New Caledonia Loyalists Vow Retaliation

NOUMEA, New Caledonia —  French security forces wearing flak vests and armed with automatic rifles took up positions on street corners Tuesday after French loyalists vowed to retaliate against Melanesian separatists in this troubled South Pacific island territory.

“ Violence ou valise ,” declared conservative loyalist leader Justin Guillemard, suggesting that the loyalist majority must either meet the recent wave of separatist violence with violence or pack their bags and leave.

Within hours, a bomb exploded in the car of a Frenchman who supports the Melanesian separatists, who call themselves Kanaks.

In a telephone call to a French radio station, the previously unknown Anti-Independence Committee claimed responsibility for the bombing, which scattered debris over a wide area but caused no injuries. The caller warned that this was “only the first in a series of planned attacks.”

The bombing recalled an outbreak of communal violence three years ago that left 32 people dead throughout the island territory, which has been under French rule for nearly 150 years. It was the first concrete sign of loyalist retaliation since the current crisis began April 22, when separatists killed four French gendarmes in a remote police station and took more than 20 others hostage.

A spokesman for the French territorial authorities said no progress had been made in negotiations to free the hostages, who have been held in a cave for the past 12 days.

The abductions and the violence they triggered have angered both the European and Polynesian communities, who voted overwhelmingly in a referendum last September for New Caledonia to remain a part of France.

But the majority of the Melanesians, who account for 43% of New Caledonia’s 145,000 people, favor independence. Their leaders have created a separatist alliance that advocates secession from France and the creation of a new nation called Kanaky.

The smallest and most militant faction in the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front is behind the abductions, which have led France to send thousands of troops here.

In the past few days French loyalists, some of whom are fifth-generation residents of New Caledonia, have reacted strongly. Many have said privately that if French President Francois Mitterrand, who favors partial independence for the territory, wins the final round of the presidential election Sunday, they will use the arms they acquired during the last round of communal violence.

Citing the recent escalation in separatist violence and extremist rhetoric, rightist Guillemard said that since the separatist front “wants to use arms against us, why shouldn’t we (use arms) too?”

If Mitterrand wins, Guillemard said--and several others echoed his remarks--”the Caledonians will have no choice.”

“Either we answer violence with violence, or we pack our bags and leave,” he added.

Separatist leaders, at the regular daily news conference in their Noumea headquarters, said that such talk is dangerous, that it constitutes an invitation to all French loyalists to join the armed vigilante groups that have been forming since the 1984 violence.

“We have taken note (of the threats) and believe our people are sufficiently mature to know what to do in response,” one leader said.

A small group of moderates representing Melanesians as well as Europeans issued a statement calling for reason and sanity.

“It is not too late,” the group said, calling for negotiations between France and the separatist leaders. Such negotiations have been undertaken before but were cut off two years ago.

“We refuse to say ‘ violence ou valise ,’ ” the statement went on, “but ‘dialogue and life.’ We do not ask to die for Caledonia. Rather, we call for life for Caledonia.”