International courts say the archipelago belongs to Mauritius, not the UK. What is Britain waiting for?
Britain’s forced eviction of up to 2,000 Chagos Islanders from their homes on the Indian Ocean archipelago, to make way for a huge US military base on Diego Garcia, was shameful – by the admission of the UK government itself. But if the last half century has made it more willing to acknowledge its original sin, it has come no closer to addressing it seriously. The only noticeable progress in recent years was the creation of a £40m fund for the displaced islanders, of which only a tiny fraction has been spent.
Meanwhile, international opinion is inexorably moving against the UK. Last month, the council of the UN’s Universal Postal Union recommended that stamps issued by the British Indian Ocean Territory – as the UK designates the islands – should not be recognised. What on its own sounds trivial reflects the overwhelming shift to recognition of the archipelago as belonging to Mauritius, from which it was severed when the country gained independence in the 1960s, in exchange for a £4m payment. (Mauritius says it was coerced.) United Nations maps have already been redrawn. Little by little, legal decisions are having their effect.
