Saint Martin sides with Baku Initiative Group against Paris on overseas territories “Decolonization is not France’s internal affair”

The ONESXM Association, a social and political advocacy group based on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, has rejected claims that support for the decolonisation and self-determination of peoples under French administration amounts to interference in France's internal affairs.

According to Soualiga Newsday, the Association has responded 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. 

ONESXM states clearly that *colonialism, decolonisation 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.

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.

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.

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.

By Aghakazim Guliyev