Diego Garcia Deal Stokes Debate on Islanders' Right to Self-Determination

 

Having delayed the legislative process in the face of growing opposition to the plan to surrender sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territories to Mauritius, the British government is planning an attempt to force the legislation through the UK Parliament after the Christmas recess.  The legislation provides for a lease-back arrangement which will allow for the continued operation of the US Naval Support Facility on Diego Garcia.

From a security perspective, the terms of the deal have already been questioned.  Once sovereignty is handed over, there would be no recourse should the Mauritius government, a close ally of China, renege on aspects of the deal; potentially the Mauritians could license other governments to establish quasi-commercial facilities on the outer islands. A Mauritian presence would be established on Diego Garcia itself, in theory symbolic but able to monitor activity at the base.  Provisions requiring prior warning should the base be used to launch operations against third parties undermine one of the key strategic values of the facility.

The case for Mauritius to take control over the Chagos historically enjoyed international support in the UN General Assembly and elsewhere on the basis that it was an anti-colonial move, even though Mauritius had never governed the Chagos and signed away any right to do so in 1965.

But in the light of the agreement, anti-colonial sentiment is now swinging away from Mauritius, which will in effect become the colonial power over the Chagos, to backing the right of the Chagossian people to self-determination.  Chagossians were not consulted when Mauritius and the United Kingdom came to their recent agreement.

Reflecting this extraordinary reversal, exiled Chagos islanders have now elected one of their number as their First Minister, and plan a fight to assert their right to self-determination.  The newly-elected First Minister, ex-British soldier Misley Mandarin, has said that Mauritius has no connection whatsoever to the Chagos islands, and that Mauritius does not recognize the rights of Chagossians descendants to return to the islands. He contends that a majority of Chagossians are happy for Diego Garcia to be reserved for the US Naval Support Facility, but says Chagossians want the right to return to the outer islands of the archipelago and to remain British citizens. He also contends that the Mauritian interest in the Chagos was only ever a lever to extract another financial settlement from the United Kingdom.

One of the international organization’s premier forums for liberal, anti-colonial discourse, the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, has expressed ‘deep concern’ over the agreement, noting that it ‘explicitly prevents the return of the Chagossian people to their ancestral lands in Diego Garcia Island’.  The committee called ‘on both Mauritius and the United Kingdom to suspend ratification of the agreement, and to engage immediately in a renewed dialogue to ensure the free, prior and informed consent of the Chagossian people’.

The fate of the Chagos Archipelago was never definitively ruled upon by the United Nations General Assembly or the International Court of Justice, whose opinions were advisory.  It remains to be seen if the British government – whose Prime Minister and Attorney General are both human rights lawyers - pays heed to the latest advice of the United Nations, or whether it pushes through a deal which yet again ignores the wishes of local people, which by precedent were certainly respected in the Falkland Islands. 

From a security perspective, the desire of both the US and UK governments is that the operations of the Naval Support Facility on Diego Garcia continue, but fade once again from public view into obscurity, hidden in the middle of nowhere from the rest of the world.  First Minister Misley Mandarin, who has said he would rather die than be ruled by Mauritius, plus his growing band of backers, are unlikely to allow that to happen.  This opens up the prospect that Chagossians will take matters into their own hands.