This had to be the opportunity. “defining the FLNKS strategy”of “building unity”and“rising to the challenges”This is stated in the invitation sent by the political office of the Kanak Socialist Liberation Front (FLNKS) for the congress to be held on Friday 30 and Saturday 31 August in Koumac, in the far north of New Caledonia. A crucial meeting in a context of insurrection that has plunged the territory into a deep political, economic and social crisis. Unfortunately, two of the four components of the Front, the Kanak Socialized Liberation Party (Palika) and the Progressive Union in Melanesia (UPM), will not be making the trip.
However, for two and a half months, the separatists have been discussing how to organise this congress, which is essential to ensure a smooth resumption of negotiations on the future of the territory. These were interrupted by the outbreak of violence that has shaken the archipelago since May 13. “There are still obstacles, insecurity, not to mention the agenda, which is not unanimous. For us, the conditions for a peaceful debate are not met.”, explains one of Palika’s spokespersons, Jean-Pierre Djaïwé.
The party, considered moderate, is facing an outcry from within its own camp. The most radical members of the Cell for Coordination of Action in the Countryside, the CCAT, which is at the origin of the mobilization against the thaw in the electoral body that degenerated into riots and clashes with the police, want to be excluded from the FLNKS, the party they consider independent in name only.
Provocation
Faced with Palika and UPM, the Caledonian Union (UC), the most important of the pro-independence movements, followed by the Democratic Rally of Oceania (RDO), the last of the four components of the front, has hardened its tone. The UC intends to integrate the CCAT into the FLNKS, which it created at the end of 2023 and of which many of its activists are also members.
This is a way of reconstituting the organisation without legal existence, but also of increasing the weight of the most radical, especially since the UC also wants to incorporate the “nationalists” into the FLNKS, these small independence movements that revolve around it. But some of them, like the Labour Party, take a very hard line.
In a latest provocation against moderate separatists, the Caledonian Union indicated in the week of August 19 that it would support the candidacy for the FLNKS presidency of Christian “Bichou” Tein, leader of the CCAT, who is in preventive detention in France for his alleged role in abuses committed since May 13.
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