As new negotiations on the institutional future of New Caledonia loom,
recalling the ideas and facts that fostered the rise of the Kanak claim(1) can help us better appreciate the positions defended today within
the independence movement. Its historiographers often focus on the
"events" of 1984-1988 to salute the action of Jean-Marie Tjibaou: by
signing the Matignon Accords in 1988, he brought peace to the
archipelago and officially initiated the "decolonization process"
continued with the Noumea Accord in 1998... In reality, these agreements
promoted by "socialist" governments mainly aimed to maintain the
archipelago under the control of the French state. The "Kanak socialist
independence" sought during the "events" on the contrary wanted to break
with the established order, and was part of the wake of May 68 and the
anti-imperialist struggles waged throughout the world during the 1960s
and 1970s.
Between 1968 and 1973, New Caledonia experienced a flourishing economic
period - the "nickel boom". The riches of its subsoil (2) and its
geostrategic position in the South Pacific encouraged General de Gaulle,
in power in France, to tighten his grip on the territory (3). Through
the "Billotte laws" of January 3, 1969, the French State took over the
administrative organization of the archipelago and the management of its
mining activity from local institutions. It then encouraged the massive
arrival of Wallisians, Polynesians... and even "metropolitans" (French
from mainland France). From 1969 to 1976, between 15,000 and 20,000
immigrants arrived in the territory. This policy was not only due to the
need for labor in the mines or construction industry; a circular from
Prime Minister Messmer explicitly provided another reason in 1972: "The
French presence in Caledonia cannot be threatened, except in the event
of a world war, except by a nationalist demand from the indigenous
populations (...). Mass immigration of French citizens from mainland
France or from the overseas departments (Réunion) should make it
possible to avoid this danger by maintaining and improving the numerical
ratio of the communities."
In the 1960s, the world experienced a second wave of decolonization -
notably with the wars in Algeria and Vietnam - to which was added
student protest in various countries. This is how the first Kanaks who
came to study in mainland France in a high school or university (4) took
part in May 68 - and, upon their return to the country, decided to
revolt against the social inequalities that primarily affected the
Kanaks and against the racism of the Caldoches (White Caledonians)
towards them. There is an urgent need to react: the indigenous Kanak
people are no longer the majority on their land.
Last issue (in 1973) of the newsletter launched in October 1969 by the
Kanak Association of Paris. The quote at the bottom of the cover is from
Frantz Fanon.
The rise of Kanak independence
The Red Scarves group - composed of young Kanaks and non-Kanaks,
including pastors - was created in 1969. Its name refers to the great
Kanak insurrection led in 1878 by Chief Ataï: Louise Michel is said to
have offered pieces of red cloth to the insurgents. In the vein of the
post-1968 period, this movement has no leadership, but Nidoïsh
Naisseline is its main figure.
This son of a great Gaullist leader from Maré (one of the Loyalty
Islands[5]) was educated in mainland France. There he read the works of
Frantz Fanon (see box), which circulated secretly, those of Aimé Césaire
and Albert Memmi; and he found in the May movement a critique of the
Western model, "a liberation of speech and new utopias." The Red Scarves
want to give the Kanaks the means to defend their cultural identity and
to live in the country (6) according to their customs, in a form of
"socialism (7)" foreign to capitalism, by recovering the lands of which
they have been dispossessed.
Kanak cultural alienation
Nidoïsh Naisseline published three articles between 1966 and 1970:
"Kanak customs and Western civilization: face to face?" in the monthly
Trait d'union, created in 1962 by students from New Caledonia staying in
mainland France; "Black aspects of the white problem," in Canaque homme
libre, and "New Caledonia," in the Revue du christianisme social (1). In
them, he denounces the widening inequalities between Kanaks and
Europeans and the racism of the latter; and he points out the
stubbornness of many Kanaks in not seeing this reality and in
accommodating themselves to it. In doing so, he takes up, without
quoting it, Frantz Fanon's analysis of the cultural alienation of the
Antilles in 1952.
In New Caledonia, Naisseline notes, Europeans admit that the "natives"
are great footballers or brilliant pilou dancers, but without
recognizing them as human beings since they deny them the capacity to
think, to love, to choose between good and evil. As for the Kanak who
come to France for their studies or their military service, they praise
the growth of Caledonian mining production, or the paradisiacal image of
the archipelago manufactured for tourist consumption, without wanting to
admit that they themselves live in sordid places and benefit in no way
from the riches that surround them.
"For us who have decided to restore the Melanesian personality, two
paths are open: dialogue or 'revolt,'" concludes Naisseline. (...) We
must fight this society that favors the exploitation of human labor and
racism.»
1. See the study that Eddy Banaré devoted to them: "A Kanak practice of
Fanon: Nidoïsh Naisseline and the Red Scarves" (Francosphères, December
2017).
The group quickly became known for its actions in Nouméa, but also for
the repression it faced. Naisseline was imprisoned three times between
1969 and 1978, and defended by Jean-Jacques de Felice, a famous human
rights and anti-colonialist activist.
Throughout the summer of 1969, graffiti such as "Down with colonialism"
and "Free Caledonia" flourished on the walls of Nouméa. The July 14th
parade was disrupted by activists apparently linked either to the Trait
d'union newsletter produced in mainland France by New Caledonian
students, or to Sikis (a Maoist-inspired newspaper distributed mainly by
Société Le Nickel, the main mining company in New Caledonia). On
September 2, Red Scarves distributed leaflets in Drehu and Nengone in
Nouméa - even though the use of Kanak languages was prohibited by an
1863 decree still in force (8). These leaflets also denounced the racism
suffered by Fote Trolue, a Red Scarves, in a restaurant in the Baie des
Citrons - he was refused service. 13 people were taken to the police
station. Several hundred Kanaks threw stones and bottles at its facade,
then at windows, cars... 30 new arrests took place - but, shortly after,
Kanak athletes from Maré leaving for the Pacific Games tied a red scarf
around their necks and raised their fists.
This growing unrest divided the Caledonian Union (UC), which had led New
Caledonian institutions since its founding in 1953. The Protestant and
Catholic churches launched this multicultural party to counter the
success of the Caledonian Communist Party among the tribes after the
Second World War, by informing the Kanaks about their new
rights-including their accession to citizenship and the end of their
subjection to forced labor and relegation to reserves. The UC sought
broader autonomy for the territory, while the "Billotte laws" had just
restricted the powers of its governing council and assembly. But the UC
lost its left wing in 1970 (which opted for independence), its
center-right in 1971... and the territorial elections in 1972: the
loyalists won for the first time, and the UC entered the opposition for
years.
The structuring of the independence movement
The Red Scarves primarily attracted young people from the Loyalty
Islands, but in 1974 Elie Poigoune, the first Kanak teacher, created the
1878 Group (still referring to the insurrection), which brought together
young people from Grande Terre and demanded the restitution of all land
stolen from the Kanaks by the colonial system.
After this, the Palika (Kanak Liberation Party) was born in May 1976
from the merger of the Red Scarves and the 1878 Group - prison had
strengthened the bonds between their activists at the same time as it
had "radicalized" them. This party claimed to be scientific socialist
and wanted independence.
Land occupations increased during the summer. On September 24, the first
Kanak demonstration against the military parade commemorating the French
seizure of the territory in 1853 was harshly repressed. Around twenty
young people were imprisoned. But, in 1977, the UC also declared itself
in favor of independence at its congress in Bourail, with new leaders:
Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Pierre Declercq, Yeiwéné Yeiwéné (a former Red
Scarves postal worker), Eloi Machoro and François Burck (9).
While Machoro, a schoolteacher, greatly appealed to young people with
his outspokenness and determination, the divide was quite marked in
pro-independence circles between "leftists" ("violent" or not) and
moderates (legalists or non-violent). Thus, the Palika considers that
"Melanesia 2000", the first festival of Melanesian arts in New Caledonia
(prepared and chaired by Tjibaou on September 3-7, 1975) was a
"prostitution" of Kanak culture, insofar as this project was supported
and subsidized by the State. And then the Palika criticizes moderate
leaders for not providing much support to activists facing repression (10).
The Palika is criticized in particular for its position on religion -
"We said we had to kick that in, stop praying in churches and take our
fight into our own hands," recounted Poigoune (son of a pastor like
other independence supporters).
In 1979, an Independence Front (FI) nevertheless brought together a
large number of people during the territorial elections - where the
divide was for the first time between independence supporters and
loyalists. But when the FI called for support for Mitterrand in the 1981
presidential election, the Palika, which advocated abstention, left the
coalition.
In the early 1980s, Louis Kotra and Hnalaine Uregei (formerly of the Red
Scarves) founded the Union of Kanak Workers and Exploited People
(USTKE), a union that declared itself revolutionary and
internationalist. Police repression and attacks by loyalists against
independence supporters increased during this period. When Pierre
Declercq, secretary general of the UC, was assassinated on September 19,
1981, independence supporters erected roadblocks throughout the country
and demonstrated for a week. The November 7-9 commercial sale in Nouméa
ended in riots - cars burned, stores looted or damaged, around fifteen
injured, and 88 arrests. Etc.
On September 24, 1984, the FI dissolved to form a Kanak and Socialist
National Liberation Front (FLNKS) before the territorial elections. The
choice of this name reflects the period well, displaying a struggle for
national liberation and socialist aims. The FLNKS's strategy of
boycotting institutions and elections, led by Tjibaou, prompted the
Palika to join it. This party then represented - along with the USTKE on
the social front - the most radical pro-independence movement and one of
the main forces of the Grande Terre's struggle committees. However, the
UC, which still dominated electorally, would harden its rhetoric and
actions. On November 18, Machoro (who had become its secretary general)
smashed a ballot box in the Canala town hall to symbolize the rejection
of the elections; on December 1, Tjibaou took the lead of a "provisional
government of Kanaky," with Machoro as Minister of Security... but, on
January 12, 1985, Machoro was killed by the GIGN.
We know the rest of the "events" - up to the Ouvéa massacre on May 5,
1988, which led to the Matignon Accords.
Nidoïsh Naisseline and Déwé Gorodey (left) at their trial on November 5,
1976.
The evolution of the independence movement
The heavy repression and the balance of power against the Kanaks
naturally encouraged the independence leaders to accept these
agreements. But the French state money that subsequently flowed in
abundance to finance the new Caledonian institutions and infrastructure
largely contributed to the "forgetting" of "socialist Kanak
independence" - especially since, with the counter-revolution of the
1980s and 1990s raging on a global scale, "liberal" propaganda worked to
bury the idea of socialism everywhere. The Palika thus adopted an
increasingly temperate attitude, to the point where it now appears to be
the party most willing to compromise with the French state.
What have they become?
Nidoïsh Naisseline had replaced his father as Grand Chief of Maré upon
his death in 1973. In 1977, he had been elected to the Territorial
Assembly, and in 1981, he left the Palika to declare himself (with his
party, Libération kanak socialiste) in favor of multi-ethnic
independence obtained solely through negotiation. He subsequently called
on Kanaks and Europeans to "discover, understand, and respect each
other," and celebrated the values of welcome, exchange, and listening
identified as Kanak-the "Melanesian socialism" of the former priest
Tjibaou was perhaps not so different. Naisseline was a signatory to the
Matignon-Oudinot Accords; he participated in the discussions on the
Nouméa Accord, but did not want to sign it because it did not include
any accompanying measures to "protect indigenous rights." His political
career was spent in the Loyalty Islands province and in the Caledonian
Congress until 2014, when he retired for health reasons.
Déwé Gorodey, a pastor's daughter, poet, and the first Kanak novelist,
was imprisoned in Camp-Est several times in the 1970s. She was a member
of the territorial government under the Palika label without
interruption from 1999 to 2019, when she also stepped down for health
reasons.
Elie Poigoune was imprisoned and expelled from the National Education
system in 1980 for having blocked, with students, the high school where
he taught in Nouméa. It was an action in solidarity with Paul
Néaoutyine, a Palika comrade who had obtained a position at the school
but was suddenly replaced by a permanent teacher arriving from mainland
France. With Mitterrand elected President of the Republic, Poigoune and
Néaoutyine were reinstated in the National Education system. Opposed to
the armed struggle, Poigoune felt "a little responsible" for the 70
deaths linked to the "events," and he joined Tjibaou when the latter
signed the Matignon Accords: "For me, it was a turning point," he
confided. "I stopped considering Europeans as enemies. I understood that
we had to build the country with them."» Poigoune, who chaired the
Caledonian LDH from 1998 to 2021, voted for independence in 2018 while
saying that the archipelago "needed a great democratic state, a big
brother like France to accompany it": "Extraordinary progress has been
made to restore our dignity and to share wealth, knowledge and power in
our country.[France]has been kind and very attentive to our demands."
Paul Néaoutyine left teaching to become Tjibaou's chief of staff in 1985
when he was president of the Northern Province. He led the FLNKS from
1990 to 1995, and negotiated the Nouméa Accord with Roch Wamytan (leader
of the UC). He has been mayor of Poindimié since 1989 and president of
the Northern Province since 1999. In L'Indépendance au présent
(published in 2005 by Syllepse), he advocates a "sharing of sovereignty
with France, on the path to full sovereignty." On August 24, 2024, he
issued a press release criticizing CCAT activists who wanted to organize
a "day of silence" in Poindimié in tribute to a young man killed in Thio
on August 15... and he called on "the competent state services to
resolve the announced stumbling blocks."
The concepts of "independence-association" or "independence-partnership"
with France and that of "Kanaky/New Caledonia" were quick to replace the
sober but clear "independence of Kanaky." The Matignon and Nouméa
agreements made it possible to focus Kanak demands on the defense of a
specific identity and on reducing the inequalities existing between the
"Caledonian communities." More precisely, this involved training Kanak
executives for the civil service and business management - first with
the "400 Executives" program of 1989, then with the "Avenir Executives"
program of 2005. "Redressing the harm" (a rather religious register)
committed by colonialism thus favored the formation of a Kanak middle
class and political leaders interested in maintaining the status quo.
The paths of some past figures from the Red Scarves and/or the 1978
Group to the Palika illustrate this drift well (see box). It shows that
the institutional trap set up by the French state worked. But the demand
for an independent Kanaky did not die, and it resurfaced in mid-May 2024
when the French government wanted to impose the "thaw" of the electoral
body reserved for the elections on the territory's self-determination.
Riots broke out because, for four decades, the economic and social
situation had deteriorated for most Kanaks, particularly young people
who failed in the Nouméa metropolitan area - and the Field Action
Coordination Unit (CCAT) bringing together activists who mobilized
against the government's project was held responsible for these riots.
Since then, the UC has lost its leadership of the Caledonian Congress,
and the Palika that of the government that emanated from it; and the gap
has widened between the moderate and radical tendencies of the
independence movement. But the Palika, which has withdrawn from the
FLNKS and no longer forms an alliance with the UC, is now included in
its moderate tendency. And the UC, as well as the USTKE and the CCAT,
are included in its radical tendency; these groups were admitted to the
FLNKS, and the latter chose as its president a CCAT activist imprisoned
in Mulhouse, Christian Tein.
The image of the Palika is such that the loyalists of Générations NC
deemed it "natural", on January 12, 2025, to propose a government
alliance with Le Rassemblement-Loyalists. This poisoned offer, which
Palika rejected, was justified by its "non-participation in the riots"
and by its "fruitful collaboration" with the elected representatives of
the right, in the previous Caledonian government, to develop with the
French government the "plan for the safeguard, refoundation and
reconstruction of the territory" (11)...
At its 44th congress on 25-26 January 2025, the FLNKS made the
resumption of negotiations on the future of the territory conditional on
the holding of bilateral meetings with the State on two subjects:
"Kanaky's access to full sovereignty" and the "political prisoners" of
the CCAT.
Vanina
Eloi Machoro and Yeiwéné Yeiwéné presenting in 1984 to Georges Lemoine
(Secretary of State for Overseas Territories visiting the archipelago)
the flag that the UC had just adopted.
Notes
1. See the online review of the book Le Réveil kanak - La montée du
nationalisme en Nouvelle-Calédonie (Madrépores-PUNC, 2013) by David
Chappell.
2. In 1970, the archipelago provided 20% of the world's production of
this mineral.
3. Since 1966, it has been conducting nuclear tests in French Polynesia.
4. During the indigenous regime (1887-1946), the education of the Kanaks
was provided on the reserves by Protestant and Catholic missionaries.
And it was only in 1962 that the first Kanak obtained the baccalaureate.
5. New Caledonia is composed of Grande Terre and these islands.
6. At the same time, the "Volèm viure al pais" was found in mainland France.
7. This socialism is not only inspired by the Marxism in vogue in
various versions, or by anarchism: it also contains the influence of
social Christianity carried by the Protestant Church.
8. This decree will not be lifted until 1984. At the same time, in
mainland France, there is a fight for the recognition of "minority"
languages (Corsican, Basque, Breton, etc.).
9. The first four will be assassinated in the following years.
10. In 1988, the same observation will be made concerning the activists
who hold gendarmes hostage in Ouvéa.
11. However, the loyalists perhaps mainly aimed to add fuel to the fire
in the independence camp.
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4401
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