TAFEA Nation (Vanuatu)

Tanna, Anatom, Futuna, Erromango and Aniwa islands secessionist movement

Last modified: 2009-02-21 by ian macdonald
Keywords: tafea | tanna | anatom | futuna | erromango | aniwa | independentist |
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• Description
• Possible flag appearance

See also:

• Nation of Tanna
• Secessionist Islands (Vanuatu)
• Tafea District (Vanuatu)
• Vanuatu

Other sites:

• Republik Tanna-Sezessionsbestrebungen im Flaggenspiegel (Vexillological Reflections of the Secession Attempts of the Tanna Republic, German text only) by Jens Pattke at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Flaggenkunde's Flaggenkurier website

A second Tannese attempt to secede from the New Hebrides came in 1980. On 1 January 1980 the Tafea Nation was proclaimed at Lamlu, in the centre of Tanna. The Kapiel Alliance, a pagan party based in Middle Bush in the centre of the island, was the moving force behind this effort. A unilateral declaration of independence was issued and a flag raised. Bonnemaison describes the flag as "a five-pointed yellow star on a green background with three yellow bars on the left." The name of the nation was made up of the initials of the five islands that made up the new country: Tanna, Anatom, Futuna, Erromango and Aniwa. Tafea was defeated when British forces attacked the secessionists on 26 May 1980. The Tafea flag was seized by the British.

Sources: Joël Bonnemaison, The Tree and the Canoe: History and Ethnogeography of Tanna, Honolulu, 1994; Jean Guiart, Le mouvement "Four Corner" à Tanna (1974), Journal de la Société des Océanistes, Vol. XXXI, 1975, pp. 107-111.

Jan Oskar Engene, 13 June 1998

Possible flag appearance

image by Jaume Ollé, 20 February 2007

image by Jaume Ollé, 20 February 2007

Above is the flag of Tafea Nation as quoted by Jan Oskar Engene.  The image is reconstructed in the magazine "Vexillologie infos recherches" (edited by Michael Corbic), issue 61. Source is unclear, but seems that Andre Flicher (the author of the Indian Princely flags books) has some participation.
"Three yellow bars..." suggest that must be vertical bars, but as in the American flag the stripes are called bars is possible that in fact the real flag of Tafea was with horizontal yellow stripes at hoist.
Jaume Ollé, 20 February 2007