ONESXM Association: Decolonization can never be reduced to France’s “internal affairs”
Baku, July 28, AZERTAC
The One St. Martin Association (ONESXM) has issued a statement supporting the efforts of the Baku Initiative Group (BIG) to confront neocolonialism.
“The ONESXM Association rejects the claim that international support for the decolonization and self-determination of peoples under French administration automatically constitutes interference in the internal affairs of the Republic of France.
The Association is responding to a letter addressed to French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot by National Assembly members Nicolas Metzdorf, Moerani Frébault and Nicole Sanquer. The parliamentarians reportedly accused Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev of interfering in France’s internal affairs through his statements concerning French-administered territories and called for stronger action against Azerbaijan.
ONESXM states clearly that colonialism, decolonization and the right of peoples to determine their political future are not exclusively domestic matters belonging to the administering power.
They are matters of international law and have been part of the formal agenda of the United Nations since its creation.
Article 1 of the United Nations Charter identifies respect for the equal rights and self-determination of peoples as one of the purposes of the United Nations. The Charter also describes the responsibilities of states administering non-self-governing territories as a “sacred trust,” under which the interests of the inhabitants must be treated as paramount.
In 1960, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 1514, the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. That declaration established that colonial domination must be brought to an end and affirmed the right of peoples to freely determine their political status and pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
New Caledonia and French Polynesia remain on the United Nations agenda as Non-Self-Governing Territories. Their political futures therefore cannot reasonably be presented as matters in which only France has a legitimate voice. The United Nations, international institutions, independent states and civil-society organizations all have legitimate roles in discussing and supporting lawful decolonization processes.
There is also an important difference between unlawful coercive intervention in another state and peaceful international advocacy for human rights, decolonization and self-determination. Governments cannot use the language of national sovereignty to silence international scrutiny of colonial relationships that are themselves governed by international obligations.
France cannot claim that these territories are fully internal when it suits its political interests, while simultaneously appearing before United Nations bodies responsible for decolonization and defending its administration of the same territories.
Formal incorporation into the French state does not prove that colonialism has ended. Nor does the proclamation of legal equality guarantee equal access to political power, land, economic opportunity, healthcare, education, housing or cultural protection.
The lived conditions of overseas peoples must be examined separately from the constitutional labels imposed by the administering power.
ONESXM therefore recognizes the work of the Baku Initiative Group and others who continue to place unfinished decolonization before the international community. Attempts to discredit that work as mere foreign interference do not answer the underlying questions being raised by colonized and formerly colonized peoples.
The real issue is not whether France is embarrassed by international attention. The issue is whether the peoples concerned have freely and genuinely determined their own political future, without colonial pressure, economic dependency, administrative control or restrictions imposed by the colonizing state.
ONESXM has no faith or trust in any colonial system as a path to freedom. The liberation of colonized peoples must come through independence and the full exercise of self-determination.
The Republic of France does not own the political future of the peoples it administers. That future belongs to the people themselves.
ONESXM continues calling on our leaders to organize a referendum allowing the people of St. Martin to vote yes or no to independence.
Decolonization is not France’s internal affair. It is an unfinished international responsibility,” the statement said.
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