After 165 years of French colonization, the Kanaks of New Caledonia could obtain independence

New Caledonia is part of a small Pacific club with Australia and New Zealand whose indigenous populations are outnumbered by those that have arrived since colonization.

Known as Kanaks, their resistance to colonization was brutally repressed but never extinguished and led to a referendum on France's independence on Sunday.

Expectations are the result will be a "no" – but this is not the end of the process.

Of the 174 154 Caledonians registered to vote, less than half are Kanaks, numbering 80 120, but it is far from a black and white problem.

Some Kanaks refuse independence and will vote with the large community of French migrants known as "Caldoche".

There are also citizens of Polynesian nationality, Chinese, Japanese, Wallisian and Algerian having the right to vote.

The word "Kanak" comes from Hawaiian "kanake maoli", an expression of pride meaning "real person", and was widely applied to the islanders by the first Europeans of the Pacific.

New Caledonia was first inhabited about 3,000 years ago, but there are no reliable figures on the population when the French arrived, although they would count dozens of thousands of individuals.

Kanak stripped of his lands

French soldiers landed in New Caledonia in 1844. The first massacres took place from 1847.

The official annexation by France in 1853 saw the Kanaks legally and politically deprived of their rights and forced land grabbing began around present-day Noumea, the capital.

A penitentiary colony was established in 1869 to help populate the island and land was awarded to convicts, whom they would own when they had served their sentence.

Thousands of exiles were also sent from the Paris Commune and the Algerian Kabyles, who fought the French colonial regime.

During this period, Australian recruiters of forced labor began to "blackbird".

Thousands of Kanaks were kidnapped and put to work in Queensland agriculture before most of them were deported in the early 1900s under the White Australia Act after the federation.

Many remained and married in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, creating a lasting bond with Australia's indigenous peoples.

The arrival of the Kanaks with the London Missionary Society in the Strait of Torres in 1871, after their expulsion from New Caledonia by the French, led to the evangelization of the indigenous Melanesians of Australia in what is called today "The Coming Of The Light".

Uprising

In 1878, in New Caledonia, vast expanses of the most fertile lands had been seized and European diseases ravaged the Kanak population, devoid of immunity. The Kanak economy has collapsed, causing an uprising.

For several months, the Kanak launched deadly assaults on the European colonies, but the French army fought back with brutal force.

Hundreds of Kanak warriors were defeated and their leader, Grand Chief Atai, killed. His severed head was sent to Paris to be exposed.

About 1,000 Kanak, out of a population estimated at 25,000, were killed, along with 200 of the 16,000 Europeans in the colony during the brief conflict that has characterized the relations between them since then.

A second rebellion in 1917 was again brutally repressed.

After having fought in the French army during the two world wars, the Kanak obtained citizenship and New Caledonia ceased to be a colony and became French territory in 1956, universal suffrage being granted a year later. .

At the time, the population was roughly similar between Kanaks and non-Indians, but the strong migration from France quickly swung due to the strong economic growth generated by nickel mining exports. .

Another revolt in 1967 was repressed, but tensions again became violent in the late 1980s.

Boost of independence

Since 1984, the independence movement has asked that the anniversary of the French annexation, on September 24th, be declared a holiday on "Kanak Mourning Day".

The independence activist Kanak and the Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS, National Kanak and Socialist Liberation Front) were trained the same year and called for a boycott of French institutions and elections.

Led by Jean-Marie Tjibaou, the Provisional Government of the Kanak Socialist Republic was declared in December 1984.

The radical leader Eloi Machoro breaks the urn with an ax. He was later killed by a French sniper.

In a major victory in 1986, the FLNKS supported by the Pacific Islands Forum, the Melanesian Spearhead Group and the Non-Aligned Movement succeeded in getting New Caledonia on the United Nations decolonization list. Non-Self-Governing Territories.

The increasingly violent struggle led to the Ouvéa crisis in 1988. Young separatists attacked a police station and seized 25 hostages in a cave.

During an assault of the French army, 19 Kanak and six members of the French security forces were killed. French forces have been accused of summarily executing the capturing Kanak separatists.

The Matignon Peace Agreement came out of the conflict and was signed by Jean-Marie Tjibaou, who was later murdered by another Kanak who believed himself a traitor to the cause.

French President François Mitterrand reacted by ordering that Tjibaou's vision of a Kanak cultural center be constructed as an act of reconciliation. The striking structure is a landmark of Noumea.

Ten years later, the Noumea Accord signed in 1998 promised to increase French investment and delegate the power of the government to bring equality and autonomy to New Caledonians, culminating in a series of referendums for decide on the future of the territory.

The agreement recognized the impact of colonialism on the "first occupants", but speaks of a "double legitimacy", referring to those who arrived under the French, in order to create a common destiny with a "Kanak identity" and a future shared by all. ".

In spite of the twenty years that preceded the referendum of this Sunday, the Kanak people of New Caledonia are always behind on almost all the social and economic indicators.