Mauritian Delegation Defies USA-UK threats and Heads by ship for Chagos Today
08.02.2022
Today 8 February 2022 the Mauritian government has seen off a scientific survey team aboard the ship Bleu de Nîmesaffreighted for the purpose, which is on its way to the Mauritius’ outlying islands of the Chagos Archipelago on a two-week mission. It is the first such mission since the UK-USA illegally occupied the Chagos.
The team of scientists will be led by Mauritius’ famous UN representative Jagdish Koonjal, and will include the well-known leader of the Chagos Refugees Group Olivier Bancoult and Chagossians with knowledge of the part of Chagos the mission is headed for called Blenheim Reef – banks just under the surface of the Ocean – as well as international lawyers like the eminent jurist Philippe Sands QC and international journalists. They will go to the Seychelles first as agreed to by the Seychelles government.
The timing for such a visit could not be more felicitous for this daring plan. Because the USA-UK have in the past let the Mauritian government know that they would “sink” any such ship, it seemed that the Mauritian government had capitulated to this threat. But the timing is “felicitous” in only a most macabre way. It is at a moment when the USA and UK, who occupy part of Mauritius illegally, are busy preparing a war for NATO’s expansion into countries surrounding Russia on the grounds that they are protecting a country’s sovereignty and its borders, i.e. Ukraine’s.
So, while the USA and UK, who occupy the Chagos illegally, are talking loud and clear about the importance of respecting the sovereignty of Ukraine, and they hold these beliefs so strongly that they are moving their own troops and what they call their own “lethal weapons” to the region so as to protect Ukraine’s borders, it would be somewhat disingenuous for them even to have to mention that Mauritius ought not to take a ship to conduct even a scientific survey of part of its own sovereign country, within its own borders, let alone for them to carry out their threat of sinking the ship going there. What the UK-USA will probably do is to have a warship “escorting’ the ship Bleu de Nîmes in a slightly threatening way, they will, at the same time, try to keep the lid on the whole visit. They will do their best to keep it out of the mainstream media. Any news of the visit will only serve to remind everyone that they, the USA and UK, maintain an illegal occupation of Chagos and even a military base on Diego Garcia, one of the islands of Chagos – all of which is part of Mauritius, a sovereign country with its borders including this archipelago, and the Chagos is thousands of miles from the UK and USA’s respective borders. The military occupation of this part of Mauritius is notorious for four reasons, each enough to make Biden and Johnson blush, should either be capable of such a thing:
1. The UK-USA removed the people living there by trickery first and then by force, many transported in a way reminiscent of slavery, in the holds of ships, and dumped them – men, women and children – on the quayside of Port Louis. Some passengers, in despair, cast themselves overboard on one of the trips. The UK-USA did this mass deportation after killing the Chagossians’ pets before the very eyes of their children, gassing them in an industrial oven, as a macabre warning.
2. The UK-USA illegally dismembered Mauritius in the run-up to Independence, by stealing the Chagos archipelago from Mauritius, with Britain taking all and sub-letting part, i.e. Diego Garcia to the USA for its military base. The UN’s highest court, the ICJ has said so, the UN General Assembly has said so, binding treaties like UNCLOS have said so through their Court the ITLOS, so it would show up the crass hypocrisy of the USA too clearly should they raise the stakes and oppose a humble scientific visit.
3. It is from Diego Garcia that B-52’s took off to drop bombs on civilians in the illegal war on Iraq and the equally illegal war on Afghanistan.
4. It is on and around Diego Garcia that the USA tortured its illegal prisoners, kidnapped and rendered them to such “invisible sites”, on their way to Guantanamo (a part of the Island of Cuba, also illegally occupied by the USA), where the USA has another infamous military base and where they have held men without trial for 20 years. The torture on Diego Garcia they denied for years, then were finally forced to admit it.
So, all the USA and UK talk about respecting the boundaries of nations, and respecting international treaties and respecting international principles will sound hollow if the Diego Garcia comes into the open.
Here is the full communiqué published on-line by the Government Information Services yesterday.
Government Information Service Communiqué
“GIS - 07 February 2022: A delegation, led by the Permanent Representative of Mauritius to the United Nations, Ambassador Jagdish Dharamchand Koonjul, and comprising legal advisers and representatives namely Professor Philippe Joseph Sands, QC, as well as local and foreign technicians, the Chairperson of the Chagossian Welfare Fund, Mr Olivier Bancoult, and other representatives of the Chagossian community, and international journalists, would undertake a scientific survey at Blenheim Reef, a partly submerged atoll in the north eastern part of the Chagos Archipelago.
“The Prime Minister, Minister of Defence, Home Affairs and External Communications, Minister for Rodrigues, Outer Islands and Territorial Integrity, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, made this announcement in a press statement at the New Treasury Building, in Port Louis, this afternoon.
“ ‘It will be the first time that post-independent Mauritius, as a sovereign Republic, would undertake such a survey in the waters of the Chagos Archipelago,’ stated Mr Jugnauth. He added that it was a concrete step, made by the Republic, in exercising its sovereignty and sovereign rights in relation to the Chagos Archipelago.
“Recalling the Advisory Opinion rendered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 25 February 2019, the Prime Minister reiterated that the Chagos Archipelago formed an integral part of the territory of Mauritius and that the ICJ affirmed that the continued administration of the Chagos Archipelago by the United Kingdom constituted a wrongful act. He also talked of the Judgment of the Special Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) on 28 January 2021 in the case brought by Mauritius against Maldives under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea which overruled all the preliminary objections raised by Maldives and confirmed Mauritius’s undisputed sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago.
“Moreover, Mr Jugnauth explained that the findings of the scientific survey would be part of the country’s reply to the Counter-Memorial of the Maldives in the Dispute at the ITLOS concerning the delimitation of the maritime boundary between Mauritius and Maldives. The Reply should be submitted to the Tribunal by latest on 14 April 2022, whereupon the Maldives would provide its Rejoinder.
“The heartfelt gratitude of the Government of Mauritius to the President of the Republic of Seychelles, Mr Wavel Ramkalawan, and the authorities of his country was also expressed by Mr Jugnauth. He underlined that whereas Maldives imposed unacceptable conditions to allow the Mauritian delegation access to its ports to travel to the Blenheim Reef, which would have made a shorter journey, the Seychelles President readily agreed for the delegation to board the vessel for Blenhiem Reef in its waters.
“The Prime Minister informed therefore that the Mauritian delegation would be leaving for the Seychelles tomorrow, whence they would embark on Bleu de Nîmes, a vessel chartered by the Mauritian government and equipped with required amenities to complete the survey tasks. The returned date is scheduled for 22 February 2022. Mr Jugnauth wished the delegation success and good work on the 15-day journey.
“In addition, Mr Jugnauth said that due to its limited seat, the vessel could not accommodate more passengers. However, insisted the Prime Minister, another voyage, to the Chagos Archipelago would be organised, in which he, too, would visit the atolls.”
So, we will have to watch the reaction of the USA-UK very closely.
LALIT
