An educator and a Human Rights activist, Kavi Pyneeandy is a brand name in Amnesty International . He set up the Mauritius Section in 1981 and was reelected Chair in 2007. Serving what he hopes is his final mandate, he talks to us about their recent press conference, the work Amnesty is engaged in and the outlook as far as human rights are concerned.

¦ During your press conference this morning, I heard some very strong words. Don’t you think it was heavy-handed?

I don’t think it was heavy-handed. I think that minister Choonee is what we call in terms of human rights a duty bearer. And we, the people of Mauritius, are right-holders. When a duty-bearer says that a particular group of persons has more rights than others, it means that he is destroying the very essence of human rights. In human rights, there is a very basic principle. It is the principle of equality and non-discrimination.

¦ Yes, I understand. Everybody condemned what he said and everybody agreed that he shouldn’t have said it. But you went a bit further and said he was actually inciting to violence! I am not sure I would follow you that far.

The very fact that you say that a particular group of people has more right than others means that if I do not belong to this group of persons, then I enjoy fewer rights. So I think this, for somebody holding the position of a minister in the republic of Mauritius, with republican values and democratic values, with the constitution that we have, amounts to a very contemptible act.

¦ You also used the word “sedition”. Is that too not strong?

I must say it was in reply to a question by a member of the press that that word was uttered. But then the media took it out of its context and it perhaps sounded strong.

¦ Too strong?

When the media made headlines out of it, yes. Perhaps.

¦ But it was still a word used. They did not invent it. Maybe they did not put it in the full context, but it is still a very, very strong word.

And it was a very, very strong contemptible act committed by the minister.

¦ O.K. But was it seditious?

Someone elected by the people of Mauritius, who holds such a high position, is duty bound to respect, promote and realize the human rights of the people who have voted for him, irrespective of their race, colour, or caste.

¦ But your detractors say that when similar comments– more or less reprehensible – were uttered by other office holders, we never heard the voice of Amnesty.

We started our awareness campaign against communalism only about two years ago and, during the last electoral campaign, we instituted a “Communalism Watch” in order to condemn politicians who talk about communalism. This communalism watch was in operation until the end of the general elections. But I don’t recall any other such occasions in the past. It is the first time that an official minister holding such a position has said that some people have more rights than others.

¦ Because he is a minister? Somebody else like Jocelyn Grégoire has said similar things, but because he is not a minister it does not matter?

It matters a lot. I think people all over the country should take such things seriously.

¦ But we’ve never heard Amnesty protesting...

It’s not only Grégoire. Communalism is quite rampant in the country. And if we had to intervene every time someone made a racist comment, we would be hunting around every minute of the day. But apart from denouncing what Minister Choonee said, we are also promoting human rights education. And in our human rights education courses, we are saying that we are living in a democratic society where every person has equal rights and has to be considered equal before the law. Minister Choonee said, “You have more rights than others” and he not only said that - maybe some people in the government are putting into practice what he is preaching. They are saying that some people have more rights than others and who knows whether they are not in fact putting this belief into practice?

¦ But this is guess work. We are moving from the realm of what he said into guess work. You cannot hold Minister Choonee responsible for that.

You know what happened in 1999. There was animosity between two communities. Because there was a very strong perception that there is one community which enjoys more rights than others.

¦ That perception still persists, doesn’t it?

Yes. To a large extent, it does.

¦ So Mr. Choonee didn’t make things any worse, did he?

Choonee is the first one to utter in public as a minister that some people have more rights than others, and this has to be condemned by all means, and it is a very, very bad move on the part of the minister.

¦ But do you think that he really meant it? He is not a Vaish himself, is he? He could not possibly have said to these people that they had more rights than himself and meant it!

Maybe it’s just a way for him to be in the good books of the Prime minister!

¦ Do you find this more serious than an ex-minister saying “I’m Christian first and then Mauritian”?

That was also a very bad move. We don’t have the time I’m afraid to go around, hunting for people who speak in terms of communalism, who say that they belong to their community first. We have to prioritise our work. So this is more serious. I don’t remember what he said because we take seriously what people we have voted for say.

¦ But he was in power. We voted for him too.

It is only recently that AI has been empowered to do work at the local level. And our Communalism Watch was set up this year.

¦ Did the Prime minister react appropriately and promptly enough to this incident in your opinion?

I think the Prime minister reacted promptly by immediately sending out a press communiqué, but it’s not enough to dissociate himself from Choonee’s comments. He has to call him to order because the government of Mauritius, since 1972, has ratified major international instruments such as a very important instrument called the “International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.” In this Convention, the term “racial discrimination” means “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.” This means that the state of Mauritius is committed, according to international law, not to take part in promoting or advocating more rights for a particular group of people.

¦ It just seems to me, quite honestly and without meaning to be cynical, that it is so easy to just hit out against minister Choonee, because he is down, and it is easier to walk over somebody in that situation. He gets the brunt of everything. In the “Paradi an dey” episode, he wasn’t exactly the monster he was made out to be, was he?

He gave “Paradi an dey” and the people responsible for it quite a hard time.

¦ But isn’t it normal for somebody who has got a film or a play to screen to follow the procedures? Did Mr. Peerally follow the prol’expresscedures?

I think maybe he did not follow the procedures.

¦ So is that Minister Choonee’s fault?

Minister Choonee should have facilitated matters in this case.

¦ But nobody approached him for approval to screen the film. How was he supposed to facilitate anything?

Yes, I do agree with you that they should have followed the procedures.

¦ But he got the brunt of it and now he’s come out of it smelling bad and it’s made it easier for people to just fall on him.

We don’t quite have the mandate to comment on what happened to “Paradi an dey” or similar issues. But Amnesty is a very legalistic organization: you have to follow the rules and the laws blindly. You have to apply the law equally to everybody and every institution. That’s important.

¦ Do you feel that Paul Bérenger reacted appropriately to Choonee’s words?

As Leader of the Opposition, he should have been the first one to condemn them. But all the major political parties, apart from “Lalit” and “Resistans et Alternativ”, have been heavily involved in communalist thinking and policies when they choose candidates. I do not have much trust in them when it comes to getting rid of communalism. We want them to really do things to stop communalism. We want them, for example, to really work towards the abolition of the Best Loser System (BLS) because it is institutionalized communalism. So I think it’s civil society, people who have at heart the republic of Mauritius, the people of Mauritius themselves who will have to work very hard in order to put an end to it.

¦ Do you really think we have reached a point where we can move on from having each community represented in parliament?

We are asking for an amendment…

¦ The BLS is one thing but getting to a system where we have colour-blind and ethnic-deaf voters is rather idealistic, isn’t it?

You know, this was the case just after the 1976 general elections. I recall that people not necessarily belonging to a particular ethnic community sat for election in some constituencies where they would not have been elected today. I recall for example that Rajiv Servansingh was elected in Plaine-Verte! There was a cultural revolution in those days we wanted to Mauritianise the whole system. Then we moved away from this ideal. But I must not lose heart. I know that it might take some time but we will, one day, get rid of this system and become a people who vote for candidates without paying attention to the community they belong to.

¦ What are the other battles of Amnesty? I know you are committed to defending human rights, but then you’ve got a few new lines.

We have a struggle against communalism and at the same time we are doing some preventive work such as training around 300 Mauritians a year in human rights education. This is a very important aspect. They are young people who will be active members of civil society. So we want them to be imbued with that spirit, with democratic values and with human rights. We hope to have them think in terms of belonging to the human race, instead of belonging to a specific community. I think this is very important. We invite people to join Amnesty and benefit from this training.

¦ Do they have to be members of Amnesty to get the training?

Not necessarily. We have two levels of training. In the first you have about four sessions of training on human rights education, basic human rights issues. This will prompt trainees to follow the second level of the training and from there they can become members of Amnesty International if they wish.

¦ Do you have a good response to the proposed training?

Very good. Every week, through our newspaper “Dimé”, we are reaching out to people and we are training about 25 persons every month. This is a very good number. I mean 25 persons wishing to follow Amnesty’s basic human rights education. It’s great!

¦ All young people?

There is a good mix of people coming in from the rural areas as well as the towns, and at the same time a good mix of both young and old and of the sexes.

¦ So there is hope for this country?

Yes, but it’s not enough! We are trying to do what we can but we would like more organisations to be involved with human rights education. We will be reaching out to all trade-unions and NGOs and creating a sort of umbrella organisation which will be involved in human rights education. To defend people’s rights, you have to know what those rights are.

¦ And how are we doing, as far as human rights are concerned?

If communalism is flourishing, it is because there is a lack of human rights culture in Mauritius. Our educational system does not include human rights education. One of our “battle cries” will be to approach the government to have them include human rights education at the primary and secondary levels. We have approached Minister Bunwaree.

¦ What was his response?

He seemed keen but so far we are still at the level of lip service.

¦ Since we love to measure ourselves against others, how do we rank, as far as the respect of human rights is concerned?

You know, unfortunately, if there is a single human rights violation in a country, it is a human rights violation too many. Amnesty International does not rank countries according to the number of human rights violations.

¦ If there is no ranking, give me a grading or just an impressionistic evaluation.

I think this is a country where there is rule of law, where the institutions are functioning, except in that case where we were expecting the commissioner of police to go and ask questions and make enquiries of minister Choonee.

¦ Other human rights Amnesty is defending are socio-cultural rights. Where are we in that area?

In 2000, the UN, with all the heads of state around the world, adopted the millennium declaration, the fight against poverty and set 8 millennium goals including compulsory primary education and cutting poverty by half. We are 10 years down this track. The Mauritian government has made some commitment towards the millennium development goals. And we want to know what the government has achieved in the past 10 years in the fight against poverty. I wish The Prime minister himself could attend the summit later this month, from the 22nd – 24th September. We, Amnesty International, want to send a clear message to all the heads of state around the world that not much has been done and that people are still suffering and that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer.

¦ But is that true? Are the poor getting poorer?

The poor are getting poorer. The minister has said that there are 25 pockets of poverty around the island. And there are around 7,000 people who live in abject poverty.

¦ What about the treatment of migrant workers –another battle cry of Amnesty?

I think the problem is that the people in the private sector have a tendency – without generalising – to treat these people as just workers, without taking their welfare into consideration. Even after work some are not allowed to go out in some places. They don’t have equal rights compared to local workers and, when something goes wrong, they are not given a hearing. They are taken to the airport, at night or in the early morning and sent off quietly without anyone being able to come to their defense.

¦ But they have the same rights as Mauritian workers when they are here on our soil, including that of joining a trade union.

They are supposed to have the same rights, but in practice they don’t. And it is a matter which is of interest to Amnesty. It is in our mandate to take care of these people. When they leave their country to look for employment abroad, they have to be protected. There is an international convention on migrant workers which the government of Mauritius is yet to sign. So we are asking for permission from our International Executive Committee to be able to work on these cases. Maybe by next year we’ll be able to do so.

¦ Your mandate has grown tremendously in the last two years, hasn’t it? And you have just moved to a bigger place.

Yes, we are at De Rosnay Street, Beau-Bassin, now. We have grown very rapidly and we need a bigger place.

¦ If you are growing, it means that you are doing better as far as human rights are concerned.

We are growing because people are very concerned about human rights. Human Rights Education is picking up and people are flocking in to learn about their rights.

¦ Isn’t that good news?

I don’t know whether it’s good news. Maybe it’s good news for Amnesty because we are growing and maybe in time to come, we’ll have a larger membership, and with a larger membership we’ll be able to influence the human rights discourse in Mauritius. Because the larger the number of people who are imbued with a human rights culture and, with the larger number of activists we’ll be able to make a difference in Human Rights. everyone then will realize that in Human Rights, there are no double standards. There are Human Rights and they are applicable equally to everybody.

Interview by Touria PRAYAG