Racist songs threaten N. Caledonia peace as referendum nears

Press, 6 October 1988, Page 15

Racist songs threaten N. Caledonia peace as referendum nears

While France prepares for the historic national referendum on the future of New Caledonia, an underground “exterminate Kanaks” tape has thrown the colony into an uproar. DAVID ROBIE reports.

Bibi Soediman, a flamboyant Indonesian singer-composer, is renowned in the piano-bars of Noumea, but not for his racial tolerance. When a cassette tape appeared in the New Caledonian capital with eight racist antiKanak songs it was no great surprise. The arrest of 34-year-old Soediman and two colleagues on charges of “incitement of murder and racial hatred” — and then their release — has turned the affair into a scandal just when French authorities are making headway with the Matignon peace accord for the territory. Two hundred copies of the cassette (plus scores of pirate versions) calling for the “extermination” of the indigenous Kanak population were secretly distributed. Most were given away to friends, claims Mr Soediman; fifty were sold.

One Caldoche (settler) assembly deputy is reportedly being charged after having slipped one tape into the pocket of Interior Minister Pierre Joxe while he was visiting Noumea with Prime Minister Michel Rocard. Likening Kanaks to chimpanzees, one song says: “With their fur, we could knit pullovers for our animals. With their skin, we could make hats for our horses For the last song, Soediman offers a more immediate solution: "We must, we must, we must exterminate them. With flame-throwers or a mortar, eh, eh, or a hand grenade. What a laugh. But we won’t miss them.” Applause and then the end of the tape. Soediman claims he produced the tapes as a joke. He insists he was not a racist but wrote the songs to “calm my fire” during the Ouvea hostage crisis in May. It is not the first time he has produced songs of this nature — he savegely ridiculed the first French Socialist Government after President Mitterrand was elected to power.

His colleagues, who helped produce the tape, were 39-year-old French businessman Claude Ferrassan and Jean-Luc Martin, aged 40, owner of EHM, one of Noumea’s three recording studios. Martin, however, has publicly apologised and acknowledged the recording was a “mistake,” emphasising that most of the tapes coming out of his studio promote Kanak music.

But leaders of the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) and liberal Caldoche politicians are outraged and have demanded that the three men be jailed. Yeiwene Yeiwene, deputy leader of the FLNKS, denounced their being set free: “Justice, it seems, is just like it has always been here. We hope that they’ll at least go on trial.” In spite of the songs affair, most political leaders have cautiously welcomed the 10-year Matignon accord as a “burying the hatchet” compromise for the future.

An opinion poll published by the Right-wing “Le Figaro,” however, has indicated that 59 per cent of voters would abstain when the national referendum on the 10-year plan for New Caledonia is held on November 6. The poll also showed that 40 per cent of voters “feared the territory will be independent in 10 years” and only 28 per cent thought it would remain French. “The accord is a victory for us. It is a response to our struggle of recent years, to the sacrifice of so many of our brothers and sisters,” said Louis Kotra Uregei, president of the Kanak and Exploited Workers Trade Union (USTKE) — and an FLNKS political bureau member. “But we are the first to recognise that it is a compromise — a necessary compromise — which allows us to continue our struggle on a different plane. “Independence is our objective. We have not won it yet and we don’t think that France will hand it to us easily.” Uregei, one of the eight advisers on the accord to French High Commissioner Bernard Grasset, believes the agreement provides some concrete measures to the Kanaks’ advantage decolonisation. That view was endorsed by the FLNKS’s extraordinary congress at the tribal village of Nindhia, near the east cost town of Houailou, last month. The agreement has introduced direct French rule in New Caledonia for a year until next July — abolishing the notorious Pons (“Kanaks don’t exist”) statute forced through by former Overseas Territories Minister Bernard Pons. It also provides for the November national referendum on the entire New Caledonian plan

which, if supported, would make it very difficult for any future French Government to reverse: the carving up of the territory into three autonomous provinces; a $74 million economic development programme; and, finally, a referendum on self-determina-tion in 1998. Although there is no guarantee of independence, the electoral roll will be frozen after the November referendum. Only those registered this year and their descendants will be able to vote in 1998. By natural birthrate, Kanaks are likely to be a majority by then. At present they are a minority in their homeland with a population of 62,000 or 43 per cent. But the Republican Congress Party (RPCR), dominated by the 54,000 Caldoche, believes France can create a Kanak middle class which will identify its economic interests with Paris. New-found prosperity could make more Melanesians dependent of French patronage and liable to absorb French cultural values. The RPCR is supported by the other minority ethnic groups such as Indonesians, Vietnamese, Wallis Islanders and Tahitians. Crucial to the FLNKS agreement to the accord was a general amnesty for most Kanak political prisoners by December 25. Full civil rights — including the right to vote — will be reinstated for an estimaed 3500 Kanaks who were stripped of these rights by the former conservative Chirac Government. Among key features of the accord’s provisions are: @ The French High Commissioner will introduce measures in favour of economic development and organising training schemes. The distribution of financial aid' would favour the disadvantaged

rural areas to establish a balance with Noumea. It is understood this would include Nepoui, a former nickel town on the west coast, adopted as FLNKS president Jean-Marie Tjibquils headquarters of the previous northern region, being developed as a port to offset Noumea. About 400 upper and middle management staff — mainly Kanak — would be trained in France. © The territory is to be divided into three provinces — Northern, Southern, and Loyalty Islands — each independently run by an assembly. A territorial congress made of the members of the provincial assemblies will administer the federal business. Customary advisory councils will also be established in each province. © The division of State and territorial areas of responsibility would remain much the same as at present. Paris would continue to control important portfolios such as foreign affairs, the 200mile economic zone, immigration, defence, justice, currency, industrial relations and secondary education. At the Nindhia congress, the FLNKS confirmed it would vote in the referendum. After the 21hour session, the front adopted a motion ratifying the signing of the Matignon accord and of cautions co-operation, in spite of the conference chairman YannCelene Uregei and his minority Kanak United Liberation Front (FULK) party expressing a “provisional reserve.” While not actually approving the Rocard plan “which is not our own,” said the motion, the FLNKS was committed to “work within it” for the success of the referendum. It emphasised there was no guarantee for fulfilling the front’s fundamental goal of independence. FULK put two other issues to the congress: reinstatement of Uregei as vice-president of the “Government of Kanaky” and as Foreign Relations Minister; and re-establishment of LINKS relations with Libya and the Libyansponsored Mathaba organisation. Decisions were postponed until the full congress in December at Hienghene, where Jean-Marie Tjibaou is Mayor. The Kanak Socialist Liberation (LKS) party, led by Mare chief Nodoish Naisseline and which split with the FLNKS in 1984, also supported the FLNKS stand. It called for a conference to work out a common “economic framework adapted to and mastered by Kanaks.” Welcoming the Matignon accord, President Tjibaou said: “We must no longer be the people who lower their heads: we want to take part and we are marching upright to do so.

“We must be the best mobilised in daily activities. If we take our part people are going to respect us. It isn’t an accident that the settlers have agreed to sign the accord — they know it is their last chance.”