PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT

Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center
With Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai‘i

The Contemporary Pacific
Vol. 18, No. 2, Fall 2006, pp. 399-413

David Chappell

The "post-colonial" process of nation building continued in Kanaky/New Caledonia in 2005, as the new government elected in May 2004 entered its second year. The political stars of Avenir Ensemble (AE, or Future [End Page 399] Together) and Palika-UNI (Parti de Liberation Kanak plus the rump Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste, or FLNKS) rose, relative to the stars of Jacques Lafleur and his Rassemblement pour la Calédonie dans la République (RPCR) and the pro-independence Union Calédonienne (UC), though the minority AE government (only 16 out of 54 seats in Congress) had to share power in the cabinet and thus continue nurturing a case-by-case consensus in order to pass local "laws of the country." Moreover, contentious issues remained unresolved, such as creating a local citizenship, protecting local hiring, restricting the electorate on important votes, and balancing economic development with much-needed social programs. The struggles over increasing nickel exports in the North and South provinces, in the face of militant labor strikes and Kanak customary and/or environmental protests, often disrupted the country.

In January, supporters of independence organized a three-day commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the assassination by French sharpshooters of Eloi Machoro and Marcel Nonaro in La Foa. Both are regarded as martyrs in the FLNKS uprising of 1984–85, though the French State and loyalist settlers called them terrorists. At the opening of a new sociocultural hall in Canala named after Machoro, Jean Pierre Pouperon of the organizing committee said the event expressed both a duty to remember and a message of unity. The organizers hoped to show that Machoro and Nonaro were fighting for justice and freedom, both for the indigenous Kanak and for other ethnic groups exploited by French colonialism. Because of post-1980s divisions in the FLNKS, the organizers wanted to remind people of the need for solidarity in order to achieve the "common destiny" proposed by the 1998 Noumea Accord. Palika spokesman Sylvain Pabouty argued that Machoro, who smashed a ballot box in a famous incident in November 1984 and then conducted an active rural struggle to recover stolen lands, had helped to unify the Kanak movement on the ground, shake up the colonial system, and internationalize the independence struggle by attracting more support abroad, culminating in the United Nations' inscription of the territory on its decolonization list in 1986. Jean-Paul Caillard, another activist, said that the FLNKS revolt had forced France to create three provinces, so that Kanak leaders could govern the North and Islands provinces—a success that "saved the existence of a people"—and that individual democratic rights, which had once been used as a colonial weapon against collective indigenous liberation, now served decolonization instead (KOL, 13 Jan, 17 Jan 2005).

The local branch of the League of the Rights of Man, led by Kanak activist Elie Poigoune, held several colloquia during the year to encourage public discussion on important issues. In mid-June, Billy Wapotro of the Protestant Educational Alliance and author-teacher Dr Louis-José Barbançon spoke about the meaning of a "common destiny" and how to achieve it. Wapotro urged people to study history in order to change it; to avoid the tragic confrontations of the past, Kanak and non-Kanak must find [End Page 400] ways to coexist through active dialogue leading to greater mutual understanding. Barbançon said French settlers needed to become "Oceanians of European origin"; many were already intermarried with non-Europeans and should work toward better ways to share the country's riches. In the discussion that followed, Poigoune said, "The common destiny is built slowly every day if we believe in it," notably in schools, municipalities, churches, and mixed couples, though it still required more promotion in civic and political circles (KOL, 9 July 2005). At a second colloquium in July, Octave Togna, director of the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center, reminded the audience of the 1983 Nainville-les-Roches roundtable in France, where Kanak and loyalists had agreed to recognize each other's heritages and rights; he advocated political cohesion through the teaching of cultural diversity to young people: "a common destiny is a permanent quest." Author Pascale Bernut-Deplanque warned that local political citizenship would be insufficient without intercultural education based on mutual recognition: "The challenge is to establish a balance among identities by favoring an integration that is not an assimilation [to France]." High Chief Nidoish Naisseline of Maré argued that "custom" is above all an exchange, and since UNESCO recognized the equality of all cultures, "there is no contradiction between being rooted and going out into the world, or between tradition and modernity" (KOL, 9 Aug 2005). After Mareen women organized a protest to demand their inclusion in the new Customary Senate, because of their role in building interclan bonds through marriage, Naisseline supported them at a third colloquium, arguing that the Senate was not a traditional institution anyway but rather was intended to defend all who lived according to Kanak custom, not just male chiefs (KOL, 24 Aug 2005).

On 24 September, the date of French annexation in 1853, the Mwâ Kâ (a twelve-meter-high totem pole first sculpted for the 150th anniversary in 2003) was honored again in its now-permanent setting across from the Territorial Museum in Noumea. Modeled after designs on the center post of a traditional chiefly house, each of its eight symbols was carved by a sculptor from one of the Kanak cultural-linguistic regions. RPCR Mayor Jean Lèques had first banned the Mwâ Kâ from the main square of Noumea, whereupon RPCR leader Jacques Lafleur had had it placed on the grounds of the Southern Province headquarters until he changed his mind last year. The Mwâ Kâ was then placed in a huge concrete canoe in its current location, making it into a mast, and this year a tall, elderly paddler was added, along with a garden of native plants. As Kanak sculptor Narcisse Decoire explained, "The Mwâ Kâ is a sign of our custom, it's the link between the people of the mountains and the people of the sea...the old man, the paddler, in the canoe will show that after 150 years, the Kanak people are still here" (RAN, 18 July 2005). At the 24 September ceremony attended by several thousand people, organizer George Mandaoué of the Customary Senate added, "The Kanak don't want to take possession of the city but rather [End Page 401] erect the center post of a chiefly house in which all the communities of the territory have their place." The Mwâ Kâ has become, therefore, a symbol to many of the common destiny idea, despite Lèques's sarcastic comment that differences are not erased by magic (he would receive the French Legion of Honor a few weeks later for his twenty years as mayor). AE cabinet minister Didier Leroux asked, "Are we ready? Have we vanquished our fears, overcome our wounds?" He shared with Déwé Gorodey, Kanak vice president of the government, the sentiment that the Mwâ Kâ represented all citizens of the country during a time of transition and reconciliation. Some other settlers and metropolitan French complained about using only Kanak symbols to represent their common destiny, while some Kanak said a "national" Mwâ Kâ was untraditional (NC, 23 Sept, 26Sept 2005).

Such mixed feelings, despite so many good intentions, typify the ongoing struggle to build a nation in a multiethnic country whose majority still opposes independence. The year began with a political debate over whether the AE should be allowed to participate in the usual follow-up meeting to ensure the implementation of the Noumea Accord, since the AE had not existed when the accord was signed by the RPCR and FLNKS and many of its members had in fact voted against it. Opposition came mainly from Lafleur and the RPCR, because the AE is composed largely of dissidents from that former ruling party. A compromise allowed the AE, which now rules the populous South and leads the territorial Congress and governing cabinet, to participate, in honor of what Southern Province President Philippe Gomès called "electoral reality" (PIR, 12 Jan [End Page 402] 2005). Two key issues for the pro-independence parties were the "frozen" electorate (only those resident in the country in 1998, the year of the Noumea Accord, and their descendents should be able to vote on issues affecting sovereignty), which is also tied to the notion of creating a local citizenship and protecting local employment in hiring; and renewing French-funded development contracts to promote "re-balancing" between the wealthy South and the two Kanak-ruled provinces, especially to enable the North to build a nickel-processing plant. The FLNKS envisions future independence, though Palika-UNI and the UC differ in their degrees of satisfaction over progress under the Noumea Accord, mainly because Palika controls the Northern Province. Meanwhile, the RPCR supports a "sliding" electorate that would allow any resident of ten years or more to vote in provincial elections, while the AE did not have a strong position on that issue but agreed with the others that French money should keep flowing into local development projects (NC, 17 Jan 2005).

French Overseas Minister Brigitte Girardin urged the parties to overcome their divisions to ensure continuing progress, but she also pointed out that the RPCR (which is affiliated with her boss President Jacques Chirac's own party) retains all three of the country's seats in the French Parliament and therefore has to be respected as "the primary political force in New Caledonia" (NC, 21 Jan 2005). The restriction of the electorate implied in the Noumea Accord was approved by the European Court of Human Rights in mid-January, which was a bitter disappointment for both the local branch of the National Front (which holds four seats in Congress) and a Movement for France composed of metropolitan immigrants who resent being treated like "second-class citizens" (NC, 13 Jan 2005). The pro-independence parties were elated by the European Court's decision, but Rock Wamytan, who had signed the Noumea Accord for the FLNKS in 1998, was disappointed when Girardin said that a new law proposal would have to be ironed out for the French Parliament to vote on late in 2005 or early 2006. She also said that President Chirac had promised to clear up the dispute before the end of his final term in office, which Wamytan interpreted as an additional delay, since the next presidential elections will be in 2009. He also complained that local hiring for jobs was not yet protected in the face of massive immigration aided by French State subsidies for metropolitan airline tickets (PIR commentary, 27 Oct 2005). Girardin agreed, however, to extend the 2000–2004 aid contracts through 2005 and to proceed with developing new ones for 2006–2010, to continue to study the feasibility of introducing the euro currency to the French Pacific, to help the nickel-processing plant projects in the North and South, and to continue to transfer self-governing powers to New Caledonia (KOL, 20 Jan 2005). In May, only one third of local voters cast their ballots on the new European constitution, which Chirac and the RPCR campaigned hard for: 78 percent voted yes, but to no avail, as 55 percent of French voters rejected it (NC, 31 May 2005; PIR, 6 June 2005). Pro-independence parties abstained (KOL, 8 May 2005).

The biggest political story of the year was the decline of Lafleur within the very party he had founded almost thirty years ago, in 1977. In January, he decided to pass on the party's leadership to Pierre Frogier, the other RPCR deputy to the French Parliament. Like Charles de Gaulle, Lafleur has repeatedly threatened to retire whenever getting his own way was in doubt, and agreed to stay on after his supporters begged him to remain. After the May 2004 elections, when the RPCR lost key seats to the AE, he had resigned from his presidency of the South and also his seat in Congress, while retaining his post of deputy to Paris (TP, 18 Jan 2005). At first he had also urged Frogier to resign from the new territorial cabinet and was angry when he refused, but later recanted, saying that he hoped Frogier would plan another thirty years ahead for the RPCR. Frogier remained active in the opposition in the South and Congress, saying, "It is definitely impossible to work in consensus and confidence with the new [AE] team in power" (NC, 19 Jan 2005). By May, he said in an interview with Les Nouvelles-Calédoniennes that the RPCR would continue to fight for a special Caledonian identity "rooted in the Pacific but without distancing itself from France [and] which does not exclude those who have chosen to live here, because there is room for everyone." The RPCR would choose a new president, by [End Page 403] secret ballot, and its members, not Lafleur, would decide who would replace its founder as candidate for deputy in 2007 (NC, 2 May 2005). Lafleur suddenly talked of "treasons and plots" in the party (NC, 5 May 2005) and presented himself as a candidate again for its presidency in June, since he had really expected to share leadership with Frogier, of whom he boasted, "I know him perfectly well, I made him" (NC, 4 June 2005). He said he would close down the weekly party paper Les Nouvelles-Hebdomadaire because it was too supportive of Frogier (PIR, 7 June 2005). At the RPCR congress in July, Frogier won the presidency with more than three-quarters of the ballots, and Lafleur left for Australia (RAN, 6 July 2005). He finally resigned from the RPCR in December, calling Frogier's team "totally inept" (NC, 29 Dec 2005), and he lost a lawsuit for threatening a local publisher by phone in May 2004 (NC, 17 Sept 2005).

Meanwhile, the AE, which is affiliated with the metropolitan Union Démocratique Français (UDF), a major rival of Chirac's party, welcomed a visit in February by the UDF President François Bayrou, who called for more "transparency" in French overseas policy (NC, 10 Feb 2005). In May, the AE held two days of discussions among its supporters and the public over contentious issues such as the Goro/Prony nickel project in the South; developing more programs for young people to fight unemployment and delinquency; diversifying air service for tourism, teaching Kanak languages in schools (since studies showed it helped young Kanak succeed in other subjects as well); improving the financial viability of social programs; building more affordable housing; and protecting the environment (NC, 2 May 2005). In July, Harold Martin, a former RPCR politician who had defied Lafleur's authoritarian leadership and joined the AE, was reelected Speaker of the Congress with 22 out of 54 ballots after three rounds of voting. He touted the success of the AE in garnering case-by-case support on issues and in enhancing New Caledonia's role in the region; his top priorities were expanding local employment opportunities and affordable housing and lowering middle-class taxes (PIR, 28 July 2005). At its November congress, the AE agreed to pursue the last idea further, to promote local citizenship as complementary to French citizenship (not an eventual replacement for it, as the pro-independence parties wanted), and to reduce dependency on French State aid. Martin was reelected president of the AE, receiving 93 percent of the votes as the sole candidate (NC, 7 Nov 2005).

François Baroin replaced Girardin as French Overseas minister in June, after serving Chirac faithfully in several capacities (NC, 4 June 2005), and in September, Michel Mathieu moved over from French Polynesia to be French high commissioner in New Caledonia, replacing Daniel Constantin (NC, 9 Sept 2005). More importantly, French money kept rolling in. One subsidy that drew objections from the pro-independence parties was "aid to territorial continuity," meaning cheaper airline tickets for metropolitan French who wanted to fly home for vacation. Such aid, however, was reserved for Caledonians of [End Page 404] lower income levels and of at least ten years residence and their children. Constantin, among others, argued that such aid should be available to all French people in New Caledonia, to counter "anti-metropolitan racism," and Leroux agreed that it should help all residents "to discover France" (NC, 7 May 2005; KOL, 12 Aug 2005). France will also continue its development aid for 2006–2010, especially for affordable housing and local infrastructure, having paid New Caledonia over US$2 billion the previous year. In 2004, French aid accounted for one-fourth of New Caledonia's gross domestic product (PIR, 24 Aug 2005; NC, 17 Aug, 31 Aug, 6 Sept 2005). As for local taxes, the property tax was lower than in France but remained important for the territorial government (Kanak tribal reserves are exempt because they are communally owned), and the income tax passed in 1982 (under the Tjibaou government) was adjusted to lighten the load for the middle classes, the main base of support for the AE (NC, 31 Aug, 29 Dec 2005). At the end of 2005, the Congress approved a US$1 billion budget for 2006, thanks to votes from the AE, UC, and some National Front members (PIR, 28 Dec2005). In the South Pacific, New Caledonia's per capita income is second only to Australia's. On the other hand, its inflation was the highest in a decade in 2005, at 2.6 percent (NC, 12 Jan 2006).

In June, the results of a controversial population census, which Chirac said could not include ethnicity, came out: about 230,000 inhabitants, despite a UC boycott that reduced the total by perhaps 10 percent. The wealthy, multiethnic South had 165,000 people, or 71 percent of the total population; the North 44,000, or 19 percent; and the Islands Province 22,000, or 10 percent. Noumea, the capital, has grown by 20 percent in less than a decade to 91,000 (PIR, 16 June 2005; NC, 15 June 2005). With only about one-third of the population living in Kanak-governed areas, and those Kanak living in Noumea continuing to maintain residence and vote in the North and Islands provinces, the South's loyalist domination, and thus the territory's, is likely to continue. The FLNKS has no seats in the Southern Provincial Assembly, yet in the Southern primary schools, a new pamphlet on citizenship promoting "living together" is being used (NC, 26 Oct 2005). The South is also investing heavily in affordable housing to defuse the growing squatter-camp time bomb, as shown by a riot in March between 200 young partygoers and police in the so-called "Coca-Cola squat" in Montravel (NC, 7 March, 8 March, 9March 2005; PIR, 8 March 2005). Memories of the Kanak–Wallisian confrontations in St Louis, which forced the government to relocate the Polynesians, are still fresh in people's minds, and the turmoil in Wallis and Futuna between chiefly families spilled over into New Caledonia in September (PIR, 23 Sept 2005; NC, 23Sept 2005).

In foreign affairs, the country nurtured its relationship with the Pacific Forum, in which it has observer status. New Caledonia has sought improved trade relations since President Marie-Noëlle Thémereau (of the AE) and her delegation [End Page 405] attended the Forum summit the previous August. Her government is seriously considering joining the Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA) and working with the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER), since several Forum members, notably Fiji, have shown interest in exporting to the French Pacific market, where the income levels (and prices) are higher than in most neighboring countries (PIR, 19 Jan 2005). In July, a Forum delegation visited New Caledonia to see how progress was going under the Noumea Accord. The Forum is considering creating a new "associate" membership category to help non-sovereign countries participate more fully. Thémereau concluded afterwards that "they wish us to become part of the Pacific family" (PIR, 27 July 2005). The associate membership idea was approved before the French Pacific observer delegations attended the summit in Port Moresby in October (PIR, 25 Oct 2005). Thémereau and New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff also exchanged visits, discussing not only ongoing trade, as New Zealand exports goods worth NZ$290 million a year to New Caledonia, but also tourism and educational exchanges, and Thémereau showed interest in New Zealand's social programs and teaching of indigenous languages (PIR, 29 March 2005; NC, 31 March 2005; KOL, 5 July 2005). Australia is also a major exporter of goods to New Caledonia, worth A$205 million annually, and significant tourism and investment link the two countries (NC, 20 Sept 2005). New Caledonia also nurtured relations with Vanuatu, with whom it is negotiating their maritime borders; hundreds of ni-Vanuatu enter New Caledonia every year as contract workers or students, and two Caledonian government ministers visited Santo in May (PIR, 28 Jan, 6 May 2005; NC, 31 Aug 2005).

Independence supporters were not pleased, however, that when Goff and the eighty people in his delegation arrived in New Caledonia, no one from the Customary Senate participated in the welcoming ceremony (KOL, 31 March 2005). Worse, when a Tahitian government minister addressed a visiting Caledonian trade delegation in Papeete in October as being from "Kanaky," the Caledonians walked out of the meeting in protest (PIR, 3 Oct 2005). Kanak leaders repeatedly ask the United Nations to help them decolonize, as when Manadoué, a former president of the Customary Senate, attended a UN meeting in Brisbane in August and complained that the United Nations cannot help his people unless France invites it to do so: "I wish the UN did have the power to not only investigate and report but to actually enforce its findings when a member state is violating the rights of people who live within their territories" (PIR, 18 Aug 2005). Wamytan, who has served as head of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (which recognizes the FLNKS as a member), told the United Nations in October that New Caledonia is still a colony despite the Noumea Accord. France helps immigration to New Caledonia without protecting local employment, and Kanak young people are growing more alienated, without much hope of succeeding in school or getting [End Page 406] decent jobs, without traditional cultural references, without sufficient land or housing in semi-urban areas, without rehabilitation of polluted nickel mining sites, and without control over their destiny because of delays in restricting the electorate. He urged the United Nations to hold its next decolonization seminar in Noumea (PIR commentary, 27 Oct 2005).

Militant labor strikes generated the most drama and headlines during the year, and much of it was as political as it was economic. Not only is New Caledonia the most industrialized country in the South Pacific outside Australia and New Zealand, but many times since the bloody "Events" of the 1980s, labor strikes have shut down significant parts of the local economy in order to pressure the government or powerful companies into making concessions—a kind of "muscular" direct action that is reminiscent of the FLNKS in its heyday and even of Kanak revolts of the nineteenth century. Such strikes often involve marches, rallies, roadblocks, barricades that shut down offices or factories, and other forms of physical or psychological intimidation, which, like guerrilla warfare, can threaten or inconvenience many innocent bystanders. For example, from late December 2004 until early February 2005, the firefighters at Tontouta airport struck for fifty days over issues of overtime pay and details in their statute as public employees. Hundreds of flights were delayed or missed their connections, costing the carriers and the government millions of francs, while strikers still got paid for emergency duty (NC, 15 Jan, 10 Feb 2005). Most other strikes were more political in nature, especially concerning the protection of local hiring, which elected officials have still not enacted into law seven years after the Noumea Accord. As Rosine Streeter of the Syndicat Liberté Unité Action (SLUA) argued, "It is thanks to the unions that Caledonia evolves" (KOL, 12 Jan 2006). In February, the Syndicat des Ouvriers et Employés de la Nouvelle-Calédonie (SOENC) stopped all flights to the outer islands, both for residents and tourists, because the domestic carrier Air Calédonie hired a metropolitan Frenchman as its technical director on a contract of undetermined duration. After negotiations, the union won the concession that the new director would train a local replacement as soon as possible (NC, 2 Feb 2005). In April, the Union Syndicale des Travailleurs Kanak et Exploités (USTKE) and the Federation of Civil Servants shut down the municipal government in Thio because it had hired a metropolitan Frenchman as secretary-general, and SLUA did so in Poum for the same reason.

In a letter to the French high commissioner USTKE wrote, "The country must build itself with people from the country," and Streeter said, "The current adjunct secretary-general is a young man from Poum. Why was this job not given to him?" Emmanuel Daye, the Kanak mayor of Poum, answered that the locals who applied were not qualified enough, and the adjunct needed more training himself. But the Frenchman who was hired resigned after a week, calling himself a victim of politics. High Commissioner Constantin called such strike actions "a form of racism," but SLUA [End Page 407] threatened to continue the shutdown if Daye's threat to punish the strikers was carried out (NC, 23 April, 27 April, 28 April 2005). In Thio, the strike caused dissension among pro-independence parties on the municipal council, as Palika and the UC refused to support Mayor Albert Moindou of the Union Progressiste Mélanésienne (UPM), so the mayor called for new elections (NC, 10 April, 13 April, 12 May 2005). Alan Song, the territorial minister of public services, called such strike actions "a little premature," because, like other "laws of the country," a proposed law on local hiring still had to be presented to the French Council of State for approval before the local Congress could vote on it. Meanwhile, he said, the quality of technical personnel in territorial or municipal government should not be sacrificed before enough Caledonians were trained to replace metropolitans (NC, 22 April 2005). In November, the Council of State rejected the discriminatory wording of the proposed new law, so Song's team had to prepare a new version, which he said would reserve over 90 percent of territorial government jobs for locals by creating two tracks in the civil service examination (NC, 6 Jan 2006). In May, USTKE called a twenty-four-hour general strike in support of local hiring and led a 3,000-person march in Noumea. Gerard Jodar, its president, said, "USTKE has been struggling for the defense of local employment preference since the 1980s. Since then several agreements have been signed, including the Noumea Accord, recognizing a number of work-related principles, but we are still to see the effects of these. . . . This country's companies have to start training locals, this would go a long way toward balancing tomorrow's society" (PIR, 23 May 2005). Song proposed new legal criteria for government recognition of labor unions, based on a minimum vote by at least 5 percent of the personnel in elections for union leaders, in priority over previous rules based on number of members, independence of leadership, dues paid, experience, and longevity (which now would be two years minimum). His plan would cancel the "representativity" of five out of ten labor unions in the country (NC, 24 Aug 2005). In November, three territorial civil servants unions went on strike, as 1,500 marchers protested against proposed reforms in their benefits package, which Song said was deeply in the red(NC, 3–4 Nov 2005).

Three other major strike actions affected the nickel industry, namely the Société Le Nickel (SLN) plant at Doniambo, the proposed INCO of Canada project at Goro/Prony in the South, and the proposed Falconbridge of Canada project at Koniambo in the North. The SLN has dominated nickel mining in New Caledonia for over a century, and when its Director-General Philippe Vecten was promoted in March to director of strategy for Eramet, the SLN parent holding company, he noted that the SLN was "in a phase of very important investments," notably the expansion of production at its Doniambo processing plant outside Noumea to 75,000 metric tons a year and of its mine at Tiebaghi, which would get a new enrichment plant. He also voiced the often-heard opinion that if the proposed processing plant in the North at Koniambo is [End Page 408] not built by Falconbridge, as planned by the provincial government, the SLN would resume ownership of the site and build a plant of its own there. For that reason, Eramet had requested a second feasibility study of Koniambo, since Falconbridge was running up against a deadline set by the Accord of Bercy in 1998 (NC, 29 March, 12 April 2005).

The nemesis of the SLN in 2005 was Sylvain Nea, a veteran union leader who wanted to establish his new Confédération Syndicale des Travailleurs de Nouvelle-Calédonie (CSTNC) in the nickel industry, among other sectors. In September, he blockaded the labor-troubled Surf Hotel, forcing its owners to close down and relocate clients, and arousing the ire of Union Syndicale des Ouvriers et Employés de la Nouvelle-Calédonie (USOENC), which regarded the hotel as its turf (NC, 12 Sept 2005). That same month, five CSTNC agents blocked access to the electrical power grid of the Doniambo plant, claiming that it needed new safety measures because workers had had electrical accidents; the SLN denied the area was unsafe, but some workers told their story of dangers to the local press. Perhaps it was not a coincidence that elections for union leaders were coming up? Nea continued his blockade and expanded it to the docks at Thio and Kouaoua, key sources of nickel ore for Doniambo, causing the SLN to warn of layoffs and shutting down furnaces, and provoking a demonstration by SOENC, the second largest union at Doniambo (NC, 7 Oct, 13–14 Oct 2005). The government labor board authorized the firing of two CSTNC workers at the Surf and two more at the SLN, to prevent what it called "kamikaze operations" (NC, 18 Oct 2005), but Nea's union won 18 out of 26 union posts in the SLN workers' board election, gaining majorities in four interior mining sites, while Didier Guenant-Jeanson's SOENC (a member of USOENC) held a 4 to 3 edge in the Doniambo plant and condemned CSTNC "illegal" tactics.

Nea announced a protest march in support of his activists threatened with firing (NC, 22 Oct 2005), and in November, he organized an "unlimited strike" on their behalf, despite pleas by the government for a negotiated agreement, creating roadblocks along the access roads to Doniambo that caused what the press called "monstrous" traffic bottlenecks in greater Noumea. The CSTNC also shut down bread bakeries and hindered garbage collection (NC, 14–15 Nov 2005). A court ordered the union to lift its blockades, to no avail, and the SLN warned that it had only ten more days of ore supplies (PIR, 16 Nov 2005). SLN Director of Human Resources Andre Moulin proposed firing the two CSTNC workers in question and relocating them to other operations, so Nea's men roughed him up, threw him out of his own office, and damaged his car. "We are in the right and rules must be the same for everyone," Nea told the press. "There is nothing to make a fuss about." USOENC disagreed, as did the employers association, which sided with the SLN (NC, 17 Nov 2005). Nea insisted that his workers be reinstated without conditions and set up more roadblocks in the center of Noumea, but the territorial cabinet [End Page 409] confirmed the firings, with four votes from the AE, Palika, and UC ministers. The three RPCR ministers abstained, revealingly, considering that in November 2000 Lafleur had rewarded Nea's wildcat strikers (then of SOENC) with big pay increases after they challenged a laboriously negotiated social pact among unions and employers (NC, 18 Nov 2005). The AE accused the RPCR of complicity, claiming that Jean-Claude Briault informed Pierre Maresca of what the cabinet was discussing, who then told Nea. Maresca retorted that provincial President Gomès was a "usurper" and warned the AE, "You control nothing." The AE government hesitated to use force for fear that CSTNC would call in mining transporters to besiege Noumea (NC, 19 Nov 2005). The SLN, losing money fast, offered to reintegrate the two workers, but only in late 2007—an offer that Nea rejected, demanding the first day in 2006 instead. Noumea was inundated with marches by employers, SOENC, and the CSTNC, until French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told the high commissioner to use troops (NC, 22–30 Nov 2005). In early December, French Mobile Guards liberated gas stations and the main highways, but Nea redirected his strikers to shut down four banks in Noumea, while sympathizers in the St Louis tribe set up their own roadblock. "We will not lower our arms," Nea vowed (NC, 1–2 Dec 2005). The SLN finally agreed to reintegrate the two workers in late February 2006, but they would be relocated to another mining site after more training. Nea himself had to stand trial (NC, 3 Dec, 8 Dec 2005).

The INCO nickel plant project at Goro had been halted in 2002 after massive protests by environmentalists, Kanak customary leaders, and supporters of local employment (Horowitz 2004), but the new AE government encouraged INCO to start up again. France also granted INCO US$500 million in tax breaks for 2004, and it decreased its own share of the capital ownership slightly in order to increase New Caledonia's share to 10 percent. In early 2005, INCO planned to allow Japanese firms (Sumitomo and Mitsui) to buy a 21 percent share in the project, since Japan buys most of the territory's processed nickel, and it agreed to award US$40 million in contracts to local companies in the construction (PIR, 5 Jan 2005; NC, 15 Jan 2005). But Raphaël Mapou's Yate-based Rhéébù Nùù committee, backed by the FLNKS, voiced concerns about pollution of local waters and blocked the site in February. Gomès had the police reopen the site at the request of the Kanak customary leaders in Djubea. Mapou and Andre Vama of Rhéébù Nùù were convicted of illegal acts and received suspended sentences with fines (KOL, 7 Feb 2005; NC, 5 Feb, 11 May 2005). At his trial, Mapou argued that the barricade was a last resort, after efforts to negotiate for an independent assessment of the environmental impact of using chemicals like sulfuric acid and of dumping manganese into local waters were rejected by INCO. The government countered that the Southern Province had already promised to monitor the pollution issue closely, and the area's customary leaders had approved the project (KOL, 13 April 2005; NC, 3 Feb 2005; TP, 15 Feb 2005). Yet in May, [End Page 410] the South finally agreed to have a nongovernmental environmental impact study done on Goro, since Rhéébù Nùù had shown that the effluent would contain 100 times more pollution than European Union standards authorized. INCO CEO Scott Hand said he hoped to avoid having to build an additional furnace to dispose of the manganese runoff, since it would pollute the atmosphere! (NC, 3 May 2005).

In July a coalition of unions, customary leaders, environmental groups, and politicians supported a demand from Rhéébù Nùù that INCO cease to seek exemptions from taxation and environmental standards, and Gomès voiced concern that INCO was not heeding the recommendations made by the Southern Province. Even High Commissioner Constantin said, "INCO is lying to everybody" (KOL, 11 July 2005). INCO wanted to require workers to put in sixty hours a week during the construction phase, and to hire 4,000 foreign workers, mostly Filipino (NC, 21 Aug 2005; PIR, 7 Sept 2005). By November, a Noumea court voided an INCO permit to research the Prony nickel deposit near Goro, something that the Lafleur government had done in defiance of an earlier court annulment. The new government objected to "giving away" such a valuable ore vein without proper consultation (NC, 14 Oct 2005; PIR, 22 Nov 2005). INCO did not escape the year without another blockade in December, this time by USTKE and Mapou's new Caugern (Indigenous Committee to Manage Natural Resources), to put pressure on France to give its final approval to the Falconbridge project in the North. All access roads and the port were closed, so that INCO had to relocate its personnel from Goro to Noumea (NC, 14–15 Dec 2005). The police finally liberated the site again and put two arsonists in prison (NC, 16 Dec, 23 Dec, 28 Dec 2005). INCO announced that in January 2006 the first Filipino "specialists" would arrive to begin constructing the Goro nickel plant (NC, 22 Dec 2005).

The Northern Province nickel plant has been talked about for over thirty years in New Caledonia, but it took on new importance after the Matignon Accord of 1988 promised efforts to rebalance the local economy so that Noumea did not control all the wealth. In the Bercy Accord of 1998, France agreed to let Falconbridge work with the Northern Province government (which would retain 51 percent ownership, unlike the South's tiny share of Goro) to develop a nickel processing plant. The accord also said the Société Minerale Sud Pacifique (SMSP), which Lafleur had sold to the North, could acquire the title to the Koniambo mining site from the SLN, in exchange for the smaller vein at Poum and additional compensation, so long as Falconbridge made its final decision, after initial research, by the end of 2005. In February, Falconbridge announced it needed another eleven months to decide because of rising costs, but Paul Neaoutyine, president of the North, assured his government, "The Northern factory, it's no longer a project, it's a reality" (NC, 12 Feb, 4 Feb 2005). Andre Dang, SMSP president, announced cost-cutting economies such as postponing the hydroelectric dam at Pouembout in order to finance [End Page 411] the Northern plant, showing how important it was to Kanak aspirations for providing job opportunities for young people and "national" income for independence (NC, 11 Feb 2005; Horowitz 2004). The North even hired archeologists to make sure the construction would not destroy ancient artifacts, since it took pride in the site where Lapita pottery was first found and wanted to make it a tourist attraction (NC, 30 March 2005).

In late March, however, USTKE organized a demonstration in Noumea against recent developments in the two new nickel plant projects. It protested against what it said was a campaign by the SLN to get Koniambo back by claiming that Falconbridge had failed to deliver, and against the lack of an independent environmental study of the Goro project (TP, 31 March 2005). In June, the North announced that one of the two conditions in the Bercy Accord had been fulfilled, that a feasibility study had proven the project bankable; the second condition remained, that the North commit US$100 million by the end of 2005. In July, Overseas Minister Baroin confirmed that France had made the project a top priority by approving tax rebates of US$620 million for construction of a power station. Falconbridge predicted a total cost of US$2.3 billion to create the nickel-processing plant, port, and increased mining output at Koniambo, while the South hoped to have Goro fully operational by 2007 for US$1.8 billion (NC, 9 June 2005; PIR, 20 July 2005). A new complication arose in October, as INCO offered to improve the "synergy" of both projects by buying Falconbridge, thereby creating the largest nickel company in the world, but the US government threatened an antitrust investigation, since both firms listed their stocks on Wall Street, so the offer was postponed for sixty days, even though the pressure was building for Falconbridge to make its final decision (KOL, 12 Oct 2005; NC, 13 Oct, 22 Nov 2005; PIR, 16 Nov 2005). In late November, USTKE organized a general strike to protest a condition that the French State wanted to impose on the Koniambo deal, namely that if it ran into financial difficulty, the State would confiscate 98 percent of SMSP's dividends—a clause that banks refused to risk underwriting. "We are going to war, and I am weighing my words," vowed Jodar (NC, 24–25 Nov 2005).

France gave an ultimatum to Falconbridge to take it or leave it, so Falconbridge considered bypassing the State and financing the project by itself, with the Northern Province borrowing its share from Falconbridge and repaying it with most of the province's dividends over many years. Falconbridge said that the SLN was lobbying the State strongly in order to regain Koniambo; yet it also admitted that if it merged with INCO, Goro would be built first (NC, 26 Nov, 2 Dec 2005). In December, 1,500 protesters demonstrated in Noumea against what they regarded as the French bid to undermine the Northern plant (RNZI, 11 Dec 2005), and Falconbridge decided to bypass the State, with the approval of Neaoutyine, a leader of Palika-UNI (NC, 12 Dec, 15 Dec 2005). USTKE, however, was less optimistic and maintained the pressure. Jodar warned that the new arrangement [End Page 412] would indebt the Northern Province for a long period, in an age when multinationals use debt to keep small countries under their control while they loot their resources. USTKE camped out in front of the French High Commission and coordinated with other unions and protest groups to blockade Goro, strike at Tontouta Airport, and slow down trash pickups and gas distributions, while opponents erected their own roadblocks in counter-protest (NC, 15 Dec, 17 Dec 2005). On 24 December, the SMSP decided to construct the Northern nickel plant with Falconbridge, who would completely finance the project with help from the SMSP dividends, while the State approved SMSP acquisition of title to Koniambo. The SLN would receive title to Poum, but only after Eramet had lost its court battle to retain Koniambo. It remained to be seen if INCO would buy Falconbridge (NC, 24 Dec, 27 Dec, 28 Dec 2005). Louis Kotra Uregei, former USTKE president, argued that it was his union's pressure that forced France to assure Jodar that it would support the Northern plant's construction by SMSP and Falconbridge, including key financial contributions and guarantees. Neaoutyine, Uregei said, had his own vision of how to solicit from France what Kanaky wanted (KOL, 7 Jan 2006). The North likes to negotiate patiently but relentlessly, while the unions keep up the pressure.

David Chappell is associate professor of Pacific Islands history at the University of Hawai'i, Mänoa. For the past decade, he has been focusing his studies on the French Pacific territories, especially Kanaky New Caledonia.

Horowitz, Leah. 2004. Toward a Viable Independence? The Koniambo Project and the Political Economy of Mining in New Caledonia. The Contemporary Pacific 16:287–319.

KOL, Kanaky Online. <http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/kanaky>

NC, Les Nouvelles-Calédoniennes. Daily. Noumea. <http://www.info.Inc.nc/caledonie>

PIR, Pacific Islands Report. <http://pidp.eastwestcenter.org/pireport>

RAN, Radio Australia News, Pacific Beat. <http://www.abc.net.au/ra>

RNZI, Radio New Zealand International. <http://www.rnzi.com>

TP, Tahiti-Presse. Daily. Papeete. <http://www.tahitipresse.pf>