Last month, a year before the deadline for the referendum on independence from France, French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe visited the semi-autonomous territory of New Caledonia. Philippe is anxious about potential unrest. In October, a special delegation of New Caledonians expressed their concerns to the UN decolonisation committee in New York. According to them, the Noumea Accord (the territory’s roadmap leading to the 2018 referendum) is not being applied correctly. How this situation unfolds will be of significant interest to the region.
New Calendonia has struggled with instability in the past, with the most notable example being the évènement, as the locals call it, in the 1980s. Despite decolonisation processes in territories around the globe, French governments succeeded in curtailing self-determination among the Kanak population for three decades until the territorial elections of 1984. That year, the influential indépendandtiste Jean-Marie Tjibaou proclaimed the creation of the sovereign state. The Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) rose up against loyalists of the territory, leading to conflict along a distinct ethnic divide. In 1988 violence reached its peak with the deaths of 21 people in a hostage crisis in Ouéva.
Full Article: Worries as New Caledonia’s independence vote approaches.
