AUCKLAND: (Cafe Pacific / Pacific Scoop / Pacific Media Watch): A new feature film exposing French political intrigue that ended with the slaughter of 19 Kanak pro-independence militants in a remote cave in 1988 and allegations of gross human rights violations will be screened at the New Zealand International Film festival later this month.
Armed with machetes, axes and a handful of sporting guns, hooded Kanak militants attacked the Fayaoué gendarme post on Ouvéa island on April 22, killed four gendarmes and seized 27 paramilitary hostages. Eleven were later released.
The hostages were abducted and taken to a cave near Gossanah where a French military assault on May 5 killed all the militants while peaceful negotiations were under way.
Some commentators regarded the slaughter of the Kanak nationalists as a cynical plan to gain political points for Jacques Chirac who was contesting the presidency in a second and decisive round the following Sunday.
Allegations of torture followed the massacre.
French director Mathieu Kassovitz has made the gripping film about the events based on a book by the key negotiator involved who believed he could have achieved a peaceful resolution.
FLASHBACK TO 1988: Excerpt from David Robie’s 1989 book Blood on their Banner about the cave massacre of 19 Kanak militants by French troops at dawn on 5 May 1988 on Ouvéa in the Loyalty Islands:
Leaders of the [pro-independence] FLNKS immediately challenged the official version of the attack. Léopold Jorédie issued a statement in which he questioned how the “Ouvéa massacre left 19 dead among the nationalists and no one injured” and the absence of bullet marks on the trees and empty cartridges on the ground at the site”. [Yéiwene] Yéiwene insisted that at no time did the kidnappers intend to kill the hostages – “this whole massacre was engineered by [then Overseas Territories Minister Bernard] Pons who knew very well there was never any question of killing the hostages”. [Nidoish] Naisseline also condemned the action: “Pons and Chirac have behaved like assassins.” – Blood on their Banner, p. 277.
REBELLION [L’ordre et la morale] 2012:
In his most visceral and impassioned outing since 1995’s La Haine, Mathieu Kassovitz dramatises the extraordinary French military response to a New Caledonia hostage-taking in 1988. Starring as Philippe Legorjus, a captain in an elite counter-terrorist division hastily despatched to the Pacific territory, Kassovitz leads a uniformly excellent cast. Upon arrival, he discovers that the French army has been deployed too. Legorjus’ efforts to achieve a resolution through negotiation with the indigenous Kanak independence group clash with the blunter approach of the army and a different agenda from above.
His attempts to earn the trust of the hostage takers’ leader [Alphonse Dianou], depicted in scenes of searing intensity, are constantly imperilled by a political battle playing out in Paris. Prime Minister Jacques Chirac is challenging François Mitterrand for the presidency, and the distant conflict has become a central issue. Chirac is determined that the rebellion be quelled – by whatever means. And time is running out.
Based on the Legorjus memoir, Rebellion has all the seat-edge of a thriller, buttressed by a real political heft. It delivers a gripping illustration of the bloody, expedient and far-reaching potential impact of colonial powers’ internal political squabbles. – NZ International Film Festival, July 2012
Rebellion is perhaps to the Kanak struggle what Balibo (portraying the killing of the Balibo Five journalists and Roger East) is to East Timor in popularising Pacific pro-independence campaigns on a global stage.
The film will be shown at the NZ International Film Festival at the Civic, Auckland, on Monday, July 23, at 8.45pm and two other screenings and also at other venues around New Zealand.
* More information on Blood on their Banner: Nationalist struggles in the South Pacific
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Pacific Media Watch
