Tahiti: towards independence?
Six weeks before elections to the "Territorial Assembly of French
Polynesia", Laurent Durose talks to Gabriel Tetiarahi, President of the NO confederation Hiti Tau.
• What is the state of the anti-nuclear movement in Polymesia?
There isn't any mobilisation any more. People have realised that, whatever they do, [French President Jacques] Chirac will not reverse his decision. People have understood that they don't have the right to their indigenous spirituality any more. This has all confirmed the fears they already had.
There are still activities from time to time. There are some symbolic demonstrations. Each time there is an explosion, you can see a mixture of anger, concern and humiliation. People are waiting for the end of the series of tests. Eyes and ears are locked on the territorial elections of March 1996. Otherwise, people are agitated and humiliated. This means that there could be some outbreaks of violence. • So how do you evaluate the mobilisation against French nuclear tests in 1995?
My overall evaluation is: excellent! We have never seen so many people rise up against nuclear tests, or SO many demonstrations. Here in Tahiti, three groups have stood out: Tavini, Hiti Tau, and the evangelical churches.
Excellent in quality as well as quantity! We have seen some innovations in forms of action, like the Peace Flotilla idea, which Greenpeace stole from us.
Let me be clear. We are grateful to Greenpeace for bringing the international media to Tahiti. But they also made an important mistake. They were unable to produce pictures of anything more than a conflict between themselves and the French state. Their media work hid the fact that these tests were not taking place in a human desert. The people of Polynesia and their representatives were somehow forgotten.
Greenpeace must be taught to work with local groups. They never tried to coordinate their activities with ours. They always tried to impose their own point of view. Nowadays they are quite isolated in Tahiti. They tried too hard to make this island into a means of fund-raising for themselves.
A number of events reveal much about Greenpeace's essential politics. For example, it was very difficult to persuade them to accept the presence of Polynesians on the Rainbow Warrior! The second time they came to Papeete, Stephanie Milles arranged for her boat to enter the harbour at the same time as a Hiti Tau press conference! And, as a last example, Greenpeace used Hiti Tau for logistic support for a certain period of time, but has never made the slightest financial contribution. • A number of people were arrested following the Autumn riots...
Atrocities, acts of torture were inflicted on five A Tia I Mua trade union members. One of them, Henri Tematitahio, is now paralysed in half his body. Some of the younger detainees have been released, but others, particularly trade union militants, are still in prison. Amnesty International and the Ecumenical Council have been contacted.
People cannot understand why those policemen who were responsible for the violence have not been arrested. No judicial enquiry has been made. This is two-track justice. A real colonial judicial system.
The A Tia I Mua trade union has not been dissolved. But the state was able to ensure the resignation of its leader, Hiro Tefaarere. He has since been sacked, and only survives by renting out most of his house.
Those who come under the most systematic attacks are the trade union leaders, political and NGO activists who work for the territory's civil service. Some are assigned to new offices in a different region, others reprimanded for the slightest lateness in arrival at work. As for me, I have been subjected to 10 years of harassment at my workplace, and I have been prevented from travelling abroad. If I want to take leave, my application goes straight to Territorial President Gaston Flosse! In December 1994 he prevented me from travelling to the United Nations to address the commemoration for the Decade of Indigenous Peoples. Those militants who do
TETiARAHI ITI TAU not work for the territory's civil service still face harassment, for example by customs officials at the airport. Many of these militants are used to seeing a police car parked outside their home.
Such harassment has blocked a number of initiative. But it has also helped create a certain consciousness. An understanding that we must group together to fight back. Hence the birth of Hiti Tau. • Many of the participants in the 1995 riots at Fad a airport were young. What is the social situation behind such violence?
The working population is 62,000 people. Then there are 20,000 unemployed workers, 85% of whom are younger than 25. Every September, 2,000 young adults join the labour force. Only 700-800 find a job. Society has no place for the others.
This is the real political failure of the nuclear test programme. Billions of francs have been wasted, and youth has become disoriented. The family structures here still allow them to find stability again. But, with the economic difficulties and our shrinking resources, these family structures are disintegrating. Young people feel very deceived. They aren't interested in the future because they don't have a future. Some of them orient themselves towards the Tavini party, because it has structures for young sympathisers.
One of the problems among the youth today is the growth of racism, particularly directed against those from mainland France.
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* Te Ao Maohi (Polynesia) • What about the 1993 Pact for Progress?
This Pact (signed by President Flosse and then French Prime Minister Balladur is similar to the Matignon Accords (for Kanaky/New Caledonia), but without a political clause. The Pact was supposed to rest on a package of financial compensation for the period after the nuclear test programme. It has now become a package of financial measures to compensate for the re-launching of the nuclear test programme! When Balladur was 200 bn. Pacific Francs (CFP) over ten years. But all France provided was 60bn, spread over the LETIABANI period from 1994-1999.
Flosse then called for a vote for Chirac. When Chirac was elected, Flosse asked him to unlock supplementary credits for Polynesia. He did. This money was earmarked for social programmes — giving a higher proportion of civil servants fulltime, regular contracts, improving the urban environment, and so on. In reality, these programmes were electoral operations, targeting the municipal elections in particular. For example, the keys to social housing units were handed to the new tenants just before the municipal elections.
Unfortunately, non of this money went on agriculture, and non on fishing. Flosse managed to commit the French state to provide subsidies to Polynesia at least until 2006, but for what purposes? • Territorial elections will be held in March 1996. The rumour is that (nationalist leader) Oscar Temaru will not be standing.
Oscar made some [hasty] statements without consulting his party, Tavini. The situation is unclear. But I don't think Tavini is ready for a real boycott. A real independentist boycott campaign requires a real, active campaign, the creation of a *provisional government', and opening offices in New York and Geneva. Tavini doesn't dare go this far. After all, they get most of their money through their participation in the [colonial] institutions.
My electoral prediction is that Flosse will win an absolute majority. It's almost certain. He has the structures, he has the money, and the opposition he faces is weak. • What do you say about independence?
It is legitimate to gain our independence. But it is not just a question of demanding our rights. There is also the issue of our self-education in our responsibilities and obligations. The problem with the independentist movements is that they have no propositions for a state budget, or for a constitution. They don't have any alternative project. Not even the beginnings of a sketch of a debate on these kind of questions. They nourish themselves on the deceptions and corruption which the colonial system generates. But the electorate is not convinced
Hiti Tau is not a political party. Our contribution to the debate is to ask a number of questions. For instance, what will be the rights of the minorities in an independent Polynesia? What development model will we adopt? What role will non-governmental organisations play in that development...?
New Times on the Polynesian left? Hiti Tau (New Times) is a confederation of non-governmental organisations. Its founder members include many activists of the CSIP trade union, a pro-independence movement which draws inspiration from the USTKE trade union of France's other Pacific colony, Kanaky (New Caledonia). Founded by seven organisations in 1992, Hiti Tau had fifty affiliated groups by 1995 According to Gabriel Tetiarahi, the possibilities for further political activity are "enormous". One challenge will be to decentralise the organisation, "to give people in the island as many responsibilities as those in Tahiti". Hiti Tau also serves as secretariat for the Pacific Island Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (PIANGO), of which Gabriel Tetiarahi is president. Hiti Tau's campaigns include • opposition to France's nuclear tests • the environment: protection of the tortoise, opposition to the extension of the Mataiva mine • Defence of human rights and civic liberties • Defence of the rights of indigenous peoples. Public debate on the 1847 treaty of annexation of Tahiti by France. Re-inscription of Polynesia on the UN's list of territories awaiting de-colonisation. The organisation also runs a vanilla plantation at Moorea, which provides jobs for 30 International Viewpoint February 1996
135 young people. Financial support for this project comes from NGOs in Australia, New Zealand and Germany. After a loss-making period of training, construction and irrigation, the project is now an economic success. A co-operative has been formed for marketing the vanilla. According to Tetiarahi, the next stage of the project is to help family structures evolve, so that agricultural cooperatives can be managed 'naturally by the village population. Hiti Tau is also active in women's activities. There are programmes to develop economic activities for women (clothes-making, handicrafts). The organisation sent a representative to the UN Conference on Women in Beijing. Women already hold three of the seven posts on the Hiti Tau management committee. This will soon be expanded to eight members, with the new post reserved for a female candidate. As a general rule, half the members of any Hiti Tau delegations are women. The women's organisation, Hiti Tau Tuahine has organisational and financial autonomy from the main organisation. Some French supporters of Hiti Tau worry that the "NO focus" is "not political enough". Tetiarahi disagrees. "We are already politically active, in a certain sense. We discuss questions which are eminently political. I'm not interested in loosing my time with the interminable debates they have in the Territorial Assembly." *
• How important is the Maohi cultural heritage in the independence of Polynesia?
A heritage, a culture, allows us to meet with other peoples as equals. Having our own culture is not about being better, or worse. Just different. In the political sphere, this means convincing the electorate to accept cultural differences, and to accept to protect the rights of minorities, particularly in the cultural sphere [...] There is no debate on this in Tahiti at the moment. Leaders ought to make sure that the rights of minorities will indeed be guaranteed in an independent Polynesia. Not make populist speeches along the lines of "those [French] who want to stay can stay. All the others should leave!"
I was the only one at the first PIANGO conference who argued that we should deal with the question of identity before discussing organisational questions. The independentists confuse identity with citizenship or nationality. These three things are different. For me, independence should come in the framework of a multi-cultural country, where the French [as a minority of European origin] would have certain rights.
There is another problem, a cultural one. French is, de facto, the exclusive language. No official documents are translated intoreo maohi (Polynesian). None of the mainstream political leaders propose to change this. But in Hiti Tau meetings, we speak (Polynesian)! *