Reporting

In the shuttle from the airport, excited

tourists comment with surprise at the

armoured trucks and check points.

Gendarmes with assault rifles slung over

their shoulders are stalking in the sub-

tropical vegetation by the side of the road.

I am masquerading as a tourist. My

contacts believe they have had phones

tapped and bank accounts cancelled, and

they have insisted on caution. Wear a

Hawaiian shirt or pineapple sunglasses, they

advised.

I stay on the shuttle as it drops the

real tourists to their luxury resorts dotted

around the beautiful, glistening southern

coastline of the capital Noumea.

Kanaky (New Caledonia) was

invaded by the French in 1853 and

established as a penal colony. Nickel was

discovered and within a decade mining was

widespread. From there it was the settler

colony playbook: massacres, enslavement,

imprisonment, reserves, protectionism, and

then assimilationism in the 20th Century…

Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Sed a ligula quis sapien lacinia egestas.

Mauris id fermentum nulla. Vivamus a ante congue, porta nunc nec, hendrerit turpis.