LALIT comments on Boris Johnson Article on Diego
24.09.2023
LALIT notes that former Conservative British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has confirmed that the UK is finally “about to ‘haul down the flag’” in Chagos that it occupies illegally, and to “throw in the sponge” and give up Diego Garcia that the UK sub-lets illegally to the Pentagon for the huge US military base.
He accuses his Conservative colleague Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of wanting to “hand to an ally of China” this source of British leverage with the USA. The “ally of China” is what he calls the Republic of Mauritius. The source of leverage is that the UK “owns” British Indian Ocean Territories, as he still calls it, where the US has a military base that is central to its faltering Indo-Pacific offensive against China.
In The Independent the Rishi Sunak Government quickly responded, saying, “The UK and Mauritius have reiterated that any agreement between our two countries will ensure the continued effective operation of the joint UK-US military base on Diego Garcia, which plays a vital role in regional and global security.” This is what happens when Pravind Jugnauth holds secret talks. Chagos does not belong to him. It is part of Mauritius and, as a country, we are only in a position to negotiate at all because of all the people in Mauritius in the past, including Chagossians, who have for 50 years struggled without let-up for decolonization and to get the dratted base closed down, despite the Mauritian state’s constant collusion.
To get back to Boris Johnson’s calling for Sunak to reneg on the secret talks, LALIT notes that his is the usual tactic: extreme right-wing politicians in the UK and USA like him, make statements to the extreme right UK Daily Mail, in order to influence the executive branches of the two imperialist allies, the USA and UK. It often used to work.
Boris Johnson’s point is important. It exposes the hypocrisy that only emperors, like the state apparatus of UK and USA, can put on display. They think Russia must withdraw from Ukraine because it cannot occupy another sovereign country. Fine. But, why does the UK perpetuate its own illegal occupation of Chagos – even when the very Court the big powers set up to advise the UN General Assembly on legal issues has found that the UK must get out, get out unconditionally, and get out fast? Their occupation was always illegal. Since 2019, it has been publicly shown to be illegal. The UK must withdraw from Chagos, including Diego Garcia, and do so without conditions, and starting now. This will mean telling its illegal tenant, the USA Pentagon, to get out, too.
It is imperative to denounce the fact that Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth is conducting secret negotiations over Mauritian sovereignty. Sovereignty is not negotiable. And negotiations should not be secret.
For the first time in Mauritian history, after the Labour Party doing its bit by winning the UNCLOS judgment, and then the MSM’s own contribution over the past few years, there is about to be a politician who actually sells Diego Garcia, if Pravind Jugnauth maintains his offer to rent out Diego Garcia for 100 years. LALIT maintains that calling it “99 years” is a cheap trick. Kisannla pu oz vann Diego?
What shocks LALIT as much as Pravind Jugnauth’s abject offer to sell Diego Garcia is that all the Opposition parties in Parliament and all the Opposition parties outside parliament, other than LALIT, avoid saying they are against selling Diego Garcia for 100 years. They remain, like the cowards they are, silent.
In the case of Opposition Leader, Xavier Duval, who now speaks for the MMM and Labour, as well as his PMSD, he has even said that the amount of rent he believes Pravind Jugnauth has asked for in his secret negotiations is “not enough”. He wants the selling price to be raised. This was the position of the PMSD in the 1960s, and it has remained the same. Now he speaks for the Labour Party and the MMM, who used, at least in words, to pay lip service to not selling Diego Garcia. Roshi Badhain and Rama Valayden, who lead extra-parliamentary formations, are so pro-USA and UK that their silence is no surprise. As for Ashok Subron, he is busy gathering everyone behind Navin Ramgoolam, who agrees to sell Diego Garcia for 100 years.
Boris Johnson sums up the reduced role of the UK in geo-politics rather succinctly: “The Americans don’t give us crucial nuclear secrets just because they love little old England. They don't share intelligence because they adore our quaint accents. We have a great and indispensable relationship because we have important things to offer – including Diego Garcia.” If Johnson doesn’t make the UK seem like an eight-year-old school boy trying to stay in the good books of the school bully, the USA, then what does? And talking about “nuclear secrets” the UK and USA share, LALIT has had proof sent to us by Dutch dock-workers on Bills of Lading that there is nuclear material on Diego from 40 years ago. since then, the servicing of nuclear-powered submarines has been moved to Diego Garcia, following huge protests in Italy against the US base there that did the “cleaning”. Now with the Pelindaba Treaty for a Nuclear Arms Free Africa in place, and what with the African union having brought the issue up in the UN on Mauritius behalf, it is a total sell-out for Jugnauth to offer up Diego for sale.
When LALIT was founded in 1976, and ever since, we have seen that there is a world fault-line on the continued illegal occupation of the Chagos including Diego Garcia, and we have never let up striking away at this fault-line. Until eventually, along with other mobilized political forces – Chagossians for many years, the trade union movement, the women’s movement, the MMM in early years, Organization Fraternel in early years, a handful of dedicated journalists, and others abroad like huge trade unions in Holland and the USA and the No Bases movement world-wide – we all contributed to forcing the Mauritian State eventually, to prepare the African union for a UN General Assembly resolution to go to the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion. In 2019, the ICJ statuted that, to complete decolonization of the Republic of Mauritius, the UK must unconditionally withdraw from the Chagos, including Diego Garcia, and do so at once.
So, that is what they must do.
In the Ukraine war, the UK and USA are all for Russia respecting international law, the United Nations Charter, the sovereignty of less powerful countries, and yet they continue to occupy Chagos, including Diego Garcia, completely flaunting international law, and even the near-unanimous judgment of the ICJ? It is outrageous double-speak.
At last count, the UK and USA only had three allies left voting with them at the UN General Assembly – Hungary, Israel and Australia. That is why the UK-USA are trying to set up a new framework that is not so patently illegal, by trying to “buy” Diego Garcia for 100 years.
But, Boris Johnson has raised a big scare: China, he implies, will immediately set up a base here, just as it has on atolls near China. His fear of China is for the gallery. It is just a lie. What probably scares him is that the people of Mauritius will not easily accept this “sale” for 100 years of Diego Garcia. The struggle has been too long. The country has been divided too long. The Chagossians and all Mauritians have been banished too long. The human suffering has been too great. The colonization too cruel. The weight of responsibility that illegal wars – against Iraq and Afghanistan – have been waged, killing civilians, from on our land is too heavy to go on bearing. All colonization and military occupation must stop!
LALIT calls for a closing of all our ports and port facilities – including on the main island of Mauritius, Rodrigues, St. Brandon, Agalega, Tromelin, and Diego Garcia – to foreign military. It is time to make public all negotiations on military matters public, and for Mauritius to work towards a strong non-aligned alliance, as a barrier against imperialist wars drawing us into their maelstrom and destruction. No to occupation. No to prolonged colonization by a new name. Mauritius needs full democratic control over all its territory, so that we can maintain peace.
The illegal occupation of Chagos, including Diego Garcia, must come to an end. The whole of Mauritius must be united and free.
The USA, instead of trying to “contain” China and “tether” China, to use their racist terms, should contain itself, and should withdraw from its 800 overseas bases; these bases, after all, are little colonies. They are outposts for wars. They must be closed down.
