the United Kingdom recognizes the sovereignty of Mauritius

After more than half a century of litigation and legal and diplomatic battle, the United Kingdom and Mauritius have sealed an agreement on the sovereignty of this isolated archipelago in the Indian Ocean. A new chapter in decolonization where the struggle of the natives clashed with…American strategic interests.

The moment is as historic as the place it concerns is little-known. It concerns the Chagos Archipelago. A string of paradise islands, planted in the middle of the Indian Ocean, a sort of confetti of isolated atolls halfway between the African and Indonesian coasts, somewhere between the Seychelles and the Maldives.

The Chagos, at the center of an agreement concluded on Thursday October 3, in which the United Kingdom recognizes the sovereignty of the Republic of Mauritius over the archipelago. An agreement which settles more than half a century of dispute, and two years of bitter negotiations between the two governments. As soon as it was signed, the Mauritian Prime Minister, Pravind Jugnauth, praised the significance of the moment in a speech on television: “56 years after our independence, our decolonization is complete. Today our national anthem can resonate even louder throughout our territory“.

To measure the stakes of the restitution of a territory located some 2,000 kilometers from Mauritius, we must go back in history. Discovered by Portuguese sailors, exploited for two centuries by France and England who sent slaves there for the production of coconut oil, the Chagos archipelago is populated by a few hundred descendants of slaves or immigrants Indians when it passed into the Mauritian fold (then a British colony) in 1903. But when the Republic of Mauritius obtained its independence in 1968, the archipelago had just been detached.

A military base was built on the main island of Diego Garcia, and in agreement with London, the United States obtained exclusive use of the island for 50 years. In the midst of the Vietnam War, Washington negotiated this strategic installation with its ally. But on the backs of the inhabitants. The British authorities organize their forced departure, boats empty the atolls in inhumane conditions, and the journey will be of no return. Hundreds of families are banned from returning, most of whom end up in the slums of Port Louis, on Mauritius.

Ousted from Southeast Asia after the debacle of Vietnam, the American army found in Chagos a privileged access point to the Gulf, Asia and the Pacific. The lagoon makes it possible to accommodate submarines, missile launchers or aircraft carriers in the greatest discretion, and from the Cold War to operations in Afghanistan or Iraq, the base will serve as an anchor point and fallback. And with the rise of China, interest in the site has increased in recent years.

But at the same time, the descendants of the expelled inhabitants and the Mauritian government are engaged in a legal and diplomatic battle. The International Court of Justice looks into the case and supports the Mauritian requests, then In May 2019, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution asking London to withdraw its “colonial administration“ of the archipelago and to return it within six months to the Mauritian Republic.

We therefore had to wait until October 3, 2024 for the file to be completed. Against Mauritian sovereignty, London and Washington obtain the right to continue operating the base for 99 years. The descendants chagossians They will be able to return to live in two of the three populated islands of the archipelago, once the agreement is concretized by the finalization of a treaty.