PIF troika plus Leaders on Monda, 28 October with Southern Province President Sonia Backès at SPC headquarters Photo: PIF
A high-level team of Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders completed a fact-finding mission this week to assess the situation in New Caledonia.
The French territory is grappling with the aftermath of rioting and violence which left 13 dead and the destruction of dozens of businesses.
The team from the Forum included the agency's chair, Tonga's Prime Minister Hu'akavameliku Siaosi Sovaleni; Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown; Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka; and other ministers and officials.
Islands Business journalist Nic Maclellan has spent the past two weeks in New Caledonia, and RNZ Pacific asked him who they spoke with.
(The transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.)
Nic Maclellan: The French High Commission and French authorities, with the President and government of New Caledonia, leading provincial presidents, Sonia Backes of the Southern Province, Jacques Lelia of the Loyalty Islands, but most importantly, a diverse range of business leaders, of church and community leaders, representatives of women's groups. They held a lunch with young people and the Forum chair, Prime Minister Sovaleni of Tonga, noted that they received diverse perceptions of the current situation. Hardly surprising, given the differences between supporters and opponents of independence. But speaking to Forum delegate members before they left, they found it very positive to be able to hear directly from this diverse range of people.
DW: What is it they've learned?
NMac: I think there's a few central things. One of the big features of the discussion was about the economic crisis in New Caledonia, with significant unemployment, with many businesses damaged and shuttered, France has made extra payments beyond those they normally do over recent months, but some of those are loans that need to be repaid, rather than grants. The French overseas Minister Francois Noel Buffet was recently here and pledged to extend some subsidy schemes for people who've lost hours, lost days in their jobs, some that'll be continued until Christmas. But there is a great anxiety about what economic support France will continue to provide throughout 2025, at a time their own budget is incredibly tight.
DW: Well, they have asked for billions of euros, haven't they, so it's unlikely they're going to get anything like that.
NMac: Absolutely, the Congress of New Caledonia put forward a proposal for more than 4 billion euros over the next five years. The government of New Caledonia, led by President Louis Mapou, has put forward a plan that's dubbed PS2R which is for stabilising, for rebuilding and reconstructing the economy, looking over the next few years. But there's anxiety across the political spectrum here that France won't deliver on the economic support that is required.
DW: Well, one of the interesting things is that the Forum has come forward and said we might be able to help out. What did they say?
NMac: One of the central themes of this visit by Prime Minister Siativeni Rabuka of Fiji, Sovaleni of Tonga, Mark Brown of the Cook Islands, together with the Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Peter Chanel Agovaka was to talk about regional integration. You know, there's a lot of talk. As Prime Minister Sovaleni met with customary leaders of the Kanak Customary Senate on Sunday afternoon, he talked a lot about family, that we're here as family. We're here to listen as family and to work with New Caledonia, which people will know is a full member of the Pacific Islands Forum, has been since 2016, that wasn't just from politicians. This was very interesting. I've interviewed a number of business leaders over the last couple of weeks I've been here, and they're very much looking for economic opportunities in the region with neighboring countries like Australia, New Zealand, Vanuatu and others. And I was struck by how the business community is very much focused on the region, rather than simply reliance on France. At the same time, when he spoke after meeting with the Forum delegation on Monday, President Mapou highlighted however there were constraints about the capacity for New Caledonia to sign economic agreements, to improve its trade and commerce, because of a whole range of economic and political barriers. He even stressed that the very fact that New Caledonia is what's dubbed the non self governing territory constrained its opportunities to work with partners in the region. But that whole question of regional integration was highlighted not just by the Forum delegation, but by many of the people that spoke with the Pacific leaders.
DW: When the Forum talks about this need for regional integration, what's the essential message they're trying to convey with that - that New Caledonia has to basically be a part of the Pacific, not a part of Europe.
NMac: I think very clearly it is part of the Pacific, and always has been. And I think one of the threads of the Blue Pacific agenda is to try and transcend colonial boundaries, both historic and contemporary, that divide the Pacific. You know, there's enormous opportunities for New Caledonia to contribute to debates, as they have around, for example, seabed mining. They've joined many other countries in the region to pledge a moratorium on seabed mining in the 1.3 million square kilometre exclusive economic zone here.
New Caledonia's women have been at the forefront of a lot of the discussions. Nearly half the Congress of New Caledonia is made up of female politicians. The new speaker of the Congress is a Wallisian woman, and one of the themes that came out from a number of the interventions from civil society and church leaders was that women have been left to clean up a lot of the mess from the last six months. The role of women as peacemakers was a central theme raised by Sonia Tonya, a leading feminist activist here during her discussions with the Forum delegation. So I think there's a real sense of opportunity, but still constraints, because France is still the administering power here, and that was a very sensitive issue as the Forum delegation danced around the deeper political questions about decolonisation, but certainly in the corridors around the kava bowl, those were discussed, and there were meetings with political parties on Tuesday afternoon to talk about these issues.
DW: Well, the Forum team has now left. When can we expect a substantial report from them?
NMac: I think you'd have to ask the Forum that. I know that the staff who accompanied the delegation, accompanying the four leaders, will prepare a report, which will be sent to member governments. I think it'll officially be discussed at the next Forum, but that's not until Honiara come September, October, next year.
DW: It's a little way away, isn't it. You would think, if they're reacting to a crisis, you want something a whole lot more immediate, don't you?
NMac: Well, that was one of the political problems about this whole enterprise. Forum leaders from the very beginning of the conflict, after 13th of May, were eager to play a role in assisting dialogue, in calling for an end to violence, but also highlighting that New Caledonia is a member of the Forum, and it was the government of New Caledonia that invited the Forum leaders to come. People will know that the mission was delayed the last minute before leaders met in Tonga, and that caused a lot of anger behind the scene, simply because the aim was that the mission might travel in July, or possibly August, so that they could report to the Forum leaders who gathered in the last week of August in Tonga.
The very fact that officially the report will be delivered, not for some months, obviously lessens its impact. But I'm sure that from the discussions I've had with the Forum delegation, there's a sense that this is an issue that's not going away. This is a matter of regional concern, and the Forum Secretariat and Forum leaders will be monitoring this long before they gather in Honiara again in 2025.