Africa-Press – Mauritius. Technical experts from the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) early last year found the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) using internet infrastructure built by controversial Chinese firm Huawei in Mauritius to conduct digital espionage against India and Western countries in the Indian Ocean.) had issued several warnings about. Intelligence sources have informed ThePrint.
Sources said India’s concerns centered on a submarine landing station at Bai-du-Jacot in Mauritius were conveyed to the country through its National Security Advisor (NSA) Kumarasan Elango, a former RAW officer.
Just last month, Mauritius Telecom (MT) chief executive Sherry Singh resigned from his post.
In an interview after his resignation, he claimed that he had received instructions from the Prime Minister of Mauritius Pravind Jugnauth to allow the installation of Internet surveillance equipment at the Bai-du-Jacotette submarine-cable station.
This case is becoming a big controversy due to Singh’s allegation, the opposition parties have accused him of sedition. It is alleged that the devices RAW was trying to install included digital sniffers – devices capable of intercepting and storing Internet traffic.
These data are later used for analysis. Good journalism matters, even more so in times of crisisAccording to sources, India is already one of the landing points for the South Africa-Far East (SAFE) optical fiber submarine cable connecting the French region of La Reunion in South Africa, Mauritius, Indian Ocean, India and Malaysia.
All kinds of equipment has been deployed. The area includes an Indian built facility on Agalega Island, 1,120 km from the Mauritian capital Port Louis, for spying on the PLA’s radar.
The island is being developed as a staging post to collect Indian maritime intelligence on Chinese shipping. Sources said France operates naval and air services from the island of La Reunion and is concerned about the PLA’s digital espionage.
Earlier this month, Jagannath had admitted, “There was a security issue and it was necessary to conduct this survey in Mauritius. ” He further said that he had ‘personally’ contacted PM Narendra Modi requesting him to ‘send a competent team for this survey’.
The Indian government has not made any official comment on the issue. China began to firmly integrate itself into Mauritius’s internet infrastructure in 2015.
In the same year, Jagannath’s aide Sherry Singh took charge of Mauritius Telecom. In the same year, Huawei made an offer on its behalf to set up the Mauritius Safe City Project.
The project is a dense network of over 4,000 closed-circuit television cameras (CCTVs) linked to cloud-based analytics, capable of everything from facial recognition to monitoring traffic and crowd movement.
Even though the Mauritian government claimed that this system was necessary to deal with narcotic and organized crime. But World Bank data shows that the country’s crime rate was at a record low when the project started.
The pressure to install Huawei surveillance equipment in Mauritius was part of a larger effort in which China installed similar systems in 73 cities in 52 countries, including France, Germany, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Mexico.
Mauritius Telecom was given a $350 million loan from the Export-Import Bank of China without competitive bidding for the Safe City project. This loan was given under an exemption that allows purchases to be made ‘to protect national security’.
The National Audit Office (NAO) of Mauritius, scholar Rukaya Kassenli, had on record pointed out serious lapses in the contract and expenditure management of the Safe City project.
Among other issues, auditors noted that $25 million was paid without vouchers or other documents required. Working on the Safe City project, Huawei also won a contract to build a 700-km submarine cable that would provide high-speed data to the country’s second largest island, Rodrigues.
The MARS Undersea Cable, one of more than a dozen cables laid by Huawei in Africa, also lands in Bai-du-Jacot. Beijing’s growing digital clout in Africa includes the 15,000-kilometre $425 million PEACE cable that connects China to the continent via Europe.
The British communications-intelligence service GCHQ and the United States National Security Agency (NSA) are known to collect vast amounts of data through submarine-cable landing points for analysis.
Experts have warned that China is looking at similar capabilities. Ever since it announced the Digital Silk Road in 2015, Beijing has steadily developed its global Internet infrastructure with the help of equipment from companies such as Huawei.
Experts say these tools include digital back doors that enable its intelligence services to collect data. In 2018, Australia blocked Huawei from being part of a project that was connecting its network to the Solomon Islands via a submarine cable.
Last year, a World Bank-funded project to link the federal states of Nauru, Kiribati and Micronesia to Guam—a home of important US military assets—was canceled after Washington raised security concerns.
Many believe that the contract for the project was on the verge of going to HMN Technologies, formerly Huawei Marine Networks. It is a company whose majority stake is owned by Shanghai-listed Hengtong Optic-Electric Co,Ltd.
HMN Technologies’ bid for the $72.5 million project was 20 percent lower than rivals – Nokia-owned Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) and Japan’s NEC Corporation.
China’s growing influence in Mauritius is also linked to its legal disputes with the United Kingdom. Beijing has been demanding recognition of the Chagos Islands as its territory in the Indian Ocean.
Despite an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice and the demands of the United Nations General Assembly, the United Kingdom continues to claim sovereignty over the Chagos with the quiet support of the United States.
The group of islands includes its largest island, Diego Garcia, which is leased to the United States as a military base. However, India is a major strategic partner of Mauritius. But in 2016 a branch of Bank of China was opened in Port Louis and then the two countries signed a free trade agreement five years later.
In addition, Washington believes that the inclusion of Mauritius in the African Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone Treaty would prevent the Diego Garcia from using strategic weapons aircraft and submarines.
But Mauritius, like other strategically located countries, believes that there is nothing wrong in earning revenue from global powers looking to build a military presence on Mauritius land.
For example, allowing Djibouti, located in the Horn of Africa, to deploy troops from other countries on its territory provides a lot of financial support.
It receives $70 million from the United States, $36 million from France, $20 million from China, $2.6 million from Italy and an undisclosed amount from Japan and Saudi Arabia. Mauritius also loses potential revenue from fishing in the Chagos, which the United Kingdom has made an exclusion zone.
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