Conflict, Colonisation and Reconciliation in New Caledonia

Abstract

As New Caledonia moves towards a decision on self-determination, this thesis traces important moments of conflict in New Caledonia’s recent history and identifies gestures of recognition that might have led to reconciliation. It considers, in particular, cycles of pre and post colonial conflict in order to understand the role of customary knowledge and practices amongst the indigenous peoples. Throughout the history of New Caledonia intertribal rivalry has been a major source of conflict. Yet customary self regulation practices were challenged when each new arrival—missionaries, colonisers and convicts—brought new sources of conflict. Disruption, rapid change and the threat to Kanak survival kept the cycle of conflict extant and reconciliation illusory. Throughout the post annexation history of the country, statutes, decrees and laws written by French administrators, governors, and politicians have failed to mediate across cultural difference to resolve conflict and achieve reconciliation.

Chapters One and Two examine, largely through the eyes of French Catholic Marists and the missionaries of the London Missionary Society, the various sources of intertribal conflict which existed prior to colonisation and the divisions which became more pronounced with the arrival of missionaries, merchants and marines. Following French annexation, the Melanesian population was marginalised as land was expropriated, military reprisals were exacted, missionary work compromised and priests and pastors deported. Ongoing clashes—intertribal, interdenominational and international—set in motion a cycle of conflict which has persisted until the present day.

Chapter Three analyses the impact of World War II on New Caledonia and the end of the Indigénat, a period of hope when Kanak citizenship was recognised and there was an enhanced possibility of reconciliation. With the guidance of the churches, the Kanak became more politically aware, yet during this same period schisms within the Protestant Church caused further conflict within the Kanak community in the form of intertribal religious and political divisions. Chapters Four and Five survey the Kanak awakening of 1968 and the tendency over the following decades towards the more militant conflict which culminated in the violent conflict of the 1980s. The events of this period were followed by French initiated mediation, in which the Churches again played a prominent role, and led to the signing of the Matignon Agreements. The reconciliation which accompanied these developments was shallow. A recognition and acceptance of past events has facilitated more recent inter island and inter family reconciliation so that with the support of indigenous Church leaders, genuine pardon has been achieved in what may be seen as the maturing of a society.

The study reveals that the conflictual events of the past remain painful in the indigenous collective memory and will need to be addressed further if the cycle of conflict is to be broken so that lasting reconciliation may be achieved and translated into the destin commun for the country’s inhabitants that is prefigured in the Noumea Accord.