BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 11. International
Decolonization Front (IDF) has adopted the “Corte Declaration”
against French colonial exploitation mechanisms.
This was reported by the Baku Initiative Group (BIG).
The next, 44th edition of the “International Days” event was
held in Corti city, Corsica, on August 7-9, organized by the
Nazione political movement, which fights for Corsican
independence.
The event was also attended by representatives of the
International Decolonization Front, which was established in Baku
in July 2024 with the support of the BIG, and unites political
parties and movements fighting for the independence of the Overseas
Territories under the colonial rule of France and the
Netherlands.
At the end of the event, the “Corte Declaration” was adopted by
the IDF.
The declaration noted that the same colonial exploitation
mechanisms that trample on the fundamental rights and sovereignty
of indigenous peoples are being applied in all different
geographical territories under the rule of the French state. It
sharply emphasized that the current targeted economic policy
pursued by official Paris ruthlessly plunders local resources,
creates artificial prices in the territories, and creates mass
unemployment, condemning young people to move away from their
homelands, emigrate, or live dependent on social benefits.
At the same time, the declaration reported that with the direct
protection and complicity of the French “justice” system, the lands
of the indigenous population are being confiscated, speculation is
being opened up to serve foreign interests, and a planned
“settlement colonization” is being continued in order to change the
demographic structure and turn indigenous peoples into minorities
in their homeland. The document noted that the French authorities
have used illegal force against peaceful activists and resistance
movements fighting against colonialism and have criminalized them.
The declaration stressed that official Paris is creating an
environment of complete impunity by covering up serious
environmental and humanitarian scandals, such as the terrible
chlordecone pesticide poisoning crime that affected the lives of
tens of thousands of people in Martinique and Guadeloupe.
In the declaration, the IDF demanded French state immediately
stop its attempts to deny the national and political existence of
these peoples, to reduce them to the level of a mere “island
community” without rights, through the Boujival agreements in New
Caledonia (Kanaki), the Beauvoir process in Corsica, and the
ongoing discussions in other regions. It declares that each of
these territories is an independent nation with international law
and historical legitimacy, with the right to
self-determination.
The front, referring to the historic resolution 75/123 of the UN
General Assembly, which included the complete abolition of
colonialism, announced further global expansion of its legal,
diplomatic, and political steps to ensure repeated inclusion of the
Overseas Territories living under French colonialism in the UN list
of countries to be officially decolonized, and steady continuation
of this collective strategy.
