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…

Please intervene to stop World War Three

OPEN LETTER to Dr Boolell, Minister of Foreign Affairs et al.

Dear Arvin

It was a pleasure to finally meet with you yesterday. Sanjeet had told me lots of great things about you. I am still surprised that you have not heard of me because your Premier Mason is well aware of me. On the subject, you would have done better to look at the pendant on my necklace rather than playing with my hand to identify my “qualifications” I will let you try again when we meet next.

There are a couple of things that you can do for my charity:

The Mauritian Miracle – then and now

Dear Professor Stiglitz

Sorry for taking so long to respond to your op-ed on Mauritius. Like many of your academic predecessors, the brevity of your visit earlier this year prevented you looking into the details of the state and history of Mauritius. Please permit me to fill some in.

Although free, universal education was introduced in 1976 in response to student protests, decent education is no longer free in Mauritius. Those who “have” send their children to private schools and those who “have less” pay for private tuition after school and at weekends. The children of those who “have nothing” are severely disadvantaged. Moreover, state tertiary education is largely failing to prepare students for work in call centres so forget about advanced technology.

The same is true of “universal” free, healthcare: those who “have” go to private hospitals, those who “have less” attend private surgeries and purchase medicines from pharmacies, avoiding, like the plague, the state run hospitals and their dubiously sourced pills for those who “have nothing”. For those who need expensive treatment overseas, there is a national lottery.