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As part of the deal, the U.K. will retain sovereignty of Diego Garcia, home to an important U.S.-U.K. military base, for an initial period of 99 years, and will pay Mauritius an undisclosed rent. It will also create a “resettlement” fund for displaced Chagossians aimed at letting them move back to the islands other than Diego Garcia.
The British government’s agreement to hand sovereignty of the long-contested Chagos Islands to Mauritius addresses a “historic wrong,” the Mauritian foreign minister said, referring to the displacement of more than a thousand islanders some 50 years ago. Maneesh Gobin praised the deal as historic and augured well.
As part of the deal, the U.K. will retain sovereignty of Diego Garcia, home to an important U.S.-U.K. military base, for an initial period of 99 years, and will pay Mauritius an undisclosed rent. It will also create a resettlement fund for displaced Chagossians aimed at letting them move back to the islands other than Diego Garcia. Mauritius would have control of the fund.
Following a lease agreement with Britain, the U.S. built the naval base at Diego Garcia for defense purposes in the 1970s. The U.S. has described the base as “an all but indispensable platform” for security operations in the Middle East, South Asia, and East Africa.
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Around 1,500 inhabitants from the Chagos Islands were displaced to make way for the U.S. base, in what Human Rights Watch said last year amounted to crimes against humanity committed by a colonial power against an indigenous people. US President Joe Biden applauded the “historic agreement” on the status of the Chagos Islands.
