The 5,000 participants demanded the withdrawal of a nickel prospecting permit in the Prony region, granted by French authorities to Goro Nickel, which is majority-owned by the Canadian mining company Inco.

Militant reporters who visited this French colony in the South Pacific in the first week of September were able to speak to people in the area, along with other fighters for sovereignty, and gain a picture of the centrality of the nickel industry to the fight by the indigenous Kanak people and others for national development and control over the islands’ resources.

The protest was called by the Collective for the Defense and the Control of the Mining Patrimony of Prony (CDMPP). The collective includes diverse forces, from independence fighters of the indigenous Kanak population, environmentalists, and women’s rights activists, to the Alliance, a party that supports French colonial rule.

"We are now going to fight like the Inuits of Canada fought, and obtained what they wanted," said Victor Tutugoro, spokesperson of the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), a coalition of pro-independence parties that is supported by the overwhelming majority of Kanaks.

Further national protests against the Goro project have been called for September 27.

Many residents of the area told the Militant that they oppose the mine development. Concern for its environmental impact, and especially that of the smelter scheduled for construction nearby, helped to build participation in the August 30 protest.

The smelter, which will be located on a 150-acre site, will extract the nickel using new technology in which the mine slurry is subjected to heat and pressure and treated with sulfuric acid to yield both nickel and cobalt. The byproducts are neutralized, the solid waste becomes landfill, and the waste water is pumped out to sea. Little is known about the long-term effects of this process on land, water, and living beings.

A pilot plant using these techniques currently produces 12 metric tons of nickel each year. The planned smelter will produce 50,000 tons. In the context of the high unemployment among Kanaks, many people in the area also expressed concern about plans to bring in 1,500 workers from the Philippines to work in the smelter’s construction.

Two weeks after the protest, Radio Australia reported that the company managing work at the Goro site had suspended operations. Following recent blockades of the site by the employees of a subcontractor, Goro Nickel has recalled its mostly Australian expatriate workers from the islands.  
 
A colony of French imperialism
New Caledonia’s nickel reserves offer a considerable stake for the French imperialists in seeking to maintain their colonial grip in the face of repeated struggles for independence.

The territory was annexed by France in 1853. Paris stationed troops here and ruled the territory as one of its Pacific properties, in part by fostering divisions between the Kanaks--consigned to a second-class status and subject to vicious racism--and the colons, or settlers from France. Within 25 years the opposition of the indigenous Kanak people had grown into organized resistance.

In the 1980s the French rulers responded violently to an upsurge in the fight for independence, massacring Kanak activists and assassinating leaders of the independence struggle. By 1988 New Caledonia was occupied by 10,000 French military personnel. The total population of the islands is 196,870, and Kanaks are the largest national grouping at 44 percent of the total, or 86,800 people, according to the 1996 census.

Unable to quell the Kanak struggle in spite of this repression, the French government was compelled to negotiate with representatives of the independence movement. The result was the 1988 Matignon Accord, which established three provincial assemblies, two of which, the Northern Province and the Loyalty Islands, are governed by the FLNKS. Much the wealthiest region, the Southern province, which includes the capital, Nouméa, is dominated by forces that back continued French colonial rule, in particular the right-wing Rally for Caledonia within the Republic (RPCR).

Ten years later the Nouméa Accord called for a gradual transfer of power from the French government, with a referendum on independence to be held in 15 to 20 years.  
 
The colonial booty of nickel
In 2001, nickel accounted for 90 percent of New Caledonia’s export earnings. The territory is the world’s third largest producer of the metal after Russia and Canada, with an estimated quarter of the world’s reserves.

Nickel’s resistance to corrosion and heat makes it indispensable in many industrial processes and thousands of products, including stainless steel and other metal alloys, circuit boards, and batteries.

The market for the valuable metal is highly cyclical. From 2000 to 2001, for example, the price per pound declined from $3.92 to $2.19, a fall of 31 percent.

The industry is set to increase its dominance of New Caledonia’s economy with plans by Canadian companies Falconbridge and Inco to expand in both the Northern and Southern provinces. With these two major projects, the Bank of Hawaii forecasts that nickel production will rise from around 25 percent to 50 percent of New Caledonia’s gross domestic product.

Historically the industry has been controlled by a state monopoly, the Nickel Corporation (SLN), owned and operated by the French government. Over the last decade, however, SLN has had to shed some of this control in the face of Kanak demands for a share in the island’s resources. Up to 30 percent of the monopoly has been transferred to enterprises that are half-owned by provincial governments in which Kanak representatives have a majority, and half-owned by Promosud of the Southern Province.

In a deal arranged by the French government following the Matignon Accord, RPCR leader Jacques Lafleur sold his interest in the Mining Society of the South Pacific (SMSP) to a holding company run by the Northern Province government.

Under this arrangement, SMSP has emerged as a major player in New Caledonia’s mining industry, today exporting the annual equivalent of 40,000 tons of nickel ore. But this is in a raw, unsmelted form. SLN, on the other hand, exports 50,000 tons of nickel processed at its smelter in Nouméa--currently the only such operation in New Caledonia.  
 
Essential for development
Representatives of the FLNKS told the Militant that they insisted on securing further mining rights for SMSP at Koniambo in the Northern Province before signing the 1998 Nouméa Accord. SMSP plans to build a smelter in the north as a joint venture with Falconbridge--an important step, said the independence fighters, in beginning to "rebalance" the territory’s development.

Nickel is essential to the economic development of New Caledonia, said the FLNKS representatives. While Nouméa is a relatively modern industrial city, the predominantly Kanak-populated countryside has lagged far behind, including in the provision of water, electricity, and roads.

These factors bear on the controversy over the Inco mine at Goro. The mining company will import processing materials, export the ore, and dispose of the waste, providing little benefit to the population. In contrast, many Kanaks expect the new Falconbridge-SMSP smelter and associated mines to furnish working people with economic benefits.

The nickel mines are widely viewed as the national patrimony of New Caledonia–Kanaky. Newspapers here carry optimistic projections for the expansion of nickel demand based on expanding world trade. However, the reality of an unfolding world depression is already having a visible and growing impact on the industry.

Although independence fighters are still confronted with the task of wresting control of the country from France, the colonial power, the increased involvement of Canadian mining companies in the territory poses new questions for the Kanak population and other working people in New Caledonia.  
 
 
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