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Britain told to decolonise Chagos Islands

February 27, 2019 | Expert Insights

The United Nations’ highest court told Britain that it should end its control “as rapidly as possible” over a remote colonial outpost in the Indian Ocean, best known for housing a strategic American air base on the island of Diego Garcia.

Background

Chagos Islands are a group of seven atolls comprising more than 60 individual tropical islands in the Indian Ocean about 500 kilometres (310 mi) south of the Maldives archipelago. This chain of islands is the southernmost archipelago of the Chagos-Laccadive Ridge, a long submarine mountain range in the Indian Ocean.

Officially part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, the Chagos were home to the Chagossians, a Bourbonnais Creole-speaking people, for more than a century and a half until the United Kingdom evicted them between 1967 and 1973 to allow the United States to build a military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos Islands. Since 1971, only the atoll of Diego Garcia is inhabited, and only by military and civilian contracted personnel.

The sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago is disputed between the UK and Mauritius. The United Kingdom excised the archipelago from Mauritian territory in 1965, three years before Mauritius gained independence in 1968.

Analysis 

The judges of the International Court of Justice in The Hague voted 13 to 1 that Britain acted unlawfully in 1965 by detaching the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius, at the time a British colony, in order to pave the way for military installations to be leased to the United States.

The court heard testimony that negotiations between the United States and Britain about building a base began in 1964, a year before the Chagos Islands, which include Diego Garcia, were detached from Mauritius and made a new colony, named British Indian Ocean Territory.

Officials from Mauritius, now an independent nation, said they were elated that the country’s claims were being recognized.

“We are obviously very happy with this very clear, near a unanimous decision about the Chagos Archipelago,” Jagdish D. Koonjul, the ambassador of Mauritius at the United Nations, said by telephone. “We’ll be looking for further action now at the United Nations.” Once construction started on the American air base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the handful of inhabitable islands, Britain evicted all the inhabitants not connected to the work. None of the estimated 1,800 islanders who were removed has been permitted to return.

The court’s president, Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf of Somalia, said a majority of judges found that Britain had violated the 1960 United Nations declaration prohibiting the breakup of colonies before independence. So the separation of the Chagos Islands from Mauritius to create a new colony was a “wrongful act,” which had not been based on a “free and genuine expression of the people concerned,” the court’s opinion said.

During the hearings, the court heard testimony that leaders of the Mauritius independence movement had signed the severance agreement in 1965 “under duress.” In its written opinion, the court determined that Britain “has an obligation to bring an end to its administration as rapidly as possible.”

The text handed down serves only as an advisory opinion, not a binding ruling, and the court noted it had no role in deciding what steps were required to achieve an end to the British administration and to address the rights of the deported inhabitants.

The authors of the opinion included judges from a range of countries, including China and India. The single opposing vote was cast by Judge Joan E. Donoghue of the United States. Britain’s Foreign Office, pointing out this was not a binding judgment, said it would look “carefully” at the details.

Assessment 

Our assessment is that the even though the court judgement is not binding, Britain is likely to come under renewed pressure in the United Nations General Assembly, which historically has been in the forefront of decolonization issues. We believe that the forcefully displaced native population should be allowed to return.