decolonisation seminar

France singled out at decolonisation seminar

By Sam Vulum

The facilitation process for the 1998 New Caledonian Kanaks’ referen dum received further boost in June at the Pacific Regional Seminar of the UN Special Decolonisation Committee in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.

The plight of the Kanaks, which was

extensively discussed during the

Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG)

meeting in the Trobiand Islands in the Milne Bay province earlier in the month, received special mention from PNG Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan during the United Nations seminar.

Sir Julius called for an early, orderly and absolute end to colonialism in New Caledonia, with specific safeguards for the rights of indigenous Kanaks. At the MSG summit Sir Julius, who is chairman of both the MSG and South Pacific Forum said; “Papua New Guinea’s concern for New Caledonia does not rise from any hostility or disregard for France. It is the product of our desire to put the colonial period behind us and develop relations on the basis of mutual benefit and regard.”

He said both the Forum and the MSG believed that following the decision to stop nuclear testing in the Pacific, France be readmitted as a post-Forum dialogue partner. However, he said member nations of the Forum and MSG were disappointed in the breakdown of recent talks between French authorities and the pro-indepen dence group in New Caledonia, FLNKS.

New Caledonia is one of 17 non-self goveming territories around the world.

Four of these, including New Caledonia, are located in the South Pacific. The oth ers are Wallis and Futuna, Tokelau and Pitcairn. The seminar was aimed at assess ing situations in the non-self-goveming territories, focusing on the status of their political evolution towards self-determi nation by the Year 2000. This is in the line with the General Assembly Resolution 1514. The resolution consists of a declara tion proclaiming, among other things, that the subjection of peoples to alien subjuga tion, domination and exploitation consti tute a denial of fundamental human rights is contrary to the Charter of the UN that all peoples have the right to self-determi nation. PNG’s permanent representative to the UN and chairman of the committee, Utula Samana said the committee was asked to seek suitable ways for the speedy recovery and total application of the dec laration to all territories yet to achieve the

objective of the declaration and submit to the General Assembly a report with rec ommendations on all territories to which the declaration applies. The decolonisa tion seminar, which is the sixth of its kind, has entered its final stage under General Assembly resolution 43/47 of 1988.

The resolution, titled International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism, declared the period 1990 to 2000 as the decade for the eradication of colonialism and requested the UN Secretary-General to submit a plan of action aimed at ushering into the 21st Century, a world free of colonialism.

Samana said that seminars such as this provided an effective mechanism to inter act with representatives of the non-self goveming territories as well as experts in the fields of decolonisations. He expressed the committee’s satisfaction at the constitutional development being taken in Tokelau.

“On behalf of the committee, I should like to record our thanks to New Zealand, the administering power, for assisting the people of Tokelau in exercising their right to self-determination,” the chairman said.

On New Caledonia, Samana said that although the committee was happy with the Matignon Accord and the framework towards some form of self-determination, there were some critical factors, such as immigration, causing an imbalance of the population (made up of Melanesians and French settlers or Caldoches) and how that would affect the outcome of the plebiscite or referendum planned for 1998. FLNKS Independence party presi dent Rock Wamyton expressed similar concern over increased migration of French nationals into the country.

Meanwhile, spokesman for the United States mission to the UN James Rubin said, “We think such a meeting is a junket for bureaucrats at the expense of services for the people.” The committee expected five of its members as well as representa tives of non-govemment organisations and several UN staff to attend at an esti mated cost of US$l5O,OOO. He hoped the “ridiculousness of having such a meeting on a subect which people increasingly realise is obsolete would increase the chances of being able to kill this commit tee altogether”. He said US Ambassador Madeleine Albright was particularly upset by the decision to go ahead with the sem inar at a time when she was asking a fru gal US Congress for hundreds of dollars to pay UN dues. ■