What the Head of State needs to Say to the World at the UN
25.09.2024
We, two of LALIT’s leading members who have personal experience of volunteering to put ourselves on the line and defend Palestinian families against Israeli state violence and illegal settler violence, call,in the name of LALIT, on the President of the Republic, or whoever represents the Republic of Mauritius at the United Nations annual General Assembly, to address the people of the world on the subject of the Israeli genocide against the people of Palestine.
This is the most important geo-political issue of this moment in history. It should be put, at a national level,centre-stage on the agenda for the General Elections in the country, and also at the United Nations annual summit of heads of state and heads of government.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) pronounced in January that there was already a “plausible” genocide being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza. The ICJ has found in July that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is illegal and must stop at once. The UN General Assembly in September then voted by a large majority for Israel to end without delay its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This resolution also, importantly, called upon all UN Member States, including Mauritius, to comply with their obligations under international law and to take material actions to end Israel’s illegal military occupation of Palestine and emphasize the responsibility of UN member states to act. The resolution calls on states, like Mauritius, to take steps towards ceasing “the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment to Israel, the occupying Power, in all cases where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”. The world is witness how USA is actively arming Israel genocide in Palestine. We must stop the USA providing these arms. In fact, two-thirds of the world’s population, if not more, supports this vote. The General Assembly also voted in favour of the admission of Palestine, for the first time, as a full member of the UN. The whole world is applying international law in support of Palestine. At the same time, Israel has continued to flaunt international law, to become a total outlaw, a bandit state, a terrorist state. It is time for Mauritius to act at the UN.
The Chief Prosecutor of the independent International Criminal Court (ICC) has already called for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and two of his henchmen.
However, the USA has used its veto at every attempt by the UN Security Council to put a stop to the Israeli genocide.
Now, our Mauritian Head of State must launch a call at the UN General Assembly for the overriding of the Security Council veto, by voting a Resolution at the Assembly for the expulsion from the UN of the State of Israel, for a total arms embargo against Israel, and for the total political isolation of the State of Israel. There is precedent for such a vote. Such a Resolution was voted in 1974 to bring Apartheid South Africa to order. And this action contributed to ending Apartheid South Africa’s colonial-type rule. Israel is, as South Africa was, an Apartheid State. For years UN Special Rapporteurs have concluded this. It is time to act.
This proposed action is the role of any self-respecting member of the UN. But it is, in particular, the duty of the people of Mauritius to make the State of Mauritius act. We will explain why.
The State of Mauritius is occupied illegally by the UK and its ally the USA, just as Palestine is occupied illegally by a colonial power, Israel and its ally the USA. Not only is Mauritius occupied illegally, but it is also militarily occupied by the USA. So, we understand, through our own national experience, the need for the UN General Assembly to take a stand. Not only that, but the very state that has used and abused its veto to prevent the international community taking action against Israel is the very same one that is militarily occupying Mauritius illegally. Here we refer to the USA.
The State of Mauritius, as everyone knows, joined the ICJ case calling for an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine. This was an important show of support, given Mauritius’ experience in winning its own ICJ case for the end of the colonization of Mauritius, in particular, Chagos including Diego Garcia. And the ICJ has now also pronounced, as we mentioned, Israel an illegal occupier and told Israel, as Britain was told in the case of Mauritius’ colonization, to terminate its occupation at once.
Now, we call on the Mauritian State, through its orator at the UN, to announce that Mauritius will join the South African case against Israel for genocide, a case that has already led to one “order” and three sets of “provisional measures” against Israel, and which order and measures Israel has flaunted. This case is still underway at the ICJ. Mauritius must join this case officially.
We, in LALIT, also call for the Mauritian State to withdraw publicly at the UN General Assembly its offer of a lease to the USA for the perpetuation of its illegal military occupation of Mauritian land, and for the Mauritian State to call for the USA’s military base to be closed down and dismantled.
There is now an additional reason this illegal base needs to be closed down: the USA is the provider of armaments to the very state that the ICJ has said is plausibly committing genocide. Under the Treaty for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, Mauritius is obligated to call for this base to be closed down. If we do not do this, we are willingly harbouring, on our territory, military support for a genocide.
So, this is a new and pressing need for base closure. Already the US military base on Diego Garcia makes Mauritius, as a state, responsible for infringements of the Pelindaba Treaty for a Nuclear Arms Free Africa because Diego Garcia is a nuclear base. Already the US military base on Diego Garcia is used for illegal prisoners – in the past for infamous rendering and torture of detainees, and now shockingly for holding prisoner 64 Sri Lankan refugees, including children. These poor people whose boat was found drifting in the oceanin the Mauritian territorial waters of Chagos, have been locked up, illegally sequestrated, and maltreated for two years by the British and US authorities, outside the rule of any law. Only now are their cases being heard.
So, this base must be closed down and cleaned up and put to civil use, after democratic processes in the Mauritian state. Already this US military base on Diego Garcia has been used for American B-52s to take off from to go bomb wedding processions in Afghanistan, slaughtering whole families, and also to go bomb Baghdad in its terrorist campaign aptly named “Shock and awe”, now Diego Garcia is about to be used by the USA to arm the State of Israel in its smashing of Palestine – in its demolition of Gaza then the West Bank – and now beginning the same hideous indiscriminate massacre of civilians in the Lebanon. We must refuse to be implicated, through the Diego Garcia base on our territory being used to fuel a genocide.
Our Head of State must therefore call for an end to any Mauritian collusion with this genocide by Israel and the USA and do so by calling for closure of the USA base on Diego Garcia. That is the least we can contribute, to support the Palestinian people.
Taken together with other measures – all part of ordinary international law – like the total arms embargo against Israel that we propose together with generalized sanctions and boycotts of Israel, ICC warrants of arrest against Israeli leaders that are already imminent, and, if necessary, a UN “no-fly zone”, voted by the General Assembly and enforced by countries with armed forces strong enough that they can step up and volunteer – like, say, China, Turkey and South Africa – this opens a way to prevent the whole world being drawn into this high tech mass killing machine that has speeded up its genocide against the Palestinians, and now moving on into the Lebanon. International law must be applied. That is all that we ask. It is urgent to save the people of Palestine. We, as a people, owe it to them. We, the undersigned, have born witness to the illegal occupation of Palestine – a colonial project that has lasted 76 years. We have been active for 40 years in LALIT, together with other organizations and with Chagossians, together with peace activists and those opposing US military bases world-wide, in the struggle to close down the Diego Garcia military base. This base closure liberates not only our country from illegal occupation, but contributes to liberating Palestine.We owe it to all the people world-wide who have contributed to the struggle for the decolonization of Mauritius including Chagos and for the demilitarization of Diego Garcia, and to all the countries, in particular African union countries, who stood by us to free Mauritius from military occupation. We cannot now just put out a hand and ask for blood-money as rent from the USA so that it continues to occupy our land militarily, and to use our land to continue the genocide against the people of Palestine.
Alain Ah Vee and Ragini Kistnasamy
for LALIT
