When thieves attack you, in Mauritius or abroad, they usually do it at gunpoint, or with a knife, cutter or other instrument at your throat, and ask for all your money. Or if they break into your house and you have the misfortune to be at home at that precise moment, they will tie you to a chair or your bed, gag you, and carry out their dirty operation unperturbed.

The Chagos Islands Community Association (CICA) of the United Kingdom does it in a more civilised and humane way. It loots through correspondence. It sends letters to Head of Government and asks to be paid. It doesn't exactly call it ransom money, but gives it the name of compensation.

It is thus that the Chairperson of the CICA has written to the Prime Minister of Mauritius to claim a compensation amounting to Rs 14.5 million for each of the ex-Chagossians of the first and second generations.

This money is claimed as compensation for “damages incurred during 40 years of suffering.” Those of the third and subsequent generations will submit their claims for compensation at a later stage, as descendants of Chagos refugees. Their demand is accompanied by an undisguised threat.

“You better clear this sum by  the 15th of February 2010 (Monday last) or you'll have to bear the consequences,” the CICA Chairperson warns, “as we shall stage a demonstration in front of the Mauritian High Commission in London on the 24th of February before taking the Mauritian Government to Court. And don't think that we are alone in this endeavour. We have the full support of the British Government.”

I don't know if our Prime Minister has allowed himself to be intimidated, but we can't say that the CICA hasn't tried. By the way, who will compensate the Mauritian Government and people for having welcomed and hosted the uprooted Chagossians, provided them with food and shelter and work,  and given them land to build houses, but which they have preferred to sell for peanuts to Mauritians?