Kanak Rebels Call Hostages ‘War Prisoners’ : Stand Firm in Response to Shelling by French

Melanesian separatists declared Sunday that 23 French hostages they have been holding since last month in a heavily fortified cave are now considered “prisoners of war.” The separatists’ leaders called on the United Nations to send an independent commission to investigate what it calls “France’s colonial war” in this South Pacific island territory.

In a communique issued by what they call their Politburo, the separatists said the hardening of their position on the hostages and on the sporadic violence that has been breaking out elsewhere in this territory was directly linked to the French navy’s shelling of a beach-front separatist camp Saturday.

The naval assault marked the first direct entry by the French military into the conflict, which claimed seven lives last week and left four more French gendarmes wounded in additional fighting Sunday morning.

“Everyone can see now that the French colonial army is using practically all weapons except nuclear ones in their efforts to crush the existence of the Kanak people,” the communique stated, using the ethnic name the Melanesians call themselves.

War of Words

In keeping with what has largely been a war of words in this nonetheless deeply troubled French territory, the communique added that the separatists decided to call their French hostages “prisoners of war” only after the French government labeled the separatists as “rebels” on Saturday.

Noting that France’s rightist Premier Jacques Chirac called them “terrorists” last week, the Kanak leaders stated: “Now they are calling us rebels. We do not reject this word . . . but we shall carry on rejecting the word hostage pertaining to the people detained (in the cave) just like we refuse the word terrorists.”

French officials in Noumea refused to take part in the war of words Sunday.

In a brief statement, Philippe Berges, spokesman for the French High Commission here, announced that the government is reimposing a partial news blackout by suspending its daily press briefings.

‘Grave, Delicate Problem’

He called the hostage drama “an extremely grave and delicate problem,” and Berges said in a statement that his announcement of Saturday’s naval assault near the town of Puebo, 170 miles from Noumea, “could have a negative influence on contacts with the kidnapers and could even endanger the lives of the hostages.”

Berges and other French officials here declined to confirm or deny reports on local radio and television stations that Kanak rebels had shot and wounded four additional French gendarmes near the town of Canala.

Separatist leaders, however, did comment, vowing that there will be more such attacks if the French government fails to negotiate a settlement to the crisis that would lead to eventual independence for the islands, which the Kanaks consider their homeland.

“Four today, four next week, four the week after,” Leopold Joredie, general secretary of the largest of half a dozen factions within the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front, told reporters of the four wounded gendarmes.

“Then we will ask, ‘Is that enough, or do you want more?’ ”

The more militant factions of the Kanaks, who make up 43% of New Caledonia’s largely European and Polynesian population of 145,000, maintain that the French stole their homeland from them when they conquered and colonized New Caledonia’s three main island groups beginning in the mid-1800s.

Vote Results Rejected

The separatists reject the results of a referendum held last September, when the New Caledonians voted overwhelmingly in favor of remaining a territory of France. Most of the Kanaks boycotted the vote, and leaders now say they have planned for several months to conduct the current destabilization campaign to coincide with French presidential elections, which will conclude next Sunday.

The separatist leaders say they are hoping for a victory by France’s incumbent Socialist President Francois Mitterrand, who, while condemning the recent hostage taking, has consistently advocated negotiation rather than military action to find a political solution to the crisis here.

Most of the recent French military buildup in New Caledonia, where there are now about 8,000 soldiers and gendarmes, has been ordered by Chirac, who is Mitterrand’s rival for the presidency and who has long supported a hard-line position against the secessionist group, which he labels “a band of terrorists.”

Noting that Mitterrand is running far ahead in the opinion polls, one Kanak leader said Sunday that the hostage crisis may remain unresolved until after next Sunday’s final round of voting in France, with the rebels hoping that a victorious Mitterrand would be lenient with the kidnapers.

4 Gendarmes Slain

The French government already has acknowledged that the group of about 40 heavily armed Kanaks who initially took the hostages April 22 hacked three French gendarmes to death with axes and shot a fourth to death. Their leader has been described as a Libyan-trained fanatic who is capable of killing all of the remaining hostages, among them the chief of a crack anti-terrorist squad of the gendarmes who was seized when he entered the cave to negotiate with the kidnapers several days after the initial hostage taking.