UK to hand Chagos Islands to Mauritius
- Lucy Lydekker
- Mar 7
- 3 min read
This week, the United Kingdom and Mauritian governments came to an agreement, although no treaty has been formulated yet, that the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands are to be transferred to Mauritius, with the joint US–UK military base on Diego Garcia to be leased to the United Kingdom, for an annual sum, for 99 years. What does this mean for Mauritius, security in the Indian ocean, and other British overseas territories?
Mauritius, originally a French colony, was ceded to the UK in 1810 and had been a colony until its independence in 1968. Three years prior in 1965, the United Kingdom split the Chagos Islands from Mauritius to form the British Indian Ocean Territory, which has remained a British overseas territory to this day.
Following the creation of the BIOT, British officials expelled over one thousand Chagossians from the islands, which the UK described as ‘contract labourers’ where the Chagos Islands has no ‘permanent population’, but Chagossian activists claim their expulsion was illegal. The Mauritian prime minister described the expulsion as ‘a crime against humanity’.
Mauritius has protested the UK’s ownership of the Chagos Islands numerous times to the international community. They rightfully believe that the continued ownership violates United Nations resolutions to end colonialism, and that they did not consent in 1965 to the removal of integral parts of their territory from their jurisdiction. £650,000 of compensation had been provided in 1977 by the British government to 595 Chagos Islander families during a heavily drawn out process, but they have refused to go further than monetary compensation.
In 2019, the International Court of Justice voted near-unanimously that the UK is under obligation to end its administration of the Chagos Islands ‘as rapidly as possible’, describing a need to complete the decolonisation of Mauritius. The ICJ also claimed that the 1965 separation was not based on ‘free and genuine expression of the people concerned’, although Chagossians were not involved in the current negotiations either.
The United Nations General Assembly would adopt a resolution to reaffirm the ICJ’s decision later that year. The UK claimed that both the UN General Assembly and ICJ only gave an advisory opinion, and did not need to be followed, which became a theme during the late Conservative government.
Boris Johnson, a staunch populist and patriot who admired imperial figures like Winston Churchill, opposed any discussion with the Mauritians over the matter. Liz Truss as Foreign Secretary had spoken to Mauritian officials at a climate summit, and decided to begin negotiations during her brief stint in office. Rishi Sunak and new Foreign Secretary James Cleverly held thirteen rounds of negotiations from November 2022, discontinuing them at the end of 2023.
Bizarrely, James Cleverly has been one of the people in the Conservative party to openly oppose the decision, calling Starmer ‘weak, weak, weak!”, despite the fact he himself undertook numerous rounds of negotiations. If Cleverly becomes Leader of the Opposition by November, it will be interesting how he will handle opposition to the deal.
The Chagos Islands became an asset to the dwindling British Empire in the 1970s when the UK agreed to lease Diego Garcia, the largest island of the archipelago, to the United States for a military base in the Indian Ocean. The lease has been extended to at least 2036. The base has been important for US missions in the Middle East, such as in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s.
Critics of the new agreement therefore believe that it allows geopolitical rivals, like China who have good relations with the Mauritians, to build a military base in the region and subdue the advantage of Diego Garcia. However Joe Biden applauded the agreement saying, “It is a clear demonstration that through diplomacy and partnership, countries can overcome long-standing historical challenges to reach peaceful and mutually beneficial outcomes”, and Diego Garcia is still in operation— currently, only the military base is inhabited, with 3,000 British and American military and civilian personnel. Western hegemony in the Indian ocean shouldn’t be threatened, and working with the Mauritians might help foster better relations.
For the Mauritians, they are finally set to regain long lost parts of their territory in an overdue from their former colonial overlords, always something to celebrate. Mauritius considers the territorial sea of the islands as part of its exclusive economic zone, and this deal would solidify that control. Mauritius will also be able to begin a resettlement of the islands, and Chagossian families expelled from the islands could return after several decades. Truly a mutually beneficial agreement.
This could impact other British overseas territories. It is unlikely to affect territories like Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands where their citizens voted recently in an overwhelming capacity to stay with the UK, but with more and more countries reconsidering Charles III and the royal family as their heads of states in recent times, we may not see the end of these kind of post-colonial agreements.
