White settlers set to fight Kanaks

Press, 4 May 1988, Page 10

White settlers set to fight Kanaks

NZPA-Reuter Noumea Militant white settlers loyal to France yesterday threatened full-scale battle with ethnic Kanak separatist rebels if France’s Socialist President, Francois Mitterrand, wins re-election next weekend. . ; ! • ' '

Guy Georges, leader of the ultra-Right loyalist National Party, said settlers in the South Pacific territory had learned their lesson four years ago and had since organised self-defence groups to “meet fire with fire.” “If Mitterrand wins the election next Sunday, there will be civil war,” he said. “People were taken by surprise by separatist attacks in 1984. Now they are prepared to fight back, within a strictly legal framework of self-defence.” Mr Mitterrand, expected to beat his Conservative challenger, Jacques Chirac, .on May 8, favours independence in association with France for New Caledonia and is

accused by loyalists of showing a preference for the indigenous people’s demands. Mr Chirac has implied that Mr Mitterrand indirectly abetted the crisis by entertaining ties with leaders of the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front. . Kanaks are holding France’s top paramilitary gendarme, 21 colleagues and a magistrate hostage, but officials report little progress in efforts to free them. Loyalists have started to fight back against the anti-colonial Melanesian Kanaks who unleashed a wave of pro-independence violence in the South Pacific island chain 12 days ago. A car owned by

a separatist was blown up on Monday night in the white-dominated capital, Noumea. In another incident a French television crew was stopped by a group of 10 club-wielding loyalist vigilantes who surrounded the crew’s vehicle late on Monday, but then walked away saying they were after workers for another network. The incidents revived fears in Noumea of a repeat of inter-communal violence in 1984 and 1985, which caused 32 deaths and crippled the tropical territory’s tourist and nickel-based economy. Seven peple have died in the latest flare-up of anti-colonial violence. It is targeted at more than

8000 French troops, paramilitary gendarmes and police dug in across the islands, populated by 145,000 people, 43 per cent of them indigenous Kanaks. Guerrillas are holding the hostages in a cave on the eastern island of Ouvea. Officials have said over 300 soldiers have surrounded the strategi-cally-sited cave at the top of a scrub-covered seaside cliff. The front’s radio reported that up to 600 troops were scouring Ouvea and frightening tribespeople. Radio Djido said soldiers had trampled vegetable fields, thrown scarce rice and sugar supplies to the wind.