Opacity of the Decolonization Committee remains

Recently, the Council of State, after being questioned by elected representatives of the opposition in the French Polynesian Parliament, ruled on the legality of the Special Committee on Decolonization established at the request of the president of that body, Anthony Geros. Even though the Council of State did not find any errors in its constitution, it still stipulated that: “Reports of committee meetings may be communicated to any person who requests it in the application and in accordance with the provisions of Chapter 5 of Volume V of the Code of Public Relations with the Executive Branch.”

It is for this legitimacy, therefore, that Tahiti Infos requested access to these reports.

After two weeks of waiting and various reminders, a rejection notice arrived in our mailbox on Tuesday night. “Following your request to see the report of the Special Committee on Decolonization, we inform you that, in accordance with article 68-9, point 5, of the internal regulations of the Special Committee on Decolonization, APF No. 2005-59 of 13 May 2005, French Polynesia, “the work of the Committee is not open to the public”Tallahoy’s Office of Communications explained.

This is a risky interpretation, since attendance at the meeting is not for everyday life, but for the purpose of consulting its reports, as every elected official and every voter has the right to ask.

“However, the report of each committee meeting is signed by the committee chair and distributed only to those committee members who voted for the deliberation.”continues the email. In other words, since they do not sit there, the elected representatives of the opposition, like those of the majority, have no access to these reports, making completely opaque the decisions taken there and any points published for possible mandates.

Finally, the icing on the cake, “for your information”remind the communications department, “After each session, an article will be posted on the conference website.”

So we went to the General Assembly website to look up this article about a committee meeting that took place this Monday. A total of six photos were posted online, without even explaining the reason for the meeting or the agenda. Elected officials, representatives of the people they are responsible for, can play a game of spot the murderer without having to move on.

At the first meeting of the committee, the objectives were identified: “The work of this special committee will significantly allow elected representatives of the General Assembly to better understand this issue and to discuss it with qualified persons and experts, including on themes related to decolonization (education, currency, etc.)”. However, other than the representatives present, all other elected officials were unaware of the content of the exchanges that took place there.

We know only from a few sentences from previous meetings that Carlyle Corbin, “UN expert on international governance” and muse of the Baku Initiative Group, spoke on three occasions (out of five meetings) and Anais Maurer, assistant professor at a university in New Jersey, proposed a study of the radioactivity of Hao.