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Category: Daniel Goa

  • Pro-independence protesters, French police clash in New Caledonia

    By Patrick Decloitre, correspondent French Pacific desk

    Pro-independence militants and protesters clashed with police in downtown Nouméa this week as New Caledonia hosts three French government ministers.

    The crowd — an estimated 2000 according to organisers, 500 according to police — had been called on Wednesday to voice their opposition to a French-planned constitutional amendment process which would include modification of New Caledonia’s electoral roll for local elections.

    As the three French ministers were on official calls in various places, in downtown Nouméa police fired teargas to disperse the crowd.

    Five policemen were reported to have been injured, including one seriously hit by rocks, the French High Commission stated, adding five protesters had been arrested shortly afterwards.

    The protest had been organised by Union Calédonienne’s self-styled “field action coordinating cell” (Cellule de Coordination des actions de terrain, CCAT), which consists of trade union USTKE and UC’s close ally, the Labour Party.

    UC is the largest single party within the mostly indigeous Kanak socialist and nationalist front (FLNKS).

    Later on Wednesday, the crowd was dispersed and it moved out of downtown Nouméa.

    “It’s completely out of the question to ‘unfreeze’ the electoral roll,” UC president Daniel Goa, who was part of the crowd, told local media.

    Pro-France politician Nicolas Metzdorf said in a statement: “This kind of call to hatred, directly from UC . . . must stop. Violent protests will not halt the electoral roll being ‘unfrozen’.”

    Clashes between an estimated 500-strong crowd protesting against electoral roll changes and French police in downtown Nouméa on 21 February 2024.
    Protesters opposed to electoral roll changes and French police clashed in downtown Nouméa on Wednesday. Image: NC la 1ère

    Regular visitor
    French Home Affairs and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin, who is now regarded as a regular visitor, arrived on Tuesday and this time was flanked with his newly appointed “delegate” Minister for Overseas, Marie Guévenoux, as well as French Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti.

    This is Darmanin’s sixth visit to New Caledonia in the past 12 months.

    In a polarised context, many attempts by Darmanin to bring all parties around the same table in order to all agree on a forward-looking agreement have so far failed.

    His previous visits were focused on attempting to bring about inclusive talks concerning New Caledonia’s political future which could involve an amendment to the French Constitution.

    The amendment contains sensitive issues, including a revision of New Caledonia’s list of eligible voters at local elections, with a 10-year minimum residency period for any French citizen to be able to cast their vote.

    Pro-independence Union Calédonienne President Daniel GOA speaks to local media amidst clashes with French police.
    Pro-independence Union Calédonienne president Daniel GOA speaks to local media amids clashes with French police. Image: NC la 1ère

    FLNKS’ 2 major wings — diverging views
    While the two main components of FLNKS (UC and PALIKA-Kanak Liberation Party) last weekend held separate meetings and announced diverging approaches vis-à-vis France’s proposed reforms, the pro-independence umbrella FLNKS has now rescheduled its Congress for March 23.

    Even though most local parties in New Caledonia have started to exchange views on the sensitive subject, one of the main components of the pro-independence front FLNKS, the largest party Union Calédonienne (UC), has so far refused to take part in the bipartisan round tables.

    After convening UC’s steering committee in Houaïlou, UC vice-president Gilbert Tyuienon earlier this week told a press conference the party intended once again to hold a series of actions through its recently revived “field action coordinating cell” (CCAT).

    “We have asked [the CCAT] and its young members to take all steps on the field,” he said.

    The thinly veiled threat materialised on Wednesday with CCAT militants, including members of the Labour Party and union USTKE, deploying banners opposing to the planned Constitution review being placed in the capital Nouméa, also sometimes with roadside burning of tyres in the suburban town of Mont-Dore.

    Tyuienon also claimed that UC considered French-promoted political talks were “a failure” and labelled Darmanin’s travel to New Caledonia as “yet another provocation” and that the proposed text was potentially “destabilising [New Caledonia’s political] balances”.

    “There is a formal opposition from UC to meet the ministers . . . we know who is responsible for this situation,” Tyuienon told reporters.

    He said UC now demanded that the whole French constitutional amendment project be scrapped altogether — “or else we’re heading for big trouble”.

    UC banners opposing changes to New Caledonina’s electoral roll.
    UC banners opposing changes to New Caledonina’s electoral roll. Image: NC la 1ère

    More nuanced views
    PALIKA, after its own meeting last weekend, expressed more nuanced views: “We are involved in every dialogue venue regarding all the document drafts that have been put on the table,” spokesman Jean-Pierre Djaïwe told a press conference on Monday following its extraordinary general assembly in Canala.

    “We can only regret that every time we are taking part in discussions, not all of New Caledonia’s political groups are represented. Because our objective, from PALIKA’s point of view, is to reach an agreement comprising all political parties,” he said.

    Djaïwe, however, said the current draft document “sided too much in favour of the (pro-French) parties”, which could “be detrimental to the conclusion of an agreement between local players”.

    He indicated that PALIKA’s current stance would remain valid at least until the “end of March” — when the FLNKS Congress takes place — and “after that, it will decide on its strategy”.

    Over the past months, PALIKA and other components of the pro-independence umbrella have consistently advised their members not to take part in UC’s CCAT-organised actions and protests.

    However, Darmanin has already indicated that he did not intend to touch New Caledonia’s institutional and political future as he wanted “the neutral and impartial [French] State to only talk with local political parties once they have reached an agreement”.

    His schedule did not seem to include New Caledonia’s nickel industry crisis either, following the announcement last week that one of its three major companies, in Koniambo (KNS), will now be placed under “care and maintenance” mode (effectively mothballed by its major Anglo-Swiss financier Glencore).

    Glencore earlier this week confirmed it would withdraw after a six-month “transition” period, leaving more than 1200 workers and another 600 sub-contractors without work.

    The company, which owns 49 percent of Koniambo’s stock, justified its move saying this operation over the past 10 years had never been either profitable or sustainable and had accumulated losses to the tune of a staggering 14 billion euros.

    French ministers -right to left- Marie Guévenoux, Gérald Darmanin and Eric Dupond-Moretti follow traditional protocol upon arriving in New Caledonia
    French cabinet ministers (from right to left) Marie Guévenoux, Gérald Darmanin and Eric Dupond-Moretti follow indigenous custom protocol upon arriving in New Caledonia. Image: NC la 1ère

    Climate change agenda
    Instead, Darmanin’s official agenda includes visits to sites affected by climate change and coastal erosion as well as announcements regarding the reinforcement of road safety (with the introduction of new latest-generation speed radars thanks to a 200,000 euro grant, to reduce the high number of road accidents and fatalities in New Caledonia.

    Justice Minister Dupond-Moretti said his visit was focused on meeting the local judiciary and bar, but also New Caledonia’s custom and traditional justice players.

    He will also officially open a new detention centre in Koné and provide more details regarding the construction of a 500 million euro new jailhouse in the suburbs of Nouméa, which is due to replace the overpopulated and ageing Camp-Est prison, where living conditions for inmates have frequently been denounced by human rights organisations.

    After his stay in New Caledonia (February 21-22), Darmanin’s Pacific trip is also to include this time a stopover in Australia later this week (February 23-24), where he is expected to meet cabinet ministers to talk about Pacific “regional cooperation” between the two countries, as well as about this year’s Olympic Games in France.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • No sedition charges against Kanak pro-independence leader, says prosecutor

    By Walter Zweifel, RNZ Pacific reporter

    The president of New Caledonia’s largest pro-independence party Daniel Goa will not be prosecuted for alleged calls for violence and sedition.

    Last month, a coalition of anti-independence parties had lodged a formal complaint with the Public Prosecutor over a speech given by Goa at a party meeting.

    Goa had said there was a risk of there being no more provincial elections if the restricted rolls were opened to people who arrived after the signing of the 1998 Noumea Accord.

    The anti-independence coalition had also accused Goa of sedition after he said his party might turn to foreign powers.

    After questioning Goa, the Prosecutor decided there were insufficient grounds to lay charges.

    The anti-independence parties want Paris to abolish the restrictions by changing the French Constitution and granting voting rights to the estimated 40,000 migrants who have settled since the Accord signing.

    In March, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the 2024 provincial elections would not go ahead with the restricted rolls.

    Earlier this month, another Caledonian Union politician Gilbert Tyuienon warned that dialogue would end should Goa be taken to court for expressing what the party membership felt.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Caledonian Union vows to end French ‘neo-colonial putsch’ in Pacific

    RNZ Pacific

    New Caledonia’s largest pro-independence party says it will not give up on the gains made in terms of decolonisation from France under the 1998 Noumea Accord.

    Party president Daniel Goa made the statement in an address at the party congress in the north of the main island Grande Terre at the weekend, outlining its key points ahead of negotiations with Paris about the territory’s institutional future.

    Last December, more than 96 percent voted against independence from France in the third and last referendum provided under the Noumea Accord.

    However, the plebiscite was boycotted by the pro-independence side after it had unsuccessfully asked Paris to postpone the vote because of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on mainly the indigenous Kanak population.

    The pro-independence parties said they would not recognise the result, describing it as illegitimate and one not reflecting the will of the people to be decolonised.

    Anti-independence parties as well as the French government welcomed the result, with President Emmanuel Macron saying France was “more beautiful” because New Caledonia decided to remain part of it.

    Right after the vote, the French Overseas Minister Sebastien Lecornu said Paris planned to hold another referendum in June next year about a new statute for a New Caledonia within France.

    ‘Only emancipation’
    However, Goa reiterated at the weekend the pro-independence camp’s stance was that it would not join discussions about re-integrating New Caledonia into France.

    He told delegates that “the Caledonian Union had nothing to negotiate except to listen and discuss the process of emancipation that will irreversibly lead to sovereignty”.

    Pro-independence parties, united under the umbrella of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), said after the December referendum that they would have no negotiations with France until after this year’s presidential election.

    Last month, at the congress of another pro-independence party, Palika, its spokesperson Charles Washetine suggested holding another independence referendum by 2024 to complete the decolonisation process, but this time with the participation of the Kanak people.

    Washetine added that the vote should be run by the United Nations, and not by France any longer.

    Goa accused France of having failed to be neutral at the last referendum, which was meant to conclude the Noumea Accord process with the Kanak people’s emancipation.

    However, he said it turned out that France tried to hide behind a “neo-colonial putsch”.

    Gradual transfer of power
    Under the Noumea Accord, there has been a gradual transfer of power, which is enshrined in the French constitution and which Goa insisted was an irreversible achievement.

    He stressed that there could be no consideration to open the electoral rolls which restrict voting rights to indigenous people and long-term residents in provincial elections and in referendums.

    About 41,000 French residents are excluded from such voting.

    Goa said freezing the electoral body with the Noumea Accord put an end to the French settlement policy, which French Prime Minister Pierre Messmer still encouraged in 1972.

    He said the signatories of the accord wanted to lay the foundation for a citizenship of New Caledonia, allowing the indigenous people to be joined by long term settlers to forge their common destiny.

    Goa said that since the December referendum, the French state intended to bring these 41,000 French people back into the electoral body, which he said would destabilise the still very fragile political balances.

    He likened attempts to change the rolls to “re-colonisation”.

    For sake of ‘handful of French’
    He wondered why France would question the achievement of the Noumea Accord for the sake of “a handful of French people” who left their country to settle in New Caledonia.

    Goa said France was ready to sacrifice a political process and its word given in front of the international community for what he described as a “handful of adventurers”.

    Anti-independence parties, however, expressed support for the push to have the restrictions abolished.

    A local interest group, One Heart One Vote, said it would lobby the French Supreme Court, the European Human Rights Court and the United Nations to quash the existing provisions, describing them as discriminatory.

    With the first round of the French presidential election due on April 12, the Republicans’ candidate Valerie Pecresse said the eligibility question must be readdressed as to give a full place to those who had been building New Caledonia for years while having no right to vote.

    In his address, Goa also alluded to the war in Ukraine and what he called France’s “omnipresent imperialism” in part because of its continued occupation of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean.

    The Comoros partitioned
    The Comoros, which is between Mozambique and Madagascar, was partitioned after independence in 1975 because France refused to let Mayotte go as its residents had voted to stay with France.

    The United Nations asked France to return Mayotte, but Paris integrated the island to become a French department in 2011 and part of the Eurozone three years later.

    France will follow the presidential elections this month with National Assembly elections in June.

    Proper discussions on how the December referendum outcome will be implemented will have to wait.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.