[Blog] “Historic Sell-out” – LALIT Communique on UK-Mauritius Chagos Agreement 

Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth, as his term in office comes to an end, has announced in extremis that there is an “historic” agreement, in the form of a Joint Statement, by himself and Keir Starmer, UK Prime Minister. In this one-page-and-a-bit document, the third paragraph is the key. It assures that the UK agrees “Mauritius is sovereign over the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia”. Then in the same paragraph, we read the sell-out bit:

“For an initial period of 99 years, the United Kingdom will be authorised to exercise with respect to Diego Garcia the SOVEREIGN RIGHTS AND AUTHORITIES OF MAURITIUS required to ensure the continued operation of the [US military] base well into the next century.” [our caps]. 

Really?

What kind of Mauritian “sovereignty” is this?

The International Court of Justice had already said that Chagos, by international law, is and always has, including Diego Garcia, been part of Mauritius. So did the UN General Assembly. LALIT and all those who have worked closely with us have said that from the beginning. 

After the judgment and UN General Assembly resolution, Britain was in a bad place. It was an outlaw in the whole world. It had been declared publicly to be in an illegal situation. Its illegality was even being tested by groups of poor refugees arriving in Chagos in small boats. 

Britain had previously been condemned for the illegal forcible removal of all the Chagossians. 

So, Britain was isolated. It badly needed to decolonize the whole of Chagos or sink in the slime. 

Then, Pravind Jugnauth announces his great “achievement” of making Britain agree to obey international law – EXCEPT as it concerns Diego Garcia and its USA military base, and that for the next 99 years! Worse still, now Jugnauth agrees to this – should the Treaty go ahead. He is signing away sovereignty – if such a thing is possible. Jugnauth, remember, is, to make matters worse, head of what is a border-line caretaker government as he does this sell-out on sovereignty and on the military occupation of Mauritius.

As everyone knows, LALIT has for the past 50 years fought to try to prevent this exact kind of sell-out. We warned of the danger of separating the issues of sovereignty and displacement, on the one hand, from the military occupation issue, on the other. We have had big fights with many intellectuals, here and abroad, and mainstream politicians in all parties about the mortal danger of this kind of unprincipled behavior of separating what in the real world is not separate. We have warned about this a million times. Now, the struggle risks losing ground on all three issues: sovereignty, displacement and military occupation. Remember it is the military base that is the source of all the suffering. It can never be accepted. 

This Treaty must not go ahead in this form.

For all those years, Britain and the USA have disregarded the international law regarding decolonization and sovereignty of Mauritius, including Chagos that includes Diego Garcia. Now, Pravind Jugnauth, wants to sign away this same bit of international law that Britain and the USA have flaunted for so long – by falling into the same old “bilateral negotiations” trap that the powerful states brandish. 

LALIT