Tahiti: Investigation On The GIP's Mission
PAPE'ETE (Oceania Flash/Pacific Media Watch): French Polynesia's armed "intervention group" GIP is currently undergoing
a low-key police investigation, especially over its alleged intelligence unit.
This follows oral evidence given late last year by the son of one of its former members, who openly admitted that a
French journalist, Jean-Pascal Couraud, who once headed the local daily La Dépêche de Tahiti, would have been physically
eliminated by GIP members because of his outspoken stance against the Flosse-led government of the time.
Couraud has been missing since December 1997.
But the allegations have since been withdrawn.
The official view, to date, is that he would have "committed suicide".
According to the French national newspaper Libération, French gendarmes in Pape'ete have now acted on a court warrant
and formed an investigation unit dedicated to the GIP and its ramifications.
Nicknamed "JPK 987", the unit was formally set up on January 17, the paper says.
The GIP was initially set up with the open mission of providing help to populations stricken by natural disasters, both
in French Polynesia and in the past few years to South Pacific island states such as Fiji, Tonga, Niue.
Early recommendations from the French gendarmes include that all of the GIP's activities be reviewed and assessed,
including what was officially termed the "manifest cell", to describe the GIP's intelligence unit.
"Investigations carried out through evidence provided by witnesses who have worked in the 'manifest cell' point to the
existence of an intelligence unit located within the GIP premises," Libération quoted initial police report abstracts.
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