Chagos Deal Creates Tension in U.K.: Legislators Ask Why British Citizens Should Pay USD 136 mn as Lease Money

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A Foreign Office spokesperson said the UK-Mauritius deal had been “welcomed by international organisations, including the UN secretary general”. The panel of four experts was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, but they are not UN staff and are independent from the UN.

The Chagos Island deal continues to create tension in the UK, with some lawmakers questioning the government’s motives behind its actions, which include agreeing to hand over the island to Mauritius. It has emerged that the deal will fund sweeping tax cuts in Mauritius.

Under the agreement, the U.K. will pay Mauritius an average of US$136 million a year to lease back the base for at least 99 years. Meanwhile, the United Nations has urged the UK to renegotiate the deal with Mauritius, as it fails to guarantee the rights of the Chagossian people.

In a statement, the UN wrote that maintaining a foreign military presence of the United Kingdom and the United States on Diego Garcia and preventing the Chagossian people from returning… the agreement appears to be at variance with the Chagossians’ right to return.

The deal, signed last month, handed sovereignty of the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius, but the UK retained the right to run a military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos Islands. By preventing the Chagossian people from returning to Diego Garcia, “the agreement appears to be at variance with the Chagossians’ right to return,” the UN experts wrote.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said the UK-Mauritius deal had been “welcomed by international organisations, including the UN secretary general”. The panel of four experts were appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, but are not UN staff and are independent from the UN.

They said that by the UK keeping the military base of Diego Garcia, the Chagossian people were hindered from being able to “exercise their cultural rights in accessing their ancestral lands from which they were expelled”. The panel called for the current deal to be suspended and for a new agreement to be negotiated. Under the agreement, the UK would pay an average of £101 million a year for 99 years to continue operating the military base on Diego Garcia, in conjunction with the US.

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The Chagos Islands are located in the Indian Ocean about 5,799 miles (9,332km) south-east of the UK, and about 1,250 miles north-east of Mauritius. The UK purchased the islands for £3m in 1968, but Mauritius has argued it was illegally forced to give away the islands to gain independence from Britain.

Diego Garcia was then cleared to make way for a military base, with large groups of Chagossians forcibly moved to Mauritius and the Seychelles, or taking up an invitation to settle in England, mainly in Crawley, West Sussex.