LONDON: Britain said on October 3 that it would give up sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in a deal that would allow people displaced decades ago to return home while London retained use of the important UK-U.S. military base on Diego Garcia.
Britain said that the operation of Diego Garcia, a strategic airbase in the Indian Ocean jointly operated with the United States, was protected by the agreement, which also allows Mauritius to resettle the rest of the islands after its population was displaced, says a Reuters report.
U.S. President Joe Biden welcomed the deal, saying it would secure the effective operation of the airbase into the next century. “Diego Garcia is the site of a joint U.S.-UK military facility that plays a vital role in national, regional, and global security,” he said in a statement.
British Foreign Minister David Lammy said that the contested sovereignty of the islands and ongoing legal challenges meant the longterm future of the Diego Garcia site had been under threat.
Britain, which has controlled the region since 1814, detached the Chagos Islands in 1965 from Mauritius – a former colony that became independent three years later – to create the British Indian Ocean Territory. In the early 1970s, it evicted almost 2,000 residents to Mauritius and the Seychelles to make way for an airbase on the largest island, Diego Garcia, which it had leased to the United States in 1966.
A non-binding resolution in the United Nations General Assembly in 2019 said Britain should give up control of the islands and that it had wrongfully forced the population to leave.
In 2016, Britain’s Foreign Ministry extended Diego Garcia’s lease until 2036, and declared the expelled islanders would not be allowed to go back.
The deal marks a change of approach to the issue from new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has said his government would be, in part, defined by a respect for international law after his Labour Party won power in July.
