As Mauritius election swings left Diego Garcia: Britain's 'forgotten Falklands'

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IN A WEEK when the international news was dominated by events in the Middle East and the Southern Atlantic, the result of a general election in the tiny Indian Ocean island of Mauritius was lost for the media.

Socialists should not be similarly disoriented. The ruling bourgeois coalition of Sir Seewasagur Kangoolam was swept from power by a landslide victory for the Mouvement Militant Mauritien (MMM) which took 60 out of 62 elected seats in a The MMM calls for a 'zone of peace' in the Indian Ocean. The tiny atoll of Diego Garcia, twelve hundred miles to the north, detached was Mauritius by ani couldn with the British before independence in 1968. Tre. mains sovereignty but was handed over to the US military.

is now ine celatral strategic base for US Indian Ocean operations overseeing its interests in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and Southern Africa.

Meantime twelve hundred former inhabitants still live in shan Louis, settlements Port the Mauritian capital, to which they were deported.

socialists should raise the restore Diego Garcia Mauritius, contrasting the these islanders with those in the Falklands.

The MMM originated in the early 1970s in period intense class struggle that culminated in the 1973 general strike Close relationship the GWF (General Workers Federation) in a country where the working class is an absolute majoriThe economic crisis was decisive in galvanising its support. The price of susal more than ninety per cent accounting for exports, dropped from £360 per ton in November 1980 to £147 in 1982. Unemployment is at least 30 per cent.

A l 1979 World Bank loan imposed a freeze, cuts in subsidies on rice and flour and the introductior vices.

The programme of the MMM has however moved considerably to the right since 1973. Its best known leader Paul Berenger now quotes the Mitterrand government as an example, advocating worker participation, a national enterprise board etc.

economic wealth is effectively con trolled by the owners of eight vast plantations such measures can never oegl to improve standards fo the working class. . The new tale by its will gress to ov its willingness to challenge the decisive controllers the island's economy at home and abroad.