New Caledonia will finally host a fact-finding mission from Pacific countries in October

Following a diplomatic standoff between Noumea and Paris, the President of the Government of New Caledonia, the pro-independence Louis Mapou, agreed on Tuesday 27 August to host a fact-finding mission from the Pacific Islands Forum in the archipelago. This mission is to take stock of the situation on the Rock, which has been marked by strong tensions for several months, leading to the death of eleven people and the destruction of many businesses, schools and places of worship.

“The events that have taken place are harsh, extremely serious and contribute in a certain way to the instability of the region”regretted Mr. Mapou.

This trip by Oceanian heads of state was accepted by the Caledonian government during the forum which has been bringing together eighteen leaders of Pacific states in Nuku’alofa (Tonga) since Monday. It will take place in October, specified the President of French Polynesia, Moetai Brotherson.

Although this mission had been hoped for earlier by the member states, the pro-independence president had refused to host this mission before the meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum. “The State [français] had decided to organize it without speaking to New Caledonia”he justified to the Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Self-determination

France had accepted the principle of this information mission, but refused to allow it to take the form of a “mediation mission”. “It is a French community and therefore it is France which still has – and this is enshrined in the Noumea Accords – sovereign authority over foreign affairs and security in the territory of New Caledonia, therefore French territory”Véronique Roger-Lacan, French ambassador to the Pacific and head of the French delegation to the 53rd^e Pacific Islands Forum.

While for M^me Roger-Lacan, the underlying question of self-determination is already studied within the United Nations, Mr. Mapou believes that the question must also be dealt with at the regional level, by the member countries of the Forum, all independent with the exception of New Caledonia and French Polynesia.

“In none of the territories can the French State or the French government go against the principle of self-determination”said the ambassador, who recalled that “decolonization was enacted in the organic laws which created the autonomy of French Polynesia and New Caledonia”These two communities are thus equipped with their own Assemblies and governments.

In the eyes of the independence activists of the two archipelagos, who have demands in particular in the educational and cultural fields, the “decolonization” However, the agreement did not come to fruition. The Polynesian president, a moderate pro-independence figure, Mr. Brotherson, offered to play a mediating role.