All N. Caledonians will have say—P.M.

Press, 1 September 1986, Page 10

All N. Caledonians will have say—P.M.

NZPA-Reuter Noumea

The French Prime Minister, Mr Jacques Chirac, said on Saturday that all New Caledonians would have a say in its future.

“We have the extraordinary chance of living in a democratic State where the majority rules,” Mr Chirac said as he ended a two-day visit.

“There are men and women who have lived here all their lives and who love this land. They have the same right to vote.”

Melanesians make up 43 per cent of the territory’s 145,000 people. The rest are Europeans, Wallisians, Polynesians, and Asian immigrants. Mr Chirac’s message throughout a tightly scheduled tour of the territory was to urge Melanesian Kanak separatists and European settlers attached to French rule to settle their differences around a negotiating table. He brushed aside demands by the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (F.L.N.K.S.) to restrict the right to vote

in a referendum on independence, scheduled for July or August, 1987, to the indigenous Kanak minority.

Mr Chirac said New Caledonians on both sides should turn their backs on violence. He offered to open talks with F.L.N.K.S. and anti-independence groups. In a radio interview earlier he said Australian and New Zealand leaders should tackle the problems of their own Aboriginal and Maori peoples before criticising the

plight of Kanaks in New Caledonia.

The South Pacific Forum, whose members include Australia and New Zealand last month condemned France’s policy in the territory and also called on France to stop testing nuclear weapons in the area. Aides said Mr Chirac was irritated about an interview given by the Australian Prime Minister, Mr Bob Hawke, last week, who criticised the changes made by his Government to the New Caledonia policy of the former Socialist regime. “I am very sorry when I hear some political leaders of Australia saying very rough and wrong things about French policy," Mr Chirac said. “And I wonder if their wish is really to make France go out of the zone and I don’t see the interest this would have for them, especially when the Soviet Union is marking its interest”

Mr Chirac emphasised Paris’s wish to improve relations with its South Pacific critics and offered to discuss disarmament

and New Caledonia with them.

In the economically deprived north of the territory he visited two separatist strongholds. He was greeted by Melanesian choirs singing a song of welcome written for his visit to Mare, controlled by the moderate separatist Kanak Socialist Liberation group.

But in the north-east village of Kaala Gomen, the F.L.N.K.S. Mayor, Mr Alain Levant, told him, “We are convinced and devoted. You cannot expect your presence here to make us change our minds.

“Do we look like bandits, do we look like terrorists?” asked the young mayor, of Vietnamese origin. “The F.L.N.K.S. can head institutional life without it leading to disorder, chaos or dictatorship.” •

Mr Chirac signed financial aid pacts with the villages he visited, part of the large economic help Paris is pouring into the territory to help it to overcome damage left by earlier political violence and to speed up development.