Lalit demands closure of US base

Annolies Truman, Perth

Ram Seegobin, a leader of the Mauritian socialist organisation Lalit (meaning "struggle" in Creole) addressed a meeting here on March 30 and spoke at a Fremantle showing of The Control Room on April 1. The meetings were organised by the Socialist Alliance with around 80 people in total attendance.

Seegobin said that Lalit's major current campaign aims to force the closure of the US military base on the island of Diego Garcia, situated in the Chagos Archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Rented to the US by the British in 1965 in an underhanded deal just before Mauritius became independent, the island has been used as a base for bombing Afghanistan and Iraq.

Lalit's campaign demands Mauritian sovereignty for the Chagos Archipelago, the right of return and reparations for the evicted inhabitants, the closure of the military base and its conversion into a tsunami warning system.

From Green Left Weekly, April 6, 2005.

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From GLW issue 621