Word: caledonia
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...past year, 22 people have been killed in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, where native Melanesians seeking an independent nation are pitted against French settlers who want rule by Paris to continue. But there was surprising calm last week when voters chose a 46-member territorial congress as the first step in France's plan to give New Caledonia greater autonomy before a referendum on limited independence is held in 1987. The peaceful balloting was due in part to 162 French magistrates who served as poll watchers, and 3,500 French gendarmes...
...within the Cabinet and the Socialist Party. Le Monde, among others, charged that the true saboteurs of the Rainbow Warrior were neither the jailed pair of French agents nor the three-man crew of the spy yacht Ouvea, which allegedly had been sent from the French territory of New Caledonia to back up the operation. The real hitmen, claimed Le Monde, were two unidentified frogmen, probably from France's underwater demolition training base in Corsica, who were supplied with explosives by the support teams. They were said to have attached two mines to the Rainbow Warrior, first a smaller charge...
...scandal has seriously aggravated France's diplomatic problems in the South Pacific, where the French are unpopular because of both their colonial presence in New Caledonia and their nuclear-testing policy. New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange, whose government earlier this month joined twelve other regional nations in urging a nuclear-free zone in the South Pacific, has called the French tests "deplorable." Lange has promised to sue the French government if its responsibility for the Rainbow Warrior bombing is proved...
...followers were gathered. In a dawn raid, Machoro and one of his aides, Marcel Nornaro, were killed. Jean-Marie Tjibaou, the president of a provisional Kanak government formed last month by the Liberation Front, charged that Machoro had been "assassinated" with Pisani's blessing. New Caledonia's High Commission had already issued a report claiming the deaths had been accidental...
...Pisani's independence plan. The proposal is an attempt to forge a compromise between two groups: the Kanaks, who make up a minority (42.5%) of the population of 145,000, and the caldoches and Asian and South Pacific immigrants, who are in the majority. Under the Pisani plan, New Caledonia would become a sovereign nation but remain "associated" with France, which has ruled it since 1853. Political representatives of the French settlers have already rejected the plan because, they claim, it would give the Kanaks effective control. Machoro's death also turned moderate Kanaks against the proposal. "We will stay...