Kiwis rescued from New Caledonia touch down, terrifying turbulence leaves one dead and more severe weather on the way in the latest NZ Herald headlines.
Liberation “must come” for Kanaky/New Caledonia, says one of the few New Zealand journalists who have worked consistently on stories across the French territories.
Journalist David Robie was arrested at gunpoint by French police in January 1987, and is no stranger to civil unrest inNew Caledonia.
Writing his first articles about the Pacific from Paris in 1974 on French nuclear testing, Robie became a freelance journalist in the 1980s, working for Radio Australia, Islands Business and RNZ Pacific.
The Asia Pacific Report editor, who has been on the case for 50 years now, arrived at his interview with RNZ Pacific with a bag of books packed with images and stories from his days in the field.
“I did get arrested twice [in Kanaky/New Caledonia], in fact, but the first time was actually at gunpoint which was slightly unnerving,” Robie explained.
“It’s really three decades of hard work by a lot of people to build, sort of like a future for New Caledonia, which is part of the Pacific rather than part of France,” Robie said.
He said France has had three prime ministers since 2020 and none of them seem to have any “real affinity” for indigenous issues, particularly in the South Pacific, in contrast to some previous leaders.
“From 2020 onwards, basically, France lost the plot,” after Édouard Philippe was in power, Robie said.
New Caledonia is listed under the United Nations as a territory to be decolonised.
“Progress has been made quite well with the first two votes on self determination, the two referendums on independence, where there’s a slight opposition.”
In 2018, 43.6 per cent voted in favour of independence with an 81 per cent voter turnout. Two years later 46.7 per cent were in favour with a voter turnout of 85.7 per cent, but 96.5 per cent voted against independence in 2021, with a voter turnout of just 43.8 per cent.
Robie labelled the third vote a “complete write-off”.
France maintains it was legitimate, despite first insisting on holding the third vote a year earlier than originally scheduled, and despite pleas from indigenous Kanak leaders to postpone the vote so they could properly bury and mourn the many members of their communities who died as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Robie said France was now taking a deliberate step to “railroad” the indigenous vote in Kanaky/New Caledonia.
He said the latest “proposed amendment” to the constitution would give thousands more non-indigenous people voting rights.
“[The new voters] It’s to completely swamp indigenous people,” Robie said.
‘Hope’ and other options
Robie said there “was hope yet”, despite France’s betrayal of the Kanaks over self-determination and independence, especially over the past three years.
French President Emmanuel Macron is under increasing pressure to scrap proposed constitutional reform by Pacific leaders which sparked riots in New Caledonia.
Pacific leaders and civil society groups have affirmed their support for New Caledonia’s path to independence.
Robie backed that call.
He said there were options, including an indefinite deferment of the final stage, or Macron could use his presidential veto.
“So [I’m] hopeful that something like that will happen. There certainly has to be some kind of charismatic change in sort of the way things are at the moment.”
Having Edouard Philippe - who has always said he had grown a strong bond with New Caledonia when he was in office until 2020 - on the mission would be “a very positive move”, said Robie.
He said those fears were why it was so important the controversial constructional amendments did not go any further.
Robie said while Kanaks were already a minority in their own country, there have been a pretty close parity.
“Bear in mind, a lot of French people who’ve lived in New Caledonia for a long time, believe in independence as well,” he said.
But it was the ‘constitutional reform’ that was the sticking point, something Robie described as “a very retrograde step”.
In 1998 there was “goodwill” through the Noumea accord.
A building burns in Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia.
“The only people who could participate in New Caledonian elections, as opposed to the French state as a whole, were indigenous Kanaks and those who had been living in New Caledonia prior to 1998,” something France brought in at the time.
Robie said a comparison can be drawn “much more with Australia”, rather than Aotearoa New Zealand.
“Kanak people resisting French control a century and a half ago were executed by the guillotine,” he said.
To Robie, Aotearoa was probably the better example of what New Caledonia could be.
“But you have to recall that New Caledonia began colonial life just like Australia, a penal colony,” he said.
Robie explained how Algerian fighters were shipped off to New Caledonia, Vietnamese fighters were also sent during the Vietnam War, among other people from other minority groups.
“A lot of people think it’s French and Kanak. It’s not. It’s a lot more mixed than that and a lot more complicated.”
As Robie explained the history, another issue became apparent: the lack of media interest and know-how to cover such events.
He said he had been disappointed to see many mainstream outlets glossing over history and focusing on the stranded Kiwis and fighting, which he said was significant, but needed context.
He said this lack of built-up knowledge within newsrooms and an apparent issue of “can’t be bothered, or it’s too problematic”, was projecting the indigenous population as the bad guys.
“There’s a projection that basically ‘Oh, well, they’re young people ... looting and causing fires and that sort of thing’, they don’t get an appreciation of just how absolutely frustrated young people feel. It’s 50 per cent of unemployment as a result of the nickel industry collapse, you know,” Robie explained.
When it came to finger pointing, he believed the CCAT did not intend for all of this to happen.
“Once the protests reached a level of anger and frustration all hell broke loose,” said Robie.
