Pacific leaders postpone mission to New Caledonia over reported spat

LAST COLONY  VIVE INDEPENDENCE

By AFP
August 21, 2024

A flag of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front flies in front of the customary senate in Noumea, New Caledonia, on July 30, 2024 - Copyright AFP Delphine Mayeur

Pacific island leaders on Wednesday postponed a mission to the riot-hit French territory of New Caledonia following reports of a row between Paris and the island’s government.

The 18-nation Pacific Islands Forum said last month its leadership would visit the archipelago to try to help resolve three months of deadly violence.

Eleven people have been killed since the unrest broke out, sparked in part by indigenous Kanaks’ thwarted struggle for independence.

The visit had been planned for this week, ahead of an annual Pacific forum meeting in Tonga from August 26-30.

But the mission is being postponed because New Caledonia’s local government raised “issues regarding due process and protocol that will need to be addressed”, the forum said in a statement.

The Pacific body includes sovereign countries as well as territories such as New Caledonia and French Polynesia.

The delay follows allegations by a senior New Caledonia lawmaker that France is seeking to dictate the purpose of the forum’s mission.

“We consider this as an unacceptable form of humiliation,” the president of New Caledonia’s law-making congress, Roch Wamytan, was quoted as saying by New Zealand radio RNZ.

A source close to the French government said the French state was ready to welcome the Pacific forum’s visit “at any time”, denying any responsibility for the delay.

President Emmanuel Macron had agreed to the mission within certain “guiding principles”, the source told AFP this week, listing the themes of public order, security, governance, and economic and social stability.

The head of New Caledonia’s government — pro-independence Kanak, Louis Mapou — had rejected Paris’ invitations to help organise the Pacific body’s visit, the French source said.

Unrest broke out in New Caledonia in mid-May over a planned expansion of the electoral roll that Kanaks feared would dilute their vote and put independence forever out of reach.

France sent thousands of troops and police to the archipelago, almost 17,000 kilometres (10,600 miles) from Paris, to restore order as cars, local businesses and public buildings went up in flames .

Macron suspended the electoral reform in June.