Progress on New Caledonia

Press, 24 August 1988, Page 20

Progress on New Caledonia

Reaching a peace plan for New Caledonia is a striking achievement and does much to demonstrate what a new approach and some good will can do. At the beginning of this year the problem in the territory seemed hopeless and the chances were high that the future of New Caledonia would be tackled with violence. Since he became Prime Minister of France in May, Mr Michel Rocard has acted swiftly and surely to resolve the problem. The outcome has been that the main protagonists, Mr Jacques Lafleur, who favours New Caledonia remaining part of France forever, and Mr Jean-Marie Tjibaou, who wants independence for New Caledonia as soon as possible, have been talking about compromises and about ways in which the Loyalists and the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front can live together in New Caledonia. The accord reached in Paris in the last few days appears to be based on a plan put forward by a French Government fact-finding mission in June. It allows for a national referendum in October for the French people to give approval to the peace plan, the establishment of three provinces, and for a final vote on independence in 1998 after limited self-government. The Paris negotiations appear to have been hard, but it is a tribute both to the chairman, the French Overseas Minister, Mr Louis Le Pensec, and to Mr Rocard for the trust he has clearly inspired, that agreement was arrived.at.

The idea of a national referendum later this year is a cunning one. It may be expected to bind future Governments. This is an important consideration because the Kanak people of New Caledonia have every reason to feel betrayed in the past and mistrustful of the future. The Chirac Government, elected in March, 1986, stripped power from the regions and reversed land reforms designed to return land to the

original Kanak owners. All pro-independence parties attempted to express their lack of trust by boycotting the referendum on independence last September and conducted peaceful demonstrations. At the beginning of this year came the Pons Statute, which took away many of the rights the Kanaks had won. After this experience the F.L.N.K.S. could reasonably believe that a change of Government in Paris might mean a change of attitudes towards the position of the Kanaks. Even if the turn-out in the national referendum is low, it will amount to ,a powerful Constitutional act that no French Government in Paris would attempt to overturn lightly. It will also, incidentally, be seen as a more compelling vote than the referendum held last year, which was conducted solely within the territory of New Caledonia. There remains an important puzzle over the agreement. If it is essentially the same as the plan put forward by the fact-finding mission, and to which Mr Lafleur and Mr Tjibaou put their signatures at the end of June, what has been going on since that time? Mr Tjibaou came in for some criticism from the more radical groups within his own organisation, and yet the accord reached in the last few days seems to differ very little from the position at the end of June. What the F.L.N.K.S. wants is to limit those eligible to vote on the independence issue in 1998. It seeks to restrict voting rights to Kanaks themselves and to those born in New Caledonia and who had one parent also born in New Caledonia. It amounted to an unreasonable demand and one which the French Government could not entertain seriously. The June agreement limited voting to those living in New Caledonia in 1988. The question that now arises is whether the militants in Mr Tjibaou’s organisation will settle for what Mr Tjibaou has agreed to.