Peaceful March – Shut down Diego Garcia base! Stop Genocide in Palestine!
06.04.2025
On Friday 21 organizations, including LALIT, came together on the basis of a common platform to participate in a solemn march in the heart of the capital, Port Louis. The two demands of the march were “Shut down the US military base on Diego Garcia!” and “Stop the US-Israeli genocide in Palestine”. Those gathered at the emblematic Company Gardens, on an ordinary weekday, around speakers, like Haniff Peerun of the Mauritius Labour Congress (MLC), Lindsey Collen representing Ledikasyon pu Travayer, and Alain Ah Vee representing LALIT. They then marched past the Government House and Parliament.
The nature of the specific demands, and their precision, is what makes the march historic. The prediction of the organizers at the time we joined together to fix the march that these two crimes would expose their nature as part of one and the same crime: Western imperialism and its colonial policies, as the USA empire is now falling, exposed the unity of all its past crimes for all to see – it exposed them, in the case of Diego Garcia and Palestine as being “one and the same” almost to the day.
The two demands came together in history “as one”, for everyone to see, at the very moment of the march. The march coincided with the US armed forces massing their B-2 stealth bombers – one-third of their total fleet – on the Diego Garcia military base. The USA is already bombing civilians in Yemen because Yemeni Ansarullah troops are blocking Israeli and US shipping that serves Israel in its genocide. Then Trump threatened to “bomb” Iran and that it “will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before." This shows the huge dimensions of the crisis we, as humanity, are now in, when Yemen and Iran are the only two countries fulfilling the moral duty, and legal duty, of all countries, to intervene to stop the crime of genocide.
Since all the Arab countries have forbidden the US bases on their land being used during the genocide against Palestine to bomb Iran, the USA has had to fall back on its illegal military base on Diego Garcia, at the very time in history when Britain now has a legal obligation to return Diego Garcia to the Republic of Mauritius.
Iran has, in measured diplomatic words, announced that it is preparing, in response to this threat, to launch strikes on Diego Garcia.
So, the two issues – military base closure and support for the people of Palestine are exposed as indeed being one issue. The demonstration had precise slogans on each issue, and they were interwoven during the march.
So, when people shouted “Ki nu pe rode?” (What do we want?) and replied “Diego” (short for Diego Garcia), and “Ferm baz” (Close down the base at) “Diego”, as they marched, it was clear that the USA must clear out of what is now legally determined to be Mauritian land. “Kolonizasyon” “Nu pa’le!” (“Colonization?” “We don’t want it!” And this now includes the precise demand for no attacks against Palestine from our land!
Precise analyses were concentrated into few words: “Leta Angle?” “Voler!” (“What is the British State?” “Land-thief”), and “Leta Merikin?” “Reseler!” (“What is the US state?” “Receiver of stolen goods!”), and then “Leta Israel?” “Kriminel!” (“What is the Israeli State?” Criminal!”). And “Free” “Palestine” and “Stop” “zenosid”. The history of continued colonization of the Republic of Mauritius is denounced. The connivance of Britain and the USA to steal Chagos, set up the base together on Diego Garcia and forcibly displace all the Chagossians, is too. This, in turn, echoes the British organizing the Israeli colonization of Palestine, a project connived with the USA for the latter 50 years or so, forcibly displacing them day-by-day, and now killing Palestinians by the tens of thousands, destroying Gaza and the West Bank altogether.
Delegations from the big union federations were present, as well as from individual unions, workers and women’s associations (See complete list below). People came from all areas of the Mauritius main island – from the South to the North, the East to the West, towns to villages to coastal hamlets. Young and old. There were many women, a number who came some distance and on their own. The march had its own “servis-dord”, which negotiated, as usual, with the handful of polite police officers present. As it turned out, there were no cases of any “provocateurs” or “agent provocateurs”.
The public all over Port Louis came out of shops and offices on to the pavement, and looked out of windows, and showed support.
As in any public demonstration, you get the odd puerile pancarte with a slogan, which disrespects the public that will read it and whose frivolity perhaps underestimates the gravity of the moment in history that we are in, while others, again as can be expected, were somewhat off the mark, one singling out for attack French President Emmanuel Macron alone, for his admittedly bad role in the genocide and, for that matter, for French military bases in the Indian Ocean. Not everyone reads or understands the carefully worded “Platform” published by the 20 organizations that organized the march after agreement on each phrase, a platform that gives a general “focus” to the march.
This was, in fact, the third street demonstration, since the beginning of the Gaza genocide in 2023, held by organizations involved in the call for this demonstration. Last year the Muvman Liberasyon Fam called a Women’s Peace March (already, linking the two themes to end the genocide and close the Diego Garcia base) around International Women’s Day, and another march was hosted by the CTSPP and held in the centre of the town of Rose-Hill. Another 50 or so actions have been organized in and around SOMALP (Solidarite Morisyin avek Lepep Palestinn). In parallel, there have been street demonstrations chanting “Ki nu pe rode? Diego!” since the 1970s! Some of our members present were in the women’s demonstration that the riot police attacked in March 1981, and were amongst those arrested and tried for illegal demonstration.
At the end of the demonstration Reeaz Chuttoo, for the CTSPP, gave a speech, and also introduced the chant “Blood Money!” (In English in the original – the words already familiar from Mafia movies) and the reply “Nu pa’le” (“We reject it!”). It was in the spirit of the Platform. Haniff Peerun called on the Mauritian Government to break off all ties with Israel. This too was in the spirit of the platform.
People dispersed briskly, being aware that it has often been the case – everywhere in the world – that, right at the very end of a demonstration, some band of “agents provocateurs” attack in order to discredit the protest. The orderly and brisk dispersal after a demonstration is a measure of the maturity of those present.
List of organization that signed up to the Petition and the Call for the march:
Mauritius Labour Congress, Haniff Peerun
Federation of Parastatal Bodies and Other unions, Deepak Benydin
Conf. des Travailleurs des Secteurs Publique et Privé, Reeaz Chuttoo
National Trade union Confederation, Narendranath Gopee
Federation of Civil Service and Other unions, Vinesh Sewsurn
General Workers Federation, Clency Bibi
Federation des Travailleurs Unis, Atma Shanto
Rodrigues Private Industries & Allied Workers union, Jocelin Louis
Rodrigues Government Employees Association, Julienne Meunier
Rodrigues Workers Federation, Marie Antoinette Casimir
Nurses’ union, Vidhata Jeewuth.
Nursing Association, Ram Nowzadick
union of Private Secondary Education Employees, Dain Jahajeeah
Ledikasyon pu Travayer, Lindsey Collen
Leve Fam! Danielle Turner
Muvman Liberasyon Fam, Rajni Lallah
ABAIM, Marousia Bouvery,
Never Again-Olive Resistance, Tania Haberland
Dr Idrice Goomany Treatment Centre, Norman Tambanivoul
Lalit, Alain Ah Vee
and later, and with a delegation at the march,
Government Teachers’ union, signed by President.
