Page 23 - IB November 2019

Politics Politics

implications of a majority vote for independence. For this reason, the FLNKS pressed
the French government to issue an official statement to address concerns about the
status of the electoral system and the Noumea Accord after the referendum.
The meeting in Paris agreed that before next year’s vote, the French State will prepare
a more detailed statement on any post-referendum transition, setting out necessary
steps on the pathway to a declaration of independent statehood. Such a statement
would, more controversially, set out France’s policies in case of a No vote – a difficult
balancing act given that anti-independence parties want to negotiate a new status
agreement within the French Republic, while the FLNKS wants to press on to a third
vote on full and sovereign independence.
The meeting also agreed to a review of the Control Commission that conducted last
year’s referendum and to again invite United Nations monitoring of the vote. After
the meeting, Union Calédonienne issued a statement noting that: “UC will remain
vigilant to ensure that certain technical modifications to the vote will be improved,
especially concerning proxy voting and interventions by the Control Commission.”

Partition and decolonisation
Despite the compromises and agreement in Paris, it’s clear that supporters and
opponents of independence are still separated by significant differences.
This was highlighted by a proposal floated by Senator Pierre Frogier at the Commit-
tee of Signatories, an intervention that reminded everyone that some do not accept
that the Noumea Accord is a decolonisation process. Frogier, former leader of the
anti-independence party Rassemblement-Les Républicains, floated the idea that New
Caledonia’s three provincial assemblies might report directly to the French govern-
ment in Paris, rather than the Congress and Government of New Caledonia.
For the FLNKS, this idea suggests partition of the country between the Southern
Province, with its majority anti-independence electorate, and the Northern and
Loyalty Islands Provinces, which have been governed by FLNKS member parties for
more than 30 years.
The idea of partition is explicitly rejected in the 1998 Noumea Accord, which states
that: “The result of a referendum will apply for the whole of New Caledonia. One
part of New Caledonia cannot accede to full sovereignty or maintain different ties
with France, on the basis that the results of the referendum vote would be different
for them from the overall result.”
In an interview with the newspaper Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes, long-time inde-
pendence leader Roch Wamytan denounced Frogier’s proposal.
“For myself, this isn’t Frogier’s idea but rather an idea from the French State, which
it cannot speak aloud,” Wamytan said. “This is a proposal, but to what end? To
extinguish the nationalist call for the independence of the country…This is exactly
what France did with Mayotte and the Comoros islands” [which separated after
independence, leaving Mayotte as French territory].
“For us, this is unacceptable,” Wamytan added. “It’s a strategy by the French State to
hold a part of the Melanesian archipelago to France’s bosom.”
With this month’s referendum in Bougainville, ongoing conflict in West Papua and
now a second referendum in New Caledonia, the issue of self-determination and
political independence is firmly on the region’s agenda.

nicmaclellan@optusnet.com.au

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