Open Letter to MGI Boss re US Armed Forces Propaganda offensive
17.03.2024
As well as writing to the Bishop of Port Louis, LALIT has written, too, to the Director of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute. The MGI gave the use of its auditorium to the US NAVY BAND to hold a free concert. LALIT calls into question the way the MGI has been lured into part of a USA propaganda offensive. The USA, LALIT reminds the MGI management, is both a military occupier of part of our Republic, and also in complicity with the State of Israel’s genocide against the people of Palestine.
Here is a copy of LALIT’s letter to the Director General of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute, Mr Rajcoomar Rampertab.
Dear Sir,
We are writing this Open Letter to you on the question of the MGI Auditorium being used by the US NAVY BAND for a free concert with the musician Toto Lebrasse on 2 March 2024.
There are two reasons, we believe, why it was ill-advised to rent or cede use of your premises to any US Navy organization.
Firstly, in our judgment, at the moment of genocide being inflicted before our very eyes on the people of Palestine, in particular on those living Gaza, and when it is the USA that is openly supplying the arms for this genocide, that it is not at all appropriate for the MGI to offer its hall to a military wing of the USA, like the US Navy, even to its musical Band.
Clearly the MGI judged, maybe in haste, that it could allow the US Navy, which is an armed wing of the principal financer, arms supplier and geo-political supporter for the Israeli State’s genocide against the Palestinians, i.e. the USA. The International Court of Justice has handed down a provisional judgment that decided on two points relevant to whether or not one frequents the USA military: 1) that it is “plausible” that Israel is committing genocide, and 2) that countries stand warned that “complicity [of other countries] with genocide” constitutes the crime of genocide. It is evident that the main country complicit with the plausible genocide is the USA. So, we call on you to determine a policy for the future in relation to your relationship with States that are complicit in genocide.
The MGI’s Mission Statement reads that amongst its aims are: “to promote responsible citizenship inspired by Gandhian principles and values”. Clearly keeping ties open with the armed wing of a State complicit in genocide will not advance “Gandhian values” or any other kind of responsible citizenship.
Secondly, and this too is in our judgment, it is unwise, just 10 days before the country’s Independence Day, when the Prime Minister’s message on citizenship is read out to school children in all schools, that an organization like the MGI welcomes on its premises an orchestra from the very same naval military power that illegally occupies the Chagos, including Diego Garcia, which are part of the territory of the Republic of Mauritius, to come and play music. This illegal military occupation, too, has been subject of an ICJ case. The Republic of Mauritius won a victory at the ICJ, which statuted that Chagos, including Diego Garcia, are part of the Republic of Mauritius, not yet decolonized. Yet, the UK-USA are still, until today, continuing their military occupation of Diego Garcia and the whole of Chagos, even though it is illegal.
Faced with the isolation of Israel and the UK-USA on these two issues because of their illegal actions in both Palestine and Mauritius, USA has naturally begun a strategy of penetrating Mauritian society in order to spread its propaganda in different countries, in particular in our Republic. We should not collude with this attempt by a military occupier to infiltrate into society, using the beauty and pleasure of art, like music at a free concert by offering the facilities of a para-statal body like the MGI.
Gandhian values, in our judgment, find genocide reprehensible. So, we believe that the MGI would have been better advised to turn down the request to use your Hall and thus sully your reputation. Similarly, Gandhian values, again in our judgment, find military occupation of part of our Republic by a dominating, foreign power, the UK-USA, reprehensible. So, for this reason, too, use of the Hall by the US Navy ought to have been refused. Do we even know, can we even know, whether all those US Navy employees in the US Navy Band had just arrived from Diego Garcia? The UK-USA base there is illegal, and has, in addition, been used in illegal wars like those on Iraq and Afghanistan, to drop bombs on children and their parents. It has also been used for torture in the USA’s “rendition” program. We cannot pretend otherwise. The MGI should be calling for their withdrawal from our land, not receiving their armed wings for musical events.
We do not welcome people judging the MGI – wrongly – as being in favour of Israel’s genocide and the USA’ support of it, or of supporting the illegal military occupation by the UK-USA of Mauritian territory. We do not think the MGI stands for these things. The way to ensure that the MGI does not give this wrong impression, is for the MGI to have a policy not to allow such military occupiers and genocide perpetrators and their accomplices to use its premises. When the occupier and the genocidal aggressor use your premises, when they are disguised behind a free music concert, this spreads the false propaganda that the USA’s State and its military are a good thing because they give free concerts.
We are sending a copy of our Open Letter to you to the Chairman of the MGI Board as well because it may be necessary for the Board to help develop a formal policy not to cede, rent or give the use of MGI premises to an army of occupation or a State that is an accomplice to the crime of genocide.
Yours sincerely,
Ragini Kistnasamy (5 767 2441)
LALIT, 153 Main Road, GRNW, Port Louis, Mauritius www.lalitmauritius.org
cc Chairman of the MGI Board, Mr. Indraduth Ram c/o Admin email.
