New Caledonia: FLNKS separatists calls for boycott of December 12 referendum

Published on : 10/21/2021 – 01:17

The date had already been deemed too early for some of the separatists. The Front de Liberation Nationale Kanak Socialiste (FLNKS) went further by calling, on the night of Wednesday 20 to Thursday 21 October, for the “non-participation” in the referendum on the independence of New Caledonia on 12 December, in due to the Covid-19 epidemic in the archipelago, denouncing “the State’s decision to maintain it at all costs”.

“The government insists on wanting to prioritize the presidential campaign with the sole aim of settling the Noumea agreement under its five-year term,” the Political Bureau of the independence coalition said in a statement.

This stance comes the day after Sébastien Lecornu’s visit to New Caledonia, during which the Kanak independence leaders requested the postponement of this third consultation, in view of the virulent Covid-19 epidemic, which left 245 dead since early September. Conversely, the loyalists advocate its retention.

According to the FLNKS, “the attitude of the State will deprive the Caledonians of a consultation which should take place beforehand with a fair electoral campaign”, which according to him is not possible because of the various containment measures in vigor and epidemic.

“The FLNKS is concerned about the aftermath of a consultation which, if challenged, will not provide the necessary serenity for the continuation of consensual discussions on the institutional future of the country.”

A postponement envisaged in the event of an “epidemic out of control”

During his trip, Sébastien Lecornu estimated that the health situation “is tense but held” while the epidemic due to the coronavirus is receding and the tension has dropped in hospital services.

He had declared that “only an epidemic out of control” could lead to a postponement of the third and last referendum of the Noumea Accord (1998), a process of progressive decolonization.

With AFP