Legislator Sees Political Fallout in Polynesia

Eni Faleomavaega, a Polynesian member of Congress just back from Mururoa atoll, predicted Wednesday that the resumption of French nuclear testing in the South Pacific will increase support for the independence movement in French Polynesia and lead to violence on the main island of Tahiti.

“Tahiti is a time bomb, and it will be on [French] President [Jacques] Chirac’s head if people start losing their lives,” said Faleomavaega, a Democrat who is the non-voting delegate representing American Samoa in the U.S. House of Representatives. He and Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) are the only members of Congress of Polynesian descent.

Even as the delegate predicted violence, news dispatches from Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia, reported that the nearby international airport had been set ablaze as hundreds of stone-throwing Tahitian protesters battled with French riot police.

Faleomavaega, who was arrested over the weekend by French commandos seizing the Greenpeace protest ship Rainbow Warrior 2, acknowledged that the independence movement led by Oscar Temaru, the mayor of the town of Faaa, now controls only five of 41 seats in the territorial assembly of the French colony.

But, the delegate said in an interview, “a lot more Tahitians will look more seriously at the issues that Mr. Temaru has been fighting for. . . . I think the independence movement is gaining a lot more ground now. The Tahitians have seen the light.”

Faleomavaega insisted that the renewal of tests has also infuriated French Polynesians by discouraging tourists from going to the main island of Tahiti. This fury, he said, could bring more violence.

Most news reports tend to underestimate the extent of the anger, Faleomavaega said, because the reporters speak with French officials and shopkeepers rather than with ordinary Polynesian residents.

Faleomavaega, whose wife is Tahitian, said his arrest aboard Rainbow Warrior 2 provided him with evidence that “Tahiti is an example of French colonialism at its worst.”