Ramgoolam and Glover Realize they Have Fallen into UK Colonial Trap – Mauritius Must Return to the ICJ for Guidance
21.12.2025
The United Kingdom, being an old, wily colonizing power, has outwitted many a man cleverer than Navin Ramgoolam and many a man more experienced in the politics of decolonization than Gavin Glover. It is not for nothing that the British State is called “perfide Albion”.
Look at the ludicrous position Ramgoolam and Glover have put the Republic of Mauritius in:
First, Navin Ramgoolam had said that former Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth committed “haute trahison” by agreeing to a similar Accord. We agreed. Then, once he became Prime Minister, Ramgoolam signed an arguably worse Accord.
Second, Ramgoolam and Glover have signed Mauritius up – without an iota Parliamentary oversight let alone national debate – only to be left high and dry because Britain has still not yet signed up. In their eagerness to get the “blood money” for renting out our land to be used for a killing-machine-military-base, Ramgoolam and Glover may well end up with just the “blood” being spilled from our land – what a moral responsibility – and not even getting their grubby hands on the even more filthy “money” the British have not yet signed up to.
Once the British go outside international law – and start doing things like holding ersatz “consultations” that are not with “the whole Mauritius population”, i.e. the whole of the colonized territory before Independence, as is required by international decolonization law – the Mauritian Government has lost all its dignity and risks losing its very independence, as well as part of our territory. Now the British State – the old, wily colonial one, in which the elected MPs have very little power, and in which even the Prime Minister can be overturned by the permanent state – is in action. The Conservative Party and extreme right wing opposition of the Reform Party, together representing 52% in October polls, recognize someone called Misley Mandarin as “First Minister” of Chagos! The Chagossians, who both live in the UK and are pro-colonizer, have elicited and got a de facto suspension of the UK-Mauritius agreement, pending consultations with the Chagossians. But what kind of consultations? Fair and transparent ones? Consultations under the international law of decolonization, as decided by the ICJ? Involving the whole of the Mauritian people? Or some Kangaroo consultations that the UK runs, itself?
To summarize, the UK has not signed the Agreement, which is pending. Meanwhile, Chagossians from Britain have been to a United Nations Committee Against Discrimination, which has called for further consultations. The UK has also held weird “consultations”, outside the ambit of the international law on decolonization, in that they are of only one selected “part” of the country being decolonized. Some Chagossians, meanwhile, living in the UK, have chosen their own “First Minister”, presumably of the illegal colony, the British Indian Ocean Territory? What has the Ramgoolam Government done with the ICJ victory and the UN General Assembly victory?
At the same time, just reminding us of the “petrin” that the UK is in, the BIOT Commissioner lost his Appeal Court case last week against the poor Sri Lankan Refugees shipwrecked near Diego Garcia and then illegally imprisoned by the British and Americans, a case the UK had previously lost in the Supreme Court. This means the British State will rightly pay a lot of compensation money. And, for the future, if the British, as things stand now, will be responsible not only for refugees arriving from across the Channel in boats from France, but also, perhaps by the hundreds of thousands for refugees who may end up in the BIOT colony when they flee their country, if, for example, the USA goes ahead with its repeated threats to go to war with China over Taiwan. In the British Parliament, speakers in favour of the UK-Mauritius “deal” put a lot of emphasis on Mauritius being used in order to alleviate British responsibility for all future refugees that may land on Chagos. The British “Rwanda option” designed to out-source refugees to this country simply fell apart. This is clearly one of the prime reasons that makes Britain feel pushed to “debaras” Chagos. It means Britain does not see Mauritius as “sovereign” but, on the contrary, as a “subaltern” being roped in to perform an unpleasant function to lessen the “burden” of the British colonizing State.
Note how Minister Glover is beginning to panic. In his 18 December Communique, which is worth reading in toto, he says:
“We re-iterate that Chagossians are an integral part of the Mauritian people and the Chagos Archipelago an integral part of the territory of Mauritius. These facts have been unequivocally affirmed by the International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion of 25 February 2019. The [British] report Itself recognises that international law does not afford Chagossians an independent right of self-determination. ...
“We also note the limits of the survey's methodology ...”
The Mauritian State cannot permit Britain to hold this kind of threat – where Mauritius has agreed to something to which the UK has not agreed – over Mauritius, “a sovereign democratic State”, to quote from the Constitution. Mauritius, after having won at the ICJ in February 2019, and then having won at the UN General Assembly later that year, now has to suffer the humiliation of the British House of Lords’ Chief Whips on the Government and Opposition sides lording it over Mauritius and supposedly “consulting” Chagossians, who are part of the Mauritian people, according to the findings of the International Court of Justice, the highest court in the world. Why are we now awaiting these old colonial House of Lords “nominees” based on their caste, for our future as a country?
LALIT therefore calls on the Prime Minister Ramgoolam to at once replace Minister Glover as sole responsible for a dossier he does not fully understand, and put him as part of a team including Government people who know this dossier very well, like Milan Meetarbhan, Vijay Makhan, Sarojini Seeneevassen together with the very able and experienced former permanent representative Jagdish Koonjul, who has served under all Governments. Barrister Philippe Sands KC would be very helpful, as would the barrister Amy Sander who represented Mauritius in the ICJ case against Israel on the illegality of the occupation of Palestine: both know this difficult dossier well. With this team, then do the following:
- Immediately prepare a new ICJ case, again to be called for by the UN General Assembly, again via the African union, for an Advisory Opinion on how to go forward with implementation of the ICJ 2019 Advisory Opinion and of the UN General Assembly resolution to respect the Court’s decision i.e. for Britain to leave the whole of Chagos, including Diego Garcia within six months.
- Put in a civil case for two kinds of reparations: for past rent of Chagos and Diego Garcia for the military base and for the damage suffered by the Republic of Mauritius for loss of revenue from all the land and sea illegally occupied for 57 years, as well as separate reparations on behalf of all Chagossians, for Chagossians, for the pain and suffering that they suffered by being so cruelly displaced.
Conclusion
Bowing down to colonial power never leads to a good result. The British, as we repeat, are an old, wily colonial trickster. The British “permanent state” is still all-powerful over its Parliament. This is why international law, together with ongoing political mobilization in the Republic of Mauritius and regionally and internationally, is the only way to win against Britain.
This is the only way to win, and it has the advantage of being a dignified way to win a geo-political conflict, especially a conflict with a former British colonial master, now attached to a falling American empire. All other ways lead to humiliation, and include forcing us into having to “res trankil” and “manz ku”, as Vice Prime Bérenger so accurately described, at one of his solo press conferences, his own descent into the hell of being controlled by a former colonial power. We risk becoming a colony again. The stakes are high. As time goes on, not only the Prime Minister Ramgoolam will realize the enormity of his error, but everyone in the country will.
Ragini Kistnasamy and Lindsey Collen, for LALIT, 20 Dec 2025
