The proposed agreement Britain’s Labour government negotiated with Mauritius is neither altruistic nor ethical and there is now a very possibility it will neither be signed nor ratified. The new Mauritian government is unhappy with the present terms. While the Biden administration was favourable Trump’s team has a different view. Deal or no deal, this year or next, the real issues of colonialism and imperialist domination persist, writes Liz Payne
Very little is usually heard of the Chagos Islands, a rocky archipelago in the Indian Ocean. This is mainly because of the highly secretive goings-on at the huge US-UK strategic military base on one of the islands, Diego Garcia. But, of late, the Islands have been uncharacteristically in the spotlight due to negotiations on transfer of sovereignty from colonial occupier, Britain, to Mauritius – but with the effective exception of the base itself.
The British government separated the Chagos Islands from the Republic of Mauritius when it “granted” Mauritius independence in March 1968, in contravention of international law which expressly forbad the destruction of the territorial integrity of any state as part of the decolonisation process (UN GA Resolution 1514 1960). Mauritius has always protested that Britain forced its hand. Without it agreeing, back then, that the Chagos archipelago stayed British, the independence of the remainder of Mauritian territories would never have been conceded by the colonial power in London.
Fast forward almost 60 years to autumn 2024 and we find Keir Starmer’s Labour government in intense discussion, conducted with apparent unseemly haste, supposedly set on righting that wrong by striking a deal with the Mauritian government to hand the Islands back. But all was not what it might have seemed.
Britain’s focus six decades ago had been Diego Garcia, where one of its smaller military bases had been situated in World War II. The US was determined to develop this as a key operational site for its naval and air forces and, in 1966, made London “an offer it couldn’t refuse”. In exchange for supplying a cut price Polaris missile system, the British government would give the US freedom to do as it pleased militarily on the island for the foreseeable future, with the proviso that the base would meet the future “defence needs” of both countries. The US insisted that the deal hung on Britain removing the whole population (1,500 persons) from the island. The British government was happy to oblige, effectively trading the islanders for a cut-price nuclear arsenal, and deportations were carried out in the most contemptuous, cruel and ruthless ways imaginable.
Since then, Diego Garcia has been transformed according to plan into a US-UK mega-base, arguably the most crucial in the world for maintaining and extending the economic, political and military power of the US and its allies – imperialism’s most valuable strategic island. From Britain’s perspective, the base’s worth was summed up in a recent government statement to parliament: “From countering malign Iranian activity in the Middle East to ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific, the base is critical for our national security.” (Hansard 9/10/24)
Its menacing and aggressive presence now threatens East Africa, the Middle East and Asia and its history provides no basis on which to hope that the future may be any different. It has acted as a launch-pad for bombing missions over Iraq and Afghanistan; a hub for surveillance and training sorties over the Indian sub-continent, south-east Asia, and South China Sea; a detention and torture centre linked to the US rendition programme; a NASA (star-wars) satellite tracking station; and a position from which to control and potentially disrupt the vital trade routes from the Middle East and India to China, Japan and other Asian states.
The agreement Labour negotiated with Mauritius was therefore neither altruistic nor ethical. As secretary of state, David Lammy told the Commons on 7th October 2024, the primary consideration was that the base’s long-term future was more secure under the proposed agreement than without it.
In fact, Westminster feared that, following a ruling of the UN International Court of Justice in February 2019 which stated that Britain’s continuing occupation was unlawful (adopted by the UN General Assembly on 22 May that year), the UK was in imminent danger of being forced to pass the whole Chagos archipelago, including Diego Garcia, back to Mauritius, and hence of losing the base altogether. Britain needed to take the initiative to prevent this scenario and to act quickly in the face of a general election in both Mauritius and the US which might produce governments not at all sympathetic to the proposed terms of the deal or, in the case of the US, against it being struck in the first place.
Accordingly, Britain proposed to Mauritius that it would cede the sovereignty of all Chagos territory to Mauritius with the proviso that the UK government could lease back and have full control over Diego Garcia for 99 years in the first instance. Meanwhile, supposedly to right the wrongs of the past, Britain was so bold as to suggest the deported Chagosians and their descendants might be accorded, by Mauritius, a right of return and be settled anywhere in the Islands – except Diego Garcia, from which colonial Britain had expelled them in the first place.
It was all, of course, so much smoke and mirrors. Britain would continue as the colonial occupier and the base would still function as the military foundation of US overlordship from Africa to the South Pacific. And, in whatever humanitarian guise the matter was dressed up, the Chagossians, who were never consulted, would be unable to return.
Other than Diego Garcia, the islands are uninhabited outcrops which the outgoing Labour government in 2010 went to enormous lengths to ensure would remain just that. One of Labour’s last acts was to convert the whole sea area around the Islands into the Chagos Marine Protected Area (MPA). This is still one of the largest MPAs in the world whose restrictions on commercial shipping anywhere in the zone, has and continues to effectively debar human settlement.
Since last October the proposed agreement has not been signed and ratified. Now the very possibility of it being so looks in doubt. The new Mauritian government is unhappy with the present terms. Meanwhile, although the Biden administration was favourable, Trump’s team has a different view. According to reports, the issue was raised by US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio in his first call with Foreign Secretary, David Lammy in January 2025. Rubio warns that the deal presents a security risk in the Indian Ocean, leaving the door wide open for China to gain intelligence on US military operations in the region in collaboration with Mauritius with whom it is on friendly terms.
However, deal or no deal, this year or next, the real issues of colonialism and imperialist domination persist, and the Cold War intensifies. The Chagos Islands remain the only overseas colony on African soil, in defiance of the UN’s 2019 ruling, and Britain’s presence there serves to endorse other occupations, including the territory of British bases in Cyprus and the Falklands, and of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic by Morocco since 1975, the north of Cyprus by Turkey since 1974, and Palestine by Israel since 1948. Britain, which forcibly ejected the Islands’ entire population, continues five decades on wilfully to prevent their rightful return.
Liberation therefore rejects any present or future iteration of a “colonial” deal and demands that the British government closes all civil and military installations on Diego Garcia: returns the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in their entirety in accordance with UN Resolution 1514; restores the toxified environment to one supportive of healthy and prosperous communities; repatriates all Chagossians who wish to return and provides full compensation for unlawful expulsion, enforced exile and all other resultant damages to Chagossians everywhere.
Liz Payne is a member of Liberation’s Education Committee and convenor of the British Peace Assembly
This article was first published in Liberation Journal. Read the journal here
The views expressed in the articles published on this website do not necessarily represent those of Liberation
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Photo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia#/media/File:Diegogarcia.jpg
