Thursday October 3, one of the final pages of British colonial history was turned, with the cession by the United Kingdom of the Chagos Islands, an isolated archipelago in the north of the Indian Ocean, to the Republic of Maurice. The island state has been claiming sovereignty over this group of paradise atolls for more than fifty years. In exchange for the return of these islands, Mauritius committed to London to guarantee the presence on the main Chagos atoll, Diego Garcia, of a military base rented by the British to the United States. The US military stations warships and bombers there.
British Foreign Minister David Lammy reacted on Thursday, saying that the agreement “guarantees the sustainability of this vital military base. This will strengthen our role in safeguarding global security, eliminate any possibility of the Indian Ocean being used as a dangerous illegal migration route to the UK and secure our long-term relationship with Mauritius, a close Commonwealth partner.” Diego Garcia is hosting asylum seekers from Sri Lanka, who should find themselves under the responsibility of Mauritius.
In 1968, the United Kingdom, in the midst of dismantling its empire, granted independence to Mauritius, but refused to cede the Chagos Islands. The British had even chased 1,500 to 2,000 inhabitants (Chagossians) from the atolls to install the Diego Garcia military base. “We don’t have blue eyes, that’s why we’re being hunted”, “our treatment is inhumane”, some of these people expelled from their land testified to the BBC in the early 1970s, in an audio document rebroadcast on October 3 on BBC Radio 4.
Part of the right protests
The Republic of Mauritius (1.2 million inhabitants) brought the dispute before international bodies and between 2019 and 2021, the International Court of Justice, the UN General Assembly and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea all recognized the validity of its territorial claims. To put an end to a dispute which was tarnishing the reputation of the United Kingdom, particularly vis-à-vis African states, the conservative government of Rishi Sunak resolved to enter into negotiations with that of Mauritius, in November 2022.
When he arrived at Downing Street last July, Labor’s Keir Starmer decided to speed up the process, handing over the talks to Sir Jonathan Powell, an experienced diplomat, who led the Northern Ireland peace negotiations for Tony Blair. Part of the British right protested on Thursday, accusing Labor of a supposed lack of patriotism.
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