New Caledonia Pacific Violence

Just when the French Pacific island territory seemed finally to be edging toward independence, violence erupted. Once again a sudden burst of fury set New Caledonia's French settlers (caldoches) against the native Melanesians (Kanaks), who are struggling for independence after 131 years of French rule. Sporadic clashes between the two groups have resulted in 18 killings over the past two months. The latest outbreak was sparked by the shooting death of a 17-year-old French settler some 40 miles northwest of the capital, Noumea. Within only a few hours, more than 1,000 people, most of them caldoches, took to the streets of the capital, hurling rocks at gendarmes and setting fire to buildings. About 30 people were injured as police attempted to restore order with tear gas.

No sooner had calm returned to Noumea than violence broke out in La Foa, a community about 55 miles northwest of the capital. Gendarmes surrounded an abandoned farmhouse in which Kanak Leader Eloi Machoro and 50 of his followers were staying. Machoro and an aide were killed in a gunfight.

The disturbances came just four days after the island had received a long- awaited independence proposal from the French government. In a television address, French Special Envoy Edgard Pisani outlined a plan under which New Caledonia would become a sovereign nation, yet remain bound to France by a special "treaty of association." The proposal was a compromise over a vexing issue: although the Kanaks were the original inhabitants of the territory, 930 miles east of Australia, they represent only 42.5% of the current population of 145,000. In their fight for independence, the militant Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front boycotted territorial elections last November and set up roadblocks throughout most of New Caledonia. That show of defiance triggered bloody confrontations that left the island in a virtual state of siege.

At first the Pisani plan seemed to placate Jean-Marie Tjibaou, leader of the Liberation Front. But at week's end Tjibaou declared that his party would be content with nothing less than complete sovereignty. The caldoches continue to argue that the Pisani plan would lead to a Kanak takeover. Pisani declared a state of emergency throughout the territory, including a dawn-to-dusk curfew. In Paris, where Premier Laurent Fabius dispatched 1,000 fresh troops to New Caledonia, a political uproar was brewing. Right-wing opponents of President Francois Mitterrand's Socialist government joined the island's French community in denouncing the Pisani plan.