Independence came via a rotten mongol

A brilliant article by Mahen Napal appeared in l’Express yesterday, challenging the official story of how Mauritius became independent. In fact it is too generous to SSR, the Betrayer of the Nation. The Chagos Islands weren’t the price paid for independence back in 1968. At the same time, islands were taken from the Seychelles and later returned to them when they gained independence in 1976. If either nation had raised the issue in the UN then the international community (especially Russia) would not have permitted it.

To buy their silence the Seychelles received an international airport and Mauritius got £3 million. Given that SSR was initially asking for £140 million over 20 years, he sold the Chagos islands and sold out the Chagossian people for peanuts didn’t he? How can that be explained unless the UK offered him a personal “incentive”, remember that was already knighted by then? Yes the UK did pretend that they would snatch away SSR’s legacy of becoming “father of the nation” but only to make him accept the safeguards for the minority communities, i.e. the Best Loser System. Read all about it in the British records. SSR wasn’t the first deceitful politician to re-write history and unfortunately, he won’t be the last…

The erosion of democracy in Mauritius

Since the start of the reign of the current Prime Minister, human rights and the rule of law have been steadily eroded. In no year has this been more apparent to us than 2011.

Freedom of Expression

On 17th October, Dharmanand Dooharika, editor of the weekly Samedi Plus was sentenced to three months imprisonment for publishing, on 14th August 2010, the views of Dev Hurnam who questioned the independence of a supreme court judge. The editor was accused of “publicly scandalising the supreme court” and “bringing the administration of justice into disrepute”. He was denied bail pending appeal and incarcerated on 20th October in the main prison. (A full report has been prepared by the Committee to Protect journalists). On 31st October, the same day that we made intercession to the President on his behalf, the DPP performed a u-turn and removed his objection to bail.