On Thursday, October 3, one of the last pages of British colonial history was turned, with the transfer by the United Kingdom of the Chagos Islands, an isolated archipelago in the northern Indian Ocean, to the Republic of Mauritius. The island state has claimed sovereignty over this group of paradisiacal 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 García, of a military base rented by the British to the United States. The US military places warships and bombers there.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy reacted on Thursday by 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 García welcomes asylum seekers from Sri Lanka, who should be under the responsibility of Mauritius.
In 1968, the United Kingdom, in the midst of dismantling its colonial empire, granted independence to Mauritius, but refused to give up the Chagos Islands. The British had even expelled between 1,500 and 2,000 Chagossians from the atolls to establish the Diego García military base. “We don’t have blue eyes, that’s why they hunt us”, “our treatment is inhumane”Some of these people expelled from their lands testified to the BBC in the early 1970s, in an audio document broadcast on October 3 on BBC Radio 4.
Part of the right-wing protests
The Republic of Mauritius (1.2 million inhabitants) brought the dispute before the international authorities. Between 2019 and 2021, the International Court of Justice, the UN General Assembly and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea have recognized the validity of their territorial claims. To end a conflict that was tarnishing the reputation of the United Kingdom, particularly vis-à-vis African states, Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Government decided to enter into negotiations with Mauritius in November 2022.
When he arrived at Downing Street in July, Labor’s Keir Starmer decided to speed up the process, handing the talks to Sir Jonathan Powell, an experienced diplomat who led peace negotiations in Northern Ireland for Tony Blair. Part of the British right protested on Thursday, accusing the Labor Party of an alleged lack of patriotism.
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