New Hebrides under four ‘governments’

Press, 21 February 1978, Page 16

New Hebrides under four ‘governments’

By

JOHN WILSON

of “The Press’’

Since the early years of this century, the New Hebrides have been a political curiosity — a territory both French and British. Since November last year, the islands have: beer, in the equally curious situation of being both dependent and independent — dependent in the view of the British and French Governments; independent in the view of the largest political group on the islands, the Vanuaaku Party. The Vanuaaku Party proclaimed a People’s Provisional Government of the New Hebrides on November 29, 1977. This proclamation coincided with “polling” for seats in a Representative Assembly in an election called by Britain and France. The Vanuaaku Party decided to withdraw from the elections, leaving the other political parties to divide up the seats among them, without any need for voting. The Vanuaaku Party decided to proclaim independence rather than contest the election because the British and French refused to meet demands the party made as a condition of taking part in the poll. One of the demands was that the voting age be lowered to 18, an important demand since 60 per cent of the population is under the age of 21. It rankled with the Vanuaaku Party that foreigners were allowed to vote in the election after three years residence while its own younger members were excluded. Another was that the party which gained a majority in the assembly should be allowed to form a government which would not be subject to any veto by the British or French administrations. A third was that a referendum on independence should be held immediately. The British and French had already committed themselves to a political programme for the New Hebrides which allowed for progress towards independence, but at a pace far too slow to satisfy the Vanuaaku Party. This programme was spelt out after constitutional talks in Paris in July. These talks had themselves been made necessary by the reluctance of the Vanuaaku Partv to accept the earlier political plans of the colonial powers.

Elections were held in the New Hebrides in 1975. The Vanuaaku Party, then known as the New Hebrides National Party, won this election with between (the figures are disputed) 54 and 59 per cent of the vote. It fought the election on a platform of independence in 1977. But after the 1975 elections, the Vanuaaku Party declined to take part in the assembly’s proceedings and demanded new elections with a guarantee that ministers chosen from the assembly should exercise the executive power of government. The Vanuaaku boycott of the assembly obliged Britain and France to call last year’s conference in Paris, which the party proceeded to boycott in its turn because it could secure no assurance that the majority party in any new assembly would be permitted to form the government. The joint communique issued after the conference pledged Britain and France to the principle of self-deter-mination for the New Hebrides, but not until 1980 and then only if the people voted in favour of full independence in a referendum. In the meantime, they promised, the chairmen of the committees of the new assembly to be elected before December 1, 1977, would meet early in 1978 with the Resident Commissioners to form an embryo council, something far short of the responsible government the Vanuaaku Party was demanding. The Vanuaaku Party described these British and French proposals, before the conference, referring to itself and the other main parties on the islands, es “throwing a plastic bone to three hungry dogs so that at the end of the fight none of them is satisfied.” After the conference it accused Britain and France of deliberately delaying progress towards real independence. Given this background of British and French resistance to the demands of tie Vanuaaku Party, the refusal of the colonial powers to meet the conditions the party placed on taking part in the elections was no more surprising than the party’s decision to boycott the elections and set up its own “People’s Government.” Undeterred bv the estab-

lishment of this government, the colonial administrations summoned the assembly (while the Vanuaaku Party was deriding it as “a colourful advisory body to the French and British Resident Commissioners” and “an unelected, minority, puppet assembly”) which elected a Chief Minister. A sevenmember Council of Ministers has been set up. The islands, in a sense, now have four separate governments, all of them, in the meantime, playing a waiting game. To many, the puzzling question is why Britain and France are resisting the constitutional demands of the majority party in the New Hebrides when the only result is political confusion and the continuing taint of “imperialism.” The Vanuaaku Party has its answer to the question — the colonial powers are safeguarding the interests of the small minorities of British and French citizens on the is lands (about 4000 French and 2000 British out of the total population of 100,000). The Vanuaaku Party has z programme which is more vigorously nationalist than the programmes of the othei parties which are willing to accept much slower progress towards independence and which the French — colons and metropolitan Government — are believed to be supporting financially. Land was the issue on which the Vanuaaku Party was founded in 1971 and the party is determined that all alienated lands should revert to their original owners, the indigeneous people of the New Hebrides. Traditional land claims would be accorded, by a Vanuaaku Government, a higher status than claims based on land titles issued by the Joint Court of the present Condominium.

This apparent threat to established French landholders has not been greatly reduced by promises that the existing titles of the colonial courts would be changed into secure long-term leases. The French Government may well, faced with this radical land programme, feel it must bolster those parties which would preserve, on some of the islands at least, the economic position of French citizens.

The other supposed reason

for French intransigence to the constitutional demands of the Vanuaaku Party is that the New Hebrides are, along with French Polynesia and New Caledonia, the legs of France’s Pacific tripod. The Vanuaaku Party has had some contact with antiFrench groups in New Caledonia, but the French fear that independence in the New Flebrides would fuel nationalist aspirations in New Caledonia and Tahiti appears to have receded.

The main French interest in the New Hebrides appears now to be to delay independence so as to ensure that when it does come the interests of French nationals are protected, perhaps by a system of regional government for the different islands, ensuring continuing French ascendancy in the islands where French influence has

traditionally been stronger. This the Vanuaaku Party will resist strongly. But at the same time the party appears to have little choice but eventually to reach agreement with the other parties on the islands, if only to ensure that after formal independence, the separate islands of the group hang together politically. If the Vanuaaku Party’s independence holds, its experience of practical administration and the prestige it will earn will cement its claim to become the first government of a New Hebrides whose indpendence is recognised bv the colonial rulers, Britain and France. Violence could still interrupt the waiting game. There was a brief taste of violence immediately after last November’s election and the establishment of the

“People’s Provisional Government" and there is some fear that the French settlers, if they feel the Vanuaaku Party is making too good a show of running those parts of the New Hebrides where its writ runs at present, may take up their guns to prevent its extension. The leader of the Vanuaaku Party and President of the "Provisional Government,” Walter Lini, has warned that while the party is committed to non-violence it has a right to self-def-ence. The present lull in the New Hebrides may be the prelude to bloodshed and division. But it might equally be the prelude to an amicable adjustment of the differences separating the Vanuaaku Party from the British and the French, and from the other New Hebridean parties.