OPEN LETTER: By a Kanak from Aotearoa New Zealand in Kanaky New Caledonia
I’ve been trying to feel cool and nice on this beautiful sunny day in Kanaky. But it has already been spoiled by President Emmanuel Macron’s flashy day-long visit on Thursday.
Currently special French military forces are trying to take full control of the territory. Very ambitously.
They’re clearing all the existing barricades around the capital Nouméa, both the northern and southern highways, and towards the northern province.
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Today, May 25, after 171 years of French occupation, we are seeing the “Lebanonisation” of our country which, after only 10 days of revolt, saw many young Kanaks killed by bullets. Example: 15 bodies reportedly found in the sea, including four girls.
[Editor: There have been persistent unconfirmed rumours of a higher death rate than has been reported, but the official death toll is currently seven — four of them Kanak, including a 17-year-old girl, and two gendarmes, one by accident. Lebanonisation is a negative political term referring to how a prosperous, developed, and politically stable country descends into a civil war or becomes a failed state — as happened with Lebanon during the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War.]
One of the bodies was even dragged by a car. Several were caught, beaten, burned, and tortured by the police, the BAC and the militia, one of whose leaders was none other than a loyalist elected official.
With the destruction and looting of many businesses, supermarkets, ATMs, neighbourhood grocery stores, bakeries . . . we see that the CCAT has been infiltrated by a criminal organisation which chooses very specific economic targets to burn.
Leaders trying to discredit our youth
At the same time, the leaders organise the looting, supply alcohol and drugs (amphetamines) in order to “criminalise” and discredit our youth.
A dividing line has been created between the northern and southern districts of Greater Nouméa in order to starve our populations. As a result, we have a rise in prices by the colonial counters in these dormitory towns where an impoverished Kanak population lives.
President Macron came with a dialogue mission team made up of ministers from the “young leaders” group, whose representative in the management of high risks in the Pacific is none other than a former CIA officer.
The presence of DGSE agents [the secret service involved in the bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in 1985] and their mercenaries also gives us an idea of what we are going to endure again and again for a month.
The state has already chosen its interlocutors who have been much the same for 40 years. The same ones that led us into the current situation.
Therefore, we firmly reaffirm our call for the intervention of the BRICS, the Pacific Islands Forum members, and the Melanesian Spearhead group (MSG) to put an end to the violence perpetrated against the children of the indigenous clans because the Kanak people are one of the oldest elder peoples that this land has had.
There are only 160,000 individuals left today in a country full of wealth.
New Caledonia police kill Kanak protester https://t.co/7fnNPlx5W8
A day after president Macron’s visit..— Jimmy Naouna (@JNaouna) May 24, 2024
Food and medical aid needed
Each death represents a big loss and it means a lot to the person’s clan. More than ever, we need to initiate the decolonisation process and hold serious discussions so that we can achieve our sovereignty very quickly.
Today we are asking for the intervention of international aid for:
- The protection of our population;
- food aid; and
- medical support, because we no longer trust the medical staff of Médipôle (Nouméa hospital) and the liberals who make sarcastic judgments towards our injured and our people.
This open letter was written by a long-standing Kanak resident of New Zealand who has been visiting New Caledonia and wanted to share his dismay at the current crisis with friends back here and with Asia Pacific Report. His name is being withheld for his security.
