Warning to Ramgoolam and Bérenger: It is at your peril that you abandon international law for money!
25.02.2026
When President Trump signs a social media post referring to the Republic of Mauritius as “whoever it is that is ‘claiming’ Right, Title and Interest to Diego Garcia” or as one of the “entities never known of before” making “fictitious” “claims” to Diego Garcia, Ramgoolam and Bérenger, even Duval and Subron, ought to know for sure that their opportunism, in seeking a few “cheques” has put the country in a dangerous situation, geo-politically speaking. And what kind of rank insult is that? Trump calling Mauritius an entity never heard of before making fictitious claims? Calling Mauritius “whoever it is”? And our Ministers do not call in the USA Ambassador?
Will the Mauritian Government just lie flopped down like a doormat and let Trump walk all over the country?
This insult comes at the same time as another. Misley Mandarin, self-appointed supposed “First Minister of Chagos”, arrives on Peros Banos in Chagos and hoists the British colonial BIOT flag and the US flag on what international law has unequivocally statuted to be Mauritian land. And then it is Britain not Mauritius that calls him out for being there illegally! Can the Mauritian Government not take charge of Chagos? After winning all the legal battles, Mauritius has not yet even made Chagos a Constituency!
Ramgoolam had dispersed all the cadres who could have saved his Government from this fate – we refer to Sarojni Seeneevassen sent to Australia, Jugdish Koonjul no longer the influential civil servant at the UN, Arvin Boolell not in Foreign Affairs, and Vijay Makhan named Advisor to a Minister without portfolio – instead of concentrating them in an experienced team to support Attorney General Glover, who clearly knows nothing of geo-politics and international law.
It is as if our Government has sought out all this public humiliation, instead of sticking to a principled stand, and calling for the respect for international law, no more and no less.
At the same time, and underlining the mortal danger to Mauritius of the opportunist money-minded “deal” already signed up to by the Mauritian Government for 100 years, while the co-signatory the UK amends and postpones the agreement, the whole world now faces the “danger of all dangers”: Trump announces he intends to use the US military base on Diego Garcia and the US base at Fairford in the UK, where the USA stocks its big nuclear bombs, so as to attack Iran, or as Trump puts it, “to eradicate a potential attack”. He announces this even as the BBC announces, that the “British government has not given permission for the US to use UK military bases to support potential US strikes on Iran.” The BBC notes that the “US has in the past used RAF Fairford, in Gloucestershire, and the UK overseas territory of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, to carry out strikes in the Middle East region.” Fox News quotes The Times (which is behind a pay-wall) putting it this way, “U.K. officials were reportedly worried that giving the United States permission to use the RAF bases for a military attack could breach international law ...” Even the UK finds it necessary to fall back on “international law”, when faced with US aggression.
Even after these rank colonial Trump insults against Mauritius, and even in the face of the dangers of breaches of international law on our territory and the world spiraling into nuclear war, Bérenger and Ramful seemed ready to continue kumsi-ryin-ete with the negotiations with some US military “officials” planned originally for Tuesday. And who calls the negotiations off? Not Bérenger, who was acting Prime Minister, but the USA! To have gone ahead would have been dangerous. We are on the brink of an existential threat to our independent country, and our leaders seem blind to this.
And at this moment there are even self-appointed advisors to the Government, like Me Robin Mardemootoo, who says what Mauritius should put out a begging bowl for, in the midst of all these huge tectonic shifts in geo-politics, is petty contracts and tenders to supply the killing machine on Diego Garcia.
Ramgoolam, Bérenger, Duval and Subron have sold, and on Tuesday were hell-bent on continuing to sell, the very soul of Mauritius to the imperialist devils.
LALIT warns the Government that it is at its peril to go on abandoning principle, and abandoning international law including the law of decolonization, and trying to make a quick buck.
The USA intends to dominate the Republic of Mauritius and even the UK, in its irrational lashing out. Remember it is an empire that is about to collapse. It is already falling. And it lashes out, trying to keep its “full spectrum dominance”, as it calls it, even during its own economic downfall, political collapse into illegality and barbarism, and social decay highlighted by the mixture of currency fraud and financial graft carried out by an “Epstein class” alongside its gross exploitation of women and children, abused for sex, and then filmed for use as blackmail material, all the while the whole, huge establishment probably having been set up by the secret services of Israel, the UK and the USA, in order to have total control over the oligarchs of the West and their politicians.
We know that the Republic of Mauritius via Ramgoolam, Bérenger, Subron and Duval has invited the logic of “might is right” by selling our soul to the imperialist devil. But, they can still reverse out of the trap.
The time has now come to take a principled stand. Our existence as a nation state is at stake.
The Government must put negotiations with the UK and USA on hold. Jean Claude de l’Estrac suggests the same thing, sensing the danger of the moment. We suggest it for strategic reasons.
What we now need is to return to the ICJ, via the General Assembly, viz the African union, for guidance in a new ruling. If we stick to principles, and to international law, Mauritius will win. If we wheel-and-deal with Trump, we are doomed to more public humiliation. The unions are this week joining together with other associations and with LALIT to take a stand. It is time for proper mobilization based on understanding of the facts on the ground.
This is the way, in full dignity, that the Republic of Mauritius will be re-unified, in accordance with the ICJ judgment and the UN General Assembly resolution. This way Chagossians will be able to exercise the right of return and have free circulation, with all Mauritians. This way Mauritius can put in a claim for past rent owed for illegal occupation for 58 years, and damages, and also put in a claim on behalf of the Chagossians for the harm their forcible removal caused.
LALIT, 22 February 2026 (translated from Kreol version)
[Published in L’Express on 24-Feb-2026]
