LCR condemns Yenghène massacre verdict
IN RESPONSE to the acquittal of the settlers involved in the massacre of and sometimes collaborationist positions.] The return to a policy of excluding the Kanak people is the basis for the government's unyielding attitude toward the FLNKS.
Paris and the local right differ, however, over the extent and speed of marginalizing
KANAKY
Kanaks at Yenghène, the LIgue Communiste Révolutionnaire, French secthe Kanak population. The RPCR, goaded tion of the Fourth International, Issued the following statement on October by the far right, is demanding that the state
30. It was reported in Le Monde as follows:
break more sharply with the Fabius region-
"In the view of the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire," 'Chirac's justice alization policy and carry out a more open resembles that of the banana republics, and the Nouméa verdict legitimizrepression of the Kanaks and the FLNKS.
es the Institution of the death penalty against Kanak Independence fight-
Pons himself wants to take advantage of the ers. The LCR adds: Thus, in a New Caledonia occupied by French military foundation laid down by the Fabius plan, forces, any settler has the right of life and death over Kanaks (considered and the absence of a radical alternative on to be subhuman) who run up against the speedy justice of the French occuthe part of the SP and the president, to build piers...Le Pen [leader of the neo-fascist Front National in France) gets ena consensus of silence around his orientacouragement for his persecution of immigrants when [President Jacques] tion. To this end, he is pretending to leave
Chirac's France practices the same thing actively in Its colonies. Alain Krithe door open for negotiations with the vine's organization ended by stating that It would 'heip the FLNKS get
FLNKS in order to salve President Mitterrand's conscience.
Le Monde also noted that only Le Pen's National Front and the Associa ton for Legitimate Defence expressed "gratification" at the verdiet. *
Divide and rule via regionalization policy
In early 1985, repression and Pisani's promises of independence-association managed to halt the surge of the proindependence mobilizations. [Pisani was the French high commissioner under the
Socialist government.] After breaking the momentum of the Kanak revolt, the Fabius government pushed through in the summer of 1985 a new statute based on a regionalization of the institutions. This orientation no longer set as a solution the perspective of an automatic drift toward independenceassociation. It envisaged only holding a self-determination referendum in unspecified conditions. Paris was then seeking, above all, to gain time.
Fabius-style regionalization had a specific objective — to reintegrate Kanak leaders into institutions readjusted to accommodate them and to try, through state-financed economic projects in the bush, to increase the involvement of Melanesians in the financial economy as well. In the long run, the idea was to effect a new social division of the Kanak people that would make it possible to envisage a peaceful reform of the institutions. There was no longer question of moving toward independence in any form whatsoever.
The Fabius plan's economic side was extremely insidious because it held up the possibility for a painless readjustment of social inequalities in the territory. However, without control of the state power and without a radical agrarian reform, it is hard to see how the perennially oppressed could and national
The FLNKS leadership was led to accept the Fabius plan all the more easily because it suffered from a clear lack of strategic perspectives. It has to be recognized that the independence forces did not fully comprehend its dangers. So, the change in the attitude of Paris toward them after the victory of the right in the imperialist homeland was to put the FLNKS in a difficult situation.
justice." On top of the reactionary offensive from Paris, recent diplomatic setbacks (many countries drawing back from supporting the FLNKS in the UN, the limited capacity of the Pacific Forum countries for applying pressure) have pushed it into an even tighter corner. Consequently, belief in the impact that the diplomatic front could have and the illusions in a Pacific Forum made up of two imperialist countries and tiny states — all dependent on one way or another on the EEC or the United States — has been put in question.
The difficulties the independence forces are facing do not date just from the recent referendum. In fact, the balance sheet of that operation is rather paradoxical. The election results only confirmed what everyone knew beforehand. But the staging of the vote was part of a French diplomatic counter-offensive that has scored some points. Today, when the diplomatic ground is slipping a bit from under the feet of the Kanaks, the FLNKS has to confront some organizational and political weaknesses that reduce its capacity for bringing pressure to bear.
### Nationalist strategy important to assess
The nationalist strategy followed since the September 1985 regional elections is not irrelevant to this balance sheet. Of course, the problem then was not simply participating in the elections. The criterion for this could only be what would best advance the independence struggle. The FLNKS' victory undoubtedly had a positive effect in that regard. But the way in which it subsequently worked actively in the institutions and all the gradualist illusions that this reflected (shown by the abandoning of other areas of activity) proved to be a very dangerous tactic.
The FLNKS stressed the economic work of its members in order to show the competence of Kanaks to manage, to "build Kanaky" by developing the rural areas. Many actions involving a break with colonialism (land occupations, EPK [Kanak People's Schools]) were discouraged or even sharply criticized by the most prominent Kanak leaders in the name of this absolute priority of "demonstrating competence. " The FLNKS' strategic framework of reference remained that of "the bush encircling and strangling Nouméa." But while this approach scored some successes in November 1984 when it involved active mobilizations, it could not be expected to achieve equivalent results in the economic realm.
### Diplomatic gains fragile
The only area of activity accepted for continuing to change the relationship of forces was that of international diplomacy. Without underestimating the successes achieved in this field, it has to be said that diplomatic gains in general are fragile. This period did not see a significant advance in solving the difficult problems of the struggle in the islands. But, what is more, the possibilities for improving the organizational and political capacities of the FLNKS, for reinforcing its unity in action, were not grasped.
The present situation, therefore, includes certain aspects of an ebb in the mobilization of pro-independence forces. There is a general weakening of the FLNKS at the rank-and-file level (expressed in a withering away of some local committees following the turn toward economic activity). The most radical experiences were shunted to the sidelines (the EPK were isolated, becoming the object of sharp debates or even boycotts by some elements). Also marginalized were all those who can in general only express themselves fully at times of struggle and intense collective organization 21
(youth and women). Organizational capaciDecember 21, 1987 • International Viewpoint
KANAKY ties declined in the southern region, Nouméa and Mont d'Or. There was a growth of parallel activities by the various groups making up the FLNKS.
A debate is now going on in the FLNKS over a new strategy for the coming months.
Such a discussion, however, carries the danger of leaving its participants stuck on the horns of a dilemma, ignoring the possibility and the means for modifying the present relationship of forces. In fact, the negative balance sheet of the recent experiences of economic management and the present difficulties of mobilizing people can lead the independence movement to vacillate between two attitudes — pursuit of the crumbs of regional autonomy in the Pons plan as a final attempt to exercise institutional pressure (even if this means fostering pernicious illusions about the role of a future left president of France); or systematic pursuit of confrontation (at scattered points) with the repressive forces and rejection of any constitutional tactics.
Relationship betwen mass struggle and negotiation
Getting caught in such a dilemma would be very dangerous because it would lead above all to regarding the present relationship of forces as immutable and hopeless. Might it not be possible, on the basis of a different relationship of forces, to seek to counter the colonial state and its policy in such a way as to create a situation in which the relationship between mass struggle and negotiation would take a different form, one more favorable to the independence
Would not creating such a relationship of forces mean, first and foremost, settling down to strengthen the fighting organization of the entire Kanak people; appealing to layers still on the sidelines of this struggle; improving the activity and organizathe movement in the city in particular, in order to get away from the traditional underestimation of the importance of Nouméa; using the Papeete (2) events to shake up the Tahitian community; and strengthening the coordination and centralization of the struggle committees, among other things?
But does not all this require first of all a reevaluation of the assessment that has been made of the imperialist adversary, of its strategy, of the links between colonial domination and the power of money, and of power relations in the modern world?
This question of the link between the relationship of forces created by mobilization and the possibilities for winning new concessions was pointed up clearly in 1985 by Pisani's action against the hardest kernel of the Kanak mobilization. Were not his proposals in part determined by the breadth of the pro-independence mobilization of the time? The independence-association plan 22 was a cover for a neocolonial perspective inspired by the Gaullist policy in Black AfInternational Viewpoint • December 21, 1987 rica in the 1960s. But it was also the most "advanced" status proposed.
For the government, Pisani was the man for the given situation. The FLNKS could have gained a more favorable relationship of forces through its November 1984 action. The state apparatus had to respond in the appropriate way, both in the choice of its personnel and in its proposals for negotiation. Pisani managed finally to get the FLNKS to lower its sights. He got it to retreat in Thio (1) by organizing a return to work in the mines, to retreat on the EPK, to relax its vigilance against the state
Active and militant solidarity is vital
Illusions about Pisani himself were widespread in the FLNKS leadership, and this made it possible to get the front to drop its guard, and then to pay less attention to action tasks, which were the fundamental thing. This new state of affairs offered a foothold first for the Fabius plan and later for the policy of Bernard Pons This is the starting point for the internal debate that the FLKNS is now relaunching.
There is a great danger that the coming months will see the development of isolated violent confrontations with the state apparatus, such as the one that involved the Saint Louis tribe (3). Such spontaneous local initiatives reflect the exasperation of a section of the Kanak population (young people in particular) in response to the disillusions of the past period. They involve a threat of a dispersion of the struggle.
This new situation may, moreover, catch off guard all those in France who were happy to see the FLNKS commit itself to constitutional action in 1985 and 1987. The isolation of the Kanak struggle from the democratic and anti-colonial forces in the imperialist heartland that finally flowed from this is a threat that must be firmly combated. This is all the more necessary as Mitterrand's last statement confirmed that there is no clear dichotomy between the right and the Socialist Party on the Caledonian question. It cuts against too many aspects of the chauvinist traditions of state affairs that are shared by a lot of Socialist
In Kanaky, as well as in the solidarity movement in France, some people may imagine that an impasse in the situation would justify sitting back and waiting to the presidential elections. Nothing could be more illusory. Active and militant solidarity in the imperialist mother country has never been so necessary. Despite its limited forces, the Association for Information on, and Support for, the Rights of the Kanak People (Association information et soutien aux droits du peuple Kanak — AISDPK) plays a vital role. It will continue to do so in the coming period, if all the anti-colonialist forces commit themselves to supporting its initiatives and participating in them.
But it should be understood that anticolonialism demands far too much clarity on key problems, such as the role of French imperialism and its institutions, for the ranks of its adherents to expand automatically and without difficulties. The tasks of building such a movement certainly cannot be abandoned. But in order to accomplish them, it will be necessary to wage a constant struggle to put pressure on all the democratic forces. While the latter will denounce the most flagrant injustices of colonialism, they often refuse to go further than that. In this area, it is necessary to dare to undertake a determined struggle for the Kanak people's right to independence. Such a fight will be relatively unpopular with public opinion in the beginning, but in time it could lead to a new situation. 1. In November 1984, the FLNKS called for an active boycott of the territorial elections. Actions were carried out against the polling stations. Homes of settlers were attacked to get weapons. It was on this occasion that Eloi Machoro distinguished himself, leading the occupation of the mining town of Thio. He was murdered in Thio by French gendarmes in January 1985. 2. The capital of Tahiti, another French colony in the Pacific, where there has just been a violent mobiliza. tion of dock workers and a part of the Polynesian 3. In the Saint Louis tribe, which inhabits an area not far from Mont d'Or, young people again set up roadblocks and clashed with gendarmes after a young Ka-