To an outside observer, South Pacific countries' relative silence on the situation in New Caledonia could be interpreted as a form of detachment. On the contrary, those who are familiar with the region have noticed that the first statements were made at the highest level, via the main regional organizations' representatives, and that every word was carefully weighed to express the close attention that these island nations have been paying to the archipelago, and to the way France is handling this crisis.
First among those concerned were New Caledonia's closest neighbors, whose populations, like the French overseas territory's Kanak people, are Melanesian. "These events could have been avoided if the French Government had listened and not proceeded to press forward with the Constitutional Bill aimed at unfreezing the electoral roll, modifying the citizen’s electorate and changing the distribution of seats in Congress," stated the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), a regional alliance which includes Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and New Caledonia's Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), on Wednesday, May 15. Founded in 1988 to support the Melanesian peoples' desire for decolonization, it has called on Paris to "agree to the proposal by the FLNKS to establish a dialogue and mediation mission to be led by a mutually agreed high-personality" in order to establish "an enduring peace." On Friday, May 17, after four nights of rioting in New Caledonia, the death toll stood at five.
The MSG sided with supporters of New Caledonian independence in the territory's three referendums on self-determination – held in 2018, 2020 and 2021, as part of the peace process set out in the Matignon (1988) and Nouméa (1998) accords following the near-civil war that tore New Caledonia apart from 1984 to 1988. The MSG rejected the results of the third referendum, held in December 2021, which had been boycotted by the Kanak pro-independence movement. They had called for it to be postponed, citing their inability to organize "a fair campaign" in the context of Covid. Marked by record rates of abstention, it resulted in a massive victory for the faction that voted "no" to independence, which garnered 96.49% of the votes cast.
A lack of respect
The French authorities' refusal to postpone the vote took many observers in the South Pacific island nations aback, as these countries' inhabitants are very attached to respecting ancestral practices – including in the Micronesian and Polynesian archipelagos, which are traditionally less close to the FLNKS. "We were in the middle of Covid and the Kanaky custom is that when somebody passes, they mourn that for one year. (...) As a result, they didn't want to take part in the referendum, because they couldn't go against the tradition and go campaigning," said Henry Puna, the secretary-general of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), a regional cooperation organization that brings together all the independent countries in Oceania, as well as New Caledonia and French Polynesia, on May 15.
You have 39.85% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.