“Ouvea is every factor you would anticipate in a South Pacific island. 20 kilometers of unbroken white sands border the lagoon on the west aspect of the island and extend far out from shore to give the h2o a turquoise hue. The broad western lagoon, protected by a string of coral islands and a barrier reef, is the only 1 of its kind in the Loyalties. On the ocean aspect are rocky cliffs, pounded by surf, but good seashores might be found even right right here. At 1 stage on this narrow atoll only 450 meters separates the two coasts. Regular circular houses with pointed thatched roofs are nevertheless typical in the villages”.

These words appeared in the 1985 edition of my South Pacific Handbook subsequent a go to in 1983. Just much more than 20 numerous years later on I returned to Ouvea to uncover that little had altered in this big French colony east of Australia.

Most Ouveans nevertheless reside in regular thatched scenario (houses) and the beach is as dazzling as ever prior to. On my initial night there, as I watched the red fireball set gradually across the lagoon, I felt a potent affinity with my prior go to.

Yet some factor horrible had occurred in my absence. On Might five, 1988, 300 French elite troops stormed a cave close to Gossanah in northern Ouvea to rescue 16 gendarmes captured two weeks earlier by Melanesian flexibility fighters.

Nineteen Kanaks (the collective title utilized by the indigenous peoples of New Caledonia) died in the assault, including a number of who endured extrajudicial execution at the fingers of the French police subsequent becoming wounded and utilized prisoner. None of the hostages had been harmed.

Therefore began 1 of the last chapters of what is now acknowledged as the evenements (occasions) of the 1980s. Three numerous years earlier independence leader Eloi Machoro had been murdered in cold blood by police snipers as he stood outdoors a rural farmhouse close to La Foa, on New Caledonia’s primary island, Grand Terre.

By 1987 France had 14,000 troops stationed in its mineral-wealthy Melanesian colony, 1 for each and every five Kanaks. The independence movement was to be crushed 1 way or an extra.

When I tried to go to the cave at Gossanah on my recent trip, I was told that the region was taboo to allow the spirits time to relaxation.

Instead I was permitted to go to the grave of Djoubelly Wea in Gossanah and permitted to take photos of his house. My host on Ouvea told me the tale. Evidently, the hostages had been utilized by youthful Kanak activists from other components of the island, and the captive gendarmes had been brought to Gossanah only simply because the cave was regarded as remote.

Citizens of the region weren’t worried. Yet when the French police arrived in lookup of their comrades, they rounded up the individuals of Gossanah and assembled them on a football region in front of the village church.

There they had been tortured for info, and Wea’s father was amongst those who died of shock. Later on on on 33 Ouveans had been sent to prison in France, Djoubelly Wea amongst them.

These occasions chastened Kanaks and French alike, and the heads of the primary political occasions, the Kanak leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou and the representative of the French settlers Jacques Lafleur, had been recognized as to Paris by Prime Minister Michel Rocard to negotiate and eventually signal a peace treaty acknowledged as the Matignon Accords.

A referendum on independence was promised in 1998, and huge monetary aid was to be channeled into the Kanak regions. An amnesty was granted to all those arrested all through the troubles, and no investigation into the Ouvea massacre or the murders of a number of dozen other Kanaks by French settlers or troops would be needed.

Fast ahead to Might 1989, as the leading Kanak leaders Jean-Marie Tjibaou and Yeiwene Yeiwene arrive on Ouvea for a commemorative ceremony exactly 1 year subsequent the massacre.

As the leaders are becoming obtained at the chefferie (chiefly house) of Wadrilla close to the center of the island, Djoubelly Wea steps ahead and shoots the pair dead at stage blank assortment. Wea was reflecting a feeling nevertheless palpable in New Caledonia that Tjibaou had sold out to the French and derailed the struggle of independence.

Tjibaou’s bodyguard killed Wea, the last shot of the evenements. Today the chefferie of Wadrilla is a great deal the exact precise exact same as it was in 1989, a big thatched scenario surrounded by a palisade of driftwood logs.

Across the coastal highway, a big monument has been erected to the 19 Kanak martyrs of 1988. Created with two curving white walls to resemble a cave, the monument bears the picture, title, and working day of birth of each and every victim.

Their regular war clubs have been positioned on the back aspect of the monument and their stays are interred beneath.

No memorial to Jean-Marie Tjibaou exists on Ouvea but the French have constructed a huge cultural center to his memory in their stronghold Noumea.

In fairness, it should be stated that Tjibaou only regarded as the Matignon Accords a short-term quit on the street to independence. His assassination froze the arrangement into a kind of long phrase solution which the French have utilized to justify continuing colonial rule ever prior to because.

The promised 1998 referendum was by no indicates held. Instead an up to date treaty recognized as the Noumea Accord was signed. This postponed the referendum for an extra 15 or 20 numerous years and promised several problems the French authorities has nevertheless to provide.

For instance, a essential provision generating a distinctive New Caledonian citizenship standing meant to handle immigration from France was declared unconstitutional by a French court in 1999.

Metros (metropolitan French) continue to flood into the territory (in violation of United nations resolutions on the norms of carry out for colonial powers in non-self-governing areas) and Europeans might soon from a clear vast majority of the population.

Toward the finish of my remain I visited the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center on the Tina Peninsula, twelve kilometers northeast of New Caledonia’s funds Noumea. Created by Italian architect Renzo Piano, it was built by French contractors in in between 1994 and 1998 at a price of much more than US$fifty million. The center opened on Might 4, 1998, 10th anniversary of the assassination of Jean-Marie Tjibaou.

No visitor can assist but be impressed by the magnificent botanical garden interwoven with references to Kanak legends which encircles the center’s three villages.

A contemporary artwork gallery, short-term and long phrase exhibitions of Kanak and other Pacific artwork, a library, an audiovisual region, indoor and outdoors theaters, and a big ceremonial region are only some of the center’s excellent features.

Yet the Tjibaou Cultural Center presents Kanak custom as a regional folklore rather than a nationwide customized.

Events this kind of as the Ouvea Massacre and the other murders of the 1980s are barely talked about. A region in Village Three offers photos and texts on the life of Jean-Marie Tjibaou, but there is no explanation as to why he was assassinated or the track record of his assassin.

The 19th century land seizures and the muscle flexing and maneuvering that have prevented independence are cautiously prevented. The highlight for me was an extraordinary three-meter-greater bronze statue of Tjibaou himself, clad in a Roman toga, on a hill overlooking the center.

Tjibaou was the last real Kanak leader, and in a land exactly where the spirits of the dead have an essential function in the lives of the residing, his soul should be struggling.

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David Stanley is the author of Moon Handbooks South Pacific http://www.newsletterjournal.com which has a chapter on New Caledonia. His on-line manual to New Caledonia might be perused at http://www.newsletterjournal.com and his New Caledonia journey photos are on http://www.newsletterjournal.com

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