Kanaks agree to French-run poll

Press, 27 May 1985, Page 10

Kanaks agree to French-run poll

NZPA-AFP Hienghene, New Caledonia Militant pro-independence Melanesians, in a compromise move, announced yesterday that they would go along for now with a French plan that originally envisaged independence for New Caledonia next year but has been watered down. The decision by the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), removed fears that the party would refuse to take part in regional elections in August, possibly causing a resumption of violence that shook the French Pacific archipelago after a FLNKS boycott of territorial elections last November. Antiindependence forces led by white French settlers control the territorial Government as a result of the boycott. More than 20 people died in political violence in the months following the November elections. FLNKS president JeanMarie Tjibaou said yesterday at a party congress in Hienghene on the north-east coast of New Caledonia’s main island that FLNKS “rejects the neo-colonial logic” of the French Government plan. He also said, however, that FNLKS would acquiesce and take part in

elections so as not to be blamed for a breakdown in the process. The plan, as announced in January by the then-special envoy of the French Government, Edgard Pisani, called for a referendum this year and independence in association with France early in 1986. The anti-independence Rally for Caledonia in the Republic, which has close ties with the Rightist opposition in France, strongly rejected the plan and last month Paris announced changes in it. Now, the islands are to be divided into four regions, generally along lines reflecting the distribution of ethnic groups. A referendum on self-determination will be held before the end of 1987. France holds General Elections a year earlier, in 1986, and the Socialist Government is widely expected to lose to the Centre-Right that generally favours retaining French control of New Caledonia. Mr Tjibaou, in a news conference at the FLNKS congress, said each of the factions within his coalition party had “made concessions to reach a minimum consensus.” Radical groups within

FLNKS, notably the Kanak Liberation Party, or Palika, and the Kanak United Liberation Front, softened their firm opposition to the French Government plan. Mr Tjibaou heads the Caledonian Union, the dominant, and moderate, trend within FLNKS. He said that the creation of regions in New Caledonia, which would have some executive powers, “can help in building Kanak and socialist independence.” The party would therefore present candidates in August On the self-determination referendum, the key point of the French plan, Mr Tjibaou said FLNKS would hold another congress later to take a definitive position. New Caledonia’s population of about 140,000 comprises around 50,000 whites, most of them of French stock, 60,000 indigenous Melanesians, also known as Kanaks, and 30,000 Polynesians, Vietnamese, Indonesians, and others. In spite of the fact that they are in the minority in the total population, the Melanesians in FLNKS are holding out for “Kanak independence,” arguing that the other ethnic groups are settlers brought in by the French.