UK Hands ‘Last African Colony’ Chagos Islands to Mauritius, Excluding Chagossians from Self-Determination Talks

The United Kingdom agreed to give up the sovereignty of the island of Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius in a treaty signed to secure the U.S. “strategic” military base in Diego Garcia for the next 99 years, excluding the Chagossian islanders from the talks of self-determination.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Mauritian counterpart Pravind Jugnauth jointly disclosed this on Thursday following a ‘seminal moment’ that oversaw the political agreement of the island’s future and the indigenous inhabitants of the islands known as Chagossians to be placed under the Republic of Mauritius.

In the agreement, what is supposed to be a right of return to the Chagossians was given to Mauritius, with the exception that the UK retains control over a part of the Islands known as Diego Garcia, home to a joint UK-US military base.

Initially, in 1965, the Chagossians of Chagos Islands/Archipelago were detached from Mauritius as a means to create the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) under a condition for Mauritius to gain sovereignty from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which controlled it as a former colony since 1814 before independence on March 12, 1968.

About 2,000 Chagossians were forcibly expelled from their homes in the 1960s and 1970s, in what has been described as a crime committed against humanity by the UK and at the request of the U.S., with the survivors repeatedly taking the UK government to court.

After about 11 rounds of negotiations with the previous UK government and two rounds of negotiations with the current government, which began under the last government of Rishi Sunak in 2022, the current UK Prime Minister Starmer reiterated the importance of reaching this deal to protect the continued operation of the UK/US military base on Diego Garcia.

This is after years of injustice meted upon the indigenous inhabitants of the islands who, in a statement on X issued by Chaggosian Voices, a Chagoosian community in the UK, expressed dissatisfaction following the attempt to halt the negotiations on the basis that the Chagossians were not consulted or involved.

“Chagossian Voices deplore the exclusion of the Chagossian community from the negotiations which have produced this statement of intent concerning the sovereignty of our homeland. Chagossians have learned this outcome from the media and remain powerless and voiceless in determining our own future and the future of our homeland.

“The views of Chagossians, the Indigenous inhabitants of the islands, have been consistently and deliberately ignored, and we demand full inclusion in the drafting of the treaty,” the statement reads.

Meanwhile, the White House, under President Joe Biden administration has thrown its weight in support of the treaty, for its strategic interests, including using the Diego Garcia islands for its military base.

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About The Author

Mayowa Durosinmi

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Mayowa Durosinmi is a Nigerian investigative reporter for West Africa Weekly with reports focusing on politics, human rights, security and health in West Africa and the Sahel region.

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