BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 24. “Since May 13, 2024, with the start of recent events in New Caledonia, France has begun to resurrect the ghost of its colonial past in this distant territory. The government's treatment of the Saint-Louis tribe, located in Mont-Dore in the south of the island, unfortunately, resembles the way it treated local populations during the Algerian War. Without any sense of shame, the government acts as if dealing with 1,200 criminals who must be neutralized and silenced, despite the disproportionate balance of force, Trend reports.
Did our tribe, with its proud history, deserve to lose three of its children? These young men were killed for bravely defending their political ideals. Armed with little more than hunting rifles, stone-throwing devices, and simple sandals, they perished under the bullets of the GIGN (French National Gendarmerie). It seems that the thousands of kilometers separating New Caledonia from France turned the concept of self-defense into a license to kill in the Pacific,” the statement of the Kanak People said.
The statement said, “The assassins of independence leader Pierre Declercq, who was executed in 1981, seem to feel no remorse. This is why we have the right to question the reasons that compelled the state to deploy such force to gun down three young Kanaks. Even more worrying is the demand that other surviving members of our tribe surrender to avoid the same fate as their brothers. In such a small area, everyone knows they could be captured and imprisoned at any moment.
Thus, justice is being "restored" with unusual speed on the island of Saint-Louis. Yet, as Judge Claire-Marie Casanova once said, "Justice is never timely, never early, and always criticized for its delay." So why the sudden urgency in legal matters concerning our tribe? We demand an answer to this question, as we harbor doubts about the state's true motives in this case.
What we know for sure is that the government’s so-called divine mission is neither impeded by respect for the law nor by the loss of human lives. One only needs to observe the increasing number of military vehicles unlawfully patrolling our roads. It's as if the Pacific Ocean's own Berlin Wall is slowly being erected around our tribe. Our lands are under siege, our people are suffering from hunger, and our youth are being killed.
We no longer expect anything from the local judiciary. We are forced to turn to it, but its unjust decisions protect the powerful, crush the weak, and plunge us into incomprehensible despair.
We are certain that the Saint-Louis tribe has unwillingly become the centerpiece of a horrific game orchestrated by the government. In this game, the victims are portrayed as executioners by the government's propaganda, all in an effort to preserve colonial order.
If the current system in Saint-Louis is described as a "crash test" for the government's claim to control the entire territory, then let it be known: martyring an entire tribe may be easier than crushing the dream of Kanak independence.”
The statement was signed by Eugène Décoiré, President of the Council of Clan Chiefs and Yohann Wamytan, Member of the Council of Clan Chiefs.