Noumea, France | AFP | Monday 06/24/2024 – Violence resumed within the night time from Sunday to Monday in New Caledonia after the indictment and imprisonment in mainland France of a number of independence activists, their group demanding their “launch” and their “fast return”.
“The night time was agitated and marked by disturbances throughout the entire of Grande-Terre (the principle island, editor’s notice), on the Isle of Pines and Maré, requiring the intervention of quite a few reinforcements,” reported the Excessive Fee.
In Dumbéa, north of the Noumea metropolitan space, the municipal police premises and a storage have been set on fireplace, added the State consultant within the French territory of the South Pacific in a press launch.
4 armored gendarmerie autos intervened, famous an AFP journalist, whereas hooded activists positioned behind makeshift barricades threw projectiles in the direction of the police and insulted them.
A 23-year-old man in a state of “respiratory misery” died within the night time after going to roadblocks in Nouméa, introduced the general public prosecutor of Nouméa, Yves Dupas.
The prosecutor’s workplace has opened an investigation, the Justice of the Peace added, specifying that the sufferer had assured his mother and father that he had not been “injured by the police”.
A motorist “pressured to show round because of a roadblock constructed by independence activists”, based on firefighters, additionally died on Sunday night from a head-on collision with one other automobile in Païta, within the city space of Nouméa .
– “Colonial techniques” –
This resurgence of pressure comes after the switch to mainland France, through the night time from Saturday to Sunday, of a number of Caledonian independence figures together with Christian Tein, the spokesperson for the Discipline Motion Coordination Unit (CCAT).
Authorities accuse the CCAT of fomenting the riots that started on Could 13 after the vote on a constitutional invoice reforming the citizens for the provincial elections scheduled for late 2024.
This motion refuted this questioning.
The professional-independence camp rejects this reform, which it accuses of lowering the political weight of the Kanaks.
This violence, essentially the most severe to have occurred within the archipelago because the Eighties, has left 9 lifeless and appreciable materials injury (fires, destruction, looting, and so on.), based on the most recent report from the authorities.
On Monday, the CCAT demanded “the discharge and fast return” of its activists in order that they are often “judged on their land” and denounced France’s “colonial techniques”.
Arrested throughout a large-scale raid on Wednesday, its eleven activists have been charged specifically with complicity in tried homicide, armed theft by an organized gang, and destruction by an organized gang of one other’s property by harmful means.
9 of them have been positioned in pre-trial detention, with Christian Tein, for instance, having to be imprisoned in Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin).
Amongst these 9, two requested a deferred debate earlier than the choose, scheduled for Tuesday, together with Joël Tjibaou, one of many sons of the independence chief Jean-Marie Tjibaou assassinated in 1989.
– Reactivation of the airlift –
“The removing of Kanak independence leaders from the CCAT greater than 17,000 km from their houses as a part of their placement in pre-trial detention severely violates their proper to non-public and household life,” the League denounced in a press launch. of Human Rights (LDH).
Throughout the night time from Sunday to Monday, clashes additionally passed off between police and separatists in Bourail, 200 km north of Nouméa, leaving one injured, based on the authorities.
The Excessive Fee additionally reported “abuses, destruction and tried fires (…) in a number of locations in Païta”, within the Nouméa metropolitan space.
In complete, 1,493 folks have been arrested because the begin of the unrest, together with 38 on Monday.
The street resulting in the airport was blocked early Monday afternoon because of a clearance operation by the police, based on AFP journalists.
The air bridge between the Magenta aerodrome, situated within the district of the identical identify in Noumea, and the La Tontouta worldwide airport, which was because of be utterly lifted on Monday, has been reactivated, introduced the Chamber of Commerce and Business (CCI), supervisor of the infrastructure.
On Monday morning, many colleges have been closed because of the renewed violence and the expressway resulting in the hospital was blocked.