NOUMEA (Oceania Flash) — One French policeman was severely wounded by gunshots on Tuesday in the village of Saint Louis, where violence as forced French police to intervene again for the past three days, using tear gas, RFO’s Tele-Nouvelle-Caledonie reported on Tuesday.
At the weekend, ethnic Kanaks and Wallisians dwellers of the nearby Ave Maria Catholic mission had clashed again in armed fights, forcing local police to step in again and use teargas against snipers.
On Monday, French mobile gendarmes unit commander, Lt. Col. Jean-Marie Garrido, was shot in the back and rushed for medical treatment to Noumea’s territorial Gaston Bourret hospital.
His condition was described a “severe,” doctors saying he had received bullets in the lower back that had perforated his bullet-proof jacket.
Throughout the Easter weekend, vehicles using the provincial highway that crosses the troubled villages had consistently been stoned by an estimated forty youths who were attempting to block the traffic.
The French gendarmes’ mobile unit has had to mobilize nine of their armored vehicles and some 160 teargas grenades were used, RFO reports.
For most of Tuesday, the French High Commission had to block public traffic on the road portion and later said it was only reopened to users who had no other alternative and on the condition that private vehicles were escorted by the gendarmes’ armored vehicles.
The French government office is also deterring members of the public to travel through this area, “unless it is absolutely necessary.”
The conflict, which is believed to be of ethnic nature, stems from local Kanak claims that the 1,000-strong Wallisian community in Ave Maria had to leave.
Kanak youths claim the land was made available to the Catholic mission over 40 years ago and now had to be returned.
A deadline had been set for March 8 last month for all Wallisians to evacuate the area.
The conflict had also recently taken another turn with an open confrontation emerging between Saint Louis area’s two main clan chiefs: Roch Wamytan, the current Melanesian Spearhead Group chairman and pro-independence FLNKS high official, and Robert Moyatea.
Moyatea was last month shot at his residence and later claimed he had recognized the aggressor whom he believed was a close associate of Wamytan’s.
Wamytan had earlier said he believed the ethnic tensions in Saint Louis should be solved without any outside negotiator being involved, but rather through the “Pacific Way” with respect to customs and tradition.
He also advocated for the disputed 23-hectare land of the Catholic mission and New Caledonia’s land office ADRAF—where the Wallisians have been settled for the past 40 years—be given back to his clan.
He pledged this condition’s fulfillment would open the way for a solution to the current situation.
“It is true also that there is problem within Saint Louis as to where the Chiefly authority rests,” Wamytan admitted, adding he intended to ask for a ruling from the Customary Senate, the New Caledonian equivalent to Fiji’s Great Council of Chiefs.
At the weekend, 34-year-old Pascal Nemeadjou, a Kanak believed to play a key part in the current conflict, was arrested in Saint Louis in connection with a traffic offense. He was later sentenced to three months jail.
Another Kanak, 26-year-old Jean-Marie Goyetta, died earlier this year as a result of a fatal bullet injury sustained during similar clashed between the two communities. A French police spokesman said no one had been arrested and no weapon confiscated so far in the troubled area.
“It is difficult to arrest people who are hiding in the bush”, he said. Anti-independence RPCR, or Rally for New Caledonia within the French Republic, leader Jacques Lafleur on Tuesday reacted to the recent development by calling on the French government and parties involved to “take their responsibilities.”
He wants the culprit to be identified and arrested.
Other political parties in New Caledonia, including National Front and Alliance, have also strongly protested against the “upsurge in law and order breaches” and asked the French government to display “authority.”
Latest 1996 census statistics in New Caledonia show those current inhabitants of New Caledonia—with a total population of some 196,836— from Wallis and Futuna are 17,763.
Most of them live in Noumea (6,912) and its suburbs (9,610).
They mainly work in the building industry and public service.
There are only 14,166 people living in Wallis and Futuna, northeast of Fiji.
