May 23, 2024
French betrayal triggers Kanak youth rebellion
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A New Zealand Kanak woman, Jesse Ounei, says young people in New Caledonia feel a sense of anger and betrayal at the way France is attempting to snuff out any prospect of independence for its Pacific territory.
France invaded New Caledonia in 1853 and pushed the Kanak people into reservations, denying them civil and political rights for a century.
In parallel with Nga Tamatoa in Aotearoa, a resistance movement sprung up in the 1960s and 1970s driven by young people, including Ms Ounei’s late mother Susana Ounei, and the territory has been on the United Nations decolonisation list since 1986.
Riots broke out last week after the French Assembly moved to give voting rights to settlers with 10 years residence, which would overwhelm the Indigenous vote.
Jesse Ounei told Radio Waatea host Shane Te Pou the independence movement tried to resist the move peacefully, but once it happened young people took action.
“It’s a total betrayal. Young people have grown up with a sense of identity and we understand out worth and that’s largely because of the work that was done in the 60s and 70s and 80s to reclaim our identity so we’re not unaware of our worth or our identity or how hard done we are being so we were hopeful this was going to be it but France has totally pulled the rug out,” she says.
Ms Ounei says she’s hearing unconfirmed reports of rightwing settler militias taking vigilante action against the Kanak population.