It has been a decision as historical as they are injured, but the United Kingdom, in the Indian Ocean, and ends a dispute that has been dragged for half a century.
In exchange for the return of sovereignty, both London and Washington have ensured future control, at least 99 years, of the joint military base of Diego García’s island, in the southern part of the archipelago. The cost of the lease is about 120 million euros per year. The payment conditions establish that during the first three years the figure to be delivered will be 196 million euros. From the fourth year to the thirteenth, the amount will be almost 143 million. From there, the amount will fit the inflation of the moment. The calculation of the British Ministry of Defense places the total at just over 4,000 million euros.
Although at first, when the agreement was announced last October, it unleashed the criticism of the team of the then elected president of the United States, Donald Trump,
“This agreement is one of the most important contributions that we can make to our relationship with the United States in terms of security,” Starmer said Thursday. The decision has been supported by the governments of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which are part of the intelligence services alliance that also includes London and Washington.
For years, the base has had great strategic importance for its location, which allowed the control of one of the main maritime routes of hydrocarbons and raw materials. Today is fundamental. The archipelago is made up of about 58 islands, halfway between the eastern coast of the African continent and Indonesia.
The decision has still had to overcome more obstacles. Some deputies of the Labor Party have questioned exorbitant payments while the Starmer government carried out cuts in many social aid.
Finally, a magistrate of the Superior Court of England and Wales has given a last scare to the Government, by dictating this Thursday a precautionary measure for which the decision suspended. He responded to the request of a British citizen of Chagos, Bertrice Pompe, and threatened to ruin the delivery ceremony scheduled hours later, in which Starmer was going to be present.
It has been, however, another Court that has knocked down the precautionary measure in the last minute, by pointing out: “The public interest and that of the United Kingdom would be substantially harmed if the precautionary measure of suspension continues.”
“We have rights. We are British citizens, but it seems that our rights do not tell. We do not want to deliver our rights to Mauricio, we are not citizens of that island,” Pompe, the plaintiff, at the doors of the court, shortly after the sentence is protested.
Division in Chagos
The Chagos community, however, does not speak with one voice. There is division regarding the decision achieved.
France ceded the islands to the United Kingdom in the Capitulation Act of 1810. When in 1965 Mauricio reached its independence, London retained the archipelago, as part of what he called British territory of the Indian Ocean. The decision countered current international law, which prohibited colonized territories from re -shaking before its return.
In the sixties of the last century, the United States looked at Diego García’s island for its strategic interest, as time has been responsible for demonstrating. , from their military base many American and British long -range bombers took away.
Through a secret pact, never endorsed by the British Parliament, London made available to his ally, in 1966, the control of the island for a period of 50 years. By American demand, the British government expelled the indigenous inhabitants of the archipelago, the Chagosians or Iloissome 2,000 people, to whom he prohibited returning and sent to Mauricio and the Seychelles. Many of them faced a poverty situation, and they since then fight in court for their return.
In 2019, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly majority in favor of the return of the Chagos archipelago to Mauricio. Countries like France or Germany expressed their support through abstention. The International Court of Justice sentenced that same year that the United Kingdom had to resign as soon as possible to sovereignty over the islands.
