Mapou wants future decided
NEW Caledonia’s President Louis Mapou has told the UN he wants to put the future direction of New Caledonia back on the table by 2024.
Delegates from New Caledonia are in New York for the annual meeting of the United Nation’s Decolonisation committee. New Caledonia has been on the UN’s decolonisation list since 1986, and in 2021 it voted for the third time against independence.
More than 96 per cent of the electorate rejected independence in the December vote, which was marked by a low turnout after the pro-independence parties called on its supporters to abstain because of the pandemic.
The separatist side continues to refuse to accept the result as the legitimate outcome for the people to be decolonised.
Mr Mapou told the UN committee the future direction of New Caledonia should be back on the table by 2024.
“The year 2022 is a year of transition which permit us to put structural reforms necessary for the country in the long term.
“Our objective is to give confidence to the people of New Caledonia to put it in capacity calmly and in all knowledge the choice to decide the future of our country by 2024.”
French Polynesia’s veteran pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru is heading his delegation at the UN committee.
The French Polynesian government sent the equipment minister Rene Temeharo.
The territory was reinscribed on the list of nonself-governing territories in 2013, but France refuses to accept the inscription and engage in any UNsupervised process.
In a speech to the assembly, Mr Temaru called for France’s cooperation on this matter and others.
“We, therefore, urge France to comply with this resolution, to produce the long-awaited report on the environmental, economic and consequences of its 193 nuclear testing between 1966 and 1996.”