A Māori supporter of Pacific independence movements says the French government gas constructed the crisis in New Caledonia by pushing the Indigenous Kanak population to the edge.
A New Zealand Defence Force Hercules is today evacuating some of the 250 New Zealanders stranded on the island by riots that broke out over a plan to give settlers voting rights after 10 years’ residence.
Sina Davis Brown from Kia Mau Aotearoa says Kanak leaders have worked patiently towards independence since the last major flare-up in the 1980s, but the increased militarisation of the Pacific seems to have hardened the resolve of France to hang on to its colonial territory.
“Those rights to self determination, those rights to independence of the Kanak people have is an inalienable right are the road block to the continued militarisation of our region and of those islands,” she says.
