Talk Nation Radio: Rajni Lalit on Justice for an Island Whose Whole Population Was Removed

Rajni Lallah is a leading member of LALIT (which means struggle), a political organization in Mauritius in the forefront for the past 42 years of the struggle to decolonize and demilitarize the Chagos Islands. Rajni Lallah was 12 years old when she joined the women's movement in Mauritius and remains active in Muvman Liberasyon Fam, a national women's organization in Mauritius. When she was 14, she went to the first solidarity all-night vigil in support of Chagossian women on hunger strike after they had been deported by the UK-USA military to Mauritius island and has been active on the Chagos front ever since. She is a musician, composer and music teacher by profession. At the time of Mauritian independence around 1968, the UK “depopulated” the Chagos archipelago, and then excised it from the rest of Mauritius to make way for a U.S. military base on Diego Garcia, one of the islands forming part of the Chagos archipelago. We discuss the case being heard in the International Court of Justice this week.