Some of the issues in the ‘Missie Moustass’ Saga
24.10.2024
There is a strange mixture of reactions to the anonymously loaded “audio files”, together with concocted visuals, published on-line by one “Missie Moustass”.
While on-line, as well as on private radios and video shows, the main reaction being stoked up is a kind of titillation mixed with a bit of fury against the Government, there are at the same time very serious issues that need to be discussed one-by-one, not all in a blind muddle.
There is a dangerous mixture in reactions – in particular in the petit-bourgeoisie and the diaspora, especially during a snap general election – of titillation, suspense, voyeurism, anxiety and dread of future exposure of what one has, oneself, said on WhatsApp calls, and outrage at the content being divulged, outrage directed by the mini-series almost entirely against the MSM Government. This means, given we are in an electoral campaign, that the saga objectively favours the Opposition alliance.
Publication was just days before Nomination Day, indicating that the “leaks” were intended to influence the general election campaign.
The “form” chosen – that of a tele-novella – introduces a frivolous element. It is dangerous. These anonymous videos are not like the professional work of, say, Wikileaks, where those doing the publishing sign up to it formally and honestly and responsibly. This lot doing the Missie Moustass series are the exact opposite.
Some of the telephone and WhatsApp recordings have been authenticated by the people in them. They are clearly genuine data leaks. But what of the others, or some of the others?
The timing is also dangerous.
Private Radio companies and private video channels, keen to stimulate “views” and “plays” for their “audio-mat” competition and thus doing money-making for them, pour petrol on to the fire of this dramatic “story”, put out to the public in tiny little tidbits.
The stolen-stored-and-leaked files are structured exactly like a new TV series, even numbered, e.g. Sezon 2, Epizod 4, Part 2, with teasers and all for the next episode for each of the different sub-plots, as if the whole thing were a tele-novella not political content being “fed” anonymously to the public in real time, and affecting a real-life democratic process, amongst other things.
To understand all this we need, from the beginning, to get the issues straight. There are at least five issues that we have to discuss separately, and not just talk about at cross purposes. Otherwise debate gets confused, adding to the unhealthy atmosphere that anonymous documents engender. Fortunately so far, ordinary working people have shown strong resistance to being drawn into the cynical games being played by who-knows-who. On our electoral port-a-port, we have found no-one who brings up this issue. While distributing leaflets at a lafwar, one man – a retired para-statal boss it seemed to me – brought the issue up with me, in border-line hysterical tones, but no-one else. So, there is resistance to this kind of manipulation amongst the broad masses.
But, all societies have a snapping point. We are on the borderline of irrational territory.
All this to say, we need some rationality. We need logical thinking. We need to speak openly, showing our faces, not behind anonymity. And we need to have a proper program on the agenda during elections, not this kind of frenzy. We cannot rely on this kind of badinaz. We need to “fer lespri travay” instead or, at least, as well.
And the task is not easy.
We, in LALIT’s leadership, have only seen some of this spectacle on line. So, we have put together what we have seen, and together developed this analysis – as is our custom.
One bit some of us saw purports to be between Jugnauth’s advisor Dr. Joomye speaking loudly and MSM barrister Roubina Juddoo, as if from a distance by phone, and supposedly trying to get Adrien Duval locked up for a drink-and-drive offense. The point of this one is that Adrien Duval was Jugnauth’s then adversary and also son of the then Leader of the Opposition, and both are now his allies in L’Alliance Lepep. The aim is to explode their alliance before the elections. The first part of this particular recording seems to be a botched cut-and-paste job, even to our untrained ears. It seems, again to our untrained ears, to be Joomye’s phone that was bugged, while Juddoo was at a distance.
Then some of us watched the recent YouTube episodes about the Police Commissioner.
All this to say that this article is not an evaluation of every one of the episodes. It is rather designed to help introduce the principles of logical thinking about such complicated matters, even without having seen, let alone studied, all the videos on such serious matters and yet produced in the scurrilous tone of an irresponsible gutter press.
It is urgent that we speak soberly. It is after all the only moment in five years when people are briefly really interested in res publica, or political matters. Instead, people are being titillated by an anonymous person or people.
Question No 1: Who stole-and-stored this data?
The short answer to this question is we do not know.
It may help us think about it if we bear in mind that, as of now, it seems it may be people with only a temporary window for the operation of theft- steal-and-store of data, all of which seems to date back a couple of years. So far, at least. But, this does not tell us know who it was that stole-and-stored the data.
Clearly governments have the wherewithal to do tapping, so it may well be the State, or part thereof.
But, if indeed the source of data “dried up” in 2023, then it may not be the Government, itself, because the Government would presumably be able to access more recent data, which would serve the purposes of exciting the populace even better than older stuff.
In addition, it is well known that a private company like the American one “Cambridge Analytica”, as long ago as 2016 helped Trump to victory this way. And there was the notorious Israeli company that sells the “Pegasus” spyware that targets individuals and that led to the entrapment, murder and dismemberment of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi Arabia Special Forces in the Saudi Embassy in Turkey six years ago.
And, there is a sub-question to keep asking oneself at every turn: “In whose interest was it to steal-and-store data this way?”
The Mauritian State? Yes, possible.
An imperialist State? Given the Chagos/Diego Garcia treaty being prepared between the UK and Mauritius, and Mauritius’ giving evidence at the ICJ against the Israeli occupation of Palestine while the genocide is being perpetrated, Yes that, too, is possible. The USA, UK, India and Israel are all affected by the two issues mentioned.
A non-state actor? Well, Steve Bannon was Trump’s advisor at the time of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. He and his funders, were non-state actors – and they were from outside the USA. And they did it – even against the American people and using an American company, Facebook, and that, too, was during a Presidential election. People who are personally or politically against the MSM, or became against the MSM, could be responsible.
Another linked question is this: Is this a small part of an immense nation-wide stock of stolen-and-stored data? Or is it a data-bank of just, say, 10 or 20 targeted people and their contacts? The question needs to be thought about. So, it is not only “who” stole-and-stored the data, and “when” it “happened”, but also “what” data exactly is “out there” ready to be published in scandal-mongering style.
2. Who chose the moment to leak the data first to Facebook, then Tik-Tok, then Youtube?
Stealing-and-storing is the first offense.
The second one is choosing to share the data in public, and also choosing the exact time to publish what we assume to be selected parts of a bigger data bank i.e. during the few weeks of an election campaign, starting just before the Opposition’s big meeting in Curepipe, and just after Sherry Singh met with Alliance Changement leader, Navin Ramgoolam?
Knowing who released the data may help us to find out who stole-and-stored it in the first place. But even if not, in itself, it is interesting and gives us a lead. We will, over time, find out in whose interest it will have been to publish the pre-selected data at the exact time and place chosen. So far, unless there is a “sting” operation coming in the last week, it would seem to be that the “Missie Moustass” stories harm the MSM and the MSM State. They have had the most to lose. The MSM State is targeted. We have to add, “so far”.
We note, too, that the content has been removed swiftly by the social media companies that hosted it.
As soon as Facebook removed it and did so very fast, which is unusual, the content popped up on Tik-Tok who, even more unusually, removed it, and did so fast. Now it is on Youtube. Well, it was when we last looked. The Police Commissioner’s technical advisor in the IT department said, in a Press Conference alongside the Police Commissioner, that it was removed, he believed, because, after being reported by the Mauritian State, it was found by the companies to have “violated” their test for the various companies’ policy of ensuring technical “integrity and authenticity” of the material. If it does violate their policy as regards “integrity and authenticity”, they apparently take action and remove the post, or the author’s permission to post.
The political and personal stakes are now very high.
We are reminded of the “sting operation” or larnak – the author of it was never exposed – by which the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam election campaign was derailed by a document that his Labour Party relied upon to expose the MMM’s involvement with Khadafi’s Libya. It turned out to be a forgery. This is what is called being lured into a “sting” operation. And there was no time for him, or anyone else, to clear up the plot before the election.
3. What does the data-breach mean for Mauritians’ right to free expression and privacy?
When there is this kind of breach and publication of private data, another completely different issue comes up: an important human rights issue.
What does the steal-and-store and the publication mean for free expression? For the right to privacy? For the right to have one’s data protected?
This kind of breach is a third offense – against the peoples’ right to protection of free speech, of privacy and for data protection. And then, to make the issue so difficult to tackle, the actual content of some of the “leaks”, if true, unveils other hideously serious offenses, including covering up the murder of a detainee in ADSU’s custody. We will look into in the next section, number 4 below.
All this is what is at stake, and yet it is being presented in this scurrilous, titillating way – anonymously and as if it were a tele-novella.
In addition to free expression, privacy, and data protection being vital rights in this day and age, many ordinary citizens also now feel fear, even a kind of phobia. What is someone else, especially if it is the government or alternatively if it is their own spouse, or their in-laws, or their boss, or “the public”, know about what they said in private a few years ago?
A sub-question, on the more criminal side of this kind of breach, is, “Has this data been used, is it being used, and will it be used, in order to extract blackmail or other forms of coercion from people whose private conversations in audio-recordings are in the possession of persons unknown, or the State?” If the information is used in order to concoct a tele-novella, why would it not be used to extort money? This applies not only to clips already published, but to people’s dread of future publication of “je ne sais pas quoi”. In a country where hypocrisy abounds, this can cause a rise in a kind of mass hysteria, especially in the “deklare” parts of society who speak elegantly in their “society”, and vulgarly at other times, behind the backs of those they usually hoodwink in genteel Frenchified Kreol, especially amongst those prone to telling lies, or even living lies.
Another sub-question will be the macho aspect of this kind of badinaz. Already the Police Commissioner is exposed as supposedly having a mistress. A “conversation” with her is published. And the advertisement at the beginning of the series, promises to attack not the Prime Minister, but his wife, Kobita. Under patriarchy, cowards avoid attacking men they fear by simply attacking their wives instead. Prepare for this – it has already been threatened.
4. What Can be Done with the hideous “content” of some of the leaked files?
The problem with anonymously published leaflets, letters or on-line productions is what to do with the content. If the content exposes, or purports to expose, people in power, like police chiefs or ministers, then who does the enquiry and who takes the decision to do one. Or does everyone get forced, one by one, to resign – and this in the face of a general election?
Let us take one example. The “tele-novella”, for now, is concentrating on the Police Commissioner. Take his conversation with the forensic medicine doctor practitioner employed by the Police about covering up the apparent killing of a detainee, injured already by being kicked by the enquiring police officers in the testicles, causing his death. This is so serious, and yet it is part of this strange “tele-novella” spectacle.
People who know the voice of the Police Commissioner recognize it plotting things like covering up the police killing of someone in their custody. So, then what does one do? What does society do?
And the Police Commissioner seems to be plotting all this with his top police medical officer who he allegedly puts in charge of the autopsy report, and who he tells what the cause of death ought to be. But no-one is standing up to authenticate the “leak”. No-one has the courage of a Julian Assange and his Wikileaks team, who acted professionally throughout.
It is true that this Police Commissioner should have resigned long ago over previous serious breaches of the duty of Police Commissioner, but now there is this appalling audio file, without a witness to authenticate it in public.
In the past, we in LALIT have had a lot of difficulty convincing Prime Ministers like Pravind Jugnauth and Navin Ramgoolam, and before them of their respective fathers, Seewoosagur Ramgoolam and Anerood Jugnauth, of the veracity of police covering-up extreme violence and torture used against detainees, in particular the cover ups of deaths while detainees are in the custody of police officers in charge of investigations (mainly CID, CCID, MCIT, and ADSU). LALIT’s first confrontations with the Authorities date back to the killing of Serge Victorine by police who arrested him after the 1979 prison break that followed the general strike movement of August 1979. And we have, over the years, again and again confronted the Authorities.
The only rational thing to do is to call for his suspension, and for a Commission of Enquiry – even though he retires in three months’ time. We do call for this so that a proper enquiry becomes possible.
For the State to do this, however, is not easy at the time of a lightning election campaign, and when no-one knows what the next “revelation” will be, nor against whom. There may well be tapes held by Missie Moustass against the next man appointed to replace the Police Commissioner. And the different clans within the police force might be destabilized. Mauritius is at a dangerous moment. We need to protect the little democracy we have, like our elections, even while deepening democracy.
At this time, we have the Ramgoolam Opposition team who, just like Trump and his team, were already preparing to scream “stolen elections” from even before the campaign began. Ramgoolam is desperate to keep himself out of prison on the Kofor case, as well as being the proverbial bad loser. He made the Opposition waste four years by challenging the legitimacy of the last elections on truly thin or even false grounds.
Jugnauth, too, is desperate to stay in power for even more reasons. And he is just as much a “desperado” as Ramgoolam is. In fact, all those males at the head of all those three alliances are firmly in the “macho” and “desperado” categories. This bodes ill.
So, the organized working class and the left wing parties like LALIT have the burden of protecting bourgeois democracy from attacks from the right. This happens often in such times as these.
5. Genuine Conversations exist, but do they cover for some that are manipulated?
There are a host of people who attest to the veracity of the recordings of private telephonic conversations, or WhatsApp audio calls they did have and that are part of the scenario prepared by “Missie Moustass”.
These people recognize their own voices, and remember the exact conversation they had with someone. Some even know the date. They include well-known figures, journalists and politicians, like Nawaaz Noorbux, Patrick Assirvaden, Shakeel Mohamed, Alkhiz Ramdin, Bruneau Laurette. Most of these are taped saying things that are not particularly incriminating.
But this does not mean all are equally genuine, and not manipulated.
There is even a more devious possibility. Some of those who have attested loudly to the authenticity of their conversation have implied that everything is “therefore” authentic. But, that may end up being Missie Moustass’s “bait”, if ever there is some terrible stuff – invented or true – that “Missie Moustass” is holding back for later publication against them. Who knows? We note that, to our knowledge, politicians with experience have tended not to claim the conversations they “had” are authentic or not. They are too wise.
Other thoughts to be born in mind
Why is the whole series in this “tele-novella” called Missie Moustass?
Remember there was a row between Sherry Singh after he fell out with his boss, Prime Minister Jugnauth. Sherry Singh had been not just head of Mauritius Telecom but also chef of the Jugnauth’s inner circle, or “lakwizinn”, seen in flames at the opening gambit of each Part of each episode or each in the Series. At one time in 2022, Sherry Singh, by then an enemy of Jugnauth, circulated a bit of “documentary” filmed in the dark of a so-called “Missie Moustass”, who was said to be spying for India by means of physically getting into a bit of under-the-sea cable that lands at Baie de Jacotet. It was never clear whether the man with a moustache was called in as an expert because there had already been a breach of cyber-security that he was mending or whether he was, himself, the breach. And now, the name of the “tele-novella” confuses this issue even more. It adds another level of frivolity to the childish way in which these tidbits of audio are being released, as if for the consumption of an electorate of immature teenagers. But, it reminds us of the allegations against India.
What we can probably deduce about the role of other State actors right now is this: at the moment, the UK and USA are on the cusp of a UK-Mauritius treaty on Chagos that the US and UK have bolted themselves into. Note that the British High Commissioner, has herself been targeted by the Missie Moustass series, and this is headlines in Britain. The actual treaty between the UK and Mauritius is not yet finalized nor signed. It can be assumed, therefore, that the UK and even or especially the USA, mentioned in the agreement, prefer Jugnauth’s alliance to remain in power in Mauritius so that the USA-UK can sign the deal with the parties that they came to the agreement with. However, it is equally clear that the Republican Party in the USA and the Conservatives in Britain do not agree with the planned Treaty. And Trump might get elected on 5 November. India is, like the USA, inscribed into the joint document of agreement to go ahead with the Mauritius-UK Treaty. So, are we to assume India agrees?
However, it is likely that Israel, like the Western right-wingers it usually walks in lock-step with, does not agree. And Israel might be linked with opaque bits of the US permanent State that do not want the Treaty.
At the time of the Baie de Jacotet incident – then also very much played up as a silly little game, with the private radios going berserk about it and jubilating about audio-mat records – Sherry Singh was accused of being a China representative of some sort.
We note that the right wing in Britain and the USA go on-and-on about how Mauritius is about to become under the influence of China, something so far-fetched it is ridiculous, what with the overblown India influence in the Mauritius state and society, and the constant infiltration of the American occupying powers into morally dubious Mauritian NGOs and even bits of the State, as the direct financing of academics, journalists, even politicians of low ethics – funded directly by the US Department of State itself, the US Embassy itself, and the National Endowment for Democracy, which has replaced the CIA dirty-tricks brigades after the ruin of the CIA’s reputation for regime change operations, including by violence all over the globe.
Anyway, Sherry Singh denies being Missie Moustass.
But whoever Missie Moustass is, he seems to have the same enemies as Sherry Singh.
As for who Sherry Singh is now friends with, his latest chum is Navin Ramgoolam leader of Alliance Changement, after Singh had broken up three months ago, or so, with Bruneau Laurette with whom he was supposed to share Prime Ministership, when their party “One Moris” was supposed to win the elections. Laurette, for his part, has many links with Israel and the USA, and now has his own party, Mouvement Bruneau Laurette.
Conclusion
What we need is to understand how serious all this is. We need to be able to untangle all the different levels of issues involved. Otherwise, too many sentences are made with a straight face: “Jugnauth must go because he published private data about people, and he must also go because the private data published exposes that he and his friends are guilty of x,y,z.” We assume Jugnauth is not so stupid as to publish private data against himself.
Edited one inexact word on 27 October 2024
