NOUMEA (Oceania Flash) — All parties, Kanaks and Wallisians included, involved in a six-month confrontation in Saint Louis village in the suburbs of the capital Noumea have agreed to “do their best” to put an end to persistent shooting in the area, the daily newspaper Les Nouvelles Caledoniennes reports.
The pledge came as a result of the fourth conciliation meeting held on Friday at French High Commissioner Thierry Lataste’s offices in Noumea.
“Of course, all is not settled, but there has been much positive progress,” Lataste said at the end of the meeting.
The conflict, which started in December last year between Kanak clans and the Wallisian community—from Wallis and Futuna islands, north of Fiji— dwelling in the Ave Maria Catholic mission, has already claimed the lives of two Kanaks and one Futunian.
Kanaks say they want the Wallisians out of Ave Maria and they are claiming the land they are living on.
Apart from the Kanak-Wallis confrontation, the tension also seemed to have triggered a feud between the two Kanak chiefs in the Saint Louis area, Roch Wamytan, who is the current chairman of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, and Robert Moyatea.
Moyatea a few weeks ago claimed he had escaped an assassination attempt, when a sniper shot at his bedroom at night. Moyatea was sleeping under his carport on that particular night, because of the heat.
Since the conflict erupted, however, out of the some 171 families living in Ave Maria, over a hundred have chosen to leave and be re-settled elsewhere.
