Open Letter on the threat to Academic Freedom at the University of Mauritius
04.08.2022
Here is copy of the letter sent today;
Dear Prime Minister of Mauritius, and
Dear Vice-Chancellor of University of Mauritius, Vice-Chancellor of the Witwatersrand, Vice-Chancellor of London University and dear Principal of Kings College,
We write in the name of the LALIT political party in Mauritius to put on record our extreme concern that your University has, in the build-up to a Conference it is co-organizing on “Archipelagic Memory: Intersecting Geographies, Histories and Disciplines” and that is taking place at the moment in Mauritius, included in a circular letter dated 24 July 2022 and addressed to “Dear All” [participants] the following attack on academic freedom, and we quote:
“We had to face some major complications recently as we were directed by government authorities that no presentations or conversations about Chagos, Diego Garcia, or British sovereignty in the Indian Ocean shall take place at the conference, seeing that the dispute over the Chagos Islands remains a highly sensitive and controversial issue in Mauritius. We have already been in touch with the delegates whose presentations is (sic) more directly related to the Chagos question, but we must also ask everybody to avoid any reference to these issues during the panel sessions. Please rest assured that academic freedom and research integrity remain central concerns for us. We are committed to our conference as a space for sharing multiple dimensions of our work and our explorations into ‘archipelagic memory’, whether formally or informally, and are deeply apologetic about this delicate situation.”
No University should bow down to any “directions” by passing them on in this way – if indeed such “directions” exist. We leave open the possibility that some grotesque mis-understanding has taken place. This is why we also address the letter to the Mauritian Prime Minister, as well as to the three Vice Chancellors whose Universities’ reputations are at stake. This way, the Prime Minister can enquire as to whether any such instruction has been given, and if so by whom in his Cabinet or amongst his senior Civil Servants.
As well as being, at face value, a crass “gagging order” coming from what could only be the executive Branch of some authoritarian dictatorship and not from any part of a democracy like the Republic of Mauritius, the logic purporting to support the ban on any “presentations or conversations about Chagos, Diego Garcia or British sovereignty in the Indian Ocean” on the grounds that “the dispute over the Chagos Islands remains a highly sensitive and controversial issue in Mauritius” is faulty. In fact, it is not true. There is no issue that is less controversial or less sensitive in Mauritius than this one: the Government in power right now agrees, all the Opposition Parties in and outside Parliament agree, and we are not aware of any Mauritian trade union, association or organization of any kind whatsoever that is against Mauritius’ claim to sovereignty. Indeed, world-wide Britain and the USA, who illegally occupy the territory after having forcibly removed all the people living in that part of Mauritius, could only muster support from Israel, Hungary and Australia and, over a side-issue concerning a demarcation dispute with Mauritius, the Maldives. The International Court of Justice at The Hague has given its Opinion that Mauritius has sovereignty, and the Tribunal of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea has given binding judgment on the issue of Britain not having sovereignty. The United Nations has issued new world maps with Chagos and Diego Garcia as part of Mauritius. The Universal Postal union agrees, too, and has banned stamps issued by the British Indian Ocean Territory. The Tuna Commission of the Indian Ocean agrees that Britain has no rights as a “coastal state”. Recently, at an international gathering in Portugal, the Mauritian State with the support of the Chagossian people, presented its application for a Marine Protected Area.
We might point out therefore that, at face value, the instructions seem in total contradiction with the publicly stated position of the Government of Mauritius, which, itself, took the case to the UN General Assembly, via the African union, which supported Mauritius all the way, to request the ICJ “opinion”, which heard the case and then advised the General Assembly that Britain must de-colonize Mauritius, and leave Chagos, including Diego Garcia, immediately. The General Assembly then gave Britain six months to leave. So, the situation is clear as a bell: Britain stole Chagos from Mauritius and rented out part of the stolen property to the receiver of stolen goods, the USA. This is the situation in international law, and in colonial-style “fact”. There is no controversy in Mauritius.
As well, as these two issues – the attack on academic freedom and the fact that the issue is not at all “highly sensitive” or “controversial” or “delicate” in Mauritius – there is lurking in the background a suspicion that needs to be mentioned: that there has been an intervention of some kind at some level not by “government authorities” (a strange and wonderful formulation) but by the Embassy or High Commission of some powerful country. In the past, our party had to take a Police Commissioner here to the Supreme Court because he had banned a public meeting of ours on the grounds that the US Embassy had objected; the Supreme Court said the Police Commissioner need take no instructions from the US Embassy, so that rather elementary issue was settled by the judiciary. Since the USA, however, usually pretends it has nothing to do with the issue of sovereignty, except to occupy Diego Garcia and attack countries with which Mauritius is not at war like Iraq and Afghanistan, we assume that, if there is an Embassy involved, it is most likely to have, therefore, been the British High Commission.
We would suggest that the University staff who received the pressure wherever it came from should have done the following:
a) Ignored it, and gone ahead on the assumption of academic freedom trumping “directions”, and also consider
b) Going to the Supreme Court for a Writ of Injunction to prevent whoever gave the “directions” from interfering with free speech of people in Mauritius guaranteed as it is under Section 11 of the Constitution.
We write as an organization that believes both in academic freedom and in full decolonization. I, the undersigned, who have been delegated to be signatory, was chosen because I studied at the University of the Witwatersrand and also at one of the London University’s Colleges (the LSE), as well as having given dozens of talks at the University of Mauritius and I would, in addition, be proud if these three institutions all stood up for academic freedom and full de-colonization.
Yours sincerely,
Lindsey Collen, for LALIT.
4 July 2022.
153 Main Road, Grand River North West, Port Louis, Mauritius. 230 208 5551, lalitmail@intnet.mu, www.lalitmauritius.org
