Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
Sentenced at the end of June 2009 to a year in prison for hindering the circulation of an aircraft'' [click HERE for background information to the struggle], Gérard Jodar is one of very few trade unionists to be imprisoned in France –- and his lawyers’ application for a lesser sentence has just been rejected by the appeals judge of the Noumea Supreme Court.
Gérard Jodar explains the conditions of his detention as well as the situation on thePebble’’ [the nickname for New Caledonia, the colonial name for the South Pacific territory of Kanaky, which remains a colonial possession of France — translator].
First, how are you?
Gérard Jodar – I’m fine because I’m being supported by a lot of militants, a collective and my family. I’m in Camp Est [Noumea], the only prison in [Kanaky], and this experience is very enlightening. What I’ve witnessed is terrible.
First of all, 97% of the prisoners are young Kanaks [the Indigenous people of Kanaky]. The prison, intended for 190 detainees, has 417. There are five or six of us in filthy 11-square metre cells. We’re allowed a half-hour walk in a small yard in the morning and afternoon. There’s no education program in the prison to facilitate the young prisoners’ reintegration into society. We’re only allowed two visits of half an hour each week.
The food falls far short of meeting our needs and normal standards. When I think that France is the country of human rights… Well done! A parliamentary delegation needs to come and write a report and back up what I’m saying. From the side of the prison staff, things aren’t any better: understaffed, poor working conditions, the guards are discouraged. We’re still in a colony and not very far from the convict era.
What are you accused of ?
We’re victims of the brutality of the state through the actions of the Nouméa police and public prosecutor. Since the beginning of 2008 we’ve been attacked twice by several hundred police and mobile guards, although our mobilisations, within the framework of legal general strikes, were peaceful. In the last conflict, that of Aircal [Air Caledonia, a local airline], during the violent assault by police, 28 of us were forced to find refuge inside two planes whose doors were open, in order to protect ourselves and wait for the end of the confrontations.
We all went to court, and for exactly the same actions, our sentences range from a fine, through to suspended sentences, to 12 months in prison for the head of our construction union and myself. These decisions are totally discriminatory, if not surreal. We were given no hearing, despite the request of our lawyers, and it was a charge-only’’ trial.
{{And now you’re in detention, are you being made into a symbol of resistance to the Caledonian authorities and bosses?}}
To be a symbol isn’t one of my ambitions. Above all, I want to be and remain a militant who fights for greater social justice, for a fair and effective sharing of wealth, for a redistribution in favour of the Kanak people and for the construction of a multicultural country within the framework of a community with a future. Unfortunately, here, it’s easier to make a politician’s speech than to show sincerity and intellectual honesty. Most of the bosses don’t like the USTKE because our union doesn’t hesitate to mobilise its members or denounce the aberrant distribution of wealth. A quarter of the population lives below the poverty line while another part lives in opulence and luxury.
{{According to the high commissioner [colonial governor]of the [French] Republic, Yves Dassonville,Aircal was a pretext. What USTKE was really trying to do was create tension’’. What do you think of this statement?
Certain people in our country have to stop fantasising. Since I’ve been in prison, I’ve heard a lot of rubbish about this conflict. If, as we had hoped, the negotiations had started at the beginning of the strike, and not several months later, the conflict would have been resolved straight away, and nothing of what happened would have taken place. But, as I told you, we mustn’t overlook the fact that we are a pro-independence union and that the state, the bosses and the local right wing dream of only one thing, to see the USTKE disappear. There too, they’ve got to stop fantasising.
José Bové has accused Yves Dassonville of throwing oil on the fire’’. Do you share this analysis? Do you think Dassonville should keep his job?}}
In 30 years, I’ve never seen a high commissioner give such brutal instructions or speak in such an extreme way, on the pretext of maintaining law and order. We’re not in a country of thugs, as he likes to call us. He hasn’t considered our country’s culture and that’s serious. It would be preferable for him to be tranferred elsewhere and for someone more diplomatic to take his place.
{{As the conflict worsened, contingents of young people were observed alongside the USTKE. How do you explain this common front?}}
First of all, I’d like to denounce the high commissioner’s statement that the USTKE enrolled and armed the youth to use them against the state to destabilise the country. Another declaration which illustrates his lack of awareness of reality.
I’d also like to say that I condemn the vandalising and looting of businesses and public facilities.
I’ve had the opportunity to mix a lot with young people: they don’t believe in contemporary politics anymore, they no longer have confidence in [political] institutions and they have no job prospects.
When one no longer has hope in the future, or even has a future, then one reacts by reflex! When they see unionists getting bashed by the police, when they hear the extreme language used against [the unionists], what do young people think? Let’s fight next to them, maybe it will create an awareness which could bring about a behavioural change in our favour.
The youth is the future of the country, to keep it out of the equation is to ruin any hope of living [together] in a country where there would be a place for everyone.
{{What do you expect from the French government and Marie-Luce Penchard, the secretary of state for overseas territories?}}
The French government needs to fully respect the provisions of the Nouméa Accord of 1998. These agreements have to lead to real decolonisation, and it’s therefore fundamental that sincerity prevails in this process. If the Kanak people and the country’s citizens feel betrayed, their reactions will be strong. Marie-Luce Penchard came to visit for the first time and she hasn’t got a good grasp of how things are. She stayed on the surface, at the side of her local right-wing colleagues. It’s a pity.
{{The local chamber of commerce and industry has accused your organisation of taking the New Caledonian economy hostage …}}
The chamber of commerce and industry, which happens to have split recently, has only one focus, to increase profits for a minority under the guise of economic development. Many employers earn a lot of money here, but invest this money elsewhere.
The chamber of commerce is fundamentally anti-independence and never stops telling us that here, we’re in France. So why is the minimum wage lower here, why are social benefits inferior? When we ask certain employers this, they answer:Consider yourselves lucky that we’re giving you work!’’
What are the links between the USTKE, the CGT [General Confederation of Labour, the second-largest main union federation in metropolitan France] and Olivier Besancenot’s New Anti-Capitalist party (NPA)?
Strong, fraternal links designed to reinforce our determination to change things. During the last electoral campaign, we chose the slogan Another world is on the move’’ because we are people of the land and what we see day after day is nauseating. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a minority while the majority gets poorer. Most political speeches are deliberately misleading, and in a small country like ours, they are remote-controlled by the employers.
{{What has changed since the Matignon Accords of 1988?}}
The USTKE was the only trade union organisation to have signed the Matignon-Oudinot accords in the person of its founding president, Louis Kotra Uregei. At first these accords were acease-fire’’, which put an end to the events of 1984-1988.
For us these accords, followed by those of Nouméa, have to lead to the reconquest of sovereignty. This sovereignty should give us complete authority to manage our country. To choose our systems of social and economic development, health and education. To decide on our international relations. The accords, therefore, have to commit to this direction so that we can build together this multinational country for which we are fighting.
But with a very important condition, that of re-establishing the Kanak people to its rightful place as the indigenous people, the only people to be colonised, at the centre of this new country. Unfortunately, many people would still have you believe that independence means poverty, anarchy and the exclusion of those who want only one thing – absolutely nothing to change, because they live well and selfishly.
It’s worth mentioning that these moralists don’t stop talking about democracy and freedom in a country where there is only one television channel, belonging to the state, one daily newspaper and five radio stations. In these conditions, how can you imagine any real freedom of speech?
Clearly, the right-wing political authorities make mileage out of [the situation] by broadcasting a message systematically based on luckily we are French, otherwise…!’’
I’ve asked for public debates about our approach towards independence with right-wing parliamentarians on television and radio. For the moment, the response is that no one wants to lower themselves to dialogue with us on this topic. I’d also like to say that we’re pro-independence but not anti-French, and this hotchpotch of ideas, still widespread, is unworthy.
{{Are the recent troubles due to the big wave of immigration from metropolitan France that New-Caledonia has experienced in the last 10 years?}}
It’s true, since civil peace has returned to the country, we’ve witnessed a growing wave of immigration from France. The Kanak people and those who have been recognised as victims of history are going to become a minority if nothing is done. We’ve asked for a law to protect these people’s access to jobs.
A bill was prepared, but it doesn’t respond strongly enough to our aspirations. When you know about the economic crisis in France and the ease with which those who land here have in finding work to the detriment of the country’s citizens, you can only be shocked.
You know, in the tribes or the poor suburbs and squats, Nouméa, the capital, is calledWhite City’’ because there are only Europeans there. We’ve got to stop this sort of immigration, whose only goals are the sea, sun and cash.
How do you see the situation in the country?
If all the desirable skills are transferred before the 2014 referendum, if the fear-mongering stops, if the will to construct a prosperous country within the framework of a real community with a future, through the redistribution of wealth, is effectively put in place, there is every hope of success. In the opposite case, if there’s no emancipation through the reparation of damages due to colonisation, then hope will be in vain.
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