The UN Special Committee on Decolonisation has heard renewed calls for action on Kanaky New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Guam and Tokelau.

Pacnews reports that the committee has heard from Pacific representatives, petitioners and administering powers debating the pace of self-determination and decolonisation in the territories.

The committee approved three draft resolutions aimed at strengthening UN support for the world’s remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific decolonisation reports
• ‘Is it NZ First, or Israel First?’ Ormsby challenges NZ foreign minister Peters

These include measures promoting information-sharing, reporting obligations and visiting missions.

Kanaky New Caledonia dominated much of the debate, with petitioners urging the UN to take a more active role in addressing the French territory’s political crisis and advancing its self-determination process.

Both Kanaky New Caledonia and French Polynesia are French territories, Guam is American, and Tokelau is NZ-administered.

New Zealand’s Pacific diplomacy
Meanwhile, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters says his country’s commitment to the region remains a top priority.

He made the comment in a Parliamentary Select committee scrutiny hearing.

The recent budget saw a big boost in funding to his ministry, with an extra $100 million for foreign aid to the Pacific over three years.

Peters said small countries matter, and New Zealand took the approach to treat Pacific countries as equals.

He noted the gap in the Pacific created by the US since it had rapidly pulled back its international aid.

The minister said he had spoken to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio about revisiting this position.

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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

As we’ve reported, the Gaza ceasefire deal is in effect. Phase one of the US.-backed 20-point plan is underway. Hamas has released all 20 living captives. Israel has released almost 2000 Palestinians in Ramallah and now in Khan Younis in Gaza.

Yesterday, President Trump addressed the Israeli Knesset and then co-chaired a so-called peace summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not among the 20 or more world leaders who attend. He was invited but said he was not going.

• READ MORE: Opposition Israeli lawmakers interrupt Trump and call for recognition of Palestinian statehood
• Joy as Palestinians prisoners freed after Israeli captives released
• Trump addresses the Knesset and speaks of ‘historic dawn for new Middle East’

For more, we’re joined by the Israeli historian, author and professor Ilan Pappé, professor of history and director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter and the chair of the Nakba Memorial Foundation. Among his books, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, almost 20 years ago, and Gaza in Crisis, which he co-wrote with Noam Chomsky. His new book, Israel on the Brink: And the Eight Revolutions That Could Lead to Decolonization and Coexistence.

We thank you so much for being with us. Professor Pappé, if you could start off by responding to what has happened? We’re watching, in Khan Younis, prisoners being released, Palestinian prisoners, up to 2000, and in the occupied West Bank, though there families were told if they dare celebrate the release of their loved ones, they might be arrested.

And we saw the release of the 20 Israeli hostages as they returned to Israel. Hamas says they’re returning the dead hostages, the remains, over the next few days. Israel has not said they will return the dead prisoners, of which it’s believed there are nearly 200 in Israeli prisons.

Your response overall, and now to the summit in Egypt?

ILAN PAPPÉ: Yes. First of all, there is some joy in knowing that the bombing of the people in Gaza has stopped for a while. And there is joy knowing that Palestinian political prisoners have been reunited with their families, and, similarly, that Israeli hostages were reunited with their families.

But except from that, I don’t think we are in such an historical moment as President Trump claimed in his speech in the Knesset and beforehand. We are not at the end of the terrible chapter that we have been in for the last two years.

And that chapter is an Israeli attempt by a particularly fanatic, extremely rightwing Israeli government to try and use ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and genocide in Gaza to downsize the number of Palestinians in Palestine and impose Israel’s will in a way that they hope would be at least endorsed by some Arab governments and the world.

So far, they have an alliance of Trump and some extreme rightwing parties in Europe.

And now I hope that the world will not be misled that Israel is now ready to open a different kind of page in its relationship with the Palestinians. And what you told us about the way that the celebrations were dealt with in the West Bank and the incineration of the sanitation center shows you that nothing has changed in the dehumanisation and the attitude of this particular Israeli government and its belief that it has the power to wipe out Palestine as a nation, as a people and as a country.

I hope the world will not stand by, because up to now it did stand by when the genocide occurred in Palestine.

AMY GOODMAN: We have just heard President Trump’s address to the Israeli Knesset. He followed the Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu. I’m not sure, but in listening to Netanyahu, I don’t think he used the word “Palestinian.” President Trump has just called on the Israeli president to pardon Netanyahu.

Your thoughts on this, and also the possibility of why Netanyahu has not joined this summit that President Trump is co-chairing? Many are speculating for different reasons — didn’t want to anger the right, that’s further right than him. Others are saying the possibility of his arrest, not on corruption charges, but on crimes against humanity, the whole case before the International Criminal Court.

ILAN PAPPÉ: It could be a mixture of all of it, but I think at the center of it is the nature of the Israeli government that was elected in November 2022, this alliance between a very opportunistic politician, who’s only interested in surviving and keeping his position as a prime minister, alongside messianic, neo-Zionist politicians who really believe that God has given them the opportunity to create the Greater Israel, maybe even beyond the borders of Palestine, and, in the process, eliminate Palestinians.

I think that his consideration should all — are always about his chances of survival. So, whatever went in his mind, he came to the conclusion that going to Cairo is not going to help his chances of being reelected.

My great worry is not that he didn’t go to Cairo. My greatest worry is that he does believe that his only chance of being reelected is still to have a war going on, either in Gaza or in the West Bank or against Iran or in the north with Lebanon.

We are dealing here with a reckless, irresponsible politician, who is even willing to drown his own state in the process of saving his skin and his neck. And the victims will always be, from this adventurous policy, the Palestinians.

I hope the world understands that, really, the urgent need of — and I’m talking about world leaders rather than societies. You already discussed what is the level of solidarity among civil societies. But I do hope that political elites will understand — especially in the West — their role now is not to mediate between Israelis and Palestinians.

Their role now is to protect the Palestinians from destruction, elimination, genocide and ethnic cleansing. And nothing of that duty, especially of Europe, that is complicit with what happened, and the United States, that are complicit with what happened in the last two years — nothing that we heard in the speeches so far in the — in preparation for the summit in Egypt, and I have a feeling that we won’t hear anything about it also later on.

There is a different way in which our civil societies refer to Palestine as a place that has to be saved and protected, and still this irrelevant conversation among our political elites about a peace deal, a two-state solution, all of that, that has nothing to do with what we are experiencing in the way that the Israeli government thinks it has an historical moment to totally de-Arabise Palestine and eliminate and expunge the Palestinians from history and the area.

AMY GOODMAN: Ilan Pappé, I want to thank you for being with us, Israeli historian, professor of history, director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter, chair of the Nakba Memorial Foundation. His new book, Israel on the Brink: And the Eight Revolutions That Could Lead to Decolonization and Coexistence.

Pacific advocacy movements and civil society organisations have challenged French credentials in hosting a global ocean conference, saying that unless France is accountable for its actions in the Pacific, it is merely “rebranding”.

The call for accountability marked the French-sponsored UN Ocean Conference (UNOC) in Nice this week, during which President Emmanuel Macron will be hosting a France-Pacific Summit.

French officials have described the UNOC event as a coming together “in the true spirit of Talanoa” and one that would be inconceivable without the Pacific.

• READ MORE: Former Congress staffer allowed to return to Kanaky New Caledonia
• Other France in the Pacific reports

While acknowledging the importance of leveraging global partnerships for urgent climate action and ocean protection through the UNOC process, Pacific civil society groups have issued a joint statement saying that their political leaders must hold France accountable for its past actions and not allow it to “launder its dirty linen in ‘Blue Pacific’ and ‘critical transition’ narratives”.

‘Responsible steward’ image undermined
France’s claims of being a “responsible steward” of the ocean were undermined by its historical actions in the Pacific, said the statement. This included:

● A brutal colonial legacy dating back to the mid-1800s, with the annexation of island nations now known as Kanaky-New Caledonia and Ma’ohi Nui-French Polynesia;

● A refusal to complete the decolonisation process, and in fact the perpetuation of the colonial condition, particularly for the those “territories” on the UN decolonisation list. In Kanaky-New Caledonia, for instance, France and its agents continue to renege on longstanding decolonisation commitments, while weaponising democratic ideals and processes such as “universal” voting rights to deny the fundamental rights of the indigenous population to self-determination;

● 30 years of nuclear violence in Ma’ohi Nui-French Polynesia with 193 test detonations — 46 in the atmosphere and close to 150 under the Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls, irradiating both land and sea, and people. Approximately 90 percent of the local population was exposed to radioactive fallout, resulting in long-term health impacts, including elevated rates of cancer and other radiation-related illnesses;

● Active efforts to obscure the true extent of its nuclear violence in Maʻohi Nui-French Polynesia, diverting resources to discredit independent research and obstructing transparency around health and environmental impacts. These actions reveal a persistent pattern of denial and narrative control that continues to undermine compensation efforts and delay justice for victims and communities;

● French claims to approximately one-third of the Pacific’s combined EEZ, and to being the world’s second largest ocean state, accruing largely from its so-called Pacific dependencies; and

● The supply of French military equipment, and the 1985 bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior by French secret service agents — a state-sponsored terrorist attack with the 40th anniversary this year.

Seeking diplomatic support
“Since the late 1980s, France has worked to build on diplomatic, development and defence fronts to garner support from Pacific governments.

This includes development assistance through the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), Asian Development Fund, language and cultural exchanges, scientific collaboration and humanitarian assistance.

A strong diplomatic presence in Pacific capitals as well as a full schedule of high-level exchanges, including a triennial France-Oceania leaders’ Summit commencing in 2003, together function to enhance proximity with and inclination towards Paris sentiments and priorities.

The Pacific civil society statement said that French leadership at this UNOC process was once again central to its ongoing efforts to rebrand itself as a global leader on climate action, a champion of ocean protection, and a promoter of sovereignty.

“Nothing can be further from the truth,” the groups said.

“The reality is that France is rather more interested in strengthening its position as a middle power in an Indo-Pacific rather than a Pacific framework, and as a balancing power within the context of big-power rivalry between the US and China, all of which undermines rather than enhances Pacific sovereignty.”

New global image
The statement said that leaders must not allow France to build this new global image on the “foundations of its atrocities against Pacific peoples” and the ocean continent.

Pacific civil society called on France:

● For immediate and irreversible commitments and practical steps to bring its colonial presence in the Pacific to an end before the conclusion, in 2030, of the 4th International Decade on the Eradication of Colonialism; and

● To acknowledge and take responsibility for the oceanic and human harms caused by 30 years of nuclear violence in Maʻohi Nui–French Polynesia, and to commit to full and just reparations, including support for affected communities, environmental remediation of test sites, and full public disclosure of all health and contamination data.

The statement also called on Pacific leaders to:

● Keep France accountable for its multiple and longstanding debt to Pacific people; and

● Ensure that Ma’ohi Nui-French Polynesia and Kanaky-New Caledonia remain on the UN list of non-self-governing territories to be decolonised (UN decolonisation list).

“Pacific leaders must ensure that France does not succeed in laundering its soiled linen — soiled by the blood of thousands of Pacific Islanders who resisted colonial occupation and/or who were used as test subjects for its industrial-military machinery — in the UNOC process,” said the statement.

New Caledonia and French Polynesia have sent strong delegations this week to the United Nations Pacific regional seminar on the implementation of the Fourth International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism in Timor-Leste.

The seminar opened in Dili today and ends on Friday.

As French Pacific non-self-governing territories, the two Pacific possessions will brief the UN on recent developments at the event, which is themed “Pathways to a sustainable future — advancing socioeconomic and cultural development of the Non-Self-Governing Territories”.

• READ MORE: New Caledonia riots one year on: ‘Like the country was at war’
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

New Caledonia and French Polynesia are both in the UN’s list of non-self-governing territories to be decolonised, respectively since 1986 and 2013.

Nouméa-based French Ambassador for the Pacific Véronique Roger-Lacan is also attending.

After the Dili meeting this week, the UN’s Fourth Commission is holding its formal meeting in New York in July and again in October in the margins of the UN General Assembly.

As New Caledonia marks the first anniversary this month of the civil unrest that killed 14 people and caused material damage to the tune of 2.2 billion euros last year (NZ$4.1 billion), the French Pacific territory’s political parties have been engaged for the past four months in political talks with France to define New Caledonia’s political future.

However, the talks have not yet managed to produce a consensual way forward between pro-France and pro-independence groups.

French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls, at the end of the most recent session on May 8, put a project of “sovereignty with France” on the table which was met by strong opposition by the pro-France Loyalists (anti-independence) camp.

This year again, parties and groups from around the political spectrum are planning to travel to Dili to plead their respective cases.

Topping the list is New Caledonia’s government President Alcide Ponga, who chairs the pro-France Rassemblement party and came to power in January 2025.

Other represented institutions include New Caledonia’s customary (traditional) Senate, a kind of Great Council of Chiefs, which also sends participants to ensure the voice of indigenous Kanak people is heard.

Over the past two years, pro-France groups have become more aware of the need for them to be more vocal and present at regional and international fora.

French Polynesia back on the UN list since 2013
In French Polynesia, the pro-independence ruling Tavini Huiraatira party commemorated the 12th anniversary of re-inscription to the UN list of territories to be decolonised on 17 May 2013.

This week, Tavini also sent a strong delegation to Timor-Leste, which includes territorial Assembly President Antony Géros.

However, the pro-France parties, locally known as “pro-autonomy”, also want to ensure their views are taken into account.

One of them is Moerani Frébault, one of French Polynesia’s representatives at the French National Assembly.

“Contrary to what the pro-independence people are saying, we’re not dominated by the French Republic,” he told local media at a news conference at the weekend.

Frébault said the pro-autonomy parties now want to invite a UN delegation to French Polynesia “so they can see for themselves that we have all the tools we need for our development.

“This is the message we want to get across”.

Territorial Assembly member Tepuaraurii Teriitahi, from the pro-autonomy Tapura Huiraatira party, is also travelling to Dili.

“The majority of (French) Polynesians is not pro-independence. So when we travel to this kind of seminar, it is because we want to counter those who allege that the whole of (French) Polynesians is sharing this aspiration for independence,” she said.

‘Constitution of a Federated Republic of Ma’ohi Nui’
On the pro-independence side in Pape’ete, the official line is that it wants Paris to at least engage in talks with French Polynesia to “open the subject of decolonisation”.

For the same purpose, the Tavini Party, in April 2025, officially presented a draft for what could become a “Constitution of a Federated Republic of Ma’ohi Nui”.

The document is sometimes described as drawing inspirations from France and the United States, but is not yet regarded as fully matured.

Earlier this month, French Polynesia’s President Moetai Brotherson was in Paris for a series of meetings with several members of the French cabinet, including Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls and French Foreign Affairs Minister Yannick Neuder.

Valls is currently contemplating visiting French Polynesia early in July.

Brotherson came to power in May 2023. Since being elected to the top post, he has stressed that independence — although it remained a longterm goal — was not an immediate priority.

He also said many times that he wished relations with France to evolve, especially on the decolonisation.

“I think we should put those 10 years of misunderstanding, of denial of dialogue behind us,” he said.

In October 2023, for the first time since French Polynesia was re-inscribed on the UN list, France made representations at the UN Special Political and Decolonisation Committee (Fourth Committee), ending a 10-year empty chair hiatus .

But the message delivered by the French Ambassador to the UN, Nicolas De Rivière, was unambiguous.

He said French Polynesia “has no place” on the UN list of non-autonomous territories because “French Polynesia’s history is not the history of New Caledonia”.

He also voiced France’s wish to have French Polynesia withdrawn from the UN list.

The UN list of non-self-governing territories currently includes 17 territories worldwide and six of those are located in the Pacific — American Samoa, Guam, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Pitcairn Islands and Tokelau.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Debate on Guam’s future as a US territory has intensified with its legislature due to vote on a non-binding resolution to become a US state amid mounting Pacific geostrategic tensions and expansionist declarations by the Trump administration.

Located closer to Beijing than Hawai’i, Guam serves as a key US strategic asset, known as the “tip of the spear,” with 10,000 military personnel, an air base for F-35 fighters and B-2 bombers and home port for Virginia-class nuclear submarines.

The small US territory of 166,000 people is also listed by the UN for decolonisation and last year became an associate member at the Pacific Islands Forum.

• READ MORE: Other Guam reports

Local Senator William A. Parkinson introduced the resolution to the legislature last Wednesday and called for Guam to be fully integrated into the American union, possibly as the 51st state.

“We are standing in a moment of history where two great empires are standing face-to-face with each other, about to go to war,” Parkinson said at a press conference on Thursday.

“We have to be real about what’s going on in this part of the world. We are a tiny island but we are too strategically important to be left alone. Stay with America or do we let ourselves be absorbed by China?”

His resolution states the decision “must be built upon the informed consent of the people of Guam through a referendum”.

Trump’s expansionist policies
Parkinson’s resolution comes as US President Donald Trump advocates territorially expansionist policies, particularly towards the strategically located Danish-ruled autonomous territory of Greenland and America’s northern neighbour, Canada.

“This one moment in time, this one moment in history, the stars are aligning so that the geopolitics of the United States favour statehood for Guam,” Parkinson said. “This is an opportunity we cannot pass up.”

As a territory, Guam residents are American citizens but they cannot vote for the US president and their lone delegate to the Congress has no voting power on the floor.

The US acquired Guam, along with Puerto Rico, in 1898 after winning the Spanish-American War, and both remain unincorporated territories to this day.

Independence advocates and representatives from the Guam Commission on Decolonisation regularly testify at the UN’s Decolonisation Committee, where the island has been listed as a Non-Self-Governing Territory since 1946.

Commission on Decolonisation executive director Melvin Won Pat-Borja said he was not opposed to statehood but is concerned if any decision on Guam’s status was left to the US.

“Decolonisation is the right of the colonised,” he said while attending Parkinson’s press conference, the Pacific Daily News reported.

‘Hands of our coloniser’
“It’s counterintuitive to say that, ‘we’re seeking a path forward, a path out of this inequity,’ and then turn around and put it right back in the hands of our coloniser.

“No matter what status any of us prefer, ultimately that is not for any one of us to decide, but it is up to a collective decision that we have to come to, and the only way to do it is via referendum,” he said, reports Kuam News.

With the geostrategic competition between the US and China in the Pacific, Guam has become increasingly significant in supporting American naval and air operations, especially in the event of a conflict over Taiwan or in the South China Sea.

The two US bases have seen Guam’s economy become heavily reliant on military investments and tourism.

The Defence Department holds about 25 percent of Guam’s land and is preparing to spend billions to upgrade the island’s military infrastructure as another 5000 American marines relocate there from Japan’s Okinawa islands.

Guam is also within range of Chinese and North Korean ballistic missiles and the US has trialed a defence system, with the first tests held in December.

The “moment in history” for statehood may also be defined by the Trump administration spending cuts, Guam Governor Lou Leon Guerrero warned in her “state of the island” address on Wednesday.

Military presence leveraged
The island has in recent years leveraged the increased military presence to demand federal assistance and the territory’s treasury relies on at least US$0.5 billion in annual funding.

“Let us be clear about this: Guam cannot be the linchpin of American security in the Asian-Pacific if nearly 14,000 of our residents are without shelter, because housing aid to Guam is cut, or if 36,000 of our people lose access to Medicaid and Medicare coverage keeping them healthy, alive and out of poverty,” Guerrero said.

Parkinson’s proposed legislative resolution calls for an end to 125-plus years of US colonial uncertainty.

“The people of Guam, as the rightful stewards of their homeland, must assert their inalienable right to self-determination,” states the resolution, including that there be a “full examination of statehood or enhanced autonomous status for Guam.”

“Granting Guam equal political status would signal unequivocally that Guam is an integral part of the United States, deterring adversaries who might otherwise perceive Guam as a mere expendable outpost.”

If adopted by the Guam legislature, the non-binding resolution would be transmitted to the White House.

A local statute enacted in 2000 for a political status plebiscite on statehood, independence or free association has become bogged down in US courts.

‘Reject colonial status quo’
Neil Weare, a former Guam resident and co-director of Right to Democracy, said the self-determination process must be centred on what the people of Guam want, “not just what’s best for US national security”.

“Right to Democracy does not take a position on political status, other than to reject the undemocratic and colonial status quo,” Weare said on behalf of the nonprofit organisation that advocates for rights and self-determination in US territories.

“People can have different views on what is the best solution to this problem, but we should all be in agreement that the continued undemocratic rule of millions of people in US territories is wrong and needs to end.”

He said the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence next year can open a new venue for a conversation about key concepts — such as the “consent of the governed” — involving Guam and other US territories.

Republished from BenarNews with permission.

France has been criticised for the “alarming” death toll in New Caledonia during recent protests and its “cold shower” approach to decolonisation by experts of the UN Human Rights Committee.

The UN committee met this week in Geneva for France’s five-yearly human rights review with a focus on its Pacific territory, after peaceful protests over electoral changes turned violent leaving 13 people dead since May.

French delegates at the hearing defended the country’s actions and rejected the jurisdiction of the UN decolonisation process, saying the country “no longer has any international obligations”.

• READ MORE: PM defends Fiji’s UN ‘ambush’ vote – challenged by human rights advocate
• Rabuka’s message to free Kanaky movement: ‘Don’t slap the hand that feeds you’
• ‘We’ll be talking about the future of negotiations’, says Rabuka on New Caledonia mission
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports
• Other CHOGM reports

A delayed fact-finding mission of Pacific Islands Forum leaders is due to arrive in New Caledonia this weekend to assess the situation on behalf of the region’s peak regional inter-governmental body.

Almost 7000 security personnel with armoured vehicles have been deployed from France to New Caledonia to quell further unrest.

“The means used and the intensity of their response and the gravity of the violence reported, as well as the amount of dead and wounded, are particularly alarming,” said committee member Jose Santo Pais, assistant Prosecutor-General of the Portuguese Constitutional Court.

“There have been numerous allegations regarding an excessive use of force and that would have led to numerous deaths among the Kanak people and law enforcement,” the committee’s vice-chair said on Wednesday.

Months of protests
Violence erupted after months of protests over a unilateral attempt by President Emmanuel Macron to “unfreeze” the territory’s electoral roll. Indigenous Kanaks feared the move would dilute their voting power and any chance of success at another independence referendum.

Eleven Kanaks and two French police have died. The committee heard 169 people were wounded and 2658 arrested in the past five months.

New Caledonia’s economy is in ruins with hundreds of businesses destroyed, tens-of-thousands left jobless and the local government seeking 4 billion euros (US$4.33 billion) in recovery funds from France.

France’s reputation has been left battered as an out-of-touch colonial power since the deadly violence erupted.

Santos Pais questioned France’s commitment to the UN Declaration on Indigenous People and the “sufficient dialogue” required under the Nouméa Accord, a peace agreement signed in 1998 to politically empower Kanak people, that enabled the decolonisation process.

“It would seem that current violence in the territory is linked to the lack of progress in decolonisation,” said Santos Pais.

Last week, the new French Prime Minister announced controversial electoral changes that sparked the protests had been abandoned. Local elections, due to be held this year, will now take place at the end of 2025.

Pacific mission
Tomorrow, Tonga’s prime minister Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni will lead a Pacific “observational” mission to New Caledonia of fellow leaders from Cook Islands, Fiji and Solomon Islands Minister for Foreign Affairs, together known as the “Troika-Plus”.

The PIF leaders’ three-day visit to the capital Nouméa will see them meet with local political parties, youth and community groups, private sector and public service providers.

“Our thoughts have always been with the people of New Caledonia since the unrest earlier this year, and we continue to offer our support,” Sovaleni said in a statement on Friday.

The UN committee is a treaty body composed of 18 experts that regularly reviews compliance by 173 member states with their human rights obligations and is separate from the Human Rights Council, a political body composed of states.

Serbian committee member Tijana Surlan asked France for an update on investigations into injuries and fatalities “related to alleged excessive use of force” in New Caledonia. She asked if police firearms use would be reviewed “to strike a better balance with the principles of absolute necessity and strict proportionality.”

France’s delegation responded saying it was “committed to renewing dialogue” in New Caledonia and to striking a balance between the right to demonstrate and protecting people and property with the “principle of proportionality.”

Alleged intimidation by French authorities of at least five journalists covering the unrest in New Caledonia was highlighted by committee member Kobauyah Tchamdja Kapatcha from Togo. France responded saying it guarantees freedom of the press.

France rejects ‘obligations’
The French delegation led by Ambassador for Human Rights Isabelle Rome added it “no longer administers a non-self-governing territory.”

France “no longer has any international obligations in this regard linked to its membership in the United Nations”, she told the committee on Thursday.

New Caledonia voted by modest majorities to remain part of France in referendums held in 2018 and 2020 under a UN-mandated decolonisation process. Three referendums were part of the Nouméa Accord to increase Kanaks’ political power following deadly violence in the 1980s.

A contentious final referendum in 2021 was overwhelmingly in favor of continuing with the status quo. Supporters of independence rejected its legitimacy due to a very low turnout — it was boycotted by Kanak political parties — and because it was held during a serious phase of the covid-19 pandemic, which restricted campaigning.

“France, through the referendum of September [2021], has therefore completed the process of decolonisation of its former colonies,” ambassador Rome said. She added that New Caledonia was one of the most advanced examples of the French government recognising indigenous rights, with a shared governance framework.

Another of its Pacific territories — French Polynesia — was re-inscribed on the UN decolonisation list in 2013 but France refuses to recognise its jurisdiction.

No change in policy
After a decade, France began attending General Assembly Decolonisation Committee meetings in 2023 to “promote dialogue” and that it was not a “change in [policy] direction”, Rome said.

“There is no process between the French state and the Polynesian territory that reserves a role for the United Nations,” she added.

Santos Pais responded saying, “what a cold shower”.

“The General Assembly will certainly have a completely different view from the one that was presented to us,” he said.

Earlier this month pro-independence French Polynesian President Moetai Brotherson told the UN Decolonisation Committee’s annual meeting in New York that “after a decade of silence” France must be “guided” to participate in “dialogue.”

The Human Rights Committee is due to meet again next month to adopt its findings on France.

Copyright ©2015-2024, BenarNews. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has “cleared the air” with the Fijian diaspora in Samoa over Fiji’s vote against the United Nations resolution on the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and People.

He denied that Fiji — the only country to vote against the resolution — had “pressed the wrong button”.

And he described last week’s vote as an “ambush resolution”, claiming it was not the one they had agreed on during the voting of the UN Special Committee of Decolonisation, reports The Fiji Times.

• READ MORE: Rabuka’s message to free Kanaky movement: ‘Don’t slap the hand that feeds you’
• ‘We’ll be talking about the future of negotiations’, says Rabuka on New Caledonia mission
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports
• Other CHOGM reports

However, a prominent Fiji civil society and human rights advocate condemned his statement and also Fiji’s UN voting.

Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) coordinator Shamima Ali said she was “ashamed” of Fiji’s stance over genocide in Palestine, its vote against ceasefire and “not wanting decolonisation”.

In Apia, Rabuka, who leaves for Kanaky New Caledonia on Sunday to take part in the Pacific Islands Forum’s “Troika Plus” talks on the French Pacific’s territory amid indigenous demands for independence, told The Fiji Times:

“We will not tell them we pressed the wrong button. We will tell them that the resolution was an ambush resolution, it is not something that we have been talking about.”

‘Serious student of colonisation’
The Prime Minister said he had been a “serious student of colonisation and decolonisation”.

“They started with the C-12, but now it’s C-24 members of the [UN] committee that talks about decolonisation.

“I was wondering if anyone would complain about my going [to Kanaky New Caledonia] next week because C-24 met last week and there was a vote on decolonisation.”

According to an RNZ Pacific interview, Rabuka had told the Kanak independence movement:”Don’t slap the hand that has fed you.”

Fiji was the only country that voted against the UN resolution while 99 voted for the resolution and 61 countries, including colonisers such as France, United Kingdom and the United States, abstained.

Another coloniser, Indonesia (West Papua), voted for it.

“I thought the [indigenous] people of the Kanaky of New Caledonia would object to my coming, so far we have not heard anything from them.

“So, I am hoping that no one will bring that up, but if they do bring it up, we have a perfect answer.”

Human rights advocate Shamima Ali said in a statement on social media it was “unbelievable” that Prime Minister Rabuka claimed to be “a serious student of colonisation and decolonisation” while leading a government that had been “blatantly complicit in the genocide of innocent Palestinians”.

“No amount of public statements and explanations will save this Coalition government from the mess it has created on the international stage, especially at the United Nations.

“We are ashamed of having a government that supports an occupation, votes against a ceasefire and does not want decolonisation in the world.

“Trust between the Fijian people and their government is being eroded, especially on matters of global significance that reflect on the entire nation.”

According to the government, Fiji is one of two Pacific countries which are members of the Special Committee on Decolonisation or C-24 and have been a consistent voice in addressing the issue of decolonisation.

Through the C-24 and the Fourth Committee, Fiji aligns with the positions undertaken by the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), in its support for the annual resolution on decolonisation entitled “Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples”.

Government reiterated its support of the regional position of the Forum, and the MSG on decolonisation and self-determination, as enshrined in the UN Charter.

The Fiji Permanent Mission in New York, led by Filipo Tarakinikini, is working with the Forum Secretariat to clarify the matter within its process.

Rabuka is currently in Samoa for the 2024 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which is being held in the Pacific for the first time.

French Polynesia’s president and civil society leaders have called on the United Nations to bring France to the negotiating table and set a timetable for the decolonisation of the Pacific territory.

More than a decade after the archipelago was re-listed for decolonisation by the UN General Assembly, France has refused to acknowledge the world’s peak diplomatic organisation has a legitimate role.

France’s reputation has taken a battering as an out-of-touch colonial power since deadly violence erupted in Kanaky New Caledonia in May, sparked by a now abandoned French government attempt to dilute the voting power of indigenous Kanak people.

• READ MORE: Other Māohi Nui independence reports

Pro-independence French Polynesian President Moetai Brotherson told the UN Decolonisation Committee’s annual meeting in New York on Monday that “after a decade of silence” France must be “guided” to participate in “dialogue.”

“Our government’s full support for a comprehensive, transparent and peaceful decolonisation process with France, under the scrutiny of the United Nations, can pave the way for a decolonisation process that serves as an example to the world,” Brotherson said.

Brotherson called for France to finally co-operate in creating a roadmap and timeline for the decolonisation process, pointing to unrest in New Caledonia that “reminds us of the delicate balance that peace requires”.

‘Problem with decolonisation’
In August, he warned France “always had a problem with decolonisation” in the Pacific, where it also controls the territories of New Caledonia and Wallis and Futuna.

The 121 islands of French Polynesia stretch over a vast expanse of the Pacific, with a population of about 280,000, and was first settled more than 2000 years ago.

Often referred to as Tahiti after the island with the biggest population, France declared the archipelago a protectorate in 1842, followed by full annexation in 1880.

France last year attended the UN committee for the first time since the territory’s re-inscription in 2013 as awaiting decolonisation, after decades of campaigning by French Polynesian politicians.

“I would like to clarify once again that this change of method does not imply a change of policy,” French permanent representative to the UN Nicolas De Rivière told the committee on Monday.

“There is no process between the state and the Polynesian territory that reserves a role for the United Nations,” he said, and pointed out France contributes almost 2 billion euros (US $2.2 billion) each year, or almost 30 percent of the territory’s GDP.

After the UN session, Brotherson told the media that France’s position is “off the mark”.

17 speakers back independence
French Polynesia was initially listed for decolonisation by the UN in 1946 but removed a year later as France fought to hold onto its overseas territories after the Second World War.

Granted limited autonomy in 1984, with control over local government services, France retained administration over justice, security, defence, foreign policy and the currency.

Seventeen pro-independence and four pro-autonomy – who support the status quo – speakers gave impassioned testimony to the committee.

Lawyer and Protestant church spokesman Philippe Neuffer highlighted children in the territory “solely learn French and Western history”.

“They deserve the right to learn our complete history, not the one centred on the French side of the story,” he said.

“Talking about the nuclear tests without even mentioning our veterans’ history and how they fought to get a court to condemn France for poisoning people with nuclear radiation.”

France conducted 193 nuclear tests over three decades until 1996 in French Polynesia.

‘We demand justice’
“Our lands are contaminated, our health compromised and our spirits burned,” president of the Mururoa E Tatou Association Tevaerai Puarai told the UN denouncing it as French “nuclear colonialism”.

“We demand justice. We demand freedom,” Puarai said.

He said France needed to take full responsibility for its “nuclear crimes”, referencing a controversial 10-year compensation deal reached in 2009.

Some Māʼohi indigenous people, many French residents and descendants in the territory fear independence and the resulting loss of subsidies would devastate the local economy and public services.

Pro-autonomy local Assembly member Tepuaraurii Teriitahi told the committee, “French Polynesia is neither oppressed nor exploited by France.”

“The idea that we could find 2 billion a year to replace this contribution on our own is an illusion that would lead to the impoverishment and downfall of our hitherto prosperous country,” she said.

Copyright ©2015-2024, BenarNews. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.

West Papuan independence advocate Octovianus Mote is in Aotearoa New Zealand to win support for independence for West Papua, which has been ruled by Indonesia for more than 60 years.

Mote is vice-president of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) and is being hosted in New Zealand by the Green Party, which Mote said had always been a “hero” for West Papua.

He spoke at a West Papua seminar at the Māngere Mountain Education Centre tonight.

• WATCH: Michael Cugley‘s video report on Te Ao Māori News
• READ: Other West Papua reports

Former ULMWP president Benny Wenda has alleged more than 500,000 Papuans have been killed since the occupation, and millions of hectares of ancestral forests, rivers and mountains have been destroyed or polluted for “corporate profit”.

Current president is Manasa Tabuni.

The struggle for West Papuans
“Being born a West Papuan, you are already an enemy of the nation [Indonesia],” Mote says.

“The greatest challenge we are facing right now is that we are facing the colonial power who lives next to us.”

If West Papuans spoke up about what was happening, they were considered “separatists”, Mote says, regardless of whether they are journalists, intellectuals, public servants or even high-ranking Indonesian generals.

“When our students on the ground speak of justice, they’re beaten up, put in jail and [the Indonesians] kill so many of them,” Mote says.

Mote is a former journalist and says that while he was working he witnessed Indonesian forces openly fire at students who were peacefully demonstrating their rights.

“We are in a very dangerous situation right now. When our people try to defend their land, the Indonesian government ignores them and they just take the land without recognising we are landowners,” he says.

The ‘ecocide’ of West Papua
The ecology in West Papua is being damaged by mining, deforestation, and oil and gas extraction. Mote says Indonesia wants to “wipe them from the land and control their natural resources”.

He says he is trying to educate the world that defending West Papua means defending the world, especially small islands in the Pacific.

West Papua is the western half of the island of New Guinea, bordering the independent nation of Papua New Guinea. New Guinea has the world’s third-largest rainforest after the Amazon and Congo and it is crucial for climate change mitigation as they sequester and store carbon.

Mote says the continued deforestation of New Guinea, which West Papuan leaders are trying to stop, would greatly impact on the small island countries in the Pacific, which are among the most vulnerable to climate change.

Mote also says their customary council in West Papua has already considered the impacts of climate change on small island nations and, given West Papua’s abundance of land the council says that by having sovereignty they would be able to both protect the land and support Pacific Islanders who need to migrate from their home islands.

In 2021, West Papuan leaders pledged to make ecocide a serious crime and this week Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa submitted a court proposal to the International Criminal Court (ICJ) to recognise ecocide as a crime.

Support from local Indonesians
Mote says there are Indonesians who support the indigenous rights movement for West Papuans. He says there are both NGOs and a Papuan Peace Network founded by West Papuan peace campaigner Neles Tebay.

“There is a movement growing among the academics and among the well-educated people who have read the realities among those who are also victims of the capitalist investors, especially in Indonesia when they introduced the Omnibus Law.”

The so-called Omnibus Law was passed in 2020 as part of outgoing President Joko Widodo’s goals to increase investment and industrialisation in Indonesia. The law was protested against because of concerns it would be harmful for workers due to changes in working conditions, and the environment because it would allow for increased deforestation.

Mote says there has been an “awakening”, especially among the younger generations who are more open-minded and connected to the world, who could see it both as a humanitarian and an environmental issue.

The ‘transfer’ of West Papua to Indonesia
“The [former colonial nation] Dutch [traded] us like a cow,” Mote says.

The former Dutch colony was passed over to Indonesia in 1963 in disputed circumstances but the ULMWP calls it an “invasion”.

From 1957, the Soviet Union had been supplying arms to Indonesia and, during that period, the Indonesian Communist Party had become the largest political party in the country.

The US government urged the Dutch government to give West Papua to Indonesia in an attempt to appease the communist-friendly Indonesian government as part of a US drive to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia.

The US engineered a meeting between both countries, which resulted in the New York Agreement, giving control of West Papua to the UN in 1962 and then Indonesia a year later.

The New York Agreement stipulated that the population of West Papua would be entitled to an act of self-determination.

The ‘act of no choice’
This decolonisation agreement was titled the 1969 Act of Free Choice, which is referred to as “the act of no choice” by pro-independence activists.

Mote says they witnessed “how the UN allowed Indonesia to cut us into pieces, and they didn’t say anything when Indonesia manipulated our right to self-determination”.

The manipulation Mote refers to is for the Act of Free Choice. Instead of a national referendum, the Indonesian military hand-picked 1025 West Papuan “representatives” to vote on behalf of the 816,000 people. The representatives were allegedly threatened, bribed and some were held at gunpoint to ensure a unanimous vote.

Leaders of the West Papuan independence movement assert that this was not a real opportunity to exercise self-determination as it was manipulated. However, it was accepted by the UN.

Pacific support at UN General Assembly
Mote has came to Aotearoa after the 53rd Pacific Island Forum Leaders summit in Tonga last week and he has come to discuss plans over the next five years. Mote hopes to gain support to take what he calls the “slow-motion genocide” of West Papua back to the UN General Assembly.

“In that meeting we formulated how we can help really push self-determination as the main issue in the Pacific Islands,” Mote says.

Mote says there was a focus on self-determination of West Papua, Kanaky/New Caledonia and Tahiti. He also said the focus was on what he described as the current colonisation issue with capitalists and global powers having vested interests in the Pacific region.

The movement got it to the UN General Assembly in 2018, so Mote says it is achievable. In 2018, Pacific solidarity was shown as the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and the Republic of Vanuatu all spoke out in support of West Papua.

They affirmed the need for the matter to be returned to the United Nations, and the Solomon Islands voiced its concerns over human rights abuses and violations.

What needs to be done
He says that in the next five years Pacific nations need to firstly make the Indonesian government accountable for its actions in West Papua. He also says outgoing President Widodo should be held accountable for his “involvement”.

Mote says New Zealand is the strongest Pacific nation that would be able to push for the human rights and environmental issues happening, especially as he alleges Australia always backs Indonesian policies.

He says he is looking to New Zealand to speak up about the atrocities taking place in West Papua and is particularly looking for support from the Greens, Labour and Te Pāti Māori for political support.

The coalition government announced a plan of action on July 30 this year, which set a new goal of $6 billion in annual two-way trade with Indonesia by 2029.

“New Zealand is strongly committed to our partnership with Indonesia,” Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said at the time.

“There is much more we can and should be doing together.”

Te Aniwaniwa Paterson is a digital producer for Te Ao Māori News. Republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

The PANG media team at this month’s Pacific International Media Conference in Fiji caught up with independent journalist, author and educator Dr David Robie and questioned him on his views about decolonisation in the Pacific.

Dr Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report and deputy chair of Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN), a co-organiser of the conference, shared his experience on reporting on Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua’s fight for freedom.

He speaks from his 40 years of journalism in the Pacific saying the United Nations and the Pacific Islands Forum need to step up pressure on France and Indonesia to decolonise.

• READ MORE: Melanesian leaders oppose ‘militarisation’, call for joint UN-MSG mission to New Caledonia
• Other Pacific International Media Conference reports

This interview was conducted at the end of the conference, on July 6, and a week before the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) leaders called for France to allow a joint United Nations-MSG mission to New Caledonia to assess the political situation and propose solutions for the ongoing crisis.

The leaders of the subregional bloc — from Fiji, FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front of New Caledonia), Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu — met in Tokyo on the sidelines of the 10th Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting (PALM10), to specifically talk about New Caledonia.

They included Fiji’s Sitiveni Rabuka, PNG’s James Marape, Solomon Islands’ Jeremiah Manele, and Vanuatu’s Charlot Salwai.

In his interview with PANG (Pacific Network on Globalisation), Dr Robie also draws parallels with the liberation struggle in Palestine, which he says has become a global symbol for justice and freedom everywhere.

“I should mention Palestine as well because essentially it’s settler colonisation.

“What we’ve seen in the massive protests over the last nine months and so on there has been a huge realisation in many countries around the world that colonisation is still here after thinking, or assuming, that had gone some years ago.

“So you’ll see in a lot of protests — we have protests across Aotearoa New Zealand every week —  that the flags of Kanaky, West Papua and Palestine fly together.

“The people see these as symbolic of the repression and injustice all over the world.”

PANG Media talk to Dr David Robie on decolonisation.  Video: PANG Media

Fiji and Papua New Guinea have urged the UN’s Decolonisation Committee to expedite a visit to the French-controlled Pacific territory of Kanaky New Caledonia following its pro-independence riots last month.

Nine people have died, dozens were injured and businesses were torched during unrest in the capital Noumea triggered by the French government’s move to dilute the voting power of New Caledonia’s indigenous Kanak people.

Fiji’s permanent representative to the UN, Filipo Tarakinikini, whose statement was also on behalf of Papua New Guinea, spoke yesterday of the two countries’ “serious concern” at the disproportionate number of Kanaks who had lost their lives since the onset of the crisis.

• READ MORE: Pacific churches call at UN for France to drop ‘limbo law’ to restore peace in Kanaky
• Kanaky New Caledonia unrest: What happens to limbo law change with French snap election?
• History ‘replaying itself’ in Kanaky but Pacific solidarity growing, says Tau
• France’s snap election: what happened, why, and what’s next?
• Far right surges in EU vote, topping polls in Germany, France, Austria
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

“We underscore that New Caledonia can best be described as a fork in the road situation,” Tarakinikini told the committee session at UN headquarters in New York.

“History is replete with good lessons,” he said, “to navigate such situations toward peaceful resolution. Today we have heard yet again loud and clear what colonisation does to a people.”

Tarakinikini said Fiji and Papua New Guinea want the UN’s Special Committee on Decolonisation to send a visiting mission to New Caledonia as soon as possible to get first-hand knowledge of the situation.

He also criticised militarisation of the island after France sent hundreds of police and troops with armoured personnel carriers to restore order. Unrest has continued despite the security reinforcements.

‘Taking up arms no solution’
“Taking up arms against each other is not the solution, nor is the militarisation and fortification by authorities in the territory the correct signal in our Blue Pacific continent,” Tarakinikini said.

New Caledonia’s international airport remains closed, preventing pro-independence President Louis Mapou and other representatives from traveling to the UN committee.

Rioting is estimated by the local chamber of commerce to have caused US$200 million in economic damage, with 7000 jobs lost.

The decolonisation committee was established by the UN General Assembly in 1961 to monitor implementation of the international commitment to granting independence to colonised peoples. Today, some 17 territories, home to 2 million people and mostly part of the former British empire, are under its purview.

Fiji and Papua New Guinea are both long-term committee members, which has listed New Caledonia as a UN non-self-governing territory under French administration since 1986.

In the Pacific, American Samoa, French Polynesia, Guam, Pitcairn and Tokelau also remain on the list.

Representatives of civil society organisations who spoke to the committee criticised France’s control of New Caledonia and blamed it for triggering the crisis.

Loyalists talk of ‘coup’
Loyalists who made submissions likened the riots to a coup and a deliberate sabotage of what they said was the previous consensus between Kanaks and French immigrants, “forcing those who do not adhere to the independence project to leave.”

France’s statement to the meeting appeared to blame outside forces for fomenting unrest.

“Certain external actors, far from the region, seek to fuel tensions through campaigns to manipulate information,” the country’s delegate said, adding the European country would “continue its cooperation with the UN, including during this key period.”

French National Assembly member from French Guiana Jean Victor Castor warned the country had entered a “new phase of colonial repression.”

Castor also called on the U.N. to send a mission to “encourage France to respect its commitments and pursue the path of concerted decolonisation, the only guarantee of a return to peace.”

French control of New Caledonia gives the European nation a significant security and diplomatic role in the Pacific at a time when the US, Australia and other Western countries are pushing back against China’s inroads in the region.

New Caledonia, home to about 270,000 people, also has valuable nickel deposits that are among the world’s largest.

Unrest worst since 1980s
The unrest was the worst political violence in the Pacific territory since the 1980s. The riots erupted on May 12 as the lower house of France’s National Assembly debated and subsequently approved a constitutional amendment to unfreeze New Caledonia’s electoral roll, which would give the vote to thousands of French immigrants.

Final approval of the amendment requires a joint sitting of France’s lower house and Senate.

On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron said such efforts should be suspended following his call earlier this week for a snap general election in France, Agence France-Presse reports.

“I have decided to suspend it, because we can’t leave things ambiguous in this period,” Macron said, according to the international news service.

Referendums held in 2018 and 2020 under the UN-mandated decolonisation process produced modest majorities in favor of remaining part of France.

Less than half of New Caledonians voted in the third and final referendum in 2021 that overwhelmingly backed staying part of France.

The vote was boycotted by the Kanak independence movement after it was brought forward without consultation by the French government during a serious phase of the covid-19 pandemic, which restricted campaigning.

Mareva Lechat-Kitalong, Delegate for International, European and Pacific Affairs of French Polynesia, told the committee what happened with New Caledonia’s third referendum should “not happen again for a question so fundamental as independence or not.”

She also urged France to commit to a roadmap for French Polynesia that “fully supports a proper decolonisation process and self-determination process under the scrutiny of the United Nations.”

Copyright ©2015-2024, BenarNews. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.

French president Emmanuel Macron has landed in Nouméa.

The French Ambassador to the Pacific Véronique Roger-Lacan was on the flight.

“The unrest in New Caledonia is absolutely unacceptable,” Roger-Lacan told RNZ Pacific in an interview.

• READ MORE: Liberation for New Caledonia’s Kanak people ‘must come’, says media educator — Audio
• President Emmanuel Macron to fly to New Caledonia within hours
• ‘You are not alone’ Pacific messages of solidarity for Kanaky
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

She had just arrived back from Caracas where she represented France at this week’s United Nations seminar on decolonisation.

“As far as the French state is concerned, our door is open, we are welcoming everyone for dialogue, in Paris or in Nouméa. It’s up to everyone to join further dialogue,” Roger-Lacan said.

Roger-Lacan said the unrest had been provoked by very specific parts of the New Caledonian establishment.

She said she made a plea for dialogue at the United Nations decolonisation seminar in light of the deadly protests in New Caledonia.

‘Up to all the parties’
“Well, what I want to say is that the Nouméa agreement has enabled everyone in New Caledonia to have a representation in the French National Assembly and in the Senate,” Roger-Lacan said.

“And it is up to all the parties, including the independantistes, who have some representatives in the National Assembly and in the Senate, to use their political power to convince everyone in the National Assembly and in the Parliament.

“If they don’t manage [this], it is [an] amazingly unacceptable way of voicing their concerns through violence.”

While the French government and anti-independence leaders maintain protest organisers are to blame for the violence, pro-independence parties say they have been holding peaceful protests for months.

They say violence was born from socio-economic disparities and France turning a deaf ear to the territorial government’s call for a controversial proposed constitutional electoral amendment to be scrapped.

Roger-Lacan said while “everyone” was saying this unrest was called for because they were not listened to by the French state, France stands ready for dialogue.

She said just because one group failed to “use their political power to convince the Assembly and the Senate”, it did not justify deadly protests.

Composition questioned
A long-time journalist reporting on Pacific issues said the composition of the French President’s delegation to New Caledonia would anger pro-independence leaders.

Islands Business correspondent Nic Maclellan said Macron would be accompanied by the current Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin and Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu.

“They will no doubt be welcomed by supporters of the French republic, anti-independence politicians who want to stay with France but Lecornu and Darmanin have been responsible for key decisions taken over the last three or four years that have lead to this current crisis,” Maclellan said.

President Macron has said the main objective of the trip is to resume political talks with all stakeholders and find a political solution to the crisis.

United Nations decolonisation
This year Véronique Roger-Lacan represented France at the table at a seminar which took place in the lead up to the UN Committee on Decolonisation in New York in June.

The right to self determination is a constitutional principle in the French constitution as much as it is in the UN Charter, Roger-Lacan explained.

The meeting she has just been at in Caracas, “prepares a draft, UN General Assembly resolution, that is being examined in the committee, which is called the C-24,” she said.

Roger-Lacan was appointed to the role of French ambassador to the Pacific in July last year.

Various groups have been calling for the United Nations to head a delegation to New Caledonia to observe the current situation.

Roger-Lacan said the New Caledonia coalition government representative and the FLNKS representative both called for a UN mission at the meeting.

“Then there were five representatives of the loyalists and they all made the case of the fact that a third referenda had been in compliance with the two UN General Assembly resolutions determining the future status of New Caledonia,” she said.

As the representative of the French state, she made the case that France had always been the only administrative power to sit in the C-24 — “and to negotiate and cooperate,” she said.

“The United States, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom never did that,” Roger-Lacan said.

She also welcomed the UN, “whenever they want to visit”, she said.

“That’s the plea that I made on behalf of the French government, a plea for dialogue.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Liberation “must come” for Kanaky New Caledonia, says one of the few New Zealand journalists who have worked consistently on stories across the French Pacific territories.

Journalist David Robie was arrested at gunpoint by French police in January 1987, and is no stranger to civil unrest in New Caledonia.

Writing his first articles about the Pacific from Paris in 1974 on French nuclear testing when working for Agence France-Presse, Robie became a freelance journalist in the 1980s, working for Radio Australia, Islands Business, The Australian, Pacific Islands Monthly, Radio New Zealand and other media.

• READ MORE: Liberation for New Caledonia’s Kanak people ‘must come’, says media educator — Audio
• President Emmanuel Macron to fly to New Caledonia within hours
• ‘You are not alone’ Pacific messages of solidarity for Kanaky
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

The Asia Pacific Report editor, who has been on the case for 50 years now, arrived at his interview with RNZ Pacific with a bag of books packed with images and stories from his days in the field.

“I did get arrested twice [in Kanaky New Caledonia], in fact, but the first time was actually at gunpoint which was slightly unnerving,” Robie explained.

“They accused me of being a spy.”

Liberation ‘must come’
Robie said liberation “must come” for Kanaky New Caledonia.

“It’s really three decades of hard work by a lot of people to build, sort of like a future for New Caledonia, which is part of the Pacific rather than part of France,” Robie said.

He said France has had three Prime Ministers since 2020 and none of them seem to have any “real affinity” for indigenous issues, particularly in the South Pacific, in contrast to some previous leaders.

“From 2020 onwards, basically, France lost the plot,” after Édouard Philippe was in office, Robie said.

He called the current situation a “real tragedy” and believed New Caledonia was now more polarised than ever before.

“France has betrayed the aspirations of the indigenous Kanak people.”

Robie said the whole spirit of the Nouméa Accord was to lead Kanaky towards self determination.

New Caledonia on UN decolonisation list
New Caledonia is listed under the United Nations as a territory to be decolonised — reinstated on 2 December 1986.

“Progress had been made quite well with the first two votes on self determination, the two referendums on independence, where there’s a slightly higher and reducing opposition.”

In 2018, 43.6 percent voted in favour of independence with an 81 percent voter turnout. Two years later 46.7 percent were in favour with a voter turnout of 85.7 percent, but 96.5 percent voted against independence in 2021, with a voter turnout of just 43.8 percent.

Robie labelled the third vote a “complete write off”.

France maintains it was legitimate, despite first insisting on holding the third vote a year earlier than originally scheduled, and in spite of pleas from indigenous Kanak leaders to postpone the vote so they could properly bury and mourn the many members of their communities who died as a result of the covid-19 pandemic.

Robie said France was now taking a deliberate step to “railroad” the indigenous vote in Kanaky New Caledonia.

He said the latest “proposed amendment” to the constitution would give thousands more non-indigenous people voting rights.

“[The new voters would] completely swamp indigenous people,” Robie said.

‘Hope’ and other options
Robie said there “was hope yet”, despite France’s betrayal of the Kanaks over self-determination and independence, especially over the past three years.

French President Emmanuel Macron is under increasing pressure to scrap proposed constitutional reform by Pacific leaders which sparked riots in New Caledonia.

Pacific leaders and civil society groups have affirmed their support for New Caledonia’s path to independence.

Robie backed that call. He said there were options, including an indefinite deferment of the final stage, or Macron could use his presidential veto.

“So [I’m] hopeful that something like that will happen. There certainly has to be some kind of charismatic change to sort out the way things are at the moment.”

“Charismatic change” could be on its way with talk of a dialogue mission.

Having Édouard Philippe — who has always said he had grown a strong bond with New Caledonia when he was in office until 2020 — on the mission would be “a very positive move”, said Robie.

“Because what really is needed now is some kind of consensus,” he said.

‘We don’t want to be like the Māori in NZ’
New Caledonia could still have a constructive “partnership” with France, just like the Cook Islands has with New Zealand, Robie said.

“The only problem is that the French government doesn’t want to listen,” New Caledonia presidential spokesperson Charles Wea said.

“You cannot stop the Kanak people from claiming freedom in their own country.”

Despite the calls, Wea said concerns were setting in that Kanak people would “become a minority in their own country”.

“We [Kanak people] are afraid to be like Māori in New Zealand. We are afraid to be like Aboriginal people in Australia.”

He said those fears were why it was so important the controversial constitutional amendments did not go any further.

Robie said while Kanaks were already a minority in their own country, there had been a pretty close parity under the Nouméa Accord.

Vote a ‘retrograde step’
“Bear in mind, a lot of French people who’ve lived in New Caledonia for a long time, believe in independence as well,” he said.

But it was the “constitutional reform” that was the sticking point, something Robie refused to call a “reform”, describing as “a very retrograde step”.

In 1998, there was “goodwill” though the Nouméa accord.

“The only people who could participate in New Caledonian elections, as opposed to the French state as a whole, were indigenous Kanaks and those who had been living in New Caledonia prior to 1998,” something France brought in at the time.

Robie said a comparison can be drawn “much more with Australia”, rather than Aotearoa New Zealand.

“Kanak people resisting French control a century and a half ago were executed by the guillotine,” he said.

To Robie, Aotearoa was probably the better example of what New Caledonia could be.

“But you have to recall that New Caledonia began colonial life just like Australia, a penal colony,” he said.

Robie explained how Algerian fighters were shipped off to New Caledonia, Vietnamese fighters were also sent during the Vietnam War, among other people from other minority groups.

“A lot of people think it’s French and Kanak. It’s not. It’s a lot more mixed than that and a lot more complicated.”

The media and the blame game
As Robie explained the history, another issue became apparent: the lack of media interest and know-how to cover such events from Aotearoa New Zealand.

He said he had been disappointed to see many mainstream outlets glossing over history and focusing on the stranded Kiwis and fighting, which he said was significant, but needed context.

He said this lack of built-up knowledge within newsrooms and an apparent issue of “can’t be bothered, or it’s too problematic,” was projecting the indigenous population as the bad guys.

“There’s a projection that basically ‘Oh, well, they’re young people… looting and causing fires and that sort of thing’, they don’t get an appreciation of just how absolutely frustrated young people feel. It’s 50 percent of unemployment as a result of the nickel industry collapse, you know,” Robie explained.

When it came to finger pointing, he believed the field activist movement CCAT did not intend for all of this to happen.

“Once the protests reached a level of anger and frustration, all hell broke loose,” said Robie.

“But they [CCAT] have been made the scapegoats.

“Whereas the real culprits are the French government, and particularly the last three prime ministers in my view.”

Dr David Robie’s updated book on the New Caledonia troubles, news media and Pacific decolonisation issues was published in 2014, Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific (Little Island Press).

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

After 10 years of non-attendance, France turned up to this week’s French Polynesia sitting of the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation (C-24) — but the French delegate did not deliver the message that pro-independence French Polynesian groups wanted to hear.

French Polynesia was re-inscribed to the United Nations (UN) list of non-self-governing territories in 2013.

Pro-independence leader Moetai Brotherson, President of French Polynesia, came to power in May 2023.

• READ MORE: Macron warns of ‘new colonialism’ in Pacific, but clings to French ‘colonies’
• Other France in the Pacific reports

Since then he has claimed he received assurances from French President Emmanuel Macron that France would end its “empty chair” policy regarding UN decolonisation sessions on French Polynesia.

President Macron apparently kept his promise, but the message that the French Ambassador to the UN, Nicolas De Rivière, delivered was unambiguous.

He declared French Polynesia “has no place” on the UN list of non-autonomous territories because “French Polynesia’s history is not the history of New Caledonia”.

The indigenous Kanak peoples of New Caledonia, the other French Pacific dependency currently on the UN list, have actively pursued a pathway to decolonisation through the Noumea Accord and are still deep in negotiations with Paris about their political future.

French public media Polynésie 1ère TV quoted the ambassador as saying: “No process between France and French Polynesia allows a role for the United Nations.”

The ambassador also voiced France’s wish to have French Polynesia withdrawn from the UN list. At the end of his statement, the Ambassador left the room, leaving a junior agent to sit in his place.

This was just as more than 40 pro-independence petitioners were preparing to make their statements.

The C-24 session started on Tuesday morning.

This week, French Polynesia’s 40-plus strong — mostly pro-independence delegation — of petitioners included the now-ruling Tavini Huiraatira party, members of the civil society, the local Māohi Protestant Church, and nuclear veterans associations and members of the local Parliament (the Territorial Assembly) and French Polynesian MPs sitting at the French National Assembly in Paris.

It also included President Moetai Brotherson from Tavini.

French position on decolonisation unchanged
For the past 10 years, since it was re-inscribed on the UN list, French Polynesia has sent delegates to the meeting, with the most regular attendees being from the Tavini Huiraatira party:

“I was angry because the French ambassador left just before our petitioners were about to take the floor [. . . ] I perceived this as a sign of contempt on the part of France,” said Hinamoeura Cross, a petitioner and a pro-independence member of French Polynesia’s Territorial Assembly, reacting this week to the French envoy’s appearance then departure, Polynésie 1ère TV reports.

Since being elected to the top post in May 2023, President Brotherson has stressed that independence, although it remains a long-term goal, is not an immediate priority.

Days after his election, after meeting French President Macron for more than an hour, he said he was convinced there would be a change in France’s posture at the UN C-24 committee hearing and an end to the French “empty chair policy”.

“I think we should put those 10 years of misunderstanding, of denial of dialogue [on the part of France] behind us [. . .]. Everyone can see that since my election, the relations with France have been very good [. . . ]. President Macron and I have had a long discussion about what is happening [at the UN] and the way we see our relations with France evolve,” he told Tahiti Nui Télévision earlier this week from New York.

President ‘for all French Polynesians’ – Brotherson
President Brotherson also stressed that this week, at the UN, he would speak as President of French Polynesia on behalf of “all [French] Polynesians, including those who do not want independence today”.

“So in my speech I will be very careful not to create confusion between me coming here [at the UN] to request the implementation of a self-determination process, and me coming here to demand independence which is beside the point,” he added in the same interview.

He conceded that at the same meeting, delegates from his own Tavini party were likely to deliver punchier, more “militant”, speeches “because this is Tavini’s goal”.

“But as for me, I speak as President of French Polynesia.”

Ahead of the meeting, Tavini Huiraatira pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru said that “It’s the first time a pro-independence President of French Polynesia will speak at the UN (C-24) tribune”.

Temaru, 78, was French Polynesia’s president in 2013 when it was reinscribed to the UN list.

Speaking of the different styles between him and his 54-year-old son-in-law — Moetai Brotherson is married to Temaru’s daughter — Temaru said this week: “He has his own strategy and I have mine and mine has not changed one bit [. . .] this country must absolutely become a sovereign state.

“Can you imagine? Overnight, we would own this country of five million sq km. Today, we have nothing.”

French Minister of Home Affairs and Overseas Gérald Darmanin wrote on the social media platform X, previously Twitter, earlier this week: “On this matter just like on other ones, [France] is working with elected representatives in a constructive spirit and in the respect of the territory’s autonomy and of France’s sovereignty.”

Darmanin has already attended the C-24 meeting when it considered New Caledonia.

The United Nations list of non-self-governing territories currently includes 17 territories world-wide and six of those are located in the Pacific — American Samoa, French Polynesia, Guam, New Caledonia, Pitcairn Island and Tokelau.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) has adopted a “fresh approach” in addressing the longstanding and sensitive West Papuan issue, claims Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare.

Upon his return yesterday from the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York last week, he clarified to local media about why he had left out the West Papuan issue from his discussions at the UN.

“We have agreed during our last MSG meeting in Port Vila not to pursue independence for West Papua,” he said.

• READ MORE: Release of Victor Yeimo from Indonesian prison rekindles West Papuan fight against racism
• Other West Papua reports

“Pursuing independence at the MSG level has historically led to unnecessary human rights violations against the people of West Papua, as it becomes closely linked to the independence movement.”

His statement drew criticism from Opposition Leader Matthew Wale over the “about face” over West Papua, likening Sogavare to the betrayal of “Judas the Iscariot”.

Sogavare highlighted that MSG’s new strategy was involving the initiation of a dialogue with the Indonesian government.

The focus was on treating the people of West Papua as part of Melanesia and urging the government of Indonesia to respect them accordingly.

‘Domestic matter’
“The issue of independence and self-determination is a domestic matter that West Papua needs to address internally,” he said.

“The United Nations (C-24) has established a process allowing them the right to determine their self-determination.”

The United Nations C-24, known as the Special Committee on Decolonisation, was established in 1961 to address decolonisation issues.

This committee, a subsidiary of the UN General Assembly, is dedicated to matters related to granting independence to colonised countries and peoples.

Prime Minister Sogavare’s statements underscore the MSG’s commitment to a diplomatic approach and dialogue with Indonesia, aiming for a respectful and inclusive resolution to the West Papuan issue.

However, Opposition leader Wale expressed his disappointment with Sogavare’s statement on the right to self determination at the UN.

Sogavare had stated that Solomon Islands reaffirmed the right to self-determination as enshrined under the UN Charter.

New Caledonia, Polynesia highlighted
But while New Caledonia and French Polynesia were highlighted, Wale said it was sad that the plight of West Papua had not been included.

The opposition leader said both the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) and West Papuans were Melanesian peoples and both desired independence.

He said West Papua had been under very oppressive “schematic and systematic Indonesian colonial rule” — far worse than anything New Caledonia had suffered.

“We are Melanesians and we should always stand hand in hand with our brothers and sisters in West Papua,” he said.

Wale said diplomacy and geopolitics should never cloud “solidarity with our Melanesian people of West Papua”.

The opposition leader said it was sad that Sogavare, who had used to be a strong supporter of the West Papuan cause, had changed face.

‘Changed face’
“The Prime Minister was once a strong supporter of West Papua, a very vocal leader against the human rights atrocities, even at the UNGA and international forums in the past.

“For sure, he has been bought for 30 pieces of silver and has clearly changed face,” Wale said.

He also reiterated his call to MSG leaders to rethink their stand on West Papua.

“The Prime Minister should have maintained Solomon Islands stand on West Papua like he used to,” Wale said.

“Sogavare is no different to Judas the Iscariot.”

Charley Piringi is editor of In-Depth Solomons. Republished with permission.

The leaders of five Melanesian nations have agreed to write to French President Emmanuel Macron “expressing their strong opposition” to the results of the third New Caledonia referendum.

In December 2021, more than 96 percent of people voted against full sovereignty, but the pro-independence movement FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) has refused to recognise the result because of a boycott by the Kanak population over the impact of the covid pandemic on the referendum campaign.

Since then, the FLNKS has been seeking international support for its view that the referendum result was not a legitimate outcome.

• READ MORE:  Sad Regenvanu condemns MSG for ‘failing’ people of West Papua
• Wenda welcomes MSG call for UN visit and fights on for full membership
• OPM accuses Melanesian group of taking Jakarta’s ‘blood money’ at expense of West Papuan justice
• Wenda calls on MSG for urgent action to back pledge over human rights
• MSG throws away golden chance to reset peace and justice for West Papua
• MSG leaders defer Papua membership decision to Pacific Islands Forum
• Flashback: Fiji, PNG lead betrayal, but still West Papuans triumph (in 2015)
• Other MSG reports

The Melanesian Spearhead Group leaders — Fiji, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the FLNKS — met in Port Vila last week for the 22nd edition of the Leader’s Summit, where they said “the MSG does not recognise the results of the third referendum on the basis of the PIF’s Observer Report”.

FLNKS spokesperson Victor Tutugoro told RNZ Pacific the pro-independence group had continued to protest against the outcome of the December 2021 referendum.

“We contest the referendum because it was held during the circumstances that was not healthy for us. For example, we went through covid, we lost many members of our families [because of the pandemic],” Tutugoro said.

“We will continue to protest at the ICJ (International Court of Justice) level and at the national level. We expect the MSG to help us fight to get the United Nations to debate the cause of the Kanaks.”

The leaders have agreed that “New Caledonia’s inclusion on the UN List of decolonisation territories is protected and maintained”.

The MSG leaders have also directed the UN permanent representative to “examine and provide advice” so they can seek an opinion from the ICJ “on the results of the third referendum conducted in December 2021”.

They have also requested that the UN provide a report on the “credibility of the election process, and mandated the MSG UN permanent representatives, working with the MSG Secretariat and the FLNKS, “to pursue options on the legality of the 3rd referendum”.

Support for West Papua
New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS movement also said it would continue to back the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) to become a full member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group.

Tutugoro told the 22nd MSG Leader’s Summit in Port Vila that FLNKS had always supported West Papua’s move to join the MSG family.

He said by becoming a full member of the sub-regional group, FLNKS was able to benefit from international support to counterbalance the weight of France in its struggle for self-determination.

He said the FLNKS hoped the ULMWP would have the same opportunity and in time it could be included on the UN’s list of non-self-governing territories.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The United Liberation Movement for West Papua has responded cautiously over the Melanesian Spearhead Group’s surprise denial of full membership at its leaders summit last week, welcoming the communique while calling for urgent action over Indonesia’s grave human rights violations.

In a statement released today by President Benny Wenda after the second ULMWP leaders’ summit in Port Vila, the movement said the MSG had “misinterpreted” its founding principles based on the “inalienable right” of colonised countries for independence.

Strong speeches in support of the West Papuan struggle were made at the ULMWP summit by Vanuatu’s Ralph Regenvanu, the current Climate Minister and a former foreign minister, and Barak Sope, a former prime minister.

• READ MORE:  OPM accuses Melanesian group of taking Jakarta’s ‘blood money’ at expense of West Papuan justice
• MSG throws away golden chance to reset peace and justice for West Papua
• MSG leaders defer Papua membership decision to Pacific Islands Forum
• Flashback: Fiji, PNG lead betrayal, but still West Papuans triumph (in 2015)
• Other MSG reports

Wenda said the ULMWP agreed to the MSG chair asking the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) to ensure that the requested visit of the UN Human Rights Commissioner to Indonesia takes place, and to asking Jakarta to allow the commissioner to visit West Papua and have the report considered at the next MSG summit in 2024.

But he added the hope that the MSG chair would “honour” these commitments urgently, “given the grave human rights violations on the ground in West Papua, including the recent warnings on human rights issues from the UN Special Advisor on Genocide”.

The ULMWP also expressed:

• Scepticism about the impact of the renewed call for a UN visit, given that the visit had been continually denied in spite of the 2019 calls by the Pacific islands Forum (PIF) and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS);
• Reservation on the possibility of future dialogue with the Indonesia government. Full MSG membership was a precondition;
• Reservation on the discussion of “closer collaboration” with the Indonesian government when the people of West Papua had asked for full MSG membership; and
• Reservation on the statement: “Membership must be limited only to sovereign and independent states, with special arrangements for FLNKS”.

On the FLNKS statement, Wenda said: “This appears to be a misinterpretation of the founding principles of the Melanesian Spearhead Group which state that, ‘having come together, the Melanesian Spearhead Group commit themselves to the principles of, respect for, and promotion of, independence as the inalienable right of colonial countries and people.’”

Meanwhile, as condemnation of the MSG’s position on West Papua has grown since the “disappointing” summit last week, Governor Powes Parkop of Papua New Guinea’s capital Port Moresby, has made renewed criticism.

“I am totally disappointed but I will never give up until my last breath,” he told Asia Pacific Report.

“Our heritage is that we defend our land and our people. For thousands of years we defeated the Melayu people of Indonesia or the various Muslim and Hindu empires which tried to enter our ancestral land.

“They never succeeded. We only were overwhelmed by European superior weapons and abilities in 1800s and subsequently Indonesians took over after arming themselves with these superior weapons left by colonial powers and the Japanese invading army,” said Parkop, who has long been a critic of Papua New Guinea’s failure to take a stronger stance over Indonesia.

“I will honour our heritage and our ancestors by continuing to challenge Indonesian rule over West Papua our ancestral land. We have lost many battles, heroes and heroines, but Indonesia has and will never win the war.

“We are fighting for our rights, our dignity and our heritage and nothing Indonesia does will dent that drive and energy.”

News media in Indonesia act as “government loudspeakers” by advancing a one-sided narrative regarding the conflict in West Papua, a new study reveals.

The human rights abuses against indigenous Papuans, who have been under military occupation of the Indonesian armed forces since 1962-63 and their struggle for independence from Jakarta, remains a sticking point for the Indonesian government in the region.

However, the Indonesian national media provides an unfair coverage on the plight of the West Papuans by only amplifying the state’s narrative, according to research published in Pacific Journalism Review.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific Journalism Review research reports
• Other West Papua reports

The paper, which looks at how six dominant news media organisations in Indonesia report on the Free West Papua movement, found that they “tend to be only a ‘loudspeaker’ for the government” by using mainly statements issued by state officials when reporting about West Papua.

The findings come from in-depth interviews that were conducted between 2021 and 2022 with six informants and journalists who have a history of writing on West Papua in the last five years.

Additionally, the research analysed over 270 news items relating to West Papua issues that appeared in the six Indonesian online media — Okezone, Detik, Kompas.com, Tribunnews, CNN Indonesia and Tirto — in the week after the Indonesian government formally labelled the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement (TPNPB-OPM) as a terrorist group in April 2021.

“The Indonesian media does not use a balanced frame, for example, in terms of explaining why and how acts of violence are chosen on the path to fight for West Papuan independence,” the author of the research from Universitas Padjadjaran, Justito Adipresto, writes.

‘Prolonging human rights violations’
Non-state actors have acknowledged that “labelling West Papuan separatist groups as terrorist will not only not solve the problem, but that it also has the potential to prolong the human rights violations that have been taking place in West Papua,” Adipresto says.

While some point to the economic disparities as a starting point to the West Papua conflict, the research shows that the media fall significantly short of providing a nuanced coverage by ignoring the “haunting track record of violence and militarism, ethnicity and racism” in their reports.

“The imbalance of representation that occurs in relation to reporting on West Papua cannot be separated from Indonesia’s treatment of ethnic groups and the region of West Papua,” Adipresto says.

He says the government’s labelling of the Free West Papua movement has “severe implications for the current and future situation and conflict in West Papua”.

“Media in Indonesia is under the shadow of the state,” he said adding that reporting on West Papua lacks “explanation and sufficient context”.

He said Indonesian media were “very concerned about the readers clicks”, and therefore on the quantity of reports rather than the quality.

“The concentration of reporters in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, also leads to reporting from reporters not located in or never having visited West Papua, potentially reducing empathy and understanding of human rights or economic aspects in their reporting.

‘Quality, ethics of journalists are an issue’
“The quality and ethics of journalists are an issue in reporting on West Papua, considering that journalists do not tend to cover the issue of labelling a ‘terrorist’ comprehensively.”

The research shows Indonesian media place greater importance on comments from government officials, often ignoring or not providing space for other voices, in particular the West Papuan community.

“It is necessary to develop a more systematic and consolidated strategy for the national media to cover West Papua better,” the author concludes.

The full paper, titled “Government loudspeakers: How Indonesian media amplifies the state’s narrative towards the Free West Papua movement”, can be found at Pacific Journalism Review, published by the Asia Pacific Media Network. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The leader of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) has called for the establishment of a “United Indigenous Nations” for global justice and an end to Indonesia’s ‘malignant’ colonisation of West Papua.

Today — August 9 — is the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, as declared at the inaugural UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva in 1982.

OPM chairman and commander Jeffrey Bomanak said such a new global indigenous body would “not repeat the failure of the United Nations in denying any people their freedom”.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua decolonisation reports

“The integrity of indigenous peoples is not for sale,” he said in a stinging statement to mark the international day.

He offered an “independent” West Papua as host for the proposed United Indigenous Nations to lead international governance with an international forum representing — for the first time — the principled values and ideals of indigenous and First Nations peoples who were the “true guardians of our ancestral motherlands”.

He criticised the UN’s lack of action over decolonisation for indigenous peoples, blaming the body for allowing the “predatory destruction of the world caused by the economic multinational imperialists and their unsustainable greed”.

Citing the UN website for indigenous peoples, he highlighted the statement:

“Centuries-old marginalisation and other varying vulnerabilities are some of the reasons why indigenous peoples do not have the same possibilities of access to education, health system, or digital communications.”

And also:

“Violations of the rights of the world’s indigenous peoples have become a persistent problem, sometimes because of a historical burden from their colonisation backgrounds and others because of the contrast with a constantly changing society.”

Bomanak said that while these two quotes read well, they were “misrepresentative of the truth that has been West Papua’s tragic experience with the United Nations”.

‘Disingenuous manipulation’
“The facts are that the UN has prevented West Papua’s right to decolonisation through a disingenuous manipulation of the Cold War events of the 1960s,” he said.

“Indonesia’s invasion and illegal annexation of West Papua remains a malignancy in principle and diplomacy only matched by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But with different diplomatic outcomes applied by the UN Secretariat.

“The UN Secretariat acts with incredulous diplomatic effrontery to allegations of collusion and complicity with a host of other predatory nations, all eager to plunder West Papua’s natural resources — the world’s greatest El Dorado.”

He singled out Australia, China, France, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States for criticism.

Indigenous people knew the story of West Papua from their own experience with the same predatory nations and the “same prejudicial and corrupt geopolitics” that characterised the UN, Bomanak said.

“G20 conquerors and colonisers have never put down their swords and guns. They have never stopped conquering and colonising, either by military invasion or economic imperialism.

“They will never understand the indigenous perception of ancestral custodianship of our lands.

“The defence forces and militia groups of G20 nations still murder us in our beds and our beds are burning.”

Conflict of interest
The UN could not stop “global melting” because it was a conflict of interest with the “G20
business-as-usual paradigm of economic exploitation” fueling expansion economies.

“They will not stop until all our ancestral lands are one infertile wasteland. The UN is unable to resolve this self-defeating dynamic,” Bomanak said.

“The UN should be a democratic, progressive and 100 percent accountable institution. This is not West Papua’s experience.

“Six decades ago, the UN should have fulfilled the decolonisation of West Papua for the commencement of our nation-state sovereignty. Instead, we were sold to the highest bidders — Indonesia and the American mining company Freeport McMoRan.”

The problem with international diplomacy was that the UN was “beholden to the G20’s vested interests” and its formal meeting place in New York, Bomanak claimed.

“Why remain inside the belly of the beast?” he asked other indigenous peoples.

“Upon liberation of our ancestral motherland, and upon the agreement of the new government of West Papua, I would like to offer all colonised tribes and nations of the conquering empires — all indigenous peoples — the opportunity to manage our international affairs with absolute justice and accountability.

“International relations with indigenous governance for indigenous people. We will build the United Indigenous Nations in West Papua.”

• Read more at OPM

The name Vanuatu has taken on a sacred significance in Papuan liberation consciousness.

The Free Papua Movement (OPM) elders ignited this consciousness after the declaration of West Papua’s independence on 1 July 1971.

The declaration was an act of revolution to reclaim Papuan sovereignty, stolen by Indonesia.

• READ MORE: ULMWP welcomes Vanuatu leader’s ‘Melanesian way’ vow in Jakarta
• West Papua wins observer status in MSG
• Other West Papua reports

General Seth Rumkorem and Jacob Prai declared it, defended it, and received official recognition. Dakar, Senegal, was among them, the first international diplomatic office opened by OPM shortly after the declaration.

As Papuans resisted the invasion, they sought refuge in the Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Sweden, Australia, and Greece. All joined, at least in spirit, under the name OPM.

Its spirit of revolution that bonded West Papua and Vanuatu with those across Europe, Oceania, and Africa. This was a time of decolonisation, revolution, and a Cold War.

The decolonisation movement back then was more conscious in heart and mind of humanity than now.

Rex Rumakiek’s ‘sacred connection’
Rex Rumakiek (now aged 78), a long time OPM fighter alongside others, established this sacred connection in 1978.

In Papua New Guinea, Rumakiek met with students from Vanuatu studying at the University of Papua New Guinea and shared the OPM’s revolutionary victory, tragedy, and solution.

These students later took prominent roles in the formation of the independent state of Vanuatu — became part of the solution — laid a foundation of hope.

A common spirit emerged between the OPM’s resistance to Indonesian colonisation and Vanuatu’s struggle for freedom from long-term European (French and English) confederation rule.

A brutal system of dual rule known as Condominium — critics called it “Pandemonium” (chaos and disorder).

West Papua, a land known as “little heaven” is indeed like a Garden of Eden in Milton’s epic Paradise Lost poem.

To restore freedom and justice to that betrayed, lost paradise was the foundation of Vanuatu and West Papua’s relationship. For more than 40 years Vanuatu has been a beacon of hope.

Deep connections
Both shared deep religious metaphysical, cultural, and political connections.

On a metaphysical level, Vanuatu became a place of hope and redemption. Apart from supporting the West Papua freedom fighters, Vanuatu played a critical role in the reconciliation of Papuans who split off in various directions due to internal conflicts over numerous issues, including ideologies and strategies.

A tragedy of internal disputes and conflicts that placed a long-lasting strain on their collective war against Indonesian occupation.

This can be seen from Vanuatu’s decades-long effort to invite two key leaders of the West Papuan Provisional Parliament — General Seth Rumkorem and Jacob Prai.

In 2011, Peter King, Jim Elmslie and Camellia Webb-Gannon’s paper “Comprehending West Papua” wrote:

In 1985, Vanuatu brought the two conflicting leaders of OPM, Mr. Jacob Prai and Gen. Seth Rumkorem, to Vanuatu and ended their differences so that they could work together (p. 217).

In 2000, Vanuatu invited the OPM leaders and Papua’s Presidium Council (PDP) to sign a memorandum of understanding. The year 2008 was also a year of reconciliation, which led to the formation of the West Papua Nation Coalition of Liberation (WPNCL).

In 2014, there was another big reconciliation summit in Port Vila, which led to the formation of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP).

Melanesian identity
Culturally, Vanuatu and West Papua share a deep sense of Melanesian identity — a common bond from shared experiences of colonisation, racism, mistreatment, dehumanisation, and slavery.

This bond, however, is strengthened far beyond these European and Indonesian atrocities as Barak Sope, one of Melanesia’s key thinkers and prominent supporters of West Papua put it in 2017, Papuans and Vanuatu and all Melanesians in Oceania have deep ancient roots. There are deep Melanesian links that connect our ancestors. Europeans came and destroyed that connection by rewriting our history because they had the power of written language, and we did not.

Our connections were recorded in myths, legends, songs, dances, and culture. It is our duty now to revive that ancient link (Conversation with Yamin Kogoya in Port Vila, December 2017).

Politically, Vanuatu and West Papua also share a common sense of resistance to both European and Indonesian colonisations.

Father Walter Lini, founder of Vanuatu and MSG, later became Prime Minister. Following its renaming as the Vanua’aku Pati in 1974, Lini’s party pushed hard for independence — the Republic of Vanuatu was formally established in 1980.

The OPM and Black Brothers helped shape this new nation and were part of a force that created a pan-Melanesian identity through music.

“Vanuatu will not be completely free until all Melanesia is free from colonialism” is Walter Lini’s famous saying, which has been used by West Papua and New Caledonian Kanaks in their struggle for liberation against Indonesian and French colonisation.

A just world
During this long journey, a profound bond and sense of connection and a shared cause, and destiny for a just world was born between Vanuatu and West Papua and the greater Oceania. A kind of Messianic hope developed with name Vanuatu that Papuans a hope that deliverance would come from Vanuatu.

Papuans can only express their gratitude in social media through their artistic works and heartfelt thanksgiving messages.

Ahead of the upcoming MSG summit, the Free West Papua Campaign Facebook page has posted the following image showing a Papuan with Morning Star clothing crossing a cliff on the back of a larger and taller figure representing Vanuatu.

In politics, it is all about diplomacy, networks, and cooperation, as the famous PNG politicians’ mantra in their foreign policy, “Friend to all and enemy to none.” This is such an ironic and tragic position to be in when half of PNG’s country men are “going extinct”, and they know how and why?

Sometimes the only solution is to confront such an evil head on when/if innocent lives are at risk. The notion of being friends with everyone and enemies with nobody has no virtue, value, substance, or essence.

In the real-world, humans have friends and enemies. The only question is, we must not only choose between friends and foes but also understand the difference between them.

No human, whether realist, idealist, traditionalist, or transcendentalist, who sincerely believes, can make a neutral virtue less stand — where right and wrong are neither right nor wrong at the same time. Human agents must make choices. Being able to choose and know the difference and reasons why, is what makes us human — this is where value is contested, for and against.

Stand up for something
In the current world climate, someone must stand up for something — for the oppressed, for the marginalised, the abused, the persecuted, the land, for the planet and for humanity.

This tiny island country, Vanuatu has exhibited that warrior spirit for many years. In March, Vanuatu spearheaded a UN resolution on climate change. Nina Lakhani in The Guardian wrote:

“The UN general assembly adopted by consensus the resolution spearheaded by Vanuatu, a tiny Pacific island nation vulnerable to extreme climate effects, and youth activists to secure a legal opinion from the international court of justice (ICJ) to clarify states’ obligations to tackle the climate crisis — and specify any consequences countries should face for inaction.”

More than 60 years ago, when West Papua was kicked around like a football by the imperial West and East, Indonesia, the Netherlands, the United Nations and the illegal UN-sponsored sham referendum of 1969, no one on this planet dared to stand up for West Papua.

West Papua was abandoned by the world.

The Dutch attempted to safeguard that “sacred trust” by enlisting West Papua into the UN Decolonisation list under article 73 of the UN charter. The Dutch did the right thing.

The sacred trust, however, was betrayed when West Papua was transferred to the United Temporary Executive (UNTEA) following the infamous New York Agreement on 15 August 1962.

This sacred trust was to be protected by the UNTEA but it was betrayed when it was handed over to Indonesia in May 1963, resulting in Indonesia’s invasion of West Papua.

This invasion instilled fear throughout West Papua, paving the way for the 1969 referendum to be held under incredible fear and gunpoint of the already intimidated 1025 Papuan elders.

In 1969, instead of protecting the trust, the UN betrayed it by being complicit in the whole tragic events unfolding.

OPM’s answer to the illegal referendum — The Act of Free Choice
OPM’s proclamation on 1 July 1971 was the answer to the (rejection of that illegal and fraudulent) referendum, known as the Penentuan Pendapat Rakyat-Pepera in 1969.

In protest, out of fear, and in resistance to one of the most tragic betrayals and tragedies in human history, an overwhelming number of Papuans left West Papua during this period. Several countries opened their arms to West Papua, including Vanuatu.

Several African countries recognised OPM’s declaration and Ben Tanggahma was the first official OPM diplomat sent to Senegal, Sponsored and funded by the Senegalese government officially.

A major split occurred in OPM camps due to internal conflict and disagreement between the two key founding members. The legacy of this tragedy has been disastrous for future Papuan resistance fighters.

Papuans are partly responsible for betraying that sacred trust as well. This realisation is critical for Papuan-self redemption. That is the secret, redemption, and genuine reconciliation.

Every time a high-profile figure from Vanuatu or any Melanesian country engages internationally, Papuans feel extremely anxious. Amid the historical betrayals, Papuans wonder, “Will they betray us or rescue us?”

This tiny doubt eats at the soul of humankind. It is always toxic, a seed that contaminates and derails human trust.

In such difficult times, it is crucial for Papuans to reflect sincerely and ask, “where are we?” Are we doing, okay? What’s going on? Are we making the right decisions, are our collective defence systems secure?

Vanuatu’s historic visit to Jakarta
Jotham Napat, the Foreign Minister of Vanuatu, visited Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi on 16 June 2023. The main topic of discussion was bilateral relations between the two countries.

It is the first visit by a Vanuatu foreign minister to Indonesia in more than a decade. This marks an important milestone.

According to Retno, “I am delighted to hear about Vanuatu’s plan to open an embassy in Indonesia, and I welcome the idea of holding annual consultations between the two countries,” in her statement.

At Monday’s meeting, Napat expressed urgency to build a sound partnership between Vanuatu and Indonesia and expressed his eagerness to recover trust. The minister also expressed his country’s eagerness to create a technical cooperation agreement between the two countries and to establish sister city and sister province partnerships, which he said could begin with Papua.

Welcoming DPM/FM Jotham Napat of Vanuatu on his 1st official visit to Indonesia – the 1st visit of FM in more than a decade

An important milestone in our bilateral relations, based on respect to sovereignty, territorial integrity & principles of mutual interests & benefits pic.twitter.com/Y8GkpwxvQC

— Menteri Luar Negeri Republik Indonesia (@Menlu_RI) June 16, 2023

During a joint press conference with Indonesian Vice-President Ma’ruf Amin, Napat expressed his commitment to the “Melanesian way”.

Vanuatu’s Napat meets Indonesian Vice-President
In response to Minister Napat’s visit to West Papua, Benny Wenda of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) said he welcomed the minister’s remarks on the “Melanesian Way”. Though it isn’t really clear what the Melanesian way is all about?

“Melanesian Way” is a complicated term. Although intuitively, everyone in the Melanesian context assumes to know it. Bernard Narakobi, the person who coined the term refused to define it. It has been described by Narakobi as being comparable to Moses asking God to explain who God was to him.

“God did not reveal himself by a definition, but by a statement that I am who I am,” wrote Narakobi.

Because God is the archetypical ultimate, infallible, eternal, omnipresent, alpha and omega. Narakobi’s statement about the God and Moses analogy is true that God cannot be defined by any point of reference; God is the point of reference.

For Melanesians, however, we are not God. We are mortal, unpredictable, flawed, with aspects of both malevolence and goodness. Therefore, to state that “we are who we are” could mean anything.

We (especially those in decision-making power) need a deeper understand of not just who but what we are and what we are becoming — either a force of evil or good. Be the witness of Truth or Falsehood. This is where the real war is.

Continuing his search for a path for Melanesia, Narakobi wrote:

“Melanesian voice is meant to be a force for truth. It is meant to give witness to the truth. Whereas the final or the ultimate truth is the divine source, the syllogistically or the logical truth is dependent on the basic premises one adopts. The Melanesian voice is meant to be a forum of Melanesian wisdom and values, based on Melanesian experience.”

It seems that these truths and virtues as outlined by this great Melanesian philosopher do not have a common shared value system that binds the states of the MSG together.

‘Bought for 30 pieces of silver’
Following the rejection of ULMWP’s membership bid in Honiara in 2016, Vanuatu’s then Deputy Prime Minister, Joe Natuman, stated,

“Our Prime Minister was the only one talking in support of full membership for West Papua in the MSG, the Solomon Islands Prime Minister couldn’t say very much because he is the chairman.

“Prime Minister Charlot Salwai was the only one defending Melanesians and the history of Melanesian people in the recent MSG meeting in Honiara.

“The MSG, I must repeat, the MSG, which I was a pioneer in setting up, was established for the protection of the identity of the Melanesian people, the promotion of their culture and defending their rights. Right to self-determination, right to land and right to their resources.

“Now it appears other people are trying to use the MSG to drive their own agendas and I am sorry, but I will insist that MSG is being bought by others.

“It is just like Jesus Christ who was bought for 30 pieces of silver. This is what is happening in the MSG. I am very upset about this, and we need to correct this issue.

“Because if our friends in Fiji and Papua New Guinea have a different agenda, we need to sit down and talk very seriously about what is happening within the organisation.”

Principles or a facade?
Whatever agenda Minister Napat had in mind when he travelled to Jakarta on June 16 — in a capital of rulers whose policies have resulted in fatalistic and genocidal outcomes for West Papuans for 60 years — these wisdoms from Melanesian elders will either be his guiding principle, or he will use the term “Melanesian Way” as a facade to conceal different intents not in agreement with these Melanesian values.

These are the types of questions that are at stake for West Papua, Vanuatu, and Melanesians, particularly in a world which is rapidly changing, including ourselves and our values.

In an interview with Island Business published on 3 February 2023, Minister Napat stated his priority for the 100-day work plan.

“Vanuatu has, like other Pacific countries, too often in the past been seen in the international limelight as a subservient associate to others’ interests and agendas, this must change if Vanuatu is to take its rightful place as an equal partner in the international arena.

“The creation and implementation of a new National Foreign Policy must take into account current global geopolitical trends”.

Minister Napat continued:

“The global geopolitical environment has and will continue to change. Our government must implement foreign policy directions which will have as its first priority, the best interests of the nation and people of Vanuatu.

“Since the original foreign policy directions after independence, Vanuatu’s foreign policy approaches in the last 30 years have been at times unclear, ad hoc, and reactive to circumstances and influences. It is time we set our own course and become proactive at all times”.

Vanuatu only support
The minister did not rule out West Papua as one of the countries that influences Vanuatu’s engagement with the world. As anyone familiar with West Papua’s plight knows, Vanuatu is the only sovereign UN member country that has publicly supported West Papua.

There is no indication as to whether those “other interests” and “agendas” pertain to West Papua, Indonesia, MSG, the USA, China, or Australia.

If the minister’s trip to Jakarta was demonstrative of his pragmatic words and West Papua is one of the external interferences the Minister has implied, then Papuans can only hope for the best, that new developing relationships between Jakarta and Port Vila will not be another major betrayal for Papuans.

Minister Napa’s pragmatic approach to adapting to an unpredictable changing world is crucial for the country. Especially since Oceania is becoming increasingly similar to the New Middle East as China and the United States continue to compete, contest, revive or renew their engagement with island nations.

There is also another major player in the region, Indonesia, which has its own interests.

The government and the people of Vanuatu have a duty and responsibility to ensure they must be ready to face these vulgar threats, they pose as stated by the Minister. For persecuted Papuans, their only wish is: Please don’t betray us — the Sacred Trust.

West Papua will always remain a lingering issue — a unresolved murder mystery that has been swept under the rug. For a long time, the Vanuatu government and its people have decided to resolve this issue.

Vanuatu’s Wantok Blong Yumi Bill – Sacred Trust
On 19 June 2010, this sacred trust was protected when the notion regarding West Papua was passed by Vanuatu’s Parliament. The purpose of the “Wantok blong yumi” Bill was to allow the government of Vanuatu to develop specific policies regarding the support of West Papua’s independence struggle.

Then, both the government under the late Prime Minister Edward Natape and his opposition leader, Maxime Carlot Korman, united and sponsored the motion to be drafted by one of the young proponents of West Papua’s cause, Ralph Regevanu, on behalf of the people of Vanuatu and West Papua.

In fact, this was a historic and extraordinary event. It was called a “Parliament extraordinary session” — a sacred session. This Act is an analogy to the declaration of war by tiny young ancient Jews against the giant Goliath and his fearsome army. With a slingshot, David defeated Goliath, not with a giant weapon, bomb, or money, but with courage, bravery and faith.

The Wantok Bill was Vanuatu’s slingshot to fight against and defeat the might of pandemonium warlords and Goliath armies that tortured Papuans everyday while scavenging the richness of this paradise land that has been continuously betrayed.

After the success of the motion, the prime minister promised to sponsor the issue of West Papua at the MSG and PIF meetings.

This promise was partially fulfilled when West Papua was granted observer status in the MSG in 2015. Tragically, this courageous figure passed away on 28 July 2015 (aged 61) just a few days after West Papua was granted observer status by the MSG on June 26.

Furthermore, West Papua has seen some positive developments at an international level. In September 2016, seven Pacific Island countries raised the plight and struggle of the West Papuan people at the UN General Assembly.

A resolution was passed by the PIF in 2019 regarding West Papua.

During the ninth ACP summit of heads of state and government, Ralph Regevanu and Benny Wenda succeeded in convincing the group to pass a resolution calling for urgent attention to be paid to the rights situation in Indonesia-ruled Papua.

Vanuatu also made it possible for Pacific leaders to request that the UN Human Rights Commissioner visit West Papua in 2019. Ralph Regevanu, then Vanuatu’s Foreign Minister, drafted the wording of the PIF’s Communique.

Edward Natape also said his government would apply to the UN Decolonisation Committee for West Papua to be relisted so the territory could undergo the due process of decolonisation.

West Papuans still wait for the UN’s promised decolonisation
A long time OPM representative from West Papua, Dr John Otto Ondawame, and Andy Ayamiseba, were among those who witnessed and assisted in this victory. Sadly, both of them have since died.

Dr Ondawame died in 2014 and Andy Ayamiseba in 2020.

Both of these figures, as well as others, were long-time residents of Vanuatu since the 1980s. With their Vanuatu, Melanesia, and Oceania Wantoks, they had tirelessly fought for the rights of West Papua.

The people of West Papua continue to look towards Vanuatu and Melanesia and pray, just as the exiled diaspora of persecuted Jews looked towards Jerusalem and prayed. Vanuatu remains a beacon of hope for West Papua

Papuans’ greatest task, challenge and responsibility is to determine where to go from here.

This spirit of revolution was ignited by the OPM elders, and many brave young men, women, and elderly are fighting for it in West Papua today.

There are also many brave men and women spreading the words of West Papua’s genocide at national, regional, and international levels. The Papuan freedom fighters, irrespective of their faction, don’t have much room for mistake. A mistake made by Papuans will lead to enemies turning us into pieces without mercy.

Mistakes, whether reckless decisions, slander, internal disputes, or hatred; poor individual decisions directly impact on our lives and the existence of West Papua’s independence struggle.

On 30 June 2023, the MSG Foreign Ministers Meeting (FMM) concluded successfully with members approving the outcomes of the MSG senior officials meeting (SOM) at the MSG secretariat in Port Vila, Vanuatu. A traditional welcome ceremony was conducted for the delegates.

A progress report by the MSG Director-General was presented to the SOM, along with the secretariat’s annual reports for 2020 and 2021, a calendar of events for 2023, a proposal to establish MSG supporting offices in member countries and a draft of the MSG secretariat’s work programme and budget for 2023.

The same people who were seen in Jakarta dancing, singing and propagated imageries of gestures, symbols, images, and rhetoric are the ones driving this MSG meeting. Indonesia’s delegation with the red and white flag is also seen sitting inside the MSG’s headquarters — the sacred place, sacred building, of the Melanesian people.

The test for Vanuatu is so high at the moment — reaching a climactic decision for West Papua. Hundreds of Free West Papua social media campaigns groups are inundated with so much optimistic images, symbols, cartoon drawing, words, prayers.

Giving this connection and high emancipation with the upcoming MSG summit, Minister Jotham Napat’s visit to Jakarta was indeed a huge shock for Papuans.

For Papuans, this is a stressful time for such a visit. Pressures, anticipation, prayers, and anxiety for MSG is too high.

Adding to this, this year the Chairmanship and Leaders’ Summit of the MSG are being entrusted to Vanuatu and Vanuatu is also the home base of MSG.

One of the moments West Papua have been waiting for

In the upcoming MSG games, Vanuatu had all the best cards at her disposal to achieve something big for Papuans. Vanuatu was one of key founding fathers of MSG, the MSG embeds Vanuatu’s spirit and values.

There is much more at stake in this war, this fight, and this choice than a membership issue, it is a choice between right and wrong. Ultimately, the issue is about defending the sacred MSG — the home of Melanesian people, culture, and language as well as thousands of rich and diverse islands and spices.

It would be “THE” long-awaited moment for Papuans to enter into MSG as Papuans have been insisting that their Melanesian family has been left out for decades.

Social media images and small videos of Vanuatu’s delegation, MSG’s leader and Papuans who support the Indonesian occupation of West Papua dancing and singing during the visit was indeed disheartening for Papuans.

The imagery and propaganda of the visit spread through the media. They intended to dim Vanuatu’s dawn Morning Star. A sacred beacon of light where tortured West Papuans look to, every morning, and pray for deliverance.

Vanuatu’s “Messianic hope” for West Papua in a world where almost no nations, empires, kingdoms, and institutions such as the UN offer refuge, to listen to and seeing such propaganda imageries spread through social media is dispiriting.

Whatever the reason for this visit might be, Papuans who simply just want their freedom from Indonesia, seeing such a visit and display of their trusted friend at the headquarters of their tormentors prompts immediate questions: What happened and why?

‘Liklil Hope Tasol’ (Little Hope At All)
Dan McGarry, former media director of the Vanuatu Daily Post, writes:

“One of the more popular songs Ayamiseba wrote for the Black Brothers is ‘Liklik Hope Tasol’, a ballad written in Tok Pisin whose title translates as ‘Little Hope At All’. Its narrator lies awake in the early morning hours, the victim of despair.

The vision of the Morning Star and a songbird breaking the pre-dawn hush provide the impetus to survive another day. The song, with its clear political imagery and simplistic evocation of strength in adversity, is clearly autobiographical. It is, arguably, the anthem which animated Ayamiseba’s lifelong pursuit of freedom.”

Such an extravagant display of rhetoric and imagery in the capital of the Pandemonium army that has mercilessly been hunting down “Papuans” on “their ancient timeless land”, New Guinea, as PNG philosopher Narakobi described it, or “little heaven” as Papuans referred to it, can only mean two things: either destroy that “little hope” or “rescue it”.

Only God knows the answer to this question as well of the real intent of the visit and what outcome will emerge from it — will it bring disappearance or hope for Papuans.

The late Pastor Allen Nafuki, a key figure in Vanuatu responsible for bringing warring factions of Papuan resistance groups together in Port Vila in 2014, which helped precipitate much of the ULMWP’s international success, left his last message on West Papua before he died: “God will never sleep for West Papua.”

Papuans appreciated and were encouraged by the pastor’s message. What is at stake is to make sure we don’t fall asleep in this fight.

Vanuatu is a sovereign independent country and as a sovereign nation, Vanuatu has every right to choose to whom she wants to be friends with, visit and sign any treaties and agreements with.

However, when the sacred trust of hope for the betrayed, rejected, persecuted nation like West Papuans is entrusted to them either by choice, force, or compassion, then the choice is clear: You either betray that trust, compromise it, or protect it.

The seed of the sacred bond planted by legendary OPM freedom fighters when the nation of Vanuatu was founded, before MSG was founded, will be either dimmed, betrayed, or resurrected.

The 2010 “Wantok Blong Yumi” Bill should be resurrected and protection given for the “Sacred Trust” (The Sovereignty of West Papua) that has been betrayed for more than 60 years.

The United Nations was the place that the Sacred Trust was betrayed and Vanuatu as a new Guardian of this Trust should restore that trust in the same institution. The statement by the former UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, during the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Summit in Auckland stated: “West Papua is an issue; the right place for it to be discussed, is the Decolonisation Committee of UNGA”.

Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

• Other Yamin Kogoya articles

New Caledonia’s Kanak national liberation movement has told the UN Decolonisation Committee that France has “robbed” the indigenous people of their independence and has appealed for help.

Magalie Tingal-Lémé, the permanent representative of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) at the UN, told a session of the Committee of 24 (C24) — as the special decolonisation body is known — that the French authorities had failed to honour the 1998 Noumea Accord self-determination aspirations, especially by pressing ahead with the third independence referendum in December 2021 in defiance of Kanak opposition.

More than half the eligible voting population boycotted the third ballot after the previous two referendums in 2018 and 2020 recorded narrowing defeats for independence.

• READ MORE: Politician tells UN New Caledonia is not a colony
• Unfinished business over New Caledonian decolonisation – new challenges after ‘stolen’ referendum
• Independence for Kanaky: A media and political stalemate or a ‘three strikes’ Frexit challenge?
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

The pro-independence Kanak groups wanted the referendum delayed due to the devastating impact that the covid-19 pandemic had had on the indigenous population.

Tingal-Lémé told the UN session that speaking as an indigenous Kanak woman, she represented the FLNKS and “every time we speak before your institution, we carry the voice of the colonised people”.

“When we speak of colonisation, we are necessarily speaking of the people who have suffered the damage, the stigma and the consequences,” she said in her passionate speech.

“On September 24, my country will have been under colonial rule for 170 years.”

Accords brought peace
Tingal-Lémé said two political accords with France had brought peace to New Caledonia after the turbulent 1980s, “the second of which — the Nouméa Accord — [was taking] the country on the way for full emancipation”.

“And it is in a spirit of dialogue and consensus that the indépendentistes have kept their word, despite, and in the name, of spilled blood.”

In 2018, the first of three scheduled votes on sovereignty, 56.4 percent rejected independence with an 81 percent turnout of the 174,995 voters eligible to vote.

Two years later, independence was again rejected, but this time with an increased support to almost 47 percent. Turnout also slightly grew to 85.69 percent.

However, in December 2021 the turnout dropped by about half with most Kanaks boycotting the referendum due to the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, this time the “yes” vote dropped to a mere 3.5 percent.

“Since December 12, 2021, when France maintained the third and final referendum — even though we had requested its postponement due to the human trauma of covid-19 — we have never ceased to contest its holding and its results,” Tingal-Lémé said.

Nearly 57 percent of voters had not turned out on the day due to the covid boycott.

‘We’ll never accept this outcome’
“We believe that through this illegitimate referendum, the French state has robbed us of our independence. We will never accept this outcome!

“And so, unable to contest the results under French internal law, we are turning to the international community for an impartial institution to indicate how to resume a process that complies with international rules on decolonisation.

“Through the Nouméa Accord, France has committed itself and the populations concerned to an original decolonisation process, which should lead to the full emancipation of Kanaky.

“Today, the FLNKS believes that the administering power has not fulfilled its obligations.”

Tingal-Lémé said the “latest evidence” of this failure was a New Caledonian decolonisation audit, whose report had just been made public.

She said this audit report had been requested by the FLNKS for the past five years so that it would be available — along with the assessment of the Nouméa Accord — before the three referendums to “enlighten voters”.

“The pro-independence movement found itself alone in raising public awareness of the positive stakes of self-determination, and had to campaign against a state that sided with the anti-independence groups.”

Magalie Tingal-Lémé’s speech to the UN Decolonisation Committee. Video: MTL

Entrusted to a ‘market’ firm
Also, the French government had “entrusted” this work to a firm specialising in market analysis strategies, she said.

“This shows how much consideration the administering power has given to this exercise and to its international obligations regarding the decolonisation.

“Frankly, who can believe in the objectivity of an audit commissioned by a government to which the leader of New Caledonia’s non-independence movement belongs?” Tingal-Lémé asked.

“It is already clear that, once again, France does not wish to achieve a decolonisation in the Pacific.

“This is why the FLNKS is petitioning the C24 to support our initiative to the United Nations, with the aim of getting an advisory opinion to the International Court of Justice.

“The objectives of this initiative is to request the ICJ to rule on our [indigenous] rights, those of the colonised people of New Caledonia, which we believe were violated on December 12, 2021.”

Advisory opinion
The FLNKS wanted the ICJ to make an advisory opinion on the way France “has conducted the decolonisation process, in particular by holding a referendum without the participation of the Kanak people.”

Tingal-Lémé pleaded: “We sincerely hope that you will heed our call.”

According to New Caledonia’s 2019 census, the indigenous Kanaks comprise a 41 percent share of the 271,000 multiethnic population. Europeans make up 24 percent, Wallisians and Futunans 8 percent, and a mix of Indonesians, ni-Vanuatu, Tahitians and Vietnamese are among the rest.

Earlier today, RNZ Pacific reported that a New Caledonian politician had claimed at the UN that the territory was “no longer a colony” and should be withdrawn from the UN decolonisation list.

The anti-independence member of the Territorial Congress and Vice-President of the Southern Province, Gil Brial, said he was a descendant of French people deported to New Caledonia 160 years ago, who had been “blended with others, including the indigenous Kanaks”.

He said the only colonisation left today was the “colonisation of the minds of young people by a few separatist leaders who mixed racism, hatred and threats”, reports RNZ Pacific.

Dr David Robie is editor of Asia Pacific Report.

New Caledonia’s pro-independence parties are prepared to negotiate changes to the provincial electoral rolls, according to French Overseas Minister Gerald Darmanin.

On his second visit to Noumea in less than four months, the minister announced the apparent change in the stance of the pro-independence FLNKS movement, which until now has ruled out any willingness to open the roll.

As yet, there has been no official statement from the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), which is still demanding comprehensive discussions with Paris on a timetable to restore the sovereignty lost in 1853.

• READ MORE: Kanaky New Caledonia’s FLNKS wants ICJ advice on contested vote
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

It insists on a dialogue between the “coloniser and the colonised”.

The restricted roll is a key feature of the 1998 Noumea Accord, which was devised as the roadmap to the territory’s decolonisation after New Caledonia was reinscribed on the United Nations’ list of non-self-governing territories in 1986.

Under the terms of the accord, voters in the provincial elections must have been enrolled by 1998.

In 2007, the French constitution was changed accordingly, accommodating a push by the Kanaks to ensure the indigenous population was not at risk of being further marginalised by waves of migrants.

‘Enormous progress’
However, anti-independence parties have in recent years campaigned for an opening of the roll to the more than 40,000 people who have settled since 1998.

Darmanin hailed the FLNKS’ willingness to negotiate on the issue as “enormous progress”, saying the issue surrounding the rolls had been blocked for a long time.

He said after his meetings with local leaders the FLNKS considered 10 years’ residence as sufficient to get enrolled.

The minister said he had proposed seven years, while anti-independence politicians talked about three to five years.

In March, Darmanin said the next elections, which are due in 2024, would not go ahead with the old rolls.

However, a senior member of the pro-independence Caledonian Union, Roch Wamytan, who is President of the Territorial Assembly, said “they had started discussions but that they had not given a definite approval”.

For Wamytan, an agreement on the rolls was still far off.

Impact of the Noumea Accord
Darmanin tabled a report on the outcomes achieved by the Noumea Accord, whose objectives included forming a community with a common destiny following the unrest of the 1980s.

It found that “the objective of political rebalancing, through the accession of Kanaks to responsibilities, can be considered as achieved”.

However, the report concluded that the accord “paradoxically contributed to maintain the political divide that the common destiny was supposed to transcend”.

It noted that the three referendums on independence from France between 2018 and 2021 “confirmed the antagonisms and revealed the difficulty of bringing together a majority of qualified voters” around a common cause.

Darmanin also presented a report about the decolonisation process under the auspices of the United Nations.

It noted that “with the adoption of the first plan of actions aimed at the elimination of colonialism in 1991, the [French] state endeavoured to collaborate closely with the UN and the C24 in order to accompany in the greatest transparency the process of decolonisation of New Caledonia”.

It said that France hosted and accompanied two UN visits to New Caledonia before the referendums, facilitated the visit of UN electoral experts when electoral lists were prepared as well as at each of the three referendums between 2018 and 2021.

Kanaks reject legitimacy
From a technical point of view, the three votes provided under the Noumea Accord were valid.

However, the FLNKS refuses to recognise the result of the third referendum as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process after the indigenous Kanaks boycotted the vote and only a small fraction cast their ballots.

As French courts recognise the vote as constitutional despite the low turnout, the FLNKS has sought input from the International Court of Justice in a bid to have the outcome annulled.

The FLNKS still insists on having more bilateral talks with the French government on a timetable to restore the territory’s sovereignty.

Since the controversial 2021 referendum, the FLNKS has refused to engage in tripartite talks on a future statute, and Darmanin has again failed to get an assurance from the FLNKS that it would join anti-independence politicians for such talks.

Last month, Darmanin evoked at the UN the possibility of self-determination for New Caledonia being attained in about 50 years — a proposition being scoffed at by the pro-independence camp.

In Noumea, he said he was against a further vote with the option of “yes” or “no”, and rather wanted to work towards a vote on a new status.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front)  says the advice of the International Court of Justice is being sought over the contested 2021 referendum on independence from France.

The movement — represented by Roch Wamytan, who is President of New Caledonia’s Congress — told a UN Decolonisation Committee meeting in Bali, Indonesia, that it considered holding the vote violated the Kanaks’ right in their quest for self-determination.

New Caledonia has been on the UN decolonisation list since 1986, and under the terms of the Noumea Accord three referendums on restoring New Caledonia’s full sovereignty were held between 2018 and 2021.

• READ MORE: Other New Caledonia decolonisation reports

The date for the last one was set by Paris but because of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the Kanak population, the pro-independence parties asked for the vote to be postponed.

The French government refused to agree to the plea and as a consequence, the pro-independence parties boycotted the poll in protest.

The FLNKS told the Bali meeting that the final referendum went ahead “under pressure from the French state with more than 2000 soldiers deployed and under a hateful and degrading campaign against the Kanaks”.

A total of 57 percent of registered voters stayed away, almost halving the turnout over the preceding referendum in 2020.

Among those who voted, more than 96 percent rejected independence, up from 56 percent the year before.

In view of the low turnout, the FLNKS stated “it is inconceivable that one can consider that a minority determines the future of New Caledonia”.

‘Legal and binding’, says France
However, the French government insists that the vote was legal and binding, being backed by a French court decision which last year threw out a complaint by the customary Kanak Senate, calling for the result to be annulled.

The court found that neither constitutional provisions nor the organic law made the validity of the vote conditional on a minimum turnout.

It added that the year-long mourning declared by the Kanak customary Senate in September 2021 was not such as to affect the sincerity of the vote.

The court also noted that by the time of the referendum on December 12, more than 77 percent of the population was vaccinated.

The anti-independence parties in New Caledonia also consider the referendum outcome as the legitimate outcome despite only a tiny minority of the indigenous Kanak population having voted.

The FLNKS has been pleading for international support to uphold the rights of the indigenous people and in its campaign to have the last referendum annulled.

The Melanesian Spearhead Group said in 2021 that the referendum should not be recognised but the chair of the Pacific Islands Forum Mark Brown, of Cook Islands, did not back the move when asked about it this month, saying the Forum would not “intrude into the domestic matters of countries”.

‘French law has failed the Kanaks’
The statement by the FLNKS to the Bali meeting said that “international bodies are our last resort to safeguard our rights as a colonised people”, adding that French domestic law has failed to give the Kanaks such protection.

It pleaded for the UN Decolonisation Committee to support the FLNKS in its case at the International Court of Justice.

The FLNKS said the ICJ was established with one of the principal purposes of the United Nations, which is to maintain, by peaceful means and in accordance with international law, peace and security.

It also said he would like to get support for an official request so that the FLNKS can get observer status at the United Nations.

A Kanak leader, Julien Boanemoi, told the gathering the decolonisation process in New Caledonia was at risk of “backtracking”, alleging that France was engaged in a modern version of colonisation.

He said with the French proclamation of the “Indo-Pacific axis”, the Kanak people felt a repeat of the French behaviour of 1946 and 1963 when Paris withdrew the territory from the decolonisation list and stifled the pro-independence Caledonian Union.

Boanemoi said with the lack of neutrality of the administering power France, he wanted to warn the Decolonisation Committee of “the risks of jeopardising stability and peace in New Caledonia”.

Darmanin back in Noumea
On Wednesday, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin is due in New Caledonia for talks on a new statute for the territory.

Central to his talks with the FLNKS on Friday will be discussions about the roll used for provincial elections.

Darmanin signalled in March that the restricted roll would be opened to more voters, which the FLNKS regards as unacceptable.

Last month, the president of the Caledonian Union, which is the main party within the FLNKS, said there was a risk of there being no more provincial elections if the rolls changed.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Caledonia’s largest pro-independence party says the latest French pronouncement on self-determination is an insult to the decolonisation process.

Amid a dispute over the validity of the referendum process under the Noumea Accord, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told the United Nations last week that self-determination might take “one or two generations”.

The Caledonian Union said the statement contradicted the 1998 Noumea Accord which was to conclude after 20 years with New Caledonia’s full emancipation.

• READ MORE: France briefs UN on New Caledonia decolonisation impasse
• Other French Pacific decolonisation reports

However, three referendums on independence from France between 2018 and 2021 to complete the Accord resulted in the rejection of full sovereignty.

But the Caledonian Union says the trajectory set out in the Noumea Accord has not changed and the process must conclude with New Caledonia attaining full sovereignty.

In a statement, the party has accused France of being contradictory by defending peoples’ right to self-determination at the UN while not respecting the colonised Kanak people’s request and imposing the 2021 referendum.

The date was set by Paris but because of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the indigenous Kanak population, the pro-independence parties asked for the vote to be postponed.

The French government refused to accede to the plea and as a consequence the pro-independence parties stayed away from the poll in protest.

Although more than 96 percent voted against full sovereignty, the turnout was 43 percent, with record abstention among Kanaks at the centre of the decolonisation issue.

Pro-independence parties therefore refuse to recognise the result as a legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.

They insist that the vote is not valid despite France’s highest administrative court finding the referendum was legal and binding.

Darmanin due back in Noumea
The latest meeting of the Caledonian Union’s leadership this week was to prepare for next week’s talks with Darmanin, who is due in Noumea for a second time in three months.

Paris wants to advance discussions on a new statute after the referendums.

In its statement, the Caledonian Union said it wanted France to specify what its policies for New Caledonia would be, adding that for the party, they had to be in line with the provisions of the Noumea Accord.

The party said fresh talk of self-determination should not be a pretext of France to divert from the commitments in the Accord.

It also said it would not yet enter into formal discussions with the anti-independence parties about the way forward although they also were Noumea Accord signatories.

The party also said it would not discuss the make-up of New Caledonia’s electoral rolls until after a path to full sovereignty had been drawn up in bilateral talks with the French government.

On La Premiere television on Sunday night, Congress President Roch Wamytan, who is a Noumea Accord signatory and a Caledonian Union member, said his side had a different timetable than Paris.

While the French government was focused on next year’s provincial elections, Wamytan said it was not possible to discuss in the space of a month or two the future of a country or of a people that had been colonised.

He also wondered if Darmanin was serious when he said it could take two generations, or 50 years, for self-determination.

Wamytan said after the failed 2021 referendum, the two sides had diametrically opposed positions.

However, he hoped at some point a common platform could be found so that in the coming months a way would be found as a “win-win for New Caledonia”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

An Australian advocacy group has called for West Papua to be reinscribed on the United Nations list of “non self-governing territories”, citing the “sham” vote in 1969 and the worsening human rights violations in the Indonesian-ruled Melanesian region.

The UN Special Committee on Decolonisation began its 2023 Pacific Regional Seminar in Bali, Indonesia, today and will continue until May 26.

Tomorrow the annual International Week of Solidarity with the Peoples of Non-Self-Governing Territories is due to begin tomorrow and will end on May 31.

• READ MORE: The UN Decolonisation Committee on Kanaky New Caledonia
• The UN committee on Tahiti
• Other West Papua reports

“Although West Papua is not on the list  of  Non-Self-Governing Territories, it should be,” said Joe Collins of the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA).

“It’s 60 years since UNTEA transferred West Papua to Indonesian administration, which then unceremoniously removed it from the list.

“As for the so-called Act of Free Choice held in 1969, it was a sham and is referred to by West Papuans as the ‘act of no choice’.”

‘Seriously deteriorating’
Collins said in a statement today that the situation in West Papua was “seriously deteriorating” with ongoing human rights abuses in the territory.

“There are regular armed clashes between the Free Papua Movement [OPM] and the Indonesian security forces,” he said.

“West Papuans continue to be arrested at peaceful demonstrations and Papuans risk being charged with treason for taking part in the rallies.

“The military operations in the highlands have created up to 60,000 internally displaced people (IDPs), many facing starvation because they fear returning to their food gardens because of the Indonesian security forces.

“Recent armed clashes have also created new IDPs.

Collins cited New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens, who has been held hostage by the West Papuan National Liberation Army (TPNPB) for more than three months.

According to Mehrtens as quoted by ABC News on April 26, the Indonesian military had been “dropping bombs” in the area where he was being held, making it “dangerous for me and everybody here”.

‘French’ Polynesia an example
“We cannot expect the [UN Decolonisation Committee] to review the situation of West Papua at this stage as it would only bring to attention the complete failure by the UN to protect the people of West Papua.

However, territories had been reinscribed in the past as in the case of “French” Polynesia in 2013, Collins said.

But Collins said it was hoped that the UN committee could take some action.

“As they meet in Bali, it is hoped that the C24 members — who would be well aware of the ongoing human rights abuses in West Papua committed by the Indonesian security forces — will urge Jakarta to allow the High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit West Papua on a fact-finding mission to report on the deteriorating human rights situation in the territory.”

“It’s the least they could do.”

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has invited the United Nations Decolonisation Committee members to visit New Caledonia.

Controlled by France since 1853, New Caledonia was returned to the UN decolonisation list as prolonged political violence threatened in 1986 — 39 years after France had withdrawn it and its other major Pacific colony from the 19th century, French Polynesia, from the list.

France says it has complied with the UN decolonisation process and regularly exchanged with the UN about New Caledonia.

• LISTEN TO RNZ PACIFIC WAVES: Walter Zweifel talks about Tahiti’s recent election

During a visit to the United States last week, Darmanin stopped at the UN in New York to discuss the aftermath of the three referendums on independence which France organised in New Caledonia between 2018 and 2021.

Darmanin, who as Interior Minister is also responsible for France’s overseas possessions, said he had a constructive exchange, without elaborating.

He said, however, he wondered how “to trigger this right to self-determination on the scale of one or two generations”.

Darmanin also told the committee that after the referendums, France was trying to negotiate with both the pro- and anti-independence camps to formulate a future status for New Caledonia.

What next for New Caledonia?
The outcome of the referendum process as outlined in the 1998 Noumea Accord is in dispute, with the pro-independence parties claiming the rejection of independence is illegitimate because of the low turn-out of the colonised Kanak people in the last vote.

France had gone ahead with the third referendum despite a plea by pro-independence parties to postpone it because of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the Kanak population.

The pro-independence side refuses to recognise the result, saying that the referendum was not in the spirit of the 1998 Noumea Accord and the UN resolutions on the territory’s decolonisation.

It said the path of dialogue had been broken by the stubbornness of the French government, which was unable to reconcile its geostrategic interests in the Pacific with its obligation to decolonise New Caledonia.

The pro-independence camp has been lobbying for support to get the referendum outcome annulled.

However, a legal challenge in Paris last year by the customary Kanak Senate was unsuccessful while a further challenge of the referendum result filed with the International Court of Justice is pending.

New PIF chair taking ‘neutral’ position
This month, the Pacific Islands Forum said it would “not intrude” into New Caledonia’s affairs although a subgroup, the Melanesian Spearhead Group, had earlier backed calls for the UN to declare the result null and void.

Asked for the Forum’s view, its chair, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown, said the “Forum respects the due process of each country”.

“It is not the Forum’s role to intrude into the domestic matters of countries as they determine their independence or their dependence on other countries,” Brown said.

The pro-independence side has refused to engage with the anti-independence side in discussions about any new statute. Instead, it has insisted on having bilateral talks with only the French government on a timetable to conclude the decolonisation process and restore New Caledonia’s sovereignty.

In March, Darmanin visited New Caledonia for talks with a cross-section of society, and last month New Caledonia’s political leaders were in Paris for more discussions.

None of these meetings have yielded a consensus on a way forward.

Audition cet après-midi à l’@ONU_fr par le C24, comité des Nations Unies en charge des sujets de décolonisation, afin de faire le point sur la Nouvelle-Calédonie.
Merci à la présidente du comité et aux pays membres pour cet échange riche et constructif. Au nom du Gouvernement,… pic.twitter.com/Ya5BY1k9Kc

— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) May 19, 2023

Next week, Darmanin is due back in Noumea in a renewed effort to advance discussions on New Caledonia’s future status.

The anti-independence parties want Paris to honour the referendum result and move towards reintegration of New Caledonia into France by abolishing the restricted rolls created with the Noumea Accord.

The push received support last week from the deputy leader of France’s Republicans François Xavier Bellamy who visited Noumea.

He said his side would support changes to the French constitution to allow for the rolls to be opened up — a move firmly resisted by the pro-independence side.

French Polynesia marks 10th reinscription anniversary

The ruling pro-independence Tavini Huira’atira party in French Polynesia marked the 10th anniversary of the territory’s reinscription in Faa’a where the party founder and leader Oscar Temaru is mayor.

His decades-long campaign succeeded in 2013 when the UN General Assembly approved a resolution — sponsored by Solomon Islands — and re-inscribed French Polynesia on the world body’s decolonisation list.

The decision, which came in the dying days of the last government led by Temaru, was vehemently criticised by the Tahitian government, which succeeded his, as well as France, which labelled the UN decision an “interference”.

While France has refused to attend any UN discussion on French Polynesia, the pro-autonomy government of the past decade regularly sent delegates to the annual gathering in New York.

Marking the anniversary this year, Tavini’s youngest assembly member Tematai Le Gayic told Tahiti Nui TV he was disappointed that the “French state agrees to negotiate when there is bloodshed”, referring to New Caledonia’s unrest of the 1980s.

“But when it’s with respect of law and democracy, France denies the process,” he added.

The opposition Tapura’s Tepuaraurii Teriitahi said that it would be good “if France accepted once and for all, to avoid any controversy, that UN observers could come to French Polynesia”.

While viewing independence as a long-term goal, the newly elected President Moetai Brotherson has been critical of France shunning the UN process, having described it as a “bad look”.

At the event in Faa’a, Brotherson said they went to ask the UN “to give us the possibility of choice, with a neutral arbiter”.

He said it was then up to his party to awaken consciences so that an overwhelming majority would vote for independence, which he said was not an end in itself but an essential step to building a nation.

“We don’t want a 50 percent-plus-one-vote victory,” he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Caledonia’s largest pro-independence party has been told that France is “panicking” and afraid of losing New Caledonia.

The head of the Caledonian Union Daniel Goa briefed the party in Koumac after a week of meetings of a cross-section of New Caledonian politicians with the French government in Paris earlier this month.

Goa said Paris kept reneging on earlier undertakings by pressing ahead with efforts to undo the 1998 Noumea Accord on the territory’s decolonisation in order to maintain its international influence.

• READ MORE: Unfinished business over New Caledonian decolonisation – new challenges after ‘stolen’ referendum
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

He said there was major incomprehension on part of the French government of what the bilateral talks in Paris were supposed to be about.

Goa said Paris wanted concrete decisions in circumstances favouring the French government.

However, Goa said the decolonisation process and New Caledonia’s accession to sovereignty would be discussed in New Caledonia.

He again warned France against opening up the restricted electoral roll used for provincial elections.

Bid to extend voting rights
Anti-independence parties have urged Paris to extend voting rights for the 2024 elections after the 2021 referendum saw a majority of voters reject full sovereignty.

The pro-independence side, however, largely abstained from the vote in 2021 because of the covid-19 pandemic and still refuses to recognise the result as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.

Under the terms of the Noumea Accord voting in provincial elections is restricted to indigenous Kanaks and those who have been residents in the territory since 1998.

About 40,000 French citizens are excluded from provincial elections but can take part in France’s parliamentary and presidential elections.

Goa warned of what he called irreversible solutions if France imposed a change to the rolls, adding that there would be a risk of there never being any election.

He said the survival of the Kanaks hinged on this issue.

Goa said opening the roll to recent arrivals would create a new imbalance and extinguish the Kanaks’ vision of politics.

‘Colonial state’ opposed
He stressed that the Kanaks would no longer allow the colonial state to impose itself.

He said the French state was pushing the Kanaks to their last entrenchments, but they would be present in their own way to take responsibility to liberate their country.

Goa said the Kanaks’ sovereignty was no longer negotiable, adding that the land is not a land of France and will never be a land of France.

He said it was a shame to imagine the worst, but France was going against the “wind of history” as the United Nations kept calling for the eradication of colonialism.

Goa said France had to choose between moving in the direction of history or ending up in the “rubbish bin of colonial history”.

He put Paris on notice that a refusal to restore the territory’s sovereignty would drive the Kanak people to seek support elsewhere.

Goa said France did not and would not recognise the Kanaks’ rights, which would prompt the pro-independence camp to turn to new allies.

France ‘lonely in Pacific’
He said all major powers were around the Pacific rim but France, as only a small European country, was lonely in the Pacific.

Goa said the French army never defended New Caledonia when it was threatened, but only killed Kanaks, plundered their land, carried out punitive expeditions, brutally treated and displaced Kanak populations, and killed their elders.

He also castigated President Emmanuel Macron’s China policy, asking whether France could be trusted.

Goa said France still wanted to give the illusion of existing in a concert of nations but the President, out of clumsiness, had betrayed his European and American allies by pledging allegiance to China.

He said in the Pacific context, France would on one hand “sell” New Caledonia to China and on the other hand, France kept saying not to deal with China in whatever way, brandishing the “Chinese threat” as the worst thing that could happen.

Goa said with the French presidency and the country adrift, there was a risk for New Caledonia to be dragged into a void.

Backes slams Goa’s speech
Daniel Goa’s speech was criticised by a leading anti-independence politician, Sonia Backes, who regarded Goa’s comments about the electoral rolls as a call to violence.

Backes, president of the Southern Province and a junior member of the French government, told La Première television that Goa’s threats of action in case of changes to the rolls were unacceptable.

She also took issue with Goa’s warning that the Kanaks would ally themselves with other powers, should their ambition to attain independence be thwarted by France.

Backes said the anti-independence coalition had referred the speech to the public prosecutor for alleged calls for violence and sedition.

She wondered if Goa considered that those opposed to independence had no place on this world and could not be asked to discuss the future.

Backes said the other side needed to explain itself.

Institutions not functioning
She said her side had an interest in finding a consensus because New Caledonia’s institutions no longer functioned.

She added that it was no longer possible to have 45,000 people excluded from the rolls and do nothing for them while waiting for a possible consensus on how to open the rolls.

After the rejection of full sovereignty in three referendums and the expiry of the Noumea Accord, a new statute for New Caledonia has to be created.

While the pro-independence parties want Paris to give a timetable to full independence, the anti-independence parties want Paris to realign the territory with France.

After this month’s talks in Paris, discussions will be continued in Noumea in June when  French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin plans his next visit.

His ministry said in May he would go to the United Nations in New York to discuss the situation in New Caledonia.

The territory has been on the UN decolonisation list since 1986, based on the Kanak people’s internationally recognised right to self-determination.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

By Roch Wamytan, leader of the FLNKS delegation

First of all, allow me, Madam Prime Minister, to greet you on behalf of the Front de Liberation Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) delegation for this first meeting with you.

Despite the difficult situation prevailing in France, you were able to take some time in your busy schedule to discuss with our delegation and we recognise your significant consideration of the situation of New Caledonia (NC). We have also had the opportunity to communicate with you by phone with some of our delegation members and I thank you.

Today is the first time that we meet, and it is important to be able to discuss face-to-face and try to understand each other. It is a huge responsibility has been passed on to you, that of an ancient civilization characterised as “the Kanak people of Melanesian and Austronesian descent” which has been present in the Caledonian archipelago for more than 3000 years.

Close to 250 years ago (1774), this ancient people crossed the path of Europeans through James Cook, and then that of the French on September 24, 1853, the date of the possession of the islands by France. It is from this time onward that the chaotic history of relations between France and us, the Kanak people, began.

Almost 170 years later, we are still debating these relations that bind us: You as the representative of France, and us, the members of the FLNKS delegation, led by two of the signatories of the Nouméa Agreement, Victor Tutugoro and myself, accompanied by Gilbert Tyuienon, Mickaël Forrest, Jean Pierre Djaïwé, Digoue, Aloisio Sako, Jean Creugnet and our technical team.

As you know, Madam Prime Minister, the FLNKS represents the national liberation movement of the colonised Kanak people, since the re-inscription in 1986 of New Caledonia on the United Nations’ list of countries to decolonise. Therefore, we stand in front of you as the representative of the governing authority of France, according to international law.

On February 26, 2023, the popular congress of the FLNKS and the nationalist and Indigenous movement has validated the unique and unitary trajectory for the country’s achievement of full sovereignty and independence, through negotiation with the governing authority, France, which is the governing power since the possession of New Caledonia on September 24, 1853.

For 170 years (September 24, 1853) we have lived under the governance of France, which has become since 1986 the administering power of the New Caledonia, the latter being considered a non-self-governing territory. This governance has never been accepted by our people and the genealogy of the struggle to free ourselves of it is well known. Allow me to share some key dates:

● From 1774 (arrival of James Cook) to 1853 (formal possession): People had to struggle against the harmful effects of microbial epidemics introduced by the first Europeans, faced with a population which lacked immunity. As a result, close to 90 percent of the population was eradicated. Survivors organised themselves and survived thanks to their ancestral resilience when faced with diseases and European invasion. Then, colonisation followed.

● From 1853 to 1924: The violent possession of land, the settlement of convicts and deportees, the revolts of chiefdoms and the bloody repression of the colonial army with its massacres, ethnocide, population displacement and transportation.

● From 1925 to 1946: The population reaches its lowest point, approximately 25,000 people. It is the point of departure for a rebirth, through reconstruction, the restructuring of chiefdoms with catholic and protestant missions.

● From 1945 to 1946: New Caledonia misses its first opportunity to achieve independence. Indeed, the President of the United States of America, [Franklin D.] Roosevelt, was of the idea that the French defeat would de facto, lead to the end of its empire, then in ruin. He was therefore planning on changing the status of Dakar, Indochina and other French possessions and was advising France to progressively give up its
possessions in Asia and Africa.

When it came to New Caledonia, this colony was to be removed from France and placed under the governance of the USA, similarly to Palau, before giving it its independence back. That is what the work of Marie Claude Smouts, researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), shows in her book La France à l’ONU.

● From 1946 to 1958: It is the end of the Native Code, the Kanak people are granted citizenship and enter institutions. It also marks New Caledonia’s second missed opportunity to become independent since in the 1958 constitutional referendum where the electoral roll was predominantly Kanak.

Under the influence of the Catholic and Protestant churches supported by the European section of the Union Calédonienne (UC) party, this party opted for YES, and therefore to remain within the French Republic. The framework law or autonomy law was in turn put in place.

● 1963-1968 and 1975-1984: Abolition of the framework law and birth of the Kanak pro-independence movement. 1975 was the year of the “Mélanésia 2000” cultural revolution, and the creation of the Front Indépendantiste in 1979.

● 1984 – 1988: It was the semi-failure of the Nainville-les-Roches discussions, the creation of the FLNKS, and the Kanak nationalist insurrection and revolts which lasted four long years.

● 1988 – 1989: [This] was the year of the signing of the Matignon Agreement and one year [later] the murder of Jean-Marie Tjibaou and Yeiwene Yeiwene since they did not have the FLNKS mandate to sign this agreement. An agreement which aimed to restore peace and initiate the rebalancing, but not to settle the issue of independence.

● 1988-1998-2018: the country enters a process of emancipation and decolonisation with the Matignon and Nouméa agreements by having “rebalancing” and “the impartiality of the state” as guiding principles.

● 2018-2022: this was the series of three referenda which resulted, according to France, in three NOs to full-sovereignty and independence. A progression of the YES to full sovereignty and independence between the first and second consultations is, however, notable. The third one is not recognised as politically legitimate by the FLNKS and its regional and international support due to 60 percent of non-participation, which includes the almost entirety of the Kanak people.

This explains the procedure at the International Court of Justice at The Hague. It is possible to estimate that the participation of the Kanak population to a third referendum organised in normal and transparent conditions, with an impartiality of the State would have allowed the country’s achievement of independence.

However, it marked the third missed opportunity to reach independence in our chaotic history of relations with France.

This brief historical reminder traces a trajectory that began with the arrival of the Europeans in Oceania in 1774 and which will continue until the achievement of full sovereignty in the coming years as part of a renewed relationship with France and Europe for a country that will be fully integrated in its geographical area. This has been its history for 3000 years, and this will be its future.

Indeed, experience has demonstrated that in the history of decolonisation in the Maghreb region, in Asia, in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world: the colonised never give up on the question of their asserted identity. It is the same for our people which have always fought against an oppressive and forced assimilatory system.

While it fought against a system, the Kanak people respect France and its inhabitants. France has a history that we respect: it is a great nation which defends universal values. Moreover, hundreds of our youth have given their life during the two world conflicts. France has brought us [the] Catholic and Protestant religion[s] as well as education. That is what the preamble of the Nouméa Agreement acknowledges.

Due to being unheard in its struggle against a colonial system, we can consider that the nationalist movement which started in the early 1970s was a response to the abolition of the framework law put in place by the 1958 constitution, then removed in 1963. The movement peaked in 1984-1988, with the painful events of Ouvéa, where the special troops of the French armed forces intervened to maintain the public order.

The number of Kanak leaders having lost their life during this period up until 1989 is significant, especially considering their quality and our small population. In light of this dead-end situation, the handshake between Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Jacques Lafleur, and Michel Rocard, as planned, allowed for peace to be restored.

And the rebalancing included in the Matignon Agreement approved by the national referendum of 1988.

This ten-year period between 1988 and 1998 was meant to be an opportunity for a more balanced development of the territory. The no. 1 text of the Matignon Agreement is entitled: “The condition for a lasting peace — The impartial State at the service of all.” The press release of June 26, 1988, also insists on this point: “The impartiality of the State must be guaranteed, the security and protection of all must be ensured”.

And on August 20, the Minister of Overseas Departments and Territories, Louis Le Pensec, declared before the agreement signing ceremony: “France can only be a referee if its spoken word inspires trust”.

In 1998, the Matignon Agreement gave way to a new agreement, the Nouméa Agreement, which won the support of the Kanak people but was rejected by the non-independence majority of the South[ern] Province. This agreement has received an almost unanimous approval from the Kanak people for several reasons:

– It maintained peace and allowed for the continuation of rebalancing policies;
– It allowed the construction of a project of society that would take colonialism
into account, following the Nainville-les-Roches Agreement in 1983; [and]
– Its preamble and guidance document de facto recognised Kanak identity and committed to the establishment of a new governance of New Caledonia, in the form of a sui generis collectivity with autonomy, in a perspective of independence.

New Caledonia, whose vocation for independence was recognised following the 1988 national referendum, was taking the path of the construction of a common destiny resting on a “Caledonian citizenship” and the irreversibility of the process of decolonisation and emancipation.

Thus, for the colonised Kanak people, the responsibility of the State as the third partner of the Nouméa Agreement is to guarantee this irreversible and sincere process, allowing New Caledonia to endorse its vocation to be a sovereign state, like the other sovereign states in the region. That is the meaning of the massive YES which was given by the Kanak people at the referendum to ratify this agreement on November 8, 1998.

It was the same for the national referendum of November 6, 1988. Under no condition can these two referenda be considered a reason for yet another status of integration of New Caledonia within France.

For the Kanak people, the process of self-determination must continue to follow up on the two referenda of 2018 and 2020. The Nouméa Agreement, which remains the basis on which the future of New Caledonia must be permanently built and sealed, is clear and unambiguous both in the preamble and the guidance document: Decolonisation is the way to rebuild a sustainable social bond between the communities that live in New Caledonia.

A new step must be taken to mark the full acknowledgement of Kanak identity, conditional to the reviewing of the social relationship between all the communities that live in New Caledonia and through the sharing of sovereignty with France before the full sovereignty of the country to be.

The culminating point of this Agreement is completely unambiguous because: “The State recognises the vocation of New Caledonia to benefit from a complete emancipation at the end of this period.” This Agreement will then remain at its last development stage without the possibility of going back in the event that the consultations do not lead to the new political organisation suggested. This irreversibility being a constitutional guarantee.

However, based on the decisions concerning the third referendum specifically, and the statements made by French government officials, the Kanak people observe that once again, the French State never follows through with its promises, and that in the last moment, it systematically aligns its interest as a “great power” to the French population it has settled in New Caledonia.

It was the case in 1963, when the French government unilaterally decided to cancel the framework law which had granted a wide autonomy status to New Caledonia, thus reflecting General De Gaulle’s desire to rely on New Caledonia and French Polynesia for France’s ambitions as a great world power. It also reflected the wishes of the [New] Caledonian colonial Right. This rupture unilaterally decided by Paris, created the conditions for the birth of Kanak nationalism from the 1970s, followed by its radicalisation in 1984-1988.

Today, almost forty years after 1984, it would seem that we are witnessing the same scenario, especially since the use of the concept of Indo-Pacific, with a renewed alliance between the President of the Republic and the Caledonian loyalists. Clearly, since 2021 and the Minister [Sébastien] Lecornu, the organisation of the third referendum has been the scene of the tipping of the State’s position towards the “No to independence” camp, undermining the very principles of the Matignon and Nouméa Agreements, the impartial State at the service of all, which resulted in a deadly loss of trust.

Since the possession of the islands by France, everything is done or organised based on French, European or Western norms, usages, traditions, or social structures, with an almost blind application of them in the context of a traditional society that is fundamentally different. Thus, basic organisations, structures, concepts, or processes, which are not that of Oceanian societies, continue to be imposed, without question as to the degree of constraint or acceptation that it implies.

However, this society, like any Oceanian society, carries deep values, drawing on the spiritual world, nourished by the sacred and inhabited by a way of thinking in harmony with nature and the cosmos as it has been valued, anchored mythological corpus on par with the great Mediterranean civilizations. We have not invented all this, it has been made explicit and rehabilitated by academia and anthropological research.

For a long time, the representatives of the Kanak people, whether it be the great chiefs, political leaders, or religious leaders have asked the question “but why does France, the governing power, not hear us?” It remains deaf to our points, to what the Kanak people wants, because it is its right to recover its lost sovereignty. But France does not think so and does not respect the recommendations made by the United Nations. It does exactly the opposite or interprets what is presented to it within the framework of the defence of superior national interests.

Could France, for once, carry a process of decolonisation through? This unfinished process of decolonisation carried on into the third referendum, which the FLNKS considers a “stolen” referendum. Has France forgotten the history of the colonisation of this people
and of its millennial civilisation?

The Melanesian civilisation is not an invention of the mind, it was demonstrated, scientifically confirmed by the community of researchers in the field of anthropology. Indeed, within the context of anthropology and approaching “deep nthought”, academic research led on the path of understanding the spirit of man and his relationship with the material and spiritual world around him. The aforementioned work provides for the first time an exploration and in-depth reading of the mythical thought of the Kanak people; thus, this research establishes the sacralising vision of ancient Kanak myths and an integral landscape of life in the Kanak world, the visible and the invisible; rehabilitating the power of myth in the 21st century and by attributing it an academic dignity, it valorises the cultural capital of people.

This work has been welcomed as a true exploration, both novel and original, it underlines the height and strength of Kanak deep thought and highlights fundamental themes such as cosmological knowledge, the power of symbols and archetypes, etc. This observation encourages the total recognition of the qualitative aspect of this people. However, the current evolution is not going in this direction and has never acknowledged these immaterial and intellectual resources. Therefore, its formalisation and institutionalisation is suggested, since the State cannot ignore the fundamental elements of Kanak society which can infer the proclamation of a prior sovereignty.

One cannot deny that the French presence in New Caledonia, the successive leadership and the institutional changes have never integrated in writing or in speech the “pre-eminence, the full and legitimate connection to their land (existential and ontological link, startling for the Cartesian mind, Kanak belong to their land, land does not belong to them) and the sacred and inalienable character of the presence and existence of the Kanak people, as well as the sovereignty they possess: the later comes from the people and is complementary to the immaterial heritage . . .”

On this note, customary senators expressed their deep gratitude to an academic researcher in structural anthropology, whose novel work was welcomed as having valued and sacralised the fundamentals which structure Kanak civilisation. This original contribution fills a gap and demonstrates that “others” can understand, respect, and give the Kanak people their essential and existential values back. Above all, this contribution disrupts the one directional relation, which prevents the establishment of a real exchange, and which leads to forceful imposition, regardless of the qualities and values of the other. We seriously believe that France can take a step that it has never taken before to show that it is a great nation capable, like the Kanak who welcomes others, of recognising “a timeless and original sovereignty”, an essential condition for sharing in acceptance and understanding.

Indeed, it constitutes a new approach because a part of Kanak civilisation was destroyed in its anthropological foundations and its sociocultural organisation by the violence of French possession and the imposition of a “pax romana” without any counterpart. The impacts are known: the annihilation of the history which precedes September 24, 1853, the loss of identity in relation to languages, land, culture, beliefs, etc. Kanak people’s ancestral land was considered “terra nullius”. This “terra nullius” status was assigned to make it “lawful” for better armed countries which pretended to be “more civilised” to seize, colonise and exploit territories and resources. That is in spite of the fact that, in our traditions, not one centimeter of land or maritime territory escaped the ontic link of belonging between the human and their land.

But in the meantime, the impacts on the being and doing of Kanak people have been of a great violence and these harms are still present in 21st century Kanak society. Some of these impacts have been acknowledged notably in the preamble of the Nouméa Agreement, but no solution followed, through a holistic approach which could have defined some “just” measures to implement so that the Kanak people could recover its dignity.

It is time for France to react because in New Caledonia, a sly colonialism or neocolonialism is currently at play, attempting to erase and negate the natural sovereignty of the Kanak people on its territory, condemning it to eternally look for a lost paradise. We do not want to die assimilated like a sugar cube in water and we will resist to survive. Fortunately, some moral voices make themselves heard to denounce this unjust system, as is the case with the Vatican.

In its “colonial” history, the Vatican shared discovered lands with different European Christian countries, among which Portugal, Spain, France, etc. It ended up ubi et orbi declaring the abandonment of the doctrine of discovery, which operated from the 16th century and provided a framework to lay possessive claims, to appropriate and to colonise, due to the destruction, damage, and other ills of colonisers. More recently, Pope Francis declared in a message addressed to the participants of the “colonisation and neocolonialism: a social justice and common good perspective” forum, which took place on March 30th and 31st, 2023 that neocolonialism is sly, that it is a crime, and that there isn’t any possibility of peace in a world that rejects some people in order to oppress them.

We even remember the unforgettable sentence marked by the “presidential” seal, of candidate Emmanuel Macron in Algeria, stating that colonisation is a crime against humanity. This gives more weight to the papal message. Restorative action is thus unavoidable and must lead to a deep reflection: Which people has suffered? To whom do we owe reparation and apology before imposing and controlling?

We do not ask for pity, nor do we beg or repent, a confessional notion. We only ask for justice through a holistic and recognised approach, that of transitional justice with its four pillars, to reinvigorate a damaged people, which drags generation after generation, the negative impacts on its being and its doing, as Solgenystine and other experts remind us on the topic of colonialism.

But we are also aware of the “cultural” difficulty for the great colonising countries to go in the direction of colonised countries. As evidence, in the work of French anthropologist François Pouillon on this issue:

Nations states hardly appreciate Native peoples, even more so when the latter
manifest some inclination toward autonomy, or worse, independence. At stake is the
power of sovereign states over the territories they govern and from which they most
often exploit the Native populations which are marginal in their eyes. If they resist,
they break the law and expose themselves to economic, juridical or even military
sanctions.

Contemporary centralised states are more so convinced of their efficacy and legitimacy as they promote ideologies and values which they are always proud of: the development of their technical and medical knowledge, the “universality” of their confessional or secular beliefs, their “influence” in the world and, at last, their advanced position in the evolution of humankind, all of this supported, more prosaically, by a solid armament.

Native peoples, in their emphasis on their own territories, memories, institutions and knowledges, would only slow them down on their path to perfection.

This tyrannical self-satisfaction feeds on the conviction, as François Pouillon underlines, that “if others, abroad, sometimes have an enviable quality of life, in their closeness to nature and the spiritual warmth of their group (which, however, does not protect them from bloody dictatorships, ethnic cleanings, natural disasters and great modern pandemics), they are, we believe, in a pitiful political state and remain, after all, ‘backward’.” (Anthropologie des petites choses, Le Bord de l’eau, 2015)

Colonial attitudes feed off this “naïve evolutionism” from which contempt originates. From the lack of consideration to enslaved people in the Code Noir (royal decree passed in 1685 aiming to define the conditions of slavery and its practices in the French colonies) to the dehumanisation of Jewish and Tzigane [Roma] people in extermination camps, through the stigmatisation of “primitive” people and other “indigènes” of the colonies, the same deadly chant is sung: May impure blood water the fields of the civilization we embody.

These references are not historical since, today, Amazonia has been transformed into a gigantic inferno where the last Indians die, while Uighurs, Rohingya, Roma, Aboriginal people, African Americans, Native Americans and many others suffer a thousand deaths under the rule of nation-states convinced of being at the top of social and human progress.

Will Kanaks of New Caledonia also pay the price of the narcissism of the powerful? And thus, of France?

“Rebalancing” policies all over the Pacific, Native populations have already historically undergone a spectacular demographic decline (due to epidemics, massacres, poisonings), land spoliation from non-Indigenous people, both rural and urban, exclusion from the benefits of new economic initiatives (mining, extensive breeding, exportation) and the moral attacks of Western monotheisms.

The paradox of New Caledonia is that France has recognised parts of its faults by committing, from 1988, to important “rebalancing” policies aimed primarily at Kanaks. Michel Rocard, when he was Prime Minister from 1988 to 1991, then Lionel Jospin, from 1997 to 2002, also supported the industrial ambitions of pro-independence leaders by enabling them to acquire a mine and to successfully extract, process and export nickel. At the same time, strong support for the expression of Kanak identity has marked the last thirty years with the creation of the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in May 1998, the revival of the Customary Senate [Kanak advisory assembly] and taking into account the Indigenous point of view in the courts.

These significant developments, which have never been questioned by the successive governments of the French Republic, have noticeably appeased the minds and improved the daily life of all Caledonians in general, and Kanaks in particular.

They were combined with unprecedented institutional measures: the scheduling of three referenda for self-determination, the creation of a special electoral roll used for polls open solely to Caledonians who had settled before 1994 and the urge to all the communities living in the archipelago to elaborate a “common destiny”. Alternative forms of sovereignty.

This momentum did not lead to New Caledonia’s access to full sovereignty in the first referendum on November 4, 2018, but it signaled a surprise surge in votes in favour of independence (43.3 percent), a cause which Caledonian of European, Asian or Oceanian descent have evidently joined. This trend was confirmed on October 4, 2020, with 47 percent of the population expressing their wish for New Caledonia to become independent. If this progression is significant, these results won’t change the outcome. The issue is not purely electoral or numerical.

It refers to much deeper forces. Oceanians, despite being victims of a denial of existence, have created social organisations, practices and knowledge related to their doing and being that are specific to them. Through relations to land, legitimacies to power and counter power, strategies of political and matrimonial alliances, whether near or far, connections to the past, and visual and narrative creations, they have developed an alternative form of sovereignty to the monolithic and absolute one that is glorified by nation-states. The challenge of French and British colonisation has matured this nuance and complex political thought, which is a source of resistance and projects for the future. These gains are ineradicable and will not be phased by the ephemeral results of a referendum.

In this context, how can we forge a genuine dialogue?

It seems to us that it is high time for the governing authority to look at the “other” in order to have a mutual understanding, the basis of trust to create, promote, and walk together with the ability and willingness to share a “modus operandi” through the discussions and negotiations to come on the topic of other forms of governance.

Consensus proves to be a fundamental element in the important choices that we had to make for the evolution of New Caledonia in light of the challenges of 21st century.

You have no other choice than to integrate this practice specific to the Pacific or miss out on a successful statutory development project for New Caledonia.

Madam Prime Minister, your government would gain from being in a “win-win” approach, because everyone can assess what New Caledonia represents in this part of the world. We are ready to discuss it.

Building new relationships of trust between our two countries, committing to stability for the populations which have chosen to participate to New Caledonia’s prosperity, and lastly, mastering the stakes, notably environmental, that we will have to face are all challenges that we are willing to undertake. Therefore, the unique trajectory assumed by the FLNKS for the accession to full sovereignty and independence offers the outline that we wished to present to you.

The past 30 years of social stability have provided a conductive environment for the unprecedented development of our country. The irreversible process of decolonisation put in place by the Nouméa Agreement has placed New Caledonia in front of its growing responsibilities, leading us to be standing at the doors of the “concert of nations”.

Considering our emancipation process, the FLNKS believes that we are ready to assume the attributes of our sovereignty. Through a co-construction approach, we propose that the adoption of a political treaty enabling to seal a political basis for this final phase of statutory evolution be studied.

This political agreement will guarantee:

● Reaching an independence bilaterally negotiated with the governing power;
● The continuation of the irreversible process of decolonisation of New Caledonia;
● Obtaining an ultimate process that implements a programme of accession to
full sovereignty and independence; and
● Constitutionalising the political agreement and the accession to independence status, which includes the transition phase, the sovereignty act and the proclamation of the birth of a new state.

Since 1986, New Caledonia has been on the UN list of non-self governing territories. This acknowledgement on the international stage guarantees us rights without which our deepest aspirations would not have been heard. And as long as our ultimate conviction will not be respected, we will continue to make our struggle known.

Madam Prime Minister, this year will mark the 25th year since the Nouméa Agreement. It is our duty to cultivate this consensual state of mind, which has guided all the stakeholders to this juridical innovation that recognised “the shadows of colonisation”.

Madam Prime Minister, we will have to stand by the choices we make for our future generations. As far as we are concerned, it is our duty never to surrender our right to independence and we are convinced that the French State can succeed in the statutory evolution of New Caledonia, within the context of the UN’s Fourth International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism.

To conclude, Madam Prime Minister, this long introduction allows us to place in front of you a historical and political trajectory for the country to access full sovereignty and independence is a logical destiny. We would like to know the ambitions of the central government.

Thank you for your attention.

Roch Wamytan
Head of Delegation

This statement has been lightly edited for publication style.

As the ballots were counted after the first day of voting in Mā’ohi Nui/French Polynesia territorial election first round, the “blue wave” of the pro-independence party Tavini Huira’atira led by Oscar Temaru topped the seven party lists competing.

Tavini was followed by the pro-French incumbent governing party Tapura Huira’atira of Édouard Fritch and the surprise alternative group led by a former finance minister under Fritch, Nuihau Laurey.

As for the other autonomist-leaning political parties who did not reach the 12.5 percent threshold required to enter the second round, they would probably encourage their followers to vote for autonomy.

• READ MORE: Temaru’s pro-independence party wins round one of French Polynesia’s elections
• Other Tahitian elections reports

In this first round, 56 percent of the population voted for the members of the Parliament, who will then elect the territory’s President.

This first result has come as no surprise to Oscar Temaru, giving him and his party a two-week campaign to entice the other 44 percent who did not vote in the first round to choose “blue” on April 30.

Undemocratic voting system
When I interviewed Oscar Temaru before the elections, he repeated to me that it should be one vote, one person and that’s the way democracy should work.

However, because France decides on the voting system, it also decides on the allocation of bonus seats (33 percent) for the party that wins most votes in the 57-seat chamber.

This extra bonus seat ploy appeared in 2004 under Gaston Flosse under the pretence of achieving political stability.

This strategy only favours big parties and is likely to keep the same party in power for a long time.

It is part of France’s responsibility to decide the type of vote, to dictate when to vote and how to organise the voting system.

The 33 percent bonus seats was geared to favour the autonomist parties but had the opposite effect in 2004 — despite all predictions — and put the UPLD (union for Democracy, which included Tavini) in power.

Temaru is hoping for a repeat of 2004. By the end of the second round on April 30, we will have the answer on who is going to govern Mā’ohi Nui for the next five years.

Temaru’s winning strategy
Riding on the back of their win at the last French national elections that saw all three seats allocated to Mā’ohi Nui/French Polynesia in the French Parliament won by pro-independence representatives, Temaru says it was a historic surprise for the French administration and for his people in Tahiti.

He knows that if he uses the same strategy for the territorial elections, he has a good chance of winning.

His approach is to concentrate on what he calls the “disillusioned youth”.

By applying the same approach, he is pitting youth against age because he noticed that the young people weren’t interested in the election because they were not given a voice.

When Oscar Temaru talks about young people, he means 18 to 35 years old — those who the governing administration do not see as potential voters and who rely on their “old guard” approach.

Temaru also talks about how the return of the Tahitian language during political meetings and rallies has had a huge influence on the Tahitian population that still represents about 75 percent of the electorate.

By giving the stage to young, committed and fluent speakers of both Tahitian and French, a whole new communication gap appears.

Fluent bilingual speakers
The pro-independence party offers a space for fluent bilingual speakers compared to the other sides’ representatives who are only fluent in French and speak hardly any Tahitian.

Temaru sees communication in politics as the winning formula.

If you control communication, you are in luck. That is what he did in the last elections in the capital city of Pape’ete for the first time and it was an important victory.

Temaru has also played on the generation gap that exists between the various candidates who are presenting themselves.

He cited veteran politician Gaston Flosse as the main example, emphasising that the future of the Mā’ohi people belongs to the young generation.

When Flosse presented himself in the last elections, he was 91 years old and the youngest lawmaker in the whole of the French Republic from Tavini was only 21 years old. There is a difference of more than three generations between these two candidates.

‘Disrespectful behaviour’
According to Oscar Temaru, the polls show that a huge number of people are against the Fritch government because of:

• The “appalling handling “of the covid pandemic;
• the intervention of the French government in the local health system;
• the scandal of the wedding of the year when a vice-president broke the covid isolation rules — Tahiti’s ‘wedding of the year’ turns into political row over covid hypocrisy | Asia Pacific Report;
• the disrespectful behaviour of President Fritch against the opposition in parliamentary debates; and an unpopular new social tax that has penalised the poor even more.

People now look to the idea of independence as an alternative. Winning these elections would give the Tavini a historic majority in both the Territorial Parliament and the French National Assembly as the only representatives of Mā’ohi Nui would be pro-independence.

Oscar Temaru sees both victories as a stronger mandate enabling Mā’ohi Nui to go to the United Nations and discuss the issue of independence.

He says that every time he talks about Mā’ohi Nui as an independent country, the representatives for France stand up and leave — they don’t want to discuss it.

President Édouard Fritch would go to the UN and say that the population supported their attachment to the French state.

So, this is why it’s really critical for Oscar Temaru to win these elections and change many things in this country.

Internal discords at the Tavini
Is there a tug war between factions of the Tavini Huira’atira after one of the party’s pillars, Eliane Tevaitua, was replaced by a newcomer?

“No. Everybody understands that we have to work together – the older generation and new generation, we need to mix them up,” Temaru says.

“The young generation understands that they need the experience of people who know what is going on. It’s very easy to make them quickly operational because they are smart young people and very interested in politics.”

When the long serving Tavini Huira’atira member of the Territorial Assembly was replaced, the online Tahiti Infos ran an article claiming that Tavini’s general secretary Vannina Ateo had offered her resignation to Oscar Temaru.

However, Ateo said she had never offered her resignation and this was a campaign of disinformation.

Tavini’s vision
Oscar Temaru: “If we win the territorial elections, we will be able to tell France, let’s sit around the table and talk about the future of our country in the presence of the UN as a referee.

“We will put on the table everything that concerns the people of this country. Let’s talk together step by step about agreements of cooperation in the different areas for the future.

“The UN will be the referee between us and France regarding those agreements.
“For us this will not be a repeat of the Noumea Accords because I am one of those who knew what happened exactly to the New Caledonia issue.

“In 1986 after the resolution was adopted by the UN to put New Caledonia on the list of countries to decolonise, there was no talk about going to Paris and meeting with the right-wing Jacques Lafleur.

“It was a decision taken by Jean-Marie Tjibaou and we knew after that the freemason people were the ones who worked behind the scenes to organise that meeting in Paris.

“So, it took more than 30 years from 1986 to 2008. And from 2008 until today the Noumea Accord has become a stalemate.

“We don’t want that kind of accord because while the Noumea Accord was being discussed, at the same time we have had a statute of autonomy which started in 1977 and is now 46 years.

“So, after the autonomy — call it as you like, autonomy management, autonomy intern, self-governance — no we don’t want any of those new titles for our country.

““We will not go through the nearly 40 years of negotiations that New Caledonia went through. For us the UN will fix the date for the referendum so maximum, let’s say 10 years.

“We want to put the economy of this country on the right track, to educate our people — that’s the main point, how to change the mindset of our people and that is a hard job.

“It won’t an easy discussion so we will need top people to go to the UN to talk to the French, because they don’t want to lose their stronghold on this country that is as huge and as big as Europe, with all the resources.

“So that’s why the French administration don’t want to lose it.

“Thanks to the UN for having adopted the last two resolutions in 2020 and 2021 which tell the French to respect our sovereign right and our rights on every resource on this country.

“If France loses this part of Ma’ohi Nui, it will lose everything and Noumea will follow suite when their turn comes again.”

In response to the last question, about Oscar Temaru himself — what is going to happen to him, he says “we will wait and see what God decides, aye!”

At the age of nearly 80, he still has the fighting spirit and he hopes that in five years’ time he will still be here.

“Maybe there will be a new leader for this country. I don’t know, but at the moment I am still fighting.”

Ena Manuireva is an Aotearoa New Zealand-based Tahitian doctoral candidate at Auckland University of Technology and a commentator on French politics in Ma’ohi Nui and the Pacific. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report.

New Caledonia’s rival pro- and anti-independence factions both say they are satisfied with the week of separate talks with French government ministers in Paris.

After the rejection of full sovereignty in three referendums and the expiry of the 1998 Noumea Accord, a new statute for Kanaky New Caledonia needs to be created.

While the pro-independence parties want Paris to give a timetable to full independence, the anti-independence parties want Paris to realign the territory with France.

• READ MORE: Other New Caledonia independence reports

The discussions will be continued in Noumea in June when French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin plans his next visit.

His ministry said he would go to the United Nations in New York in May to discuss the situation in New Caledonia.

The territory has been on the UN decolonisation list since 1986, based on the Kanak people’s internationally recognised right to self-determination.

After this week’s talks in Paris, Victor Tutugoro of the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) told the AFP news agency all points raised by his side had been accepted for the negotiations in June.

FLNKS accepted invitation
The anti-independence parties expressed satisfaction that the FLNKS accepted the French invitation for this week’s bilateral discussions after shunning a dialogue in France since the third and last independence referendum in 2021.

The pro-independence side largely abstained from the third vote because of the pandemic and refuses to recognise the result as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.

The anti-independence parties want the June talks to be trilateral after the pro-independence parties insisted on negotiating only with France about a path to sovereignty.

The president of the Southern Province, Sonia Backes, said Darmanin’s visit would make sense only if the pro-independence parties joined the anti-independence parties for discussions.

On key points, the two sides remain far apart.

The pro-independence parties say the restricted rolls for provincial election, which define New Caledonian citizenship and are enshrined in the French constitution, must stay.

The anti-independence parties want France to open the rolls for next year’s provincial elections to include people who settled since 1998.

They also want a statute preventing any future option for self-determination.

According to a New Caledonian member of the French National Assembly, Nicholas Metzdorf, Darmanin said either time would do the job, or he would do the job.

French Polynesians vote for new Assembly
Meanwhile, in French Polynesia voting has started in the first round to elect a Territorial Assembly for a new five-year term.

About 200,000 voters can choose among seven lists of candidates vying for the assembly’s 57 seats.

A list securing at least 12.5 percent of the votes can stand in the run-off round in two weeks.

In the second round, on April 30, the list winning most votes will get a third of all seats as a bonus, which assures it securing an absolute majority.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The leader of New Caledonia’s Pacific Awakening party has presented his vision on the territory’s development to the French government.

Milakulo Tukumuli met the French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin ahead of talks between French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and New Caledonia’s pro- and anti-independence politicians.

The two rival sides were the signatories to the 1998 Noumea Accord which has been the roadmap of the decolonisation process.

• READ MORE: Other reports on Kanaky New Caledonia decolonisation

Pacific Awakening, which represents the interests of the Wallisian and Futunan community, was formed in the lead-up to the last provincial elections and now holds the balance of power in New Caledonia’s Congress.

Tukumuli said it was important to establish a methodology to move forward after the rejection of full sovereignty in the three referendums under the accord.

The anti-independence camp hopes Paris will amend the French constitution to reverse the voting restrictions introduced with the Noumea agreement.

The pro-independence side considers the restrictions as an irreversible accomplishment of the decolonisation process.

Its representatives say this week’s talks in Paris are mere discussions and not formal negotiations resulting in any commitment.

The largest pro-independence party said its aim was to regain independence by 2025, while the anti-independence side seeks reintegration with France.

New Caledonia has been on the UN decolonisation list since 1986, based on the Kanak people’s internationally recognised right to self-determination.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

About 3000 activists of French Polynesia’s pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira party met for six hours at the weekend with the executives insisting that they were “united’ after a recent upheaval over leadership.

The party also presented a “renewed” slate of 73 candidates for next month’s territorial elections which includes many new and younger faces in the lineup for the ballot on April 16 and 30.

Party chair Oscar Temaru got the ball rolling at Motu Ovini in Faa’a on Saturday. Appearing tired, he nevertheless remained on the stage for the entire congress along with the other party executives.

• READ MORE: Other Tahiti politics reports

Antony Géros, the party’s number two, delivered a long-awaited speech after the recent party rift over the candidacy of Moetai Brotherson for the territorial presidency if the party wins the elections.

“It created a stir in the party because the Tony-Moetai divide started to be felt. And it was necessary to sort that out,” he explained after his speech.

Calling for “union”, “unity” and even respect for the new vision of “rising youth ” within the party, Géros ruled out any hint of a possible challenge to Brotherson’s candidacy.

A call for unity was also echoed in the two speeches by young deputies Tematai Le Gayic and Steve Chailloux in the French National Assembly, both once again impressive in their mastery of public speaking.

Tributes by Brotherson
The third and leading deputy Brotherson, emphasised respect and gave tributes to the “elders” of Tavini huiraatira.

“It’s something to walk in the footsteps of these giants,” he said, before also paying tribute to the man who was his chief-of-staff between 2011 and 2013 — Antony Géros.

There were obviously wounds to be patched up.

Temaru, five times a former president of French Polynesia, will lead the candidates list for section 3 (Faa’a, Punaauia).

Géros, mayor of Paea, will lead section 2 (Mahina, Hitia’a o te Ra, Taiarapu East and West, Teva i Uta, Papara and Paea).

Deputy Brotherson heads of the Leeward Islands section.

Section 1 (Papeete, Pirae, Arue, Moorea) will be led by the young deputy Temata’i Le Gayic.

Elections treated as ‘referendum’
RNZ Pacific reports that Temaru had said last December that he would treat the elections as if they would be an independence referendum.

He said that if his party won the election by a large margin, he questioned the point in holding a vote on independence from France.

Temaru said in the case of such a victory he would visit neighbouring Pacific countries and the United Nations to secure support for French Polynesia’s sovereignty.

He said Kosovo and Vanuatu became independent countries without a referendum.

In the last territorial election in 2018, the Tavini won less than 20 percent of the seats, but in the French National Assembly election in June, it secured all three of French Polynesia’s seats in the run-off round.

Brotherson has questioned Temaru’s stance, saying a local election should not be “mixed up” with a decolonisation process under the auspices of the United Nations.

In 2013, the UN General Assembly re-inscribed the French territory on its decolonisation list, but Paris has rejected the decision and keeps boycotting the annual decolonisation committee’s debate on French Polynesia.

While France has partially cooperated with the UN on the decolonisation of New Caledonia, the French government has ignored calls by the Tavini to invite the UN to assess the territory’s situation.

Republished from Tahiti-Infos and RNZ Pacific with permission.

The aims of Peace Action: Struggles for a Decolonised and Demilitarised Oceania and East Asia as stated by the editor, Valerie Morse, are “to make visible interconnections between social struggles separated by the vast expanse of Te Moana Nui-A-Kiwi [the Pacific Ocean] … to inspire, to enrage and to educate, but most of all, to motivate people to action” (p. 11).

It is an opportunity to learn from the activists involved in these struggles. Published by the Left of the Equator Press, there are plenty of clues to the radical ideas presented. The frontispiece points out that the publisher is anti-copyright, and the book is “not able to be reproduced for the purpose of profit”, is printed on 100 percent “post consumer recycled paper”, and “bound with a hatred for the State and Capital infused in every page”.

By their nature, activists take action and do things rather than just speak or write about things, as is the academic tradition, so this is an important, unique, and rare opportunity to learn from their insights, knowledge, and experience.

• READ MORE: Other Asia Pacific Report reviews

Twenty-three contributors representing some of the diverse Peoples of Aotearoa, Australia, China, Hawaii, Japan, New Caledonia, Samoa, Tahiti, Tokelau, Tonga, and West Papua offer 13 written chapters, plus poetry, artworks, and a photo essay. The range of topics is extensive too, including the history of the Crusades and the doctrine of discovery, anti-militarist and anti-imperialist movements, land reclamation movements, nuclear resistance and anti-racist movements, solidarity and allyship.

Both passion and ethics are evident in the stories about involvement in decolonised movements that are “situated in their relevant Indigenous practice” and anti-militarist movements that “actively practice peace making” (p. 11).

While their activism is unquestioned, the contributors come with other impressive credentials. Not only do they actively put into practice their strong values, but many are also researchers and scholars. Dr Pounamu Jade Aikman (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Apakura, Ngāti Wairere, Tainui, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Te Rangi, Te Arawa and Ngāti Tarāwhai) holds a Fulbright Scholarship from Harvard University. Mengzhu Fu (a 1.5 generation Tauiwi Chinese member of Asians Supporting Tino Rangatiratanga) is doing their PhD research on Indigenous struggles in Aotearoa and Canada-occupied Turtle Islands. Kyle Kajihiro lectures at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and is a board member of Hawai’i Peace and Justice. Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic from the Yikwa-Kogoya clan of the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands. Ena Manuireva is an academic and writer who represents the Mā’ohi Nui people of Tahiti. Dr Jae-Eun Noh and Dr Joon-Shik Shin are Korean researchers in Australian universities. Dr Rebekah Jaung, a health researcher, is involved in Korean New Zealanders for a Better Future.

Several of the authors are working as investigators on the prestigious Marsden project entitled “Matiki Mai Te Hiaroa: #ProtectIhumātao”, a recent successful campaign to reclaim Māori land. These include Professor Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan (Waikato, Ngāti Mahuta and Te Ahiwaru), Frances Hancock (Irish Pākehā), Carwyn Jones (Ngāti Kahungunu), Qiane Matata-Sipu (Te Waiohua ki te Ahiwaru me te Ākitai, Waikato Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Pikiao), and Pania Newton (Ngāpuhi, Waikato, Ngāti Mahuta and Ngāti Maniapoto) who is co-founder and spokesperson for the SOUL/#ProtectIhumātao campaign.

Others work for climate justice, peace, Indigenous, social justice organisations, and community groups. Jungmin Choi coordinates nonviolence training at World Without War, a South Korean antimilitarist organisation based in Seoul. Mizuki Nakamura, a member of One Love Takae coordinates alternative peace tours in Japan. Tuhi-Ao Bailey (Ngāti Mutunga, Te Ātiawa and Taranaki) is chair of the Parihaka Papakāinga Trust and co-founder of Climate Justice Taranaki.

Zelda Grimshaw, an artist and activist, helped coordinate the Disrupt Land Forces campaign at a major arts fair in Brisbane. Arama Rata (Ngāruhine, Taranaki and Ngāti Maniapoto) is a researcher for WERO (Working to End Racial Oppression) and Te Kaunoti Hikahika.

Some are independent writers and artists. Emalani Case is a writer, teacher and aloha ‘āina from Waimea Hawai’i. Tony Fala (who has Tokelauan, Palagi, Samoan, and Tongan ancestry) engages with urban Pacific communities in Tāmaki Makaurau. Marylou Mahe is a decolonial feminist artist from Haouaïlou in the Kanak country of Ajë-Arhö. Tina Ngata (Ngäti Porou) is a researcher, author and an advocate for environmental Indigenous and human rights.

Jos Wheeler is a director of photography for film and television in Aotearoa.

Background analysis for this focus on Te Moana Nui A Kiwi, provides information about the concepts of imperial masculinity, infection, ideas from European maritime law Mare Liberum, that saw the sea as belonging to everyone. These ideas steered colonisation and placed shackles, both figuratively and physically, on Indigenous Peoples around the world.

In the 17th century, Japan occupied the country of Okinawa, now also used as a training base by the US military. European “explorers” had been given “missions” in the 18th century that included converting the people to Christianity and locating useful and profitable resources in far-flung countries such as Aotearoa, Australia, New Caledonia and Tahiti.

In the 19th century, Hawai’i was subject to US imperialism and militarisation.

In the 20th century, Western countries were “liberating other nations” and dividing them up between them, such as the US “liberation” of South Korea from Japanese colonial rule. The Dutch prepared West Papua for independence 1960s after colonisation, but a subsequent Indonesian military invasion left the country in a worse predicament.

However, the resistance from the Indigenous Peoples has been evident from the beginnings of imperialist invasions and militarisation of the Pacific, despite the arbitrary violence that accompanied these. Resistance continues, as the contributors to Peace Action demonstrate, and the contributions reveal the very many faces and facets of non-violent resistance that works towards an eventual peace with justice.

Resistance has included education, support to help self-sufficiency, medical and legal support, conscientious objection, human rights advocacy, occupation of land, coordinating media coverage, visiting sites of significance, being the voice of the movement, petitions, research, writing, organising and joining peaceful marches, coordinating solidarity groups, making submissions, producing newsletter and community newspapers, relating stories, art exhibitions and installations, visiting churches, schools, universities, conferences, engaging with politicians, exploiting and creating digital platforms, fundraising, putting out calls for donations and hospitality, selling T-shirts and tote bags, awareness-raising events, hosting visitors, making and serving food, bearing witness, musical performances, photographic exhibitions, film screenings, songs on CDs.

In order to mobilise people, activists have been involved in political engagement, public education, multimedia engagement, legal action, protests, rallies, marches, land and military site occupations, disruption of events, producing food from the land, negotiating treaties and settlements, cultural revitalisation, community networking and voluntary work, local and international solidarity, talanoa, open discussions, radical history teaching, printmaking workshops, vigils, dance parties, mobile kitchens, parades, first aid, building governance capacity, sharing histories, increasing medical knowledge.

Activist have been prompted to act because of anger, disgust, and fear. The oppressors are likened to big waves, to large octopuses (interestingly also used in racist cartoons to depict Chinese immigrants to Aotearoa), to giants, to a virus, slavers, polluters, destroyers, exploiters, thieves, rapists, mass murderers, war criminals, war profiteers, white supremacists, racists, brutal genocide, ruthless killers, subjugators, fearmongers, demonisers, narcissistic sociopaths, and torturers.

The resisters often try to “find beauty in the struggle” (Case, p. 70), using imagery of flowers and trees, love, dancing, song, braiding fibers or leis, dolphins, shark deities, flourishing food baskets, fertile gardens, pristine forests, sacred valleys, mother earth, seashells, candlelight, rainbows, rays of the rising sun, friendship, alliance, partners, majestic lowland forests, ploughs, watering seeds, and harvesting crops.

Collaboration in resistance requires dignity, respect, integrity, providing safe spaces, honesty, openness, hard work without complaint, learning, cultural and spiritual awareness. The importance of coordination, cooperation and commitment are emphasised.

And readers are made aware of the sustained energy that is needed to follow through on actions.

The aim of Peace Action is to inspire, enrage, educate and motivate. These chapters will appeal mostly to those already convinced, and this is deliberately so.

In these narratives, images we have guidance as to what is needed to be an activist. We admire the courage and bravery, we are educated into the multitude of activities that can be undertaken, and the immense amount of work in planning and sustaining action.

This can serve as a handbook, providing plans of action to follow. Richness and creativity are provided in the fascinating and informative narratives, storytelling, and illustrations.

I find it difficult to criticise because its goal is clear, there is no pretence that it is something else, and it achieves what it sets out to do. It remains to be seen whether peace action will follow. But that will be up to the readers.

• Peace Action: Struggles for a Decolonised and Demilitarised Oceania and East Asia, edited by Valerie Morse. Te Whanganui-A-Tara (Wellington): Left of the Equator Press, 2022, 178 pages. NZ$25.99. ISBN 9780473634452.

Dr Heather Devere is former director of practice, National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, and chair of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN). This review is published in collaboration with Pacific Journalism Review.

RNZ Pacific

New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS movement is holding its congress this weekend to prepare its position for the bilateral talks scheduled with French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.

The minister is due in Noumea next week to resume discussions on a new statute for New Caledonia after the rejection of full sovereignty in three referendums.

A senior member of the Caledonian Union, Dominique Fochi, told local television there have been divergent proposals from the different parties making up the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS).

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia politics reports

But he said there was so much at stake that there was no room for dissonant voices.

One of the parties, the Caledonian Union, has said negotiations with France are only worthwhile if they deal with the emancipation of the country.

This weekend’s 41st congress in Noumea will also host several international independence supporters, notably a pro-independence party in Spain’s Basque Country and the French Guiana nationalist MP Jean-Victor Castor.

New Caledonia has been on the UN Decolonisation List since 1986, based on the indigenous Kanak people’s internationally recognised right to self-determination.

Earlier this week, New Caledonia’s anti-independence parties walked out of a meeting at the French High Commission in Noumea to discuss the electoral rolls for next year’s provincial elections.

New Caledonia’s pro-independence Union Calédonian has proposed September 24 this year as the date by which an accord be reached with France to complete decolonisation.

The party, which wants independence for the territory by 2025, has chosen the date because it will mark the 170th anniversary of New Caledonia becoming a French colony on 24 September 1853.

The call was made by the party’s president Daniel Goa after reports from Paris that the French interior minister Gerald Darmanin would return to New Caledonia in early March to advance work on a new statute for the territory.

• READ MORE: Other future of Kanaky New Caledonia reports

In three referendums, New Caledonia rejected full sovereignty, but the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), which includes the Caledonian Union, refuses to recognise the third vote, held in December 2021, as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.

As the three votes concluded the Noumea Accord without New Caledonia becoming independent, the stakeholders concerned must be convened to discuss the situation.

The FLNKS is scheduled to hold its congress at the end of February to prepare its position for the bilateral talks scheduled with Darmanin.

On UN decolonisation list
New Caledonia has been on the UN decolonisation list since 1986, based on the indigenous Kanak people’s internationally recognised right to self-determination.

Goa said negotiations are only worthwhile if they deal with the emancipation of the country.

He said his side needs to know how the French state will withdraw and how it will compensate New Caledonia for 170 years of the “looting of its resources”.

The anti-independence camp says a revised statute should be in place for the 2024 provincial elections.

The pro-French parties have said that by then the restricted electoral roll must be opened to all French citizens.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

On 30 June 2022, the Indonesian Parliament in Jakarta passed legislation to split West Papua into three more pieces.

The Papuan people’s unifying name for their independence struggle — “West Papua” — is now being shattered by Jakarta’s draconian policies. Under this new legislation, the two existing provinces have been divided into five, which include South Papua, Central Papua, and Highland Papua.

Indonesia’s Vice-President, Ma’ruf Amin said while addressing an audience at the Special Autonomy Law Change in Jayapura, Papua’s capital, on Tuesday, 29 November 2022, “right now, we are building Papua better”,  reported the Indonesian news agency Antara.

• READ MORE: Pacific marks 61st year flying of Papua’s banned Morning Star flag
• The Morning Star flag background
• Revelations on the murky fate of flag ‘treason’ prisoners in West Papua
• Oceania Indigenous ‘guardians’ call for self-determination on West Papua day
• Other West Papua reports

“Changes to special autonomy are a natural thing and are in the process of the national policy cycle to make things even better,” continued the Vice-President.

While Jakarta is busy tearing apart West Papua with these deceitful words, Papuans everywhere are called to raise the banned Morning Star flag today to commemorate West Papua’s 61st Independence Day on 1 December 1961, stolen by Jakarta in May 1963.

The day is significant and historic because it was on 19 October 1961 that the first New Guinea Council, known as Nieuw Guinea Raad, named West Papua as the name of a new modern nation-state — the Papuan Independent State was founded.

It was before Papua New Guinea (PNG) gained independence in 1975 from Australia.

Papuans were subjected to all kinds of abuse and violations due to how this island of New Guinea was named and described in colonial literature.

Foreign reinventions
Foreign powers continue to dissect West Papua, renaming it, creating new identities, and reinventing new definitions by making it merely an outpost of foreign imperialism in the periphery where abundant food and minerals are extracted and stolen, without penalty or consequence.

Papuans do not appear to give up their sacred ancestral land without a fight.

The name “West Papua”, however, remains a burning flame in the hearts of all living beings who yearn for freedom and justice. The name was chosen 61 years ago because of this reason. This is the name of a newborn nation-state.

After Indonesia invaded West Papua on May 1, 1963, the name West Papua was changed to Irian Jaya. West Papua had been called The Netherlands New Guinea up to the point of the first New Guinea Council in 1961.

The year 2000 marked another significant period in the history of West Papua. The former Indonesian president, Abdurrahman Wahid — famously known as Gusdur — renamed it from Irian Jaya to Papua, a move that etched a special place in the hearts of Papuans for Gusdur.

In 2003, not only did West Papua’s name change. But West Papua was split in half — Papua and West Papua. This fragmentation was achieved by Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of the first Indonesian president, Sukarno, the man responsible for 60 years of Papuan bloodshed.

She violated a provision of the Special Autonomy Law 2001, which was based on the idea that Papua remain a single territory. As prescribed by law, any division would need to be approved by the Papuan provincial legislature and local Papuan cultural assembly.

Tragic turning point
They were institutions set up by Jakarta itself to safeguard Papuan people, language, and culture.

One significant aspect of the first Special Autonomy Law was, any new policy introduced by the central government in relation to changing, adjusting, or creating a new identity of the region (West Papua) must be approved by the Papuan People’s Assembly (MRP). But this has never happened to date.

The year 2022 marks another tragic turning point in the fate of West Papua. West Papua is being divided again this year under President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, in the same manner that Jakarta did 20 years ago.

It is common for Jakarta elites to act inconsistently with their own laws when dealing with West Papua. Jakarta violated both the UN Charter and the New York Agreement, which they themselves agreed to and signed.

For example, chapters 11 (XI), 12 (XII), and 13 (XIII) of the UN Charter governing decolonisation and Papua’s right to self-determination, as specified in the New York Agreement’s Articles 18 (XVII), 19 (XIX), 20 (XX), 21 (XXI), and 22 (XXII) have not been followed. The words, texts and practices all contradict each other — demonstrating possible psychological disturbance — traumatising Papuans by being administered by such a pathological entity.

The disdain and demeaning behaviour shown by Indonesian governments towards Papuans in West Papua over the past 61 years are unforgivable and stained permanently in the soul of every living being in West Papua and New Guinea island.

“Right now, we are building Papua better,” declared Indonesia’s Vice-President, a narcissistic utterance from the highest office of the country, and this illustrates Jakarta’s complete disconnect from West Papua.

What led to this tragic situation?
West Papua has endured a lot for more than half a century, having been renamed and re-described numerous times by foreign invaders, from “IIha de papo” and “o’ Papuas” to “Isla de Oro”, or “Island of Gold”, to New Guinea, and New Guinea to Netherlands, English and German Papua and New Guinea. From this emerged Papua New Guinea, West Papua and Irian Jaya, and from Irian Jaya to Papua and West Papua.

As a result of renaming and colonial descriptions of Papuans as unintelligent pygmies, cannibals, and pagan savages; people without value, different foreign colonial intruders were able to enter West Papua and exploit and treat the Papuan people and their land, in accordance with the myth they created based on these names.

In addition to fostering a racist mindset, this depiction misrepresented reality as it was experienced and understood by Papuans over thousands of years.

The Jakarta settler colonial government continues to engage with West Papua with these profoundly misconstrued ideas. Hence the total disregard for what Papuans want or feel regarding their fate is a result of colonial renaming and accounts.

Now the eastern half remains under one name: Papua New Guinea. Jakarta’s settler colonial rulers just created five more settler provinces on the Western side of the island: South Papua Province, Central Papua Province, and Central Highlands Papua Province.

All these new settler colonial provinces are in the heart of New Guinea. Looking at West Papua’s history, we see so many marks and bruises of abuse and torture on her sacred body. In the future, West Papua is likely to suffer yet another grim fate of more torture with such dishonest words from Indonesia’s Vice-President.

Another sacred day
Today, December 1, marks yet another sacred day where we hold West Papua in our hearts and rally to her defence as her enemy marches to cut her into pieces on the settler colonial’s bed of Procrustes.

Let us remember and give glory to West Papua with the following words:

West Papua is an ancient and original particle, an atom of light and hope. It is a story about survival, resistance, betrayal, destruction, genocide, and survival against the odds. It is the last frontier where humanity’s greatness and wickedness are tested, where tragedy, aspiration, and hope are revealed. Papua is an innocent sacrificial lamb, a peace broker among the planet’s monsters, but no one knows her story — hidden deep beneath the earth – supporting sacred treaties between savages and warlords. West Papua is the home of the last original magic, the magic of nature. West Papua is the home of our original ancestors, the archaic Autochthons, the spiritual ancestors of our dream-time spiritual warriors — the pioneers of nature — the first voyageur across dangerous seas and land — the first agriculturalist — the most authentic, the original — we are the past and we are the future. West Papua is the original dream that has yet to be realised — a dream in the process of restoration to its original glory.

This is where West Papua is now. You cut me into pieces millions of times in millions of years, I will rebuild West Papua with these pieces a million times over again.

Happy West Papua Independence Day!

Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

• Other Yamin Kogoya articles

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne says her meeting with New Caledonia’s anti-independence leaders in Paris marks the beginning of discussions on the future status of New Caledonia.

The meeting was called as the decolonisation process under the 1998 Noumea Accord had concluded with rejection of full sovereignty in last December’s third referendum on independence from France.

All key parties were invited to chart the next step, but the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) — who reject the third referendum as they did not participate because of the covid-19 pandemic — stayed away from the gathering, labelled the Convention of Partners.

• READ MORE: Other reports on New Caledonian decolonisation

In September, the Overseas Minister Jean-Francois Carenco said the FLNKS would be at the Paris talks.

In comments after the meeting, Borne said she was delighted with the spirit of responsibility and consensus of the exchanges, describing them as “faithful to the tradition of the agreements of 1988 and 1998”.

She said as a transition period begins, the delegates noted the need to base their reflections on the lessons of experience.

Borne said they agreed to launch an audit of the decolonisation to assess the support given to New Caledonia by the French state since 1988 with regard to the international law.

Broaden the discussions
She said it was agreed to broaden the scope of the discussions beyond the institutional questions, by also addressing the vital subjects for the future of New Caledonians.

These include equal opportunities and social cohesion, economic development and employment, energy sovereignty and ecological transition as well as common values and reconciliation.

Borne said working groups would be organised in Noumea by the High Commissioner in November.

The work is expected to be concluded in mid-2023, with her adding that it would only succeed if all political forces contributed to it.

Last year, Paris announced plans for a new referendum in June on a new statute, but the project has been deferred in the face of the pro-independence parties’ refusal to engage in the process outlined by France.

To progress negotiations, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin will travel to New Caledonia in November together with Carenco, who in September was the first French minister to visit Noumea since the formation of the Borne government in June.

Got ‘best they could’
One of New Caledonia’s members of the French National Assembly, Nicolas Metzdorf, said they got the best they could in the absence of the pro-independence politicians.

He said with a timetable and a working method, he hoped they would come back to the discussion table.

Metzdorf said if they wanted to add working groups of their own, they had every opportunity to do so.

None of the parties making up the FLNKS attended the talks in France because in part they refuse to recognise the vote as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.

The FLNKS has signalled that its discussions with Paris will have to centre on ways to complete the territory’s decolonisation.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

None of the parties making up New Caledonia’s pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) will attend this week’s talks in France about New Caledonia’s new political statute.

The previously undecided UNI faction also said it would be absent after the FLNKS had already said it would not send an official delegation to Paris.

Last December, more than 96 percent voted against full sovereignty for New Caledonia in the last of three referendums on independence from France held under the 1998 Noumea Accord.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia independence reports

However, the pro-independence groups boycotted that vote after unsuccessfully seeking a postponement due to the impact that the covid-19 pandemic had had on the indigenous Kanak population.

Turnout of the eligible voters was less than 44 percent.

The Accord stipulates that in the case of three “no” votes, the political partners would meet to examine the situation – which had now arisen.

The Accord, which provided for a gradual and irreversible transfer of power from France to New Caledonia, expired amid controversy as the pro-independence side refused to recognise the vote as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.

Right to self-determination
The territory has been on the UN Decolonisation list since 1986, based on the Kanak people’s internationally recognised right to self-determination.

The pro-independence parties abstained from voting after Paris refused to postpone the referendum to this year over concern triggered by the pandemic’s impact on the indigenous Kanak population.

A legal challenge in France’s highest administrative court — filed by the Kanak customary Senate — was rejected, with the court ruling in June that the impact of the pandemic was not a reason to consider the referendum invalid.

Discussions on New Caledonia’s future status were put on hold for the better part of the first half of this year because of campaigning for first the French presidential and then the parliamentary elections.

Two ministers in the new French government formed in June promised to visit New Caledonia but abandoned their plans, making last month’s arrival of the new junior Overseas Minister Jean-Francois Carenco in Noumea the first visit of a minister of the new administration.

Tasked with re-establishing dialogue among the key parties, Carenco concluded days of talks with a cross-section of leaders with an announcement that the key leaders would meet in Paris in October.

Following his trip, the plan was for both pro- and anti-independence leaders to meet the Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin for separate bilateral talks on Thursday, followed by a broader meeting on Friday, chaired by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.

Wider representation
The gathering under her leadership — dubbed Convention of Partners — is expected to include representatives of sectors of society outside the political leaders that made up the signatories to the Noumea Accord.

The UNI faction of the FLNKS explained its absence this week by saying it failed to get a reply from Carenco about details of the planned talks.

The anti-independence parties, however, will attend the talks, as will the ethnic Wallisian party and kingmaker in New Caledonia’s Congress, the Pacific Awakening party.

A leading anti-independence politician and president of New Caledonia’s Southern Province, Sonia Backes, said she would quit her position in the French government if it failed to open up New Caledonia’s electoral rolls.

Backes was made Secretary of Citizenship within the French Interior Ministry when Borne reshuffled her government in July.

Under the Noumea Accord, which is enshrined in the French constitution, voting rights in provincial elections are restricted to indigenous people and residents living in New Caledonia since the 1990s.

The anti-independence camp said restricted electoral rolls could no longer be justified after last December’s vote.

Threat to resign
Backes said she would resign from the Paris job if the government did not change the rolls or went against what New Caledonians had voted for — a reference to the electorate’s rejection of full sovereignty in three referendums.

Pro-independence leaders, however, insist that the rolls must not be touched, fearing a change would “bury the indigenous Kanaks as a minority”.

More than 40,000 French residents lack full voting rights in New Caledonia, being allowed to vote in French national elections only.

The anti-independence side insists the opening of the electoral roll has to be integral to a new statute for a New Caledonia within France.

Last year, Paris announced plans for a new referendum in June on a new statute, but the project was deferred in the face of the pro-independence parties’ refusal to engage in the process outlined by France.

Comprehensive talks on the referendums’ aftermath will have to wait until the pro-independence signatories to the Noumea Accord agree to negotiate.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Louis Kotra Uregei, an emblematic and radical figure in the independence struggle in New Caledonia, has died aged 71, announced the Union of Kanak and Exploited Workers (USTKE) in a statement.

Nicknamed LKU or “Loulou”, this representative of New Caledonian militancy died on Thursday night after a long illness.

Originally from the small island of Tiga, in the Loyalty archipelago, Louis Kotra Uregei founded USTKE, the very first independence union, in 1981.

• READ MORE: Nouvelle-Calédonie : Louis Kotra Uregei, fondateur de l’USTKE, est décédé
• Future of Kanaky New Caledonia
• Other reports on the Kanak independence movement

Three years later, the USTKE participated in the creation of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS).

In 1988, the day after the hostage-taking in Ouvéa, which killed 21 people, Uregei had been part of the independence delegation sent to Paris to negotiate with the French State and signed the Matignon-Oudinot agreements.

While the USTKE became the second largest trade union force in New Caledonia, Uregei, known for his outspokenness and his radical methods, gradually moved away from the FLNKS and approached anti-globalisation circles.

‘Man of conviction’
In 2007, he founded the Labour Party, in the presence of José Bové, of which he would be the representative at the congress, from 2009 to 2019.

The independence party and member of the FLNKS Caledonian Union paid tribute on Friday to “an independentist leader, who did not mince his words . . .  and who knew how to remind today’s generation of leaders where and how it had to be fought to be heard on the national and international stage”.

The French High Commissioner in New Caledonia, Patrice Faure, hailed the memory of “a committed activist and a man of conviction”.

French Polynesia’s pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira party says France’s refusal to engage in any UN-supervised decolonisation process is becoming increasingly untenable.

In 2013, the UN General Assembly re-inscribed the French territory on its decolonisation list, but Paris has rejected the decision and keeps boycotting the annual decolonisation committee’s debate on French Polynesia.

While France cooperates with the UN on the decolonisation of New Caledonia, the French government has ignored calls by Tavini to invite the UN to assess the territory’s situation.

• READ MORE: Other reports on Tahiti’s decolonisation

On return from New York last week, the Tavini delegates said they will raise the continued French inaction in the French National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Commission.

The territory’s Assembly members in Paris are Tavini politicians, who won all three seats in the June election.

One of them, Moetai Brotherson, said he spoke to the French ambassador outside the committee venue to tell him that France’s “empty chair policy isn’t a good look”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Delegates from French Polynesia have flown to New York for the annual meeting of the UN Decolonisation Committee.

The veteran pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru is heading his team while the French Polynesian government has sent the Equipment Minister Rene Temeharo as its spokesperson.

The territory was reinscribed on the list on non-self-governing territories in 2013, but France refuses to accept the inscription and engage in any UN-supervised process.

He said French Polynesia was not a colony as it had a democratically elected territorial government.

France has not responded to calls to hold a referendum on independence.

The other main French territory in the Pacific, Kanaky New Caledonia, has been on the UN Decolonisation List since 1986, which France has recognised.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Caledonia’s pro-independence Palika party has joined the Caledonian Union in rejecting talks in Paris announced by the French Interior Ministry.

The ministry called a meeting of the signatories to the 1998 Noumea Accord for September as France plans to draw up a new statute for New Caledonia after last December’s boycotted referendum saw a majority of voters opt to remain French.

Palika spokesperson Charles Washetine said the French state had abandoned any notion of “impartiality” and wants to impose such talks amid pressure from the political right.

• READ MORE: Other Kanak independence reports

The head of the Caledonian Union, Daniel Goa, said his side would not go to Paris, describing the proposed talks as a sham and adding that if any talks were to go ahead, they would have to be held in New Caledonia and about ways to give the territory its sovereignty.

He also said any talks would be bilateral ones between his side and Paris, meaning that they would not involve New Caledonia’s anti-independence parties.

Noumea trip cancelled
The Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin had earlier announced a visit to Noumea before the end of next week, but the trip has reportedly been cancelled.

His ministry said he would visit New Caledonia after the Paris talks planned for September.

The anti-independence camp welcomed Darmanin’s proposed talks to conclude the process set out in the Noumea Accord.

New Caledonia has been on the UN Decolonisation List since 1986 and despite the referendum outcome, the Kanaks’ right to self-determination remains an inalienable international right.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

During World War I, the New Zealand government took a big area of land at Raglan from the local Tainui Awhiro people to build an airfield and bunker as part of local war preparations.

The airfield was never built and, instead of returning the land to the people, the government used the Public Works Act in 1928 to give legal justification for the Crown keeping the land.

In 1967, local iwi were evicted from the land and forced to rebuild nearby with the government then selling the land for the Raglan Golf Course.

• READ MORE: Other John Minto articles on Asia Pacific Report

In the early 1970s, Tainui Awhiro, led by Māori activist Eva Rickard, began the fight to have the land returned and after much protest, marches, petitions, lobbying, occupations and arrests on the golf links themselves they were finally successful in 1983.

The land was handed back — but not until they had fought off a government “offer” requiring them to buy their land back from the Crown.

It was my first experience of being part, in a very small way, of a Māori land protest.
One of the important things I remember from Raglan, Bastion Pt and those early land protests were the messages of support and solidarity which came in from around the country and all over the world.

Typically, these would be read out at the start of a protest hui and local iwi and supporters took great heart from them. They lifted spirits and warmed hearts when things sometimes seemed bleak.

Long way to decolonisation
We have a long way to go in decolonisation in Aotearoa New Zealand but we have come a significant way from the crude government behaviour at Raglan.

On the other side of the world, colonisation in Palestine is continuing apace since the mass expulsions of Palestinians from their land in 1948 (more than700,000 people evicted from their homes and land by Israeli militias from more than 500 villages with dozens of civilian massacres along the way).

Every day for the past 74 years, more Palestinians have been evicted from their land using all manner of spurious, creative justifications, backed by a court system run by the Israeli colonisers.

In the spotlight today are 12 Palestinian villages with more than 1000 people who face eviction from their land in an area of the South Hebron Hills called Masafer Yatta.

An Israeli court has given the Israeli army the go-ahead to evict the people and take over their land for a “live firing range”. The range isn’t needed. The Israeli army already has close to 18 per cent of the occupied West Bank set aside for firing zones — it’s just a commonly used pretext for land theft.

If the Israeli army is able to evict these people, it will be the largest eviction of Palestinians in more than 50 years.

Like the early colonists in New Zealand, Israel wants the land without the people.

Palestine’s Raglan struggle
Masafer Yatta is Palestine’s Raglan Golf Course, albeit on a larger scale and as part of the longest-running military occupation in modern times.

The people of Masafer Yatta are fighting back with protests and vowing not to move despite five weeks of thuggish bullying by Israeli military with vehicles racing around the land in a massive show of force to intimidate and cower the people. Live bullets ripped through roofs of houses in the Khallat Al Dabea village during this “military training”.

The local Palestinian people are organising to defend their land and homes against Israel’s aggressive colonisation.

Young people are on the frontline. Co-founder of non-violent resistance group Youth of Samud (Sumud means “steadfastness”) Sami Hurraini was detained by the Israeli army in the hot sun for eight hours without food or water last week but is undaunted.

Despite receiving a demolition order for their centre in Masafer Yatta, Hurraini says, “Of course Israel won’t stop us! We will rebuild the centre every time they demolish it.”

The least we can do is add our voices of international support and solidarity to the people of Masafer Yatta. We need to let them know they are not alone — just as similar messages gave heart to Māori fighting land theft here.

And we have to let Israel know there are accountabilities for ethnic cleansing and the war crimes associated with colonisation of Palestinian land.

Palestinians are not looking for our sympathy — they are looking for practical solidarity. If enough voices are raised around the world Israel will be forced to back down.

The strongest voice we have is the government’s. We need to insist our government uses it on behalf of all of us.

John Minto is a political activist and commentator, and spokesperson for Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa. This article was first published by The New Zealand Herald and is republished with the author’s permission.

An indigenous legal challenge in a bid to annul the result of last December’s referendum on New Caledonia’s independence from France has failed.

The highest administrative court in Paris has rejected a claim by the Kanak customary Senate that the impact of the covid-19 pandemic was such that the referendum outcome was illegitimate.

More than 96 percent voted against independence in the third and last referendum under the Noumea Accord, but more than 56 percent of voters abstained.

• READ MORE: Other reports on the New Caledonian referendums

The pro-independence parties had called for a boycott of the referendum after France had rejected pleas for the vote to be postponed until this year.

When the first community outbreak of the pandemic was recorded in September, a lockdown was imposed, which was extended into October, as thousands contracted the virus and hundreds needed hospital care.

The court in Paris found that the epidemiological situation had improved in October and November and that by the time of the referendum on December 12, more than 77 percent of the population had been vaccinated.

It also said the year-long mourning declared by the Kanak customary Senate in September was not such as to affect the sincerity of the vote.

No minimum turnout
The court added that neither constitutional provisions nor the organic law make the validity of the vote conditional on a minimum turnout.

In the week before the referendum, 146 voters and three organisations filed an urgent submission to the same court, seeking to postpone the vote.

They said given the impact of the pandemic, it was “unthinkable” to proceed with such an important plebiscite.

They said because of the lockdown, campaigning had been unduly hampered as basic freedoms impinged.

However, the court rejected the challenge and voting went ahead as intended by the French government.

Rejecting the referendum outcome, the pro-independence side said apart from court action, it would seek to win the support for its position from the Pacific Islands Forum and the United Nations.

A pro-independence delegate to last month’s UN decolonisation meeting said French President Emmanuel Macron had declared after the referendum that New Caledonia showed it wanted to stay French although it was known that 90 percent of Kanaks wanted independence.

French Senate mission planned
The French Senate is hearing experts this week as its law commission prepares work on a new statute for New Caledonia following last year’s rejection of independence.

The commission, which is chaired by François-Noel Buffet, has also formed a team that will travel to New Caledonia in two weeks for talks with all stakeholders.

The team is expected to stay for a week and complete its work by the end of July.

In December, more than 96 percent voted against independence in the third and last referendum under the Noumea Accord, which had been the decolonisation roadmap since 1998.

However, the pro-independence parties refuse to recognise the result, saying their abstention had rendered the outcome of the process illegitimate.

Paris plans to hold a referendum next June on a new statute for a New Caledonia within the French republic.

Buffet said his mission to Noumea was to consider the institutional situation by consolidating the dialogue initiated by the Matignon and Noumea Accords between France and New Caledonia.

Electoral rolls issue
A key issue will be the fate of the electoral rolls.

The Noumea Accord, whose provisions have been enshrined in the French constitution, restricts voting rights to indigenous people and long-term residents.

Migration this century has added about 40,000 French citizens who remain excluded from referendums and from provincial elections.

The anti-independence parties want the rolls to be unfrozen, but the pro-independence side is strongly opposed to this.

It told the UN Decolonisation Committee that France’s intention to open the electoral rolls to French people who arrived after 1998 was the ultimate weapon to “drown” the Kanak people and “recolonise” New Caledonia.

It warned the Kanaks would be made to disappear, which would not be accepted but inevitably lead to conflict.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Kanak people will not accept France’s attempt to “recolonise” New Caledonia, a pro-independence delegate has told the United Nations.

Addressing a UN Decolonisation Committee seminar on the Pacific in Saint Lucia, Dimitri Qenegei said since 2020 the French President, Emmanuel Macron, and his Overseas Minister Sebastien Lecornu had been taking unilateral decisions.

Qenegei said the signatories to the 1998 Noumea Accord stopped having their annual meetings in 2019 and the date for the referendum on independence last year was set without the consent of the Kanak people.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia referendum reports

Paris decided to go ahead with the third and last referendum last December under the Noumea Accord despite pleas by the pro-independence camp to delay the vote because of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the Kanak people.

France insisted that the timetable for the vote had to be upheld.

Amid a boycott by the pro-independence camp, fewer than half of the voters took part in the referendum but of those who did vote more than 96 percent were in favour of staying with France.

Qenegei said Macron declared after the referendum that New Caledonia showed it wanted to stay French although it was known that 90 percent of Kanaks wanted independence.

Claims of manipulation and lies
To therefore proclaim that New Caledonia chose to stay French was not legitimate, he said, adding that it was a “manipulation and a lie” by France and the heirs of the colonial system.

He said France, as the administrative power, had reorientated its policies to the methods of bygone centuries to hold on to its non-autonomous territories.

Qenegei said France had reneged on its undertaking given in 1998 to accompany New Caledonia to its decolonisation.

He pointed out that in case of three rejections of independence in the referenda under the Noumea Accord, the political parties needed to be convened to discuss the situation.

Qenegei said nowhere did it say that in a case of three “no” votes, New Caledonia remained French.

He said on the international stage, France had been losing influence, which prompted President Macron in 2018 to work towards an Indo-Pacific axis from Paris to Noumea that included India and Australia.

However, he said France suffered a first humiliation when Australia backed out of a multi-billion dollar contract for French submarines.

New Caledonia becoming independent would be another blow to the military axis aimed at containing China, he said.

Parallel drawn with China
Qenegei drew a parallel between China and France, saying France decried the possibility of Chinese troops in Solomon Islands as imperialism while France had placed troops in New Caledonia to “contain the Kanaks”.

While France criticised China’s lending policies, Qenegei said France regarded its loans to New Caledonia, given with interest to be paid, as something different.

Qenegei said the recent French policies were nothing but a return to the source of colonisation.

He warned that France’s intention to open up the electoral rolls to French people who arrived after 1998 was the ultimate weapon to drown the Kanak people and recolonise New Caledonia.

The Kanaks would be made to disappear and that would not be accepted but inevitably lead to conflict.

Qenegei said his outline was not a threat a but a call for help to bring the administrative power to its senses.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Kanak people won’t accept France’s attempt to recolonise New Caledonia, a pro-independence delegate has told the United Nations. https://t.co/UBRq27EyTi

— RNZ Pacific (@RNZPacific) May 17, 2022

New Caledonia’s largest pro-independence party says it will not give up on the gains made in terms of decolonisation from France under the 1998 Noumea Accord.

Party president Daniel Goa made the statement in an address at the party congress in the north of the main island Grande Terre at the weekend, outlining its key points ahead of negotiations with Paris about the territory’s institutional future.

Last December, more than 96 percent voted against independence from France in the third and last referendum provided under the Noumea Accord.

• READ MORE: Other New Caledonia politics reports
• Backgrounder on Kanaky New Caledonia

However, the plebiscite was boycotted by the pro-independence side after it had unsuccessfully asked Paris to postpone the vote because of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on mainly the indigenous Kanak population.

The pro-independence parties said they would not recognise the result, describing it as illegitimate and one not reflecting the will of the people to be decolonised.

Anti-independence parties as well as the French government welcomed the result, with President Emmanuel Macron saying France was “more beautiful” because New Caledonia decided to remain part of it.

Right after the vote, the French Overseas Minister Sebastien Lecornu said Paris planned to hold another referendum in June next year about a new statute for a New Caledonia within France.

‘Only emancipation’
However, Goa reiterated at the weekend the pro-independence camp’s stance was that it would not join discussions about re-integrating New Caledonia into France.

He told delegates that “the Caledonian Union had nothing to negotiate except to listen and discuss the process of emancipation that will irreversibly lead to sovereignty”.

Pro-independence parties, united under the umbrella of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), said after the December referendum that they would have no negotiations with France until after this year’s presidential election.

Last month, at the congress of another pro-independence party, Palika, its spokesperson Charles Washetine suggested holding another independence referendum by 2024 to complete the decolonisation process, but this time with the participation of the Kanak people.

Washetine added that the vote should be run by the United Nations, and not by France any longer.

Goa accused France of having failed to be neutral at the last referendum, which was meant to conclude the Noumea Accord process with the Kanak people’s emancipation.

However, he said it turned out that France tried to hide behind a “neo-colonial putsch”.

Gradual transfer of power
Under the Noumea Accord, there has been a gradual transfer of power, which is enshrined in the French constitution and which Goa insisted was an irreversible achievement.

He stressed that there could be no consideration to open the electoral rolls which restrict voting rights to indigenous people and long-term residents in provincial elections and in referendums.

About 41,000 French residents are excluded from such voting.

Goa said freezing the electoral body with the Noumea Accord put an end to the French settlement policy, which French Prime Minister Pierre Messmer still encouraged in 1972.

He said the signatories of the accord wanted to lay the foundation for a citizenship of New Caledonia, allowing the indigenous people to be joined by long term settlers to forge their common destiny.

Goa said that since the December referendum, the French state intended to bring these 41,000 French people back into the electoral body, which he said would destabilise the still very fragile political balances.

He likened attempts to change the rolls to “re-colonisation”.

For sake of ‘handful of French’
He wondered why France would question the achievement of the Noumea Accord for the sake of “a handful of French people” who left their country to settle in New Caledonia.

Goa said France was ready to sacrifice a political process and its word given in front of the international community for what he described as a “handful of adventurers”.

Anti-independence parties, however, expressed support for the push to have the restrictions abolished.

A local interest group, One Heart One Vote, said it would lobby the French Supreme Court, the European Human Rights Court and the United Nations to quash the existing provisions, describing them as discriminatory.

With the first round of the French presidential election due on April 12, the Republicans’ candidate Valerie Pecresse said the eligibility question must be readdressed as to give a full place to those who had been building New Caledonia for years while having no right to vote.

In his address, Goa also alluded to the war in Ukraine and what he called France’s “omnipresent imperialism” in part because of its continued occupation of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean.

The Comoros partitioned
The Comoros, which is between Mozambique and Madagascar, was partitioned after independence in 1975 because France refused to let Mayotte go as its residents had voted to stay with France.

The United Nations asked France to return Mayotte, but Paris integrated the island to become a French department in 2011 and part of the Eurozone three years later.

France will follow the presidential elections this month with National Assembly elections in June.

Proper discussions on how the December referendum outcome will be implemented will have to wait.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) plans to open a government branch office in the neighbouring Papua New Guinean capital of Port Moresby along with diplomacy offices to be based in Europe and the United Kingdom.

In a New Year message from interim president Benny Wenda, he has confirmed a strategic office reshuffle around the world.

“The headquarters will be based inside West Papua, and the international office in Port Vila,” he said in the statement.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

“We are opening a government branch in Port Moresby, and our diplomatic coordination offices will be based in the UK and Europe.

“This is another step in our long road to reclaiming the sovereignty stolen from us by Indonesia in 1963.

“With the formation of our constitution, provisional government, cabinet and Green State Vision, all Indonesian laws in West Papua are over.”

Wenda said the Indonesian presence was “totally illegal, and totally redundant”.

“With our clandestine government departments operating within our borders, all West Papuans and Indonesian migrants working under our jurisdiction are now governed by the ULMWP,” said Wenda.

Presidential demands
The West Papua military wing and any organisation affiliated to the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation, the West Papua National Parliament, or the Federal Republic of West Papua — the three constituent organisations within the ULMWP — were automatically considered part of the provisional government.

“Everyone must respect our constitution, whether you are inside West Papua or part of our international solidarity networks. The world must trust us and our constitution — we want peace for all in the region and internationally, and to democratically govern ourselves,” Wenda said.

“I encourage all NGOs, churches and religious leaders, every West Papuan inside and in exile, to unite and pray for the provisional government. Support everyone within the government working to end our long suffering and complete our 60 year struggle.”

Wenda said the demands to the Indonesian President in 2022 remained those that had been first issued during the West Papua Uprising in 2019:

1. Hold a referendum on West Papuan independence;
2. Allow international supervision of any referendum;
3. Allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights into West Papua in accordance with the demand of 84 UN member states;
4. Withdraw all troops from West Papua, including the 21,000 additional troops deployed since December 2018, and end the Indonesian military’s illegal war;
5. Release all political prisoners, including Victor Yeimo and the “Abepura Eight”; and
6. Allow all international journalists and human rights, humanitarian and monitoring groups into West Papua to visit internally-displaced people in Nduga, Puncak, Intan Jaya, Oksibil, Maybrat and elsewhere.

“In 2022, we will redouble all efforts in our long struggle for the liberation of our nation,” Wenda said.

“We will peacefully bring an end to this bloodshed.”

RNZ Pacific

A New Caledonian member of the French National Assembly says a consensus needs to be found on Kanaky New Caledonia’s future statute after last month’s referendum saw a third rejection of independence from France.

The vote formally concluded the decolonisation process provided under the 1998 Noumea Accord.

Philippe Gomes, a former New Caledonian territorial president, was speaking in Paris in the first parliamentary debate after the December vote, which had been marked by the boycott of the pro-independence camp determined not to recognise its outcome.

• READ MORE: New Caledonia votes to stay with France, but it’s a hollow victory that will only ratchet up tensions – David Robie
• ‘Secret plots’, sovereignty and covid challenges face Pacific for New Year
• Pacific civil society groups slam New Caledonia ballot as ‘unjust … unfair’
• New Caledonian referendum result rejected – not wish of ‘silent majority’
• Mixed reactions to referendum in Kanak community
• New Caledonian independence referendum – what next?

While 96.5 percent voted against independence, more than 56 percent of the electorate did not take part in the referendum.

Because of the impact of the pandemic on the indigenous Kanak people, the pro-independence parties wanted the vote to be deferred until September this year — after the French presidential election in April, but Paris insisted on the December date.

Gomes said that in the Pacific, political decisions build on consensus, and New Caledonia could become a nation without becoming a state.

He said the anti-independence side expected to remain under the protection of the French state while the rival pro-independence parties want a sovereignty which restored their dignity.

Joint approach needed
Gomes said a joint approach needed to be found to sidestep a process such as referendums.

Speaking on behalf of New Caledonia’s Kanaks, French Polynesian member of the National Assembly Moetai Brotherson said the latest referendum was of “no consequence” to them, and likened the vote to a “recolonisation”.

Rejecting the outcome of the plebiscite as illegitimate, the pro-independence parties last month mounted a court challenge in France, and plan to campaign internationally for its annulment.

Leader of French left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI – France Unbowed) and candidate for the presidential election Jean-Luc Melenchon said New Caledonia should be maintained for another 10 years under the provisions of the Noumea Accord to avoid any confrontation.

French Overseas Minister Sebastien Lecornu said it would take time to assess the abstention but added that it must be noted that voters had rejected independence three times.

Paris plans to draw up a new statute by June next year and submit it to a vote.

Pro-independence leaders have ruled out any formal negotiations with Paris before this year’s French presidential and legislative elections.

They have also said they would not discuss another statute within the French republic but negotiate independence.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.