no images were found

In the middle of 1980, when Jimmy Carter was in the White House, Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of Britain and Giscard d’Estaing was President of France, a new nation was born in the South Pacific. Until then known as the New Hebrides, this string of tropical islands had been jointly ruled throughout most of the century by both Britain and France.

This unique colonial arrangement, referred to in international law as a “Condominium,” employed a strange form of government which divided the local people more than it united them. This presentation will explore the legacies of the Condominium, and the resulting challenges for independence, in the young island-nation now called Vanuatu–“Our Land.”

Council