynesia’s French National As sembly Deputy, Francis Sanford, called

for independence.

But 14 years and two revisions (1984 and 1990) of that internal autonomy statute, later, French Polynesia is no closer to independence today than it was in 1977 when Sanford announced after 10 frustrating years of negotiations with France: “... Each time I returned from Paris I announce measures that are not carried out. Now, this is finished, I can no longer have confidence. I’m restarting at zero. For me, internal autonomy is out of date. From now on I will be fighting

for independence.”

The French Parliament’s adoption of the 1977 statute cut short Sanford’s battle for French independence and ended up making him head of the Territory’s first so-called internal auton omy government. But according to one qualified Tahitian observer of political life in 1977 and today, Sanford never really abandoned his goal of indepen dence.

Sanford saw internal autonomy as a means of obtaining independence in 15 years, according to the observer, who agreed to speak on the condition of remaining anonymous. Sanford, he said, foresaw the much greater, but still limited, self-governing powers that

‘lf you want independence, you can have it... like In 24 hours'

French Polynesia has today only as further preparation for independence.

By Sanford’s original calendar, French Polynesia should be preparing to become independent next year. Instead, the French territory appears to have become more bugged down than ever in its attempts to superimpose an historically well-founded, but western, form of

democracy upon a centuries-old auto cratic and primitive form of governing.

What is even more important, as far as the political observer is concerned, is that French Polynesia today “has yet to have a destiny.” Instead, he said, what it has is “a completely unmanageable govern ment.”

When it comes to selecting a destiny, French Polynesia has only a few potential choices, independence being an extreme objective if everything else fails. But before analysing the available choices, it’s necessary to look at the problems facing the territory.

A French Government official recently said during a background discussion with local journalists that French Polynesia’s problem is its political “dinosaurs”. The implication was that too many political leaders are unprepared and/or unwilling to adapt to a more modern, albeit western, form of governing in which issues, or ideas, arc more important than personalities; in which winning a properly-run democratic election does not mean giving the winners a license to run the territory any way they see fit, ignoring the wishes of the masses as well as the minorities with an attitude of what’s good for the government is good for the people.

The political events of the past two months appear to indicate just how fragile and, in some cases, unworkable, French Polynesia’s present levels of internal autonomy government actually are. For example, the March 17 Terri torial Assembly election once again underscored the political reality that a Territorial Government president is not elected by universal suffrage but on the basis of how many of the 41 assembly seats his party can win at the polls. If a party leader comes up short of 21 of the 41 assembly seats, in order for him to get elected government president he must form a majority coalition with another party that has won at least the missing number of seats required.

This system theoretically means that the assembly can change government presidents as often as it wishes during the five years between assembly elections

without ever getting the people’s electoral approval.

This happened twice in 1987. However, those were exceptions rather than the rule. Generally, because

Territorial Assembly members do not vote across party lines, the unicameral legislative body becomes a rubber stamp for whatever legislation the majority or majority coalition government wants.

This discourages a lot of healthy debate, or turns such debate into a circus.

The only checks and balances are those of the French State, which as long

as the basic principles of a western democracy are observed, takes a non interfering back seat. One of the rare occasions when the State becomes in volved in the Territorial Government’s application of internal autonomy are the contradictory occasions when the Terri tory spends beyond its means and needs money from the State to keep a balanced budget.

Setting aside subsequent political in terpretations, the recent audit by Arthur Andersen and Associates on the previous three years and four months of the government led by Alexandre Leontieff came up with far more devastating findings than a U 5573.4 million deficit in

the territory’s 1991 budget.

The audit’s findings of wasted money and manpower, misuse of public money, questionable accounting practices and government departments that should either be dismantled or restructured led to one inescapable conclusion: if Leontieff had been president of a private company he would have been asked to resign.

And that in effect is what occurred during the March 17 Territorial Assembly election, with Gaston Flosse and Emile

Vernaudon winning enough seats

to form a coalition government.

But the political controversy, roundtable discussions, demon strations and rioting centered on President Flosse’s unsuccessful at tempt to create new indirect taxes

and increase existing indirect taxes to try and cover a portion of the U 5573.4 million budget deficit has practically removed all responsibility and liability from the Leontieff government.

Returning to the historical develop ment of French Polynesia’s internal autonomy, the 1977 Sanford statute basically opened the doors to self governing by creating a statute of territorial administrative and financial autonomy from the French State.

With 14 years of hindsight, that 1977 law appears to have been not only light years away from even the potential of eventual independence, but also a very innocent, almost naive exploration of what really was waiting, like a sleeping giant, on the other side of the door to internal autonomy.

But it took French Polynesia another nine years before it could fully swing open that door and jump into a new world of self-governing powers. This began a whole new chapter in the territory's evolution as a French Over seas Territory halfway around the world from its once colonial mother country.

What made that possible was the 1984 Flosse Statute, which granted French

Polynesia’s officials the right to directly

run the Territory’s internal affairs and

allowing a now Socialist French State the opportunity to extend its lofty principles of decentralisation.

In other words, without cutting the umbilical cord that had tied the destiny of French Polynesia to France for the previous 110 years, the 1984 statute loosened up somewhat France’s control.

It allowed the Territory to play a bigger and more important role in governing itself and trying to shape its own destiny.

But as the Tahitian political observer recently noted, Tahiti has yet to deter mine what its destiny should be seven years after application of the 1984 statute. Furthermore, he said, with the Territory and the French State each providing about half of the very expens ive cost of running the Territorial Government, French Polynesia is no where near being closer to taking off in any positive direction even after the French Parliament’s action a year ago in

modifying, modernising and expanding

some of the self-governing powers con tained in the 1984 statute.

‘All that is hot air. That’s France: beautiful speeches and hot air ... it’s not a crime to want independence, it’s an ideal’

But despite all of the so-called im provements in the internal autonomy statute, the French State still controls French Polynesia’s national defence, the courts, the police, part of the education system, immigration and international airline traffic rights, to name the most important powers controlled from Paris.

The State has tried to discourage any idea of French Polynesia running to the French Parliament every time a new problem crops up in interpreting or applying last year’s changes in the 1984 statute. French Socialist President Francois Mitterrand said as much him self during his visit to French Polynesia in May 1990, two months before the statute changes were approved. “We can’t create a statute every five years.”

But if internal autonomy is not French Polynesia’s cup of tea, what alternative choices does it have? One suggestion has been to put French Polynesia on the same calendar as New Caledonia for a referendum vote on indepence in 1988.

However, the French State claims there is no point in common between the two territories to justify such a move.

A relatively new suggestion that Flosse has recently revived calls for French Polynesia’s Territorial Government President to be elected by universal

suffrage. And Flosse has coupled that idea with a suggestion of creating a council of wise men, or what could be considered a Tahitian-style Senate. The major problem with those suggestions is where does one draw the line between an autonomous territory and the beginning of a new independent republic?

A much older suggestion that Flosse and other politicians have toyed with over the years is coverting French Polynesia into an associated state, such as the self-governing New Zealand depen dency of the Cook Islands.

Since “associated state” is an Anglo- Saxon term with no legal equivalent in French, the French have come up with their own term “partenariat” or a sort of partnership association. Ironi cally, this new term originated in New Caledonia, where there is concern that the 1998 self-determination referendum will not resolve that territory’s question.

Another suggestion has been to con vert French Polynesia from a territory into an overseas department, like

Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean. The main obstacle here is that such a transformation would put French Polynesia on an equal footing with any de partment in mainland France, which means the people would have to pay income taxes, one of the most unpopular subjects for many years.

The oldest suggestion is, of course, independence. Oscar Temaru is the leader of French Polynesia biggest inde pendence party. He has only four seats in the 41-seat Territorial Assembly, al though that is twice as many as he had for the previous five years.

But the suggestion of independence raises one big, obvious question: Are France and French Polynesia willing and/or capable of properly preparing this

territory for independence?

Francis Sanford has been retired from politics for several years. But when he made his historic independence declar ation in 1977, he recalled an equally historic statement made before the Ter ritorial Assembly by Oliver Stirn, then French Secretary of State for Overseas

Departments and Territories (DOM

TOM). Stirn said: “Ifyou want indepen dence, you can have it ‘tout de suite (like in 24 hours).”

But in recalling other statements by Stirn about France granting indepen dence when its people requested it, Sanford poignantly commented, “All that is hot air. That’s France: beautiful speeches and hot air ...” However, Sanford added, “It’s not a crime to want independence, it’s an ideal.” □