FRANCE’S 170-YEAR OCCUPATION OF KANAKY

The struggle against colonialism is intensifying worldwide. This video by Congolese journalist Maud-Salomé EKILA BOFUNDA (@ekilaaa) the spokeperson of the organisation @urgencespanafricanistes and @afriqueresurrection goes into the history of the indigenous Kanak people, who are confronting violent French settler colonialism and an effort to seize their lands.

What the French call ‘New Caledonia,’ aka the islands of Kanaky, an archipelago not far from Australia, has been inhabited by Pacific Islanders since around 1000 BCE. The French seized the islands in 1853 and made it an ‘overseas territory’ in 1956. Today, the French and their settlers on the island are trying to consolidate and solidify their power at the expense of the Kanak people once again.

The goal is to eliminate the the Noumea Agreement of 1998, which grants Kanak people some level of political control over their ancestral homelands. In doing so, settlers born in France who migrated to Kanaky would be allowed to participate in local elections. For decades, the strategy on the part of the French to crush the power of the Kanak people has been to encourage more and more mass French settlement on the islands.

Many Kanak, including very well organised sectors of the population, understand that their only true pathway to liberation is through full independence from France and an end to all colonial ties and relations.