The News
UK officials announced Thursday that the Chagos Islands, a remote Indian Ocean archipelago, will pass to Mauritius in an agreement that could allow displaced Chagossians to return to the islands decades after they were forced to leave. The deal also secures the future of a joint US-UK military base on the only inhabited island, Diego Garcia.
The agreement ends the decades-long dispute between Chagossians, Mauritius, and the UK: In 2019, the International Court of Justice determined the islands belonged to Mauritius, a ruling UK authorities ignored.
The UK-US military base played a key role in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is considered an important strategic asset in London and Washington — especially with the rise of Chinese aggression in the Pacific.
While US President Joe Biden welcomed the deal, UK opposition politicians criticized it as weakening Britain’s security, while military experts also questioned the deal’s reasoning.
SIGNALS
Military experts question the wisdom of the deal
British military experts questioned the wisdom of the deal, warning that it could open the military base up to new dangers. The decision “significantly erodes the security of the base against hostile [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] and prepositioning of threats to it,” Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute said. Many of the concerns are focused on Mauritius’s growing ties to Beijing, as both countries have signed a range of economic deals as the Indian Ocean nation seeks further Chinese investment. Mauritius may “be able to extract lots of juicy Chinese aid” in exchange for making life difficult for US and UK personnel at the Diego Garcia base, David Blagden, an associate professor of international security and strategy, wrote on X.
Chagossians are skeptical of Mauritius’ intentions
Many islanders who were violently evicted to make way for the military base in the 1960s and their descendents have been skeptical of their homeland being given to Mauritius. One Chagossian told The New Statesman that the Mauritian government has “no interest in our return,” and many have complained that displaced islanders have been treated as second-class citizens in Mauritius. Activist group Chagossian Voices said “the views of Chagossians, the indigenous inhabitants of the islands, have been consistently and deliberately ignored,” and called for a seat at the table as the final details of the agreement and its implementation are worked out.
Conservation efforts in tension with islanders’ wishes to return
After decades of being largely uninhabited, the islands have become a haven for coastal species that are under threat elsewhere in the region. The archipelago may contain more than half of all healthy coral reefs in the Indian Ocean, and has been spared from overfishing and coastal development. But many islanders, who were not consulted when the islands were designated a marine protected area in 2010, have said the conservation efforts are in conflict with their right to live and fish in the place they were violently removed from. The UK and Mauritius agreed in a statement to work together on “protecting one of the world’s most important marine environments,” but it’s unclear what that will look like in practice if people do return.