Hello, everyone. Good morning, afternoon or evening, and welcome to this edition of Elsewhere in Focus. You can find all the articles in the series here (along with my other diaries).
There are ongoing protests in New Caledonia. Where is New Caledonia, you might ask. It is a French territory—euphemism for colony in the 21st century—in Melanesia just like Puerto Rico is a US territory in the Caribbean. And like Puerto Rico, there has been an independence movement there for a long time. Given recent events and the lack of coverage in mainstream media or here at Daily Kos, we are going to focus on New Caledonia today.
New Caledonia: Struggle for Independence
A Struggle For Independence
New Caledonia had been seeing protests on and off since mid-March.
Why?
Because France decided to bring in a new law that gave the French who have been living there for more than a decade permission to vote in local elections. Angus Watson and Helen Regan report for the CNN.
The French government has declared a state of emergency in its South Pacific island territory of New Caledonia after deadly violence erupted for a third day Wednesday, with armed clashes between protesters, militias and police, and buildings and cars set on fire in the capital.
At least four people have died in the unrest, which is considered the worst since the 1980s. In the capital Noumea, authorities have imposed a curfew and closed the main airport — usually a busy tourist hub — to commercial traffic. They have also banned public gatherings, carrying weapons and selling alcohol.
The violence is the latest outburst of political tensions that have simmered for years and pitted the island’s largely pro-independence indigenous Kanak communities — who have long chafed against rule by Paris – against French inhabitants opposed to breaking ties with their motherland.
The protests the reports say have broken a thirty year record of peace. Of course, that was because France decided to break an agreement with the Kanak people to allow a path to independence without making them part of the decision making process.
Protests began Monday involving mostly young people, in response to the tabling of a vote 10,000 miles (17,000 kilometers) away in the French parliament proposing changes to New Caledonia’s constitution that would give greater voting rights to French residents living on the islands. On Tuesday, legislators voted overwhelmingly in favor of the change.
“The last two days we’ve seen violence of a scale we haven’t seen for 30 years in New Caledonia,” Denise Fisher, a former Australian Consul-General in New Caledonia, told CNN. “It is kind of marking the end of 30 years of peace.”
“The Kanak people are objecting to [the vote in France] not just because it’s been decided in Paris without them but also they feel that they want it to be part of a negotiation … which would include another self determination vote and a range of other things.”
The proposed changes to the constitution would add thousands of extra voters to New Caledonia’s electoral rolls, which have not been updated since the late 1990s. Pro-independence groups say the changes are an attempt by France to consolidate its rule over the archipelago.
France’s interior ministry told CNN that 1,800 police officers and gendarmes are already present in New Caledonia and 500 additional police will arrive in the coming hours.
The state of emergency will allow authorities to impose restrictions on movement and carry out house arrests and searches. A spokesperson for the French government said the measures were needed to “deal with the serious breaches of public order which are occurring.”
Lying in the South Pacific with Australia, Fiji and Vanuatu for neighbors, New Caledonia is a semiautonomous French territory — one of a dozen scattered throughout the Pacific, Caribbean and Indian Ocean.
CNN of course calls it giving the French residents more voting rights. From that, you would not guess that Kanak people’s rights are being diluted. Al Jazeera has a better explanation (16 May 2024).
After France occupied the territory in 1853, Paris purposefully populated it with French citizens, meaning Kanak communities now make up only 40 percent of the population, while the Caldoches – local people of mostly French descent – make up about 25 percent. The rest of the population is made up of newer French arrivals, people from the French island territory of Wallis and Futuna and from Tahiti, as well as a mix of people from Indonesia, Vietnam and other Asian countries.
This week’s changes would add thousands of these newer French arrivals – at least 40,000 have arrived since 1998 according to official figures – to the country’s electoral list, which Indigenous groups say will undermine their push for self-rule.
If the Kanak had a comfortable life in their home and proper freedoms, they might not have objected to the French being able to vote. But without that, they rightly see the new law as taking their limited power away from their hands.
Similar unrest in the 1990s led to the Noumea Accords of 1998, under which Paris promised to grant more political power to the territory and its Indigenous population over 20 years.
The accord also paved the way for three referendums on independence which were held in 2018, 2020 and 2021. In all three, the majority voted to stick with France, although many point out that the last vote in 2021 was boycotted by pro-independence groups who argued that it was held during the COVID-19 pandemic which disproportionately affected Kanak communities.
Rejecting independence meant France continued to control New Caledonia’s military, immigration, foreign policy, economy and elections.
The Kanaky had asked France to postpone the 2021 referendum but they refused, which is why the pro-independence movements boycotted the election. You could see the difference from the voter turnout (around 44%) and the percentage of voters who rejected independence in the 2018 and 2020 vs. 2021: 56% and 53% vs. 96%. The Macron government—despite advice from the left—decided to take the last vote as the deciding vote.
Resistance That Goes Back to 19th century
As all these stories do, the story of the current unrest also goes back to the beginning of French colonisation of New Caledonia. The CIA.gov to give you a small history (Updated, 15 December 2021).
The first humans settled in New Caledonia around 1600 B.C. The Lapita were skilled navigators and evidence of their pottery around the Pacific has served as a guide for understanding human expansion in the region. Successive waves of migrants from other islands in Melanesia intermarried with the Lapita, giving rise to the Kanak ethnic group considered indigenous to New Caledonia. British explorer James COOK was the first European to visit New Caledonia in 1774, giving it the Latin name for Scotland. Missionaries first landed in New Caledonia in 1840. In 1853, France annexed New Caledonia to preclude any British attempt. France declared it a penal colony in 1864 and sent more than 20,000 prisoners to New Caledonia in the ensuing three decades.
Nickel was discovered in 1864 and French prisoners were directed to mine it. France brought in indentured servants and enslaved labor from elsewhere in Southeast Asia to work the mines, blocking Kanaks from accessing the most profitable part of the local economy. In 1878, High Chief ATAI led a rebellion against French rule. The Kanaks were relegated to reservations, leading to periodic smaller uprisings and culminating in a large revolt in 1917 that was brutally suppressed by colonial authorities. During World War II, New Caledonia became an important base for Allied troops, and the US moved its South Pacific headquarters to the island in 1942. Following the war, New Caledonia was made an overseas territory and French citizenship was granted to all inhabitants in 1953, thereby permitting the Kanaks to move off the reservations.
The Britannica gives more details about French repression in New Caledonia in the late nineteenth century.
From the time of colonial settlement until as late as 1917, Melanesian uprisings were common and were constantly feared by the settlers and authorities alike. The insurrection of 1856–59 near Nouméa and the uprising of 1878–79, which extended along the west coast from Bouloupari to Poya, seriously endangered French occupation. Grievances centred around the confiscation of Melanesian lands, the foraging of settlers’ cattle on the Melanesians’ produce gardens, and the head tax, which in 1899 was imposed by the colonial government on male Melanesians in order to oblige them to obtain employment with settlers and the government. The French suppressed each uprising (with the help of indigenous auxiliaries) by destroying villages and crops and demanding unconditional surrender, and insurgents were punished by deportation or execution and further confiscation of their lands.
By 1860 French authority had been established over the southern third of the mainland, and in the next decade the French established policies for disposing of indigenous land, regrouping tribes, and appointing a system of tribal chiefs to represent the administration. By the end of the 19th century, large areas of Melanesian land had been alienated and the inhabitants relegated to reserves. Forced labour, limitations on travel, and curfews were imposed from the early days of colonial rule and became the basis of a system of administrative law codified in 1887 as the indigénat (native regulations). The indigénat, as well as the head tax, remained in force until 1946.
The territory has had an independent movement since the 1950s says the CIA (link above).
The Kanak nationalist movement began in the 1950s but most voters chose to remain a territory in an independence referendum in 1958. The European population of New Caledonia boomed in the 1970s with a renewed focus on nickel mining, reigniting Kanak nationalism. Key Kanak leaders were assassinated in the early 1980s, leading to escalating violence and dozens of fatalities. The Matignon Accords of 1988 provided for a 10-year transition period. The Noumea Accord of 1998 transferred an increasing amount of governing responsibility from France to New Caledonia over a 20-year period and provided for three independence referenda. In the first held in 2018, voters rejected independence by 57 to 43 percent; in the second held in 2020, voters rejected independence 53 to 47 percent. A third referendum is planned for December 2021. In February 2021, pro-independence parties gained a majority in the New Caledonian Government for the first time.
France since 2021 has been sidelining the independence movement. Nathanaelle Soler gives a long history of France’s terrible policies in an article for the Jacobin (4 June 2024). Note: I recommend reading this whole piece.
For the past three years, the French state has denigrated the independence movement, and despite numerous warnings, the Macron government has reversed the freeze on the electoral roll in the name of republican universalism. This reversal was implemented through a constitutional amendment, allowing currently excluded individuals to participate in elections. Although this “unfreezing” of the electoral roll currently only affects local elections, and not a potential new independence ballot, it poses unacceptable problems for the Kanak people.
The new additions represent around 20 percent of the voting population. Most have arrived from mainland France, and strongly oppose independence. This would put the Kanak people in a minority in their own country, considerably altering the local political balance and making the independence project unreachable. Unfreezing the voter list means unraveling the whole structure upon which the Nouméa Accord is based.
Still, the pro-independence camp is not totally opposed to this process — and was even ready to discuss it. What it objects to above all is the French government’s heavy-handed approach, and its compromise with the anti-independence camp.
The anti-independence movement in New Caledonia is deeply racist, and France has been supporting them.
Since the failure of the 2021 referendum, which marked the end of the Nouméa Accord process and the opening of negotiations to seek a new agreement, the pro-independence movement has been marginalized by Paris. The French state departed from its outward neutrality by aligning itself with the most vehement anti-independence forces, who are closer to the far right.
As a sign of the French government’s compromise, the loyalist leader Sonia Backès, whose positions are not far from the populism and racism of Donald Trump, was chosen by Macron to occupy the no less symbolic position of French Secretary of State for Citizenship. Little could be more ironic than an anti-independence figure from New Caledonia–Kanaky flirting with far-right ideas, appointed in mainland France to handle citizenship issues, and advocating for racist legislation such as the highly controversial law banning the wearing of the abaya (a type of Muslim robe) in schools.
In recent months, the anti-independence camp has stepped up its provocative statements, harshening a divide between Kanak and non-Kanak, which had largely diminished since the 2000s. For example, at a time when riots and their repression are raging, the MP Nicolas Metzdorf continues to present himself in French media as the victim of anti-white racism. The omnipresence of such rhetoric in New Caledonia–Kanaky reveals a blindness to the persistence of the colonial question and the pervasiveness of racism in Caledonian society. The French government and the anti-independence factions have thus aligned around the themes of universal republicanism — and the denial that racial and colonial conflicts even exist.
There seems to be a Manipur like situation in New Caledonia where white groups are hiding behind barricades with armed settlers standing guard while the Kanaky areas are guarded by their own. It is absurd that the settlers think that they can just marginalise the already marginalised Kanaky and then, live in peace.
A Protest with Roots in Inequality
I will have to return to Britannica here because it is honestly difficult to get information on the territory here. Everyone else says there are protests but does not give the details of the inequality. As per Britannica though, most of the wealth is owned by the 27 to 29% Europeans.
New Caledonia’s economy depends heavily on services, the mining of nickel, and subsidies from France. Agriculture, forestry, and fishing are also important. Import-substitution industries, such as the manufacture of soft drinks and beer, soap, cement, fencing wire, and fishing and pleasure boats, have had little impact on the economy because of the small local market.
Although the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is one of the highest in the South Pacific, the distribution of wealth between ethnic groups is unequal: Melanesian households earn on average only about one-fourth the income of European households. The distribution of land resources on the main island is also uneven. Although thousands of Melanesian families depend on agriculture, two-thirds of the land is in the hands of European families, only a few of whom are engaged in agriculture or cattle raising.
Europeans also dominate trades, businesses, and professions and hold most of the high-ranking administrative posts in the government. Official unemployment tends to be significantly higher among Melanesians than it is among Europeans, even without counting the considerable number of “hidden” unemployed who have returned to their villages.
Other than the Kanaky and the French (called Caldoche), the islands also have polynesians brought as indentured servants during peak colonialism from Vanautu and other nearby islands as well as Indonesians and Vietnamese. The total population is 273,900 (which is why even a 20,000 French voters would skew the dynamic a lot).
As per the Al Jazeera explainer I linked above, France wants to hold on to the territory so as to have a foothold in the Indo-Pacific, protect trade etc. Plus, the nickel.
As in Algeria So in New Caledonia
In reaction to the protests, France has arrested many pro-independence Kanaky leaders and plan to deport them to Paris. See, when you want to stay in your own land and want independence, they take you to the metropole. And when you want refuge from the violence that the wars and unrest they have created elsewhere, they refuse entry. Al Jazeera reported on the story (19 June 2024).
Tein was detained as he prepared to hold a news conference at CCAT’s offices, which sit in a building housing the headquarters of the biggest pro-independence political party, the Caledonian Union (UC), the party said in a statement
Reine Hue, a UC elected official, said the police “entered the offices and took photos, especially of documents”.
Prosecutor Yves Dupas said CCAT’s offices had been searched “without incident”.
CCAT was created in November to oppose the electoral changes, which require the French constitution to be amended. French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin called it a “Mafia-style organisation”.
Tein was among pro-independence political figures who met Macron during his visit to New Caledonia last month.
As Al Jazeera reported later, the authorities transferred seven of the arrested activists to France (23 June 2024).
Seven independence activists linked to a group accused of orchestrating riots last month in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia have been sent to mainland France for pre-trial detention, according to the local prosecutor.
“This transfer was organised during the night by means of a plane specially chartered for the mission,” Yves Dupas, the public prosecutor in the territory’s capital, Noumea, said in a statement on Sunday.
The seven were sent to France, he added, “due to the sensitivity of the procedure and in order to allow the investigations to continue in a calm manner, free of any pressure”.
Among the seven detainees was Christian Tein, head of the pro-independence group Field Action Coordination Cell (CCAT), who has been in custody and was charged on Saturday over the recent violence in which nine people died, including two police.
Hundreds of people were wounded and damage estimated at $1.6bn was inflicted during the unrest over controversial voting reforms.
Charges not announced
Authorities did not immediately specify what charges Tein faces, but Dupas said his investigation covered armed robbery and complicity in murder or attempted murder, according to French daily Le Monde.
Tein’s lawyer Pierre Ortent said on Saturday he was “stupefied” that his client was being sent to France, accusing magistrates of “answering to purely political considerations”.
The World’s Yvonne Yong’s interview of reporter Journalist Nic Maclellan gives more details about what the deportation might mean (and rest of the context).
Macron suspended the new legislation that gave new French residents rights to vote in provincial elections before dissolving the parliament. However, since the far right is ascendant in France, it is unlikely that the Kanaky will see relief.
That is it for today. I apologise for the paucity of information. It is hard to get much information in the anglosphere especially about tiny islands still undergoing colonialism. Until next Wednesday everyone. Stay safe. Be well. Take care.
May all the people resisting occupation and colonisation everywhere be free.