By Nic Maclellan
The Pacific Islands Forum has postponed a planned monitoring mission to New Caledonia.
The delegation, involving three prime ministers, had intended to visit the French Pacific dependency before next week’s Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga. The mission would have allowed Forum leaders to directly engage with diverse perspectives from supporters and opponents of independence in New Caledonia, after three months of protests and clashes between Kanak independence activists and French police.
But on Wednesday morning, Forum Chair Prime Minister Mark Brown of Cook Islands announced the delay of the mission until “a mutually agreed time” after next week’s Forum in the Kingdom of Tonga, which starts on 26 August.
Prime Minister Brown said that “it was intended that the mission would report to Forum Leaders at the 53rd PIF Leaders Meeting in Tonga, with the visit scheduled to take place this week. However, the New Caledonia Government has identified a number of issues regarding due process and protocol that will need to be addressed prior to a Troika visit. In order to allow additional time to resolve the concerns of our fellow Forum Member, the Forum Troika has decided to postpone their mission until after the Forum Leaders meeting in Tonga.”
This diplomatic language cannot disguise the months of behind-the-scenes wrangling, which has now derailed the mission.
For people living through the conflict in New Caledonia, all the diplomatic manoeuvres that complicate Forum processes may seem irrelevant. For three months, they have been living under an overnight curfew, a restriction on nighttime movement that has repeatedly been extended (albeit with reduced hours of lockdown). Thousands have lost their jobs and key economic sectors face collapse – including the crucial nickel mining and smelting industry, which makes up more than 90 percent of exports.
However, delegations from both France and New Caledonia will attend next week’s summit in Tonga. The French State has been a Forum Dialogue Partner since 1989, one of the first countries to gain official dialogue status with the 18-member regional organisation. After the signing of the 1998 Noumea Accord, New Caledonia gained observer status and later associate membership. Since 2016, New Caledonia was upgraded to full membership of the Forum, along with French Polynesia.
The diplomatic jousting that has derailed the Forum mission highlights a fundamental problem for island nations. Across the region, there are movements for self-determination and independence that continue to challenge US and French colonial rule, or resist state power in post-colonial nations like Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Support for self-determination in New Caledonia has been Forum policy since the mid-1980s, so understanding the latest saga may inform regional solidarity in coming months in New Caledonia (and beyond: this year’s Forum in Tonga will consider a bid for associate membership from the US territories of Guam and American Samoa).
Behind-the-scenes disputes
To understand the delay in the mission, Islands Business has spoken with people involved in behind-the-scenes negotiations, from France, New Caledonia and the Forum. Beyond their public statements, most were unwilling or unable to go on the record. But the lengthy wrangling over the mission has highlighted growing tensions between the Government of New Caledonia and French diplomats and officials based in Noumea.
The current crisis has exposed a fundamental geopolitical tension for the regional organisation. At a time when the Forum wants to highlight its Blue Pacific focus on climate, oceans and development, the strategic agendas of dialogue partners continue to overshadow Pacific priorities. Retaining control of judicial, police and military powers, Paris has tried to leverage New Caledonia’s Forum membership to extend its Indo-Pacific Strategy (for example, hosting the South Pacific Defence Ministers Meeting in Noumea for the first time ever in December 2023).
Even before the explosion of conflict in New Caledonia on 13 May – which has seen 11 deaths, hundreds of injuries and enormous economic and social damage – the main independence coalition Front de Libération National Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) was reaching out to regional and international organisations for assistance.
The FLNKS has long sought diplomatic support from the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonisation, the Non-Aligned Movement and neighbouring Pacific countries – especially fellow members of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). Last March, calling on France to allow independent monitoring missions into New Caledonia, an FLNKS statement noted: “France must be reminded of its responsibilities towards the Kanak people, and it is essential that the international community actively engage to ensure that commitments to transition to independence and self-governance are respected.”
Since 2021, there has been a breakdown of trust between the FLNKS, French President Emmanuel Macron and key French ministers. In response, the independence movement has called for neutral mediators to help break the logjam in political status talks between the French State and supporters and opponents of independence.
This process is complicated by the delay in appointing a new French Prime Minister after 7 July elections for the French National Assembly in Paris. For six weeks, President Macron has relied on outgoing Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to continue in caretaker mode, despite Attal’s resignation on 13 July. After the defeat of the presidential coalition, no party or coalition has a governing majority. Post-Olympics, President Macron is moving towards a decision on leadership, but for weeks, reconstruction and dialogue in New Caledonia have been held hostage to French parliamentary manoeuvres.
Soon after rioting began on 13 May, Forum member governments offered to help bridge the stark divide between supporters and opponents of independence. For some French politicians and officials, as well as anti-independence Loyalist politicians in Noumea, this was seen as an implicit challenge to the notion that the crisis was an internal matter for France.
Ten days after the start of riots and clashes between French police and Kanak protesters, Forum Chair Mark Brown wrote to President Louis Mapou, the first pro-independence Kanak politician to lead the Government of New Caledonia in forty years. Conveying his condolences to bereaved families, Brown reiterated the Forum’s support for New Caledonia, echoing local calls for dialogue and an end to violence.
On 30 May, the Forum Chair publicly announced “the Pacific Islands Forum’s readiness to facilitate and provide a supported and neutral space for all parties to come together in the spirit of the Pacific Way, to find an agreed way forward that safeguards the interests of the people of New Caledonia.”
Calling on Paris and Noumea to engage with the Forum, Brown noted that “throughout the Forum’s history, regional mechanisms have played a critical supportive role, particularly in instances where other modalities of conflict resolution have stalled. Indeed, our Pacific region is home to independent experts and skilled personnel that are familiar with this region, its history, its people, and importantly, its context, that can support all parties to move this process forward.”
After further correspondence, he held a videoconference with President Mapou on 13 June. Mapou then formally wrote back to the Forum Chair on 21 June, inviting the regional organisation to send a monitoring and information mission (a request notified to the French government through the High Commission in Noumea).
Lobbying in Tokyo
The first major opportunity for face-to-face dialogue between Pacific leaders, the FLNKS and the Government of New Caledonia came in July, as Japan hosted the tenth Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting (PALM10) in Tokyo. As a Forum member, New Caledonia was invited to participate in the summit, but the French government pressed to be included in the New Caledonia delegation to Tokyo.
France’s Ambassador to the Pacific Véronique Roger-Lacan and Walid Fouque, the Asia-Pacific advisor to President Macron, then travelled to Tokyo to discuss the proposed mission with Forum leaders. A French proposal that the Government of France and the Government of New Caledonia should jointly brief Forum leaders was declined by the New Caledonia delegation, which did not formally meet with the French diplomats in Tokyo.
On the sidelines of the Japanese summit, FLNKS representatives did meet with fellow members of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, which then issued the Tokyo Statement, calling for French action on decolonisation. In strong language, the MSG statement reaffirmed its long-standing criticism of the third referendum on self-determination under the Noumea Accord, held in December 2021, which the MSG described as “illegitimate and null and void.”
From Tokyo, Prime Mister Brown briefed Pacific leaders about the discussions held with both French and New Caledonian representatives and proposed that a monitoring mission to New Caledonia should be undertaken, involving himself, the previous Forum chair, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka of Fiji, and the incoming chair Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni of Tonga (the position rotates after every annual summit and this grouping of past, present and future chairs is known as the Troika).
On 17 July, Forum leaders agreed to proceed with a Troika mission, and the following day Prime Minister Brown wrote to the French President, requesting France’s support for the mission. The letter clearly stated that the proposed mission is based on the official request from President Mapou and the Government of New Caledonia, as a member of the Forum.
In a public statement on 22 July, Brown said: “New Caledonia is a PIF member and we have a responsibility to take care of our family in a time of need. We wish to support the de-escalation of violence and promote understanding and dialogue between all parties. Our objective is to help all parties resolve this situation as peacefully and expeditiously as possible.”
He stressed that: “it is the collective expectation of Forum Leaders that the mission takes place in August and a report from the mission be presented to Leaders for their consideration and further discussion at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Tonga on 26-30 August.”
Indo-Pacific trumps Blue Pacific
That expectation soon ran into the rocks and shoals of regional geopolitics, highlighting the tensions between France’s Indo-Pacific Strategy and New Caledonia’s primary focus on regional integration. France’s ongoing colonial administration of New Caledonia and other Pacific dependencies continues to clash with the independence movement’s call for a pathway to independence.
New Caledonia is recognised by the United Nations as a non-self-governing territory, but Paris jealously guards its claim of sovereignty over the islands. As Ambassador Roger-Lacan stressed on 25 July: “New Caledonia is French territory and it is the French State which decides on who enters French territory and when and how.”
Over subsequent weeks, despite all parties publicly highlighting co-operation and dialogue, there was growing division over the purpose and scope of the mission. French authorities prepared draft terms of reference and an initial program for the mission, even though the Forum Secretariat in Suva was obliged to take advice from its member state.
As the annual Forum Foreign Ministers Meeting (FFMM) gathered in Suva on 9 August, New Caledonia was discussed both in the meeting and in the corridors. Ambassador Roger-Lacan hand delivered a letter to the Forum Chair and new Secretary General Baron Waqa. Mis-described at the time as a letter from President Macron to the Forum (including by this correspondent), it was prepared and signed by the French Ambassador to the Pacific, under mandate from the Elysée palace. Sources in Noumea told Islands Business that the Government of New Caledonia had not endorsed the contents of the letter.
However, a fortnight before the Forum leaders meeting, the wheels were quickly coming off the whole enterprise, even though the original request for a mission had been sent in June.
The FFMM outcomes document “reaffirmed the importance of the proposed high-level mission to New Caledonia led by the Forum Troika and noted the indication of support by France for the same.” But Troika members had competing obligations, with Rabuka departing for a visit to China, and Sovaleni busy preparing to host a summit involving thousands of people. Without the agreement of all parties there was no way the mission could move ahead in such a short time.
These tensions were also played out on social media. Ambassador Roger-Lacan is a prolific debater on X (formerly Twitter), engaging with NGOs and journalists and accusing many of misinformation (including this correspondent).
As one example, an FLNKS representative tweeted on 12 August: “The PIF mission will be led by the Troika (Fiji, Cook and Solomon Islands) to meet Noumea Accord partners and civil society, to better assess the role that the Forum can play in the decolonisation process in Kanaky-NC.” Roger-Lacan immediately responded: “The PIF mission will be there to condemn violence and support dialogue. This is what was agreed with @MarkBrownPM and the secretary general of @ForumSEC. No more. No less.”
“No more, no less.” While French authorities have publicly welcomed the mission, the implication that they would set the boundaries of what could be discussed angered many people involved in the months’ long diplomatic dance.
On 14 August, with the clock ticking down towards the Forum leaders meeting, French diplomats sent the proposed terms of reference to the Forum Secretariat in Suva. Sources in Noumea have disputed French claims that these proposals were developed in coordination with the Government of New Caledonia, instead highlighting the French government’s desire to be the privileged interlocutor in the preparation, implementation and conclusions of the high-level mission.
By this time, Forum Secretariat staff had already travelled to Noumea, meeting with the French High Commission and Government of New Caledonia to prepare logistics. Prime Minister Brown tried to salvage the mission, assuring partners that it would not take sides, but also telling President Mapou that his government’s involvement was vital to make the mission possible and effective.
Last Saturday, 17 August, Mapou formally told the Forum Chair that his government would not participate in the preparation of mission, also conveying this decision to the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights. That day, French President Macron talked by phone with Fiji Prime Minister Rabuka, with the Elysée palace issuing a statement that “as part of the dialogue between the PIF and France, the French State stands ready to host an information mission when conditions permit, in conjunction with the local authorities.”
In the meantime, President Mapou will have an opportunity to brief the Troika next week. He’ll join other Forum leaders in their private retreat, without the French government in the room, even as French diplomats work the corridors of the summit.
The mismanagement of this process by the French State does not bode well for President Macron’s proposal for a re-start of talks in September, seeking to bridge the divide between supporters and opponents of independence. There’ll be a lot more diplomatic manoeuvres in the coming months.
