Simmering in the sun

Press, 3 August 1985, Page 11

Simmering in the sun

By NAT CARNES of Associated-Press (through NZPA) Pointe-A-Pitre, Guadeloupe The widespread protests on Guadeloupe caught French authorities by surprise, and while officials insist that there is little support for independence in the Caribbean island, they admit that more problems may lie ahead. “These incidents don’t mean the population wants political independence,” said Max Vincent, chief aide to Governor Maurice Saborin. “These groups have never done well in elections. The next one is in March, and we will see how it turns out then.”

Efrain Jean, a spokesman for a coalition of independence groups that directed the protests, said polls are unreliable indicators of separatist sentiment for many reasons. Separatists were not interested in mounting bigcampaigns for Guadeloupe representatives to the French Government, he said.

The French Caribbean’s worst unrest in two decades was in support of Georges Faisans, a militant separatist who was on a hunger strike in a Paris jail, and spurred his parole. The faction-ridden separatists, who showed unprecedented unity during the protests, usually combine for less than 10 per cqat of the vote. -Affection for French cul-

ture and one of the Caribbean’s highest living standards — per capita income last year of JUSSOOO (59500) — are among factors that have left the 320,000 islanders cool to independence.

Faisans was parolled on July 29 after serving less than nine months of a threeyear sentence for attacking a white French teacher in Guadeloupe with a machete. The teacher allegedly kicked a black Guadeloupean student. Faisans, who teaches at a school for immigrant children in Paris, was on vacation last year when he learned of the incident and went to the school to confront the teacher. He began his hunger strike on June 3, was transferred to Paris on June 25, and sparked the protests after an Appeals Court in Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe’s capital, rejected a petition on July 19 for his parole. A new hearing was set after barricades shut down Pointe-A-Pitre and riot police using tear gas were unable to disperse protesters.

The chief prosecutor, Jean Dupuis, said that the French Government decided that holding Faisans was not worth the risk of an escalation. “That decision saved lives,” he added. No deaths were reported.

Since stone-throwing protesters injured 20 polici in an hours-long clash

24, an influx of reinforcements from Paris and nearby Martinique continued until the protests ended on July 29.

That left more than 2000 national gendarmes and police in Guadeloupe, more than triple the usual force, the sources said.

They declined to say when the force would be cut again.

The Government officials said that the racial nature of the Faisans case stirred support for him.. They pointed to several reasons why more trouble is likely:

• Much of 499 kg of explosives stolen from a French Army munitions dump on February 18, 1983, is still missing. Authorities believe the theft resulted in the increase in terrorist bombings by clandestine independence groups. There have been dozens of bombings here, in Martinique and in French Guiana since then. Three people, one an elderly American tourist, were killed in Pointe-a-Pitre in March by a bomb at a restaurant along the harbour. • Several suspected terrorists were among 29 people who escaped in jailbreaks on June 16 and July

25. • The Government sources think that separatists will step up activities because the Socialist Mitterrand Government is distracted in Paris by domestic political and economic problems.