independence

Vanuatu’s independence

Sir,

I write this letter in response to com ments by Right Wing French Polynesian newspaper La Depeche vis-a-vis Father Walter Lini’s recent visit to Tahiti which was widely pub lished by regional media organisa tions.

The paper comments: “The French territory has nothing to win by becom ing independent and everything to lose” ( The Independent No 48, April 19,1996).

And, as if from no where, contends Vanuatu remains one of the poorest countries in the world, branding it an

“impoverished nation”.

I do not want to raise the question of such superficial remarks by a French newspaper located some hun dred thousand miles from Vanuatu and having hawk’s eyes to be able to deter mine the social well-being of a sovereign nation.

As far as I know, there are no beg gars - no, not one of them on the streets of Port Vila.

Besides, the remarks were in total breach of Article Two and parts of Article One of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which I will not bother to quote for them since they were party to its formulation.

My only point is that if La Depeche can hold such a perception about France’s former colonies, does that mean New Caledonia is an “impover ished” colony so France continue to superciliously rule there?

Notice that I call New Caledonia a colony because it certainly does not ride geographically on the same plate tectonic with France - or does it?

Kiery Manassah

South Pacific Centre for Communication and Information in Development The University of Papua New Guinea Port Moresby Papua New Guinea