New Caledonia
More Uncertainty
Tensions Between Polynesians and Indigenous Kanaks Are Rising in New Caledonia
After years of peace, in the aftermath of a mid 1980s near civil war between indigenous Kanaks and white settlers, New Caledonia has just had another bout of lesser, but still worrying racial violence.
Political relations between the indigenous Kanaks, who are Melanesian, and the descendants of 19th and early 20th century settlers, still exhibit bouts of stress. However the latest trouble is between Kanaks and some of the 20,000 Polynesians settlers from Wallis and Futuna, a small French territory north of Fiji.
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Last December, at St. Louis, near New Caledonia’s capital, Noumea, a clash between the two communities over land led to the burning of some buildings and one death. Riot police were needed to quell the trouble. In January another incident occurred and the local Kanak chief said Wallisians in the locality had until the end of March to leave.
The Wallisians are anxious to remain in New Caledonia. After the 1980s, they decided to try to insure their security by switching political allegiance from the anti-independence white settler party, the RPCR, to the FLNKS, a coalition of Kanak parties. The progressive transfer of power from Paris to the territorial government already gives the territorial government authority for immigration, including authority over the Wallisian community.
With all New Caledonia’s evident huge future economic opportunities, it is where the resident Wallisians wish to remain. There is little for them in their tiny home islands. They are insisting that the Kanaks can rely on their continuing political support in dealing with the mainly anti-independence minded European community.
Last year, internal rivalry split the FLNK. In October party leader Roch Wamytan resigned from the territorial government, in which he was minister for customary and traditional affairs because, he said, his party's "real representation" was no longer reflected in it.
Kanak disarray is unlikely to become fatal to the political condition of New Caledonia and is evidently not of enough consequence as to discourage plans for the enormous expansion of the territory’s nickel mining and refining industry.
Last year, two Canadian companies decided to proceed with joint ventures that will massively enlarge the industry. At Koniambo, in the north, a joint venture between Canada’s Falconbridge and a Kanak-owned company, SMSP( South Pacific Mines) venture would, by 2003, produce about 60,000 tonnes of nickel annually.
The major player in New Caledonia is still SLN, a subsidiary of a French group Eramet, with a yearly production of 57,000 tonnes. It has announced its intention to lift output to 70,000 tons. The total, a combination of existing and upcoming plant projects, would by 2005, take New Caledonia's annual nickel production capacity to 200,000 tonnes.
In the south, at Goro, Inco, the other Canadian company, is by 2004 due to complete plant production capacity for 54,000 tonnes of nickel and 5,400 tonnes of cobalt. The two projects will need investment totalling more than US$2000-million, together the largest private enterprise plunge ever made anywhere in the South Pacific.
French aid, in 2000 amounting to about US$2,420-million, continues as another massive underwriting economic bolster.
Agriculture, prawn farming, tuna fishing and tourism are other great prospects, some already actually so, for the 18,576 sq km French territory whose 220,000 people are expected to vote on the issue of complete independence from France “15 to 20” years after a political pact signed by the Kanak and white settler communities in 1998.
