The United Kingdom ceded sovereignty over the Chacos Islands to Mauritius

(Reuters) – The United Kingdom announced on Thursday that it is ceding sovereignty over the Chacos Islands to Mauritius, according to the British government, in a deal that guarantees the future of the United Kingdom and US-operated Diego Garcia military base. It will pave the way for the return of people who were displaced decades ago.

US President Joe Biden welcomed the deal and said it would ensure the effective operation of Diego Garcia, a strategically important air base in the Indian Ocean, into the next century.

However, UK critics said the deal favored China, which maintains close trade ties with Mauritius.

In addition, a group representing displaced Chacos Islanders expressed outrage at being excluded from the negotiations.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the deal resolved legal challenges threatening the future of the Diego Garcia base and sovereignty over the islands, the last British overseas territory in Africa. The site, which proved its strategic importance during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as a launch pad for long-range bombers, has now been protected for at least 99 years.

“Today’s agreement … will strengthen our role in safeguarding global security,” Lammy said in a statement. Biden echoed that sentiment, saying Diego Garcia “plays a critical role in national, regional and global security.”

“It allows the United States to support operations that demonstrate our shared commitment to regional stability, provide rapid response to crises and combat some of the most challenging security threats we face,” Biden said.

‘Colonization’

The United Kingdom, which has controlled the region since 1814, separated the Chacos Islands from Mauritius in 1965 — a former colony that became independent three years later — to form the British Indian Ocean Territory. In the early 1970s, the United Kingdom evacuated about 2,000 residents to Mauritius and the Seychelles to make room for an air base on the largest island, Diego Garcia, which was leased to the United States in 1966.

A nonbinding resolution by the United Nations General Assembly in 2019 called for the United Kingdom to relinquish control of the archipelago after forcing its people to leave illegally.

In 2016, the British Foreign Office extended Diego Garcia’s lease to 2036 and announced that evicted islanders could not return.

The new agreement states that Mauritius will be free to implement a resettlement program on the islands except for Diego Garcia, the terms of which will be decided by Port Louis.

“We are guided by our conviction to complete the decolonization of our republic,” Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jagannath said in a televised address.

Olivier Pangold, head of the Mauritius-based Chacos Refugee Group, said the agreement was a decisive turning point and an official recognition of the injustices the Chacos have suffered.

However, the UK-based diaspora group Chagossian Voices condemned the “exclusion of the Chagossian community from the negotiations”. “Sagosians … are powerless and voiceless in determining our own future and the future of our homeland,” the group said in a statement on Facebook.

‘weak’

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who announced after his Labor party came to power in July that his government would be limited to some degree in respect of international law, has made solving the problem a priority.

However, senior figures in the Conservative Party, which initially started negotiations when it was in government, have criticized the deal.

Conservative defense spokesman Tom Tugenthat said the deal weakens the UK’s allies and opens up the possibility of China gaining a military presence in the Indian Ocean.

“This is a dangerous capitulation that will hand over our territory to an ally of Beijing,” said Robert Jenrick, the favorite to be the next Conservative leader at X.

Asked about concerns about China, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said: “The terms of the agreement assure us that we can maintain the security of our base.”

Miller declined to elaborate on the rules in question.

David Blackton, associate professor of international security and strategy at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, said the deal was a “huge win” for Mauritius. “Not only would the UK ‘give’ Port Louis an archipelago it never had sovereignty over, but they could get a lot of Chinese help in exchange for complicating the US/UK use of Diego Garcia,” he wrote. In X