'French Polynesia is becoming draped with an aura of instability it didn't have before. It has joined a burgeoning Pacific Islands country club'



One of ISLAND BUSINESS' forecasts for 2005 was that French Polynesia should be watched as one of the region's next trouble spots.

Since regaining the presidency last February from his old political adversary, Gaston Flosse, President Oscar Temaru has been presented with a sinister new foe, the Grupement d'Intervention de La Polynesia (GIP).

This was created by Mr Flosse ostensibly to create work for young men by employing them on construction jobs and as hands for hurricane repair and reconstruction, and other emergency tasks not only domestically, but in the Cook Islands, Tonga and Niue.

GIP grew to become a force of, currently 1263 men, although French Polynesia's budget allows for the employment of only 654. Mr Flosse recruited another 400 men for it during the months of his return to the presidency between October 2004 and February 2005. GIP evolved to become, critics say, practically a private army, with a goodly content of bad characters-known thugs and jailbirds-said to have engaged in spying and intimidation in support of Mr Flosse's government. The death some years ago of a journalist, murdered, has been brought into the picture.

When in March Mr Temaru attempted to rein GIP in by appointing a replacement for its head, Leonard Puputauki, he was met with defiance.

Pupatauki's supporters closed the port of Papeete, shutting down fuel supplies and disrupting business. The French high commissioner, the authority with ultimate responsibility for law and order, refused to use force to break the blockade of the port and generally displayed great “timidity”, according to Temaru's supporters.

The French government doesn't approve of Mr Temaru's pro-independence inclinations. It is comfortable with Mr Flosse, a personal buddy of President Jacques Chirac.

In the circumstance, it is reasonable to speculate that the French authorities do not wish to help Mr Temaru in his difficulties with GIP. By April, the territorial government had reached a truce with the GIP; Mr Pupatauki has stepped down and his nominated replacement, Robert Marker, has stepped aside while a government service lawyer probes the nature of GIP.

French authorities have undertaken to guarantee the implementation of the investigator's recommendations.

The fact that what is supposed to be a government-funded public service organisation can so openly challenge the new government's authority while the ultimate authority, France, stands aside, does not bode well for the territory's stability.

Mr Flosse is said to have bowed to pressure and withdraw to a backroom role so as to make way for a less controversial leader for the anti-independence Tahoeraa party.

That does not necessarily strengthen Mr Temaru, who governs with a miniscule majority, whose following possesses notoriously fickle loyalties and who agrees that his real support is considerably less than half the electorate.

His government is in a rocky position. But so would Tahoeraa be if it regained power. The business community is nervous. Some investment is said to have been suspended or cancelled.

French Polynesia is becoming draped with an aura of instability it didn't have before. It has joined a burgeoning Pacific Islands country club.