Papeete explodes in anger at N-test

By Norm Dixon
Years of anger and frustration at the French government's refusal to heed the wishes of the people of Tahiti have erupted into the most serious rebellion ever seen in this Pacific country. Tea Hirshon, spokesperson for the pro-independence party Tavini Huiraatira and a worker at the Te Reo o Tefana radio station, told Green Left Weekly on September 8 that two days of militant demonstrations and riots followed an unprovoked attack by French riot police on a peaceful anti-nuclear and pro-independence demonstration at the Fa'aa international airport.
Early on September 6, 400 protesters, including women and children, sat down on the main runway in a demonstration organised by trade unions in support of a general strike to protest the first French test. The protest was also backed by Tavini Huiraatira.
Two hundred French riot police, clad in black and armed with batons and shields and tear gas launchers, moved in. They marched down the runway and ordered the protesters to disperse. When protesters refused to move, cops launched scores of rounds of tear gas. Witnesses say a child was struck by a canister. Instead of leaving, the protesters fought back.
"People were sitting on the airstrip without anything in their hands — no sticks, no guns, no stones. They were shot at by the French police with tear gas grenades", Hirshon told Green Left Weekly. "When people heard about it they started to come down [from their homes in] the hills."
Hirshon said that the Tahitian people's patience snapped at that point. "We have had demonstration after demonstration — non-violent, peaceful — to ask the French not to test. We have asked, we have begged, we have warned. The Protestant Church went in the streets for the first time in its history to ask Chirac to please defer his decision. The population here obviously does not count to France, and it reacted."
Another reason for the militancy of the response is that Fa'aa, where the airport is located, is a stronghold of the independence movement. Airport workers are a pillar of Tahiti's trade union movement.
Fa'aa's population of 25,000 poor and working class Tahitians has re-elected the charismatic Oscar Temaru, leader of Tavini Huiraatira, mayor of the town at each election since 1983. There is an apartheid-like gulf between the well-off, mainly French settlers, and the poor and workers, who are overwhelmingly Polynesian. Unemployment is rife amongst the young.
"Sixty percent of the population is under 20", Hirshon explained. "A huge number of young people have been forced to drop out of school. There are no jobs, they have no skills. They live day to day. They have nothing to lose."
"For the first time in the history of this city and of our island", Oscar Temaru told Radio Australia later, "the people could hear the shooting from troops. All the people came down in solidarity with the people fighting with the French troops."
Young people flocked to the airport and anti-nuclear and pro-independence slogans were chanted. The heavily outnumbered but very well-armed riot cops were forced back. The numbers of demonstrators swelled from hundreds to thousands as the pro-independence radio station Te Reo o Tefana reported on the developments.
"It was amazing to watch the [young protesters] because there was no captains or chiefs telling them what to do", Hirshon said. Despite this, French troops and demonstrators were in a virtual stalemate for two days. Pitched battles continued with young demonstrators, covering their mouths with handkerchiefs and T-shirts to counteract the tear gas, answering volleys of tear gas canisters and stun grenades with stones, sticks, beer bottles filled with petrol and pro-independence chants.
Protesters disabled an Air France jet after a rumour went around that the conservative pro-French leader of the Territorial Assembly was on board. They commandeered a front-end loader and led an assault on the terminal which was soon in flames. Hirshon told Green Left Weekly that while young people were the overwhelmingly majority of the active participants, they were flanked by many older people.
The demonstrations spread to Papeete's town centre later that night, where protesters targeted the French High Commission and the Territorial Assembly building. Heavy security from French troops in armoured personnel carriers limited the damage to broken windows. Many businesses owned by French settlers were not so fortunate.
As the first day of militant action spilled over into the next, the French troops became more brutal. Arrested Tahitians were beaten in plain view of journalists and television cameras. Reporters were assaulted, threatened and equipment smashed. Crack French troops were flown in from the nearby Hao atoll, and more were reported to be on their way from New Caledonia and France.
Independence leader Temaru rejected claims by French officials that the protests were not a spontaneous display of anger and frustration and that he was responsible for the destruction.
"[Territorial Assembly leader] Gaston Flosse and Jacques Chirac are accountable for what is happening now", Temaru told a Radio Australia reporter. "We have used all peaceful means to tell the French to stop this [nuclear] madness. We have organised peaceful demonstrations, the churches went into the street, all the peaceful organisations have appealed to the French President to stop. Yet two days ago the French government went ahead and blew the first one. This is the reaction of the people. [Chirac] says Moruroa is part of France. We cannot accept that. The majority of population in this country is opposed to this decision."
Hirshon told Green Left Weekly that the general strike called by Tahiti's trade unions was continuing. She had heard reports that Polynesian workers on Moruroa had joined the strike but could not confirm it. She said at least 50 people were under arrest and four people had been seriously injured. Radio reports say a young Tahitian had a hand blown off by a stun grenade.
Just two hours before Green Left Weekly phoned, Hirshon reported that Oscar Temaru "went in front of the airport to ask the young people to stop the violence and follow him to the [Fa'aa] city hall, one mile down the road. A couple of hundred of them followed him and things have calmed down."
An ABC radio report said that Temaru convinced protesters from an overpass through a loudspeaker to end the riots and join the political struggle. In a remarkable demonstration of the respect and support he commands, even amongst radicalised youth who are not members of his party, Temaru led the protesters away from the airport with the youth surging ahead to push away the cars and rubble that had formed the barricades. About an hour later the area was quiet.