Return of the Jedi: Take 2

The Light shone in the Darkness and the Darkness said: “You’re Home early Honey!”

The Application below was delivered to the Supreme Court on Monday, the Fourth Day of February 2013. (Because Jeff Lingaya’s Life was at stake, We couldn’t wait until May 4th). It had been cleared by the Master of the Court and sworn in front of the Registrar. For about an hour, Court Officers sent Our Director was sent from pillar to post and back again around the Court buildings. He didn’t see any geese, wild or otherwise, but did become sufficiently enraged to start video recording the farce. Under threat of private  prosecution  for perverting the course of justice, the Judges’ Secretaries finally accepted the Application. However, after the Judge in Chambers had considered it for some length of time, the Application was rejected it for ”vice de procédure”. Let the public give its judgement on whether or not the Judge was just.

Orange-gate update: Political police?

The purpose of the Mauritian Police Force is supposed to be: “To uphold the law fairly and firmly, to prevent crime and bring to justice those who break the law. To protect the community and act with common sense, integrity and sound judgement…”. In his classic allegorical novel, Animal Farm, George Orwell warns us that even the most idealistic leadership can become irredeemably corrupt over time. The surest evidence for this is when the de facto law of the land has degenerated to: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” Is Mauritius sliding down this slippery slope?

With lightning speed the police responded to the complaint Nandanee Soornack (Labour activist) made on 10th December 2012. The acccused, Yogida Sawmynaden (MSM activist), was questioned, arrested and provisionally charged with a crime that doesn’t even exist in law merely eight days later.   The farce only ended when the the Director of Public Prosecutions intervened, ruling that there was “no case to answer”. Contrast this with a complaint first lodged over two and a half ago…

[Source for photo: kotzot.com]

Where there is no vision…

…the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. – Proverbs 29:18

Vision

The quote is from the Old Testament and was written by a prophet of Israel. His people spent 40 years wandering through the wilderness because they had no map to guide them to the Promised Land and a leader who had lost God’s favour. In the 1990s, our nation developed a long term strategy – Vision 2020 – to illuminate the path to a sustainable and prosperous future. It was the responsibility of the current Governor of the Bank of Mauritius and largely completed by the end of the golden age of Sir Anerood Jugnauth. A regime change in 1995 meant that its launch was delayed and with no communication programme, it soon disappeared from the consciousness of the people.

MID Life Crisis

When the Prime Minister announced that he and Joël de Rosnay had conceived Maurice Ile Durable during a brief encounter in Paris, did he imagine that the gestation period would last 3 years 9 months? Finally, the long-awaited MID Strategy is about to be born… Or is it?

At the MID workshop last Thursday, some participants were calling for delivery to be postponed for another year. Had they peeked at the baby and seen the 4 limbs, head and body that they had carefully constructed in the 6 Working Groups, stitched together like Frankenstein’s monster? Alas it is worse than that. One participant summarised the overall conclusion to a long round of applause: “For the moment, the strategy we have looks more like Mauritius Green Washing than Maurice Ile Durable.”

Feedback: Daft MID Strategy

Overview

MID was launched in 2008 in Paris and 2009 in Mauritius, promising to fundamentally change Mauritian society and its impact on Nature in four major spheres: economic, social, political and environmental. A visioning exercise was conducted in 2010 to capture the population’s dreams for the future of the Republic. However, the output has been ignored and this has been rightly criticised by the Truth and Justice Commission. Instead of a co-created, inspiring blue-print for the future, the MID Vision is a bland statement of a few generic elements of sustainable development within a framework that is far from comprehensive. There is little in the MID Vision that permits one to visualise the future and indeed there is nothing in it that is specific to Mauritius – it could just as easily apply to France.

MID – Maurice Ile Dépendante

The Empires Strike Back

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

A tiger-class merchant ship was making its way with the rest of the fleet towards the Golden Dawn of the New Age. Without the added weight of weaponry, it was one of the fastest craft around, it’s path illuminated by a state-of-the-art 4-sight navigation system which resembled a balanced tripod supporting a bright spark. All would have been perfect, except that three officers coveted the captain’s chair and the fickle crew regularly mutinied in favour of one or the other.

The first was an old Jedi Knight, who had turned completely to the Dark Side. The second was a short-sighted son of a former captain, who had lied about his lineage, assassinated his rivals and betrayed the most vulnerable members of the crew to get the post. The third was a rejected member of a race of condescending albinos, who had deceived the crew into believing that the ship could not operate without them, even though they did little work themselves. They had been the first to board the ship and, though few in number, still controlled most of the trade. Somehow they had managed to convince everyone that they had a divine right to occupy the best quarters and live in luxury while others lived in squalor.

Shortly after an unusually traumatic upheaval, the Dark Knight was reinstated as Captain. Once in control, he ripped the tripod apart, giving each leg as a prize to his key supporters and jettisoned the bright spark. The merchant ship meandered aimlessly. Half-hearted attempts were made to copy the trading strategies of others and unprofitable sectors were subsidised, mostly in the interests of the albinos and their fratres, whom many suspected of secretly manipulating the ship’s controls. Caring less about the lack of progress, the wannabe captains continued their feud for the captain’s chair.

Fighting corruption in ICAC

OPEN LETTER TO THE COMMISSIONERS OF ICAC

Dear Commissioners

You are referred to your the letters dated 22.02.2012, signed by the Acting Secretary to the Commission and bearing the following references: ICAC/FIR/1665/11 and ICAC/FIR/07/12.

They both contain the following formulaic statement:

With reference to your email dated (…) and the statement you made at the ICAC on (…), I am directed to inform you that the evidence has not disclosed elements of offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act (PoCA) or the Financial Intelligence and Anti-Money Laundering Act (FIAMLA).

Yet neither contains any explanation or suggestion of alternative course of redress for the complaints. Moreover, the titles you have assigned to both complaints do not refer to the main accused parties. Taking each in turn:

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.

Occupy.mu blocked?

Is this WHY?

6 Our objective is to complete the first soft coup in the world using purely legitimate means rather than mass mobilisation – regime change without military or mob intervention. Our competitors are Pakistan, where the President is facing a soft coup attempt and the Philippines where the President is using congress to impeach the Chief Justice. However, they are seeking to replace one component of state apparatus, we are aiming to remove the whole lot.

On the face of it, this might indeed seem impossible since at least three of the four pillars of our democracy – the legislature, the judiciary and the media – are all under the firm control of the “Synagogue of Satan”, the highly irregular masonic lodge – La Triple Esperance. While Sir Anerood Jugnauth maintains the semblance of antipathy towards the bent brethren, this would be compatible with their modus operandi, as elucidated by Vladamir Lenin: “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves”. Alternatively, with his son effectively a hostage of ICAC and the courts, they can manipulate him through his greatest weakness – paternal devotion. However, it is this total subversion of the Sovereignty of the Republic of Mauritius that renders our comprehensive coup necessary.