We have seen through reports in the media that your company has hosted the “US Navy Europe and Africa Band” to give a musical performance at the Caudan Waterfront. While we believe in free expession, there are, of course, limits. Military occupation and genocide are two limits.
As an organization that has long struggled for the end of military occupation of Chagos, including Diego Garcia, and as member of SOMALP (Solidarite Morisyin Ar Lepep Palestinyin), we are very concerned with your company’s decision to give a platform to a component of the US military, while the USA is illegally occupying part of Mauritian territory, the Chagos and is operating a military base on Diego Garcia, and while a genocide is being perpetrated with US arms, money and political/propaganda logistics.
Let us start with Diego Garcia. This military base which also accommodates nuclear weapons represents a constant threat to Mauritius, the Indian Ocean region and the world. Providing a platform to US military, who are the illegal occupiers of part of Mauritian territory, who use Diego Garcia to wage wars globally, to torture prisoners, to host a world surveillance and cyberespionage station, is inadmissible and dangerous.
As you are probably aware in February 2019 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the occupation of Chagos by the UK and the US is illegal and that they should leave the whole of Chagos (including Diego) as soon as possible. At a United Nation General Assembly (UNGA) three months later, a large majority (116 countries) members voted to confirm this ruling in favour of the decolonisation of Mauritius and calling on the UK to leave the Chagos Archipelago without condition within 6 months. Only three countries voted with the USA-UK, once Maldives had withdrawn its vote. The UK-USA are still oocupying Chagos and are therefore, illegal occupiers, and should be considered as such, and be treated as such. This implies that all organisations in Mauritius, including yours, should refuse to engage in any form of cooperation with representatives of US military, even be it for musical entertainment. The use of music as a subterfuge for penetration into Mauritian society is a propaganda move on the part of the US military.
The US and UK have persistently used all kinds of plots, tricks, lies, perfidies to prevent Mauritius from completing its decolonisation process. Thanks to Juliane Assange’s meticulous and courageous journalistic work through Wikileaks, many US war crimes and US-UK manoeuvres have been exposed to the public, including their subterfuge over Diego Garcia.
Furthermore at this very moment the US is arming the Israeli military, funding it, and defending it against charges of genocide. This Israeli military is destroying Palestinian life and eliminating the Palestinian people physically by means of bombs and deliberate starvation of the inhabitants of Gaza. Water and sanitation, as well as hospitals, have been attacked, making death by injury, illness and epidemic probable. Leaders in Israel have expressed their intention to cause this kind of decimation. Again, this slaughter of Palestinians by the USA-armed IDF (Israel Defence Force) has also been ruled by the ICJ as a ‘plausible genocide’ this January. So, it is not just the opinion of LALIT. And you, like all of us, have a duty to prevent the crime of genocide, and to remember that complicity in genocide is also considered to constitute “the crime of genocide”.
According to the independent EuroMed Human Rights Monitor (12 March 2024) more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed by USA-armed IDF in Gaza, of whom 14,622 are children and 8,896 are women.
Your company and all thinking individuals on your board should, in no way, let yourselves be associated with those who are complicit in this illegal and immoral Israeli military campaign of genocide.
In the past, the Mauritian bourgeoisie, of which you are a part, has taken backward stances on several historical issues, for example on the abolition of slavery, the introduction of universal suffrage, Independence, itself and so on. Will your company choose today to pursue this same track and associate itself with those colonising forces that are arming, financing and supporting a genocide of Palestinians, and the continued military occupation of the Republic of Mauritius?
In these difficult and dangerous times we think that all organisations should avoid, in any way, associating ourselves with the perpetrators of such slaughter of the people of Gaza but rather isolate the USA, Israel and their few allies. Today peoples of all continents are voicing their opposition to Israel and the USA crimes and calling to end this genocide, to free Palestine and make peace a world reality. At the same time, today Courts and the court of public opinion are ostracizing the USA and UK for their continued illegal occupation of Chagos, including Diego Garcia.
Thank you and your company Board Members for considering the issues raised in our letter.
Rada Kistnasamy and Alain Ah Vee for LALIT