State violence in Pointe-à-Pitre: an introduction and practice in translation.

Pointe-à-Pitre, in May 1967 between 80-200 Guadeloupeans were shot and killed by the French police, under the control of the government of Charles de Gaulle. On the 26 of May, the day of commemoration of the abolition of slavery in Guadeloupe, 5000 workers went on strike for a 2% pay rise; a boss' delegate (Brizard) replied to the strike action by stating: "when the negroes are hungry, they'll go back to work". During a demonstration, in front of a company of French national police outside of the chambre du commerce of Pointe-à-Pitre, demonstrators began throwing stones and bottles. The police immediately opended fire, killing Jacques Nestor an activist from the Groupe d’Organisation Nationale de la Guadeloupe (National Organisation Group of Guadeloupe). The head of police Bolotte ordered the captains of the national police to "use all their weapons" against the protesters resulting in the further deaths of two young workers and a bystander.
The next day the population of Pointe-à-Pitre and large numbers of students from Baimbridge high school revolted, descending on the city centre where they set fire to cars and many shops on the main commercial street. Several police were wounded during the riots. The head of police (préfet Bolotte) disarmed local black police and called in gendarmes (French military police) from Martinique and France whom alongside hired militia began an arbitrary and ruthless hunt for 'agitators' of the revolts. The term used by the racist state forces was "la chasse au negre" which translates as "negro hunt".
In the onslaught dozens of people were wounded, arrested and murdered in the police station at Morne Niquel.
The exact number of those murdered and wounded is unknown as many of victims' families, fearing further repression, kept their relatives hidden and treated them at home. In mainland France the media reported '7 confirmed deaths, but probably more' whilst Guadeloupeans maintain that the total number of deaths was closer to 200.
The French government used these events as a pretext to liquidate the Guadeloupean nationalist movement, embodied by l’Association générale des Etudiants guadeloupéens (A.G.E.G) and Groupe d’Organisation Nationale de la Guadeloupe  (G.O.N.G). Many activists were arrested and in April 1968 25 were imprisoned, amongst several charges activists such as Michel Numa were accused of "attacking the territorial integrity of the Republic"- this highlights the arrogance of colonial states: Guadeloupe is a former slave colony in the Caribbeann (thousands of miles from mainland France) that has a 95% black population (the descendants of slaves made to work for white French masters). Though French in many ways, it has its own history, language and traditions: many people I speak to state that they are 'Guadeloupeans first and French second'. A notable and equally disgusting story of hypocrisy: while these events were taking place in Guadeloupe, President Charles de Gaulle was calling "Free Quebec" for white Quebecois nationalists in Canada.

Since 1967 there has been no inquiry led into the causes of this massacre (the elected politicians at the time signed a document stating that the protesters were to blame). Over 40 years later the survivors still wait for justice, however the question is asked: how much time must pass? (translated and information taken from http://www.bakchich.info/La-Guadeloupe-n-a-pas-oublie-les,06773.html)

It is a sad fact that the memory of the Guadeloupe's movement towards independence through popular revolution has been almost erased from the history books. I read this comment in response to the original article from which most of this information comes from: 'I am 40 years old and only today have I learnt about what happened in Guadeloupe, which is also what happened in Martinique... the Guadeloupeans were right to revolt against the whites who contiune to treat the Antillais (*people of the West Indies) as 'good negroes, workers and subdued'... the state must tell us the truth about the events of May 1967. Though not entirely forgotten the nationalist movement has been suppressed by assimilation politics of the capitalist French republic (for example, from my experience as a language teaching assistant I have seen first hand how the history of the French Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man *cough sexist* (just needed to get that out of my throat) are given precedence over indepth studies of local history.


I also find it disturbingly ironic (ironic and racist) that a socialist revolt that was so heavily repressed by the state police in French territory occured only a year before the celebrated student and workers' movement of May '68. Every educated person in France at least has heard of the basic facts of the 1968 uprising against the authoritarian government and 'traditional' social norms of the Gaulle's Fifth Republic. But very few, even in the West Indies have been allowed to learn the history of May 1967. It hasn't been banned, but it's importance and signification in the history of the French colonialism has been actively undermined.


I think it was Noam Chomsky who wrote about how history and politics are distorted by social norms, political institutions and the media; double-standards are created and reality is hid behind inert terms that make acts of state or social violence such as genocide, police brutality and other forms of oppression sound like necessary indifferent functions of a well-regulated machine. I see this happening in colonised societies: state institutions working from the viewpoint of the majority suppress or neutralise subversive points of view until the oppression and inequality we see on the streets today has become so far distanced from it's (state-controlled) social context and past that problems are attributed to the individual or group that individual belongs to.
The problems of any society are linked to its past- the history of a country must be learnt in its entirety for everybody within that society to work on its future.


*I know that last sentence was kind of general and a bit blah blah, but I'm tired and I'm going to write more about this later when I am more articulate. I just think that it is really really fucked up how much knowledge about the collective past of humanity the state can succeed in eliminating; when that information threatens to disrupt any established order that upholds that social privilege.