For Kanak cultural and political leader Emmanuel Tjibaou, 2024 has been quite the year.
On 13 May, after months of peaceful protest, New Caledonia erupted in violence as young people rioted across the capital Noumea and neighbouring towns. Independence supporters soon began a series of protests and clashes with French security forces, which lasted for six months, leaving 14 dead, a shattered economy, and political division.
In June, as French President Emmanuel Macron called snap elections for France’s National Assembly in Paris, Emmanuel Tjibaou was chosen as a candidate for New Caledonia’s independence and nationalist movement. Running in the islands’ second constituency against conservative leader Alcide Ponga, Tjibaou won a stunning victory with 57% of the vote. It was the first time in 38 years that a pro-independence Kanak had won a seat in the French legislature.
Then in November, Tjibaou was elected as President of Union Calédonienne (UC), the oldest political party in New Caledonia and the largest member of the independence coalition Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS). After outgoing UC president Daniel Goa announced that he would not seek re-election, Tjibaou was the only candidate for the party presidency.
At just 48, Tjibaou’s new prominence symbolises the rise of a new generation of political leadership not only in New Caledonia, but also across Melanesia and the wider Pacific. For this reason, Islands Business has named him ‘Pacific Person of the Year’.
Tjibaou now faces multiple challenges. Within UC, a new, younger executive elected in November must persuade radicalised Kanak protesters that a path of dialogue and negotiation remains important. With other FLNKS members Palika and UPM angered by UC policy and suspending their involvement in the coalition, Tjibaou must try to reunite the movement, divided over the best way forward in looming political status talks.
At a time of major political crisis in France—with two Prime Ministers dismissed since July—Tjibaou must work with parliamentary colleagues in the National Assembly on economic reform and assistance for his homeland. Above all, given his strong commitment to independence for New Caledonia, he must persuade pro-French New Caledonians that the legacies of this year’s conflict can be bridged through dialogue, reconciliation, and consensus.
It’s a significant burden for the young leader, especially because he has limited experience as a politician. For most of his working life, he has focused on promoting Kanak languages, culture, and identity.
New generation
As the second of six children of Jean-Marie and Marie-Claude Tjibaou, Emmanuel comes from a family that has been at the heart of New Caledonian life for many decades.
Staunch members of the Catholic church, the Tjibaou clan are customary leaders of the Wérap and Tiendanite tribes in the Hoot ma Whaap cultural region, in the mountains above the northern town of of Hienghène. His mother, Marie-Claude Wetta, came from the Tchamba-Naweta tribe near the east coast town of Ponérihouen, in the Paicî customary region.
After schooling in the capital Noumea, Emmanuel Tjibaou studied the ethnolinguistics of Kanak languages in France, at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations (INALCO) in Paris.
Returning to New Caledonia, he began working with the Agence de développement de la culture kanak (ADCK), the agency that manages cultural programs and also the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre – a striking complex that is a hub for artistic display and research in Noumea. In 2011, he was appointed as director of the Cultural Centre, pledging to “take the centre beyond its walls, out into the neighbourhoods”. He later relocated to New Caledonia’s Northern Province to serve as director of cultural programs in the rural north. Only this year did he stand for political office.
It’s a path that has interesting parallels to other young politicians in the region, like Ralph Regenvanu in neighbouring Vanuatu. Regenvanu is the eldest son of Presbyterian church leaders Sethy and Dorothy Regenvanu, both pivotal figures in the New Hebrides campaign for independence from France and Britain. Ralph studied anthropology and indigenous languages, and was a driving force in the creation of the music festival Fest’Napuan. As director of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, he mounted campaigns on oral history, protection of intangible cultural heritage, and promoting the traditional economy.
Then, founding the Graon mo Jastis Pati (Land and Justice Party) in 2010, Ralph Regenvanu entered politics, serving in a minister in several governments over the last decade. Today, he is Vanuatu’s Special Envoy for Climate Change, and last month led his nation’s campaign to seek an advisory opinion on climate change and human rights from the International Court of Justice.
Family history
Like Regenvanu, Emmanuel Tjibaou carries the weight of family history and the expectations of successive generations of independence supporters.
His late father, Jean-Marie, remains an iconic figure in the Kanak struggle for self-determination, honoured by statues in the Place des Cocotiers—Noumea’s main square—and at the Cultural Centre that bears his name. After Jean-Marie Tjibaou took a leading role in Union Calédonienne in the 1970s, a central feature of his work was promoting Kanak culture
and identity, which had been marginalised in French colonial society. In 1975, he organised the Melanesia 2000 festival, an unprecedented celebration of indigenous culture, music, and dance. Two years later, UC called for independence rather than greater autonomy within the French Pacific dependency.
On 1 December 1984, Jean-Marie Tjibaou raised the flag of Kanaky for the first time, as he declared the Provisional Government of Kanaky: “In 1853, our country saw the French tricolour raised at Balade, robbing Kanaky of its sovereignty. Today, we take up the challenge and hoist this flag.”
Tjibaou then led the FLNKS through the four years of conflict between 1984-88 known as Les évènements, which culminated in the May 1988 Ouvea massacre. Shaking hands with anti-independence leader, Jacques Lafleur, and signing the Matignon-Oudinot agreements, Tjibaou made the gamble that peace and dialogue was the way forward. It cost him his life.
On 4 May 1989, Kanak activist Djubelli Wea shot and killed Tjibaou and his lieutenant, Yeiwene Yeiwene, on the island of Ouvea, as they marked the death of 19 Kanaks a year before.
Just 13 when his father was assassinated, Emmanuel Tjibaou has since walked a long road for understanding and reconciliation. Memory and apology play a crucial role. A small plaque marks Jean-Marie Tjibaou’s grave in Tiendanite: “Pardon – do kan ôdavi vin mala da – so a new dawn can rise.”
Reconciliation and dialogue
In later years, customary and church leaders assisted the family and clans of the two slain UC leaders to reconcile with the family of their killer. In 2019, on the 30th anniversary of his father’s death, I travelled to Tiendanite and spoke with Emmanuel about the importance of reconciliation, memory and history – he stressed that the strength of Kanak culture made reconciliation possible. As is common across Melanesia, after fighting, there must be dialogue and a breaking of bows and arrows to rebuild community harmony.
“Just as in Papua New Guinea, or Solomon Islands, or Vanuatu, custom is what makes us Pacific Islanders,” he told me. “The yam, the sacred, respect for others, respect for the community, the dimension of justice, of sharing: it was through these cultural values that we were able to reconcile with the family of Djubelli Wea, who killed my father.”
Today, many New Caledonians hope that Tjibaou can draw on this experience to reach out to other non-Kanak communities, battered by the five months after conflict that erupted on 13 May. He must also inspire the young Kanak activists who faced off against police for months on the barricades, with 2600 arrests and many youth jailed.
Already, there are signs that Tjibaou can maintain UC’s strong commitment to independence while also reaching out to others. During his electoral campaign for the French National Assembly, Tjibaou’s running mate was Amandine Darras, a young Caldoche environmentalist from the rural town of Bourail. At UC’s party congress in November, Darras was elected as UC deputy secretary general, as part of the new leadership team.
Choosing Tjibaou as 2024 Pacific Person of the Year, Islands Business acknowledges this role as a cultural leader and negotiator – skills that are not only important for post-conflict New Caledonia, but also for other nations riven by conflict in the region.
From the beginning of this year’s crisis in New Caledonia, the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) have called for dialogue and an end to violence. The MSG has played an important role at the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonisation, calling on France to meet its obligations under international law. In October, the Forum deployed a monitoring mission with three Prime Ministers, a Foreign Minister, and the Secretary General and Deputy Secretary General of the Forum Secretariat.
It was the highest-level delegation ever sent on a Forum mission to New Caledonia, and a recognition that this year’s crisis has important regional implications. The future of
self-determination will remain on the regional agenda, as struggles continue in Bougainville, West Papua, and other parts of the region.
Tjibaou’s hope is that the spirit of reconciliation in New Caledonia will “inspire others—in Bougainville, in Solomon Islands—to bridge the gulf between combatants and
their clans still living with the loss. We hope to share our experience of reconciliation, in the tradition of Wantok – one way, one spirit.”
