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23-05-2025
LONDON: A British High Court judge has temporarily blocked the government from transferring sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
The last-minute injunction on Thursday morning came hours before the agreement was expected to be signed at a virtual ceremony with representatives from the Mauritian government.
The High Court decision was granted after action was taken by Bernadette Dugasse and Bertrice Pompe, two British nationals who were born at the Diego Garcia military base on Chagos and claimed that the islands should remain under British control.
High Court judge Julian Goose temporarily blocked the British government from taking any “conclusive or legally binding step to conclude its negotiations concerning the possible transfer of the British Indian Ocean Territory, also known as the Chagos Archipelago, to a foreign government”.
“The defendant is to maintain the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom over the British Indian Ocean Territory until further order,” he said.
Earlier this year, the lawyer for the two nationals, Michael Polak, said on his chambers website that the government’s attempt to “give away” the islands without formal consultation with its residents is a “continuation of their terrible treatment by the authorities in the past”.
“They remain the people with the closest connection to the islands, but their needs and wishes are being ignored,” Polak said.
The UK, which has controlled the region since 1814, separated the Chagos Islands in 1965 from Mauritius to create the British Indian Ocean Territory.
In the early 1970s, the government evicted about 1,500 residents to Mauritius and Seychelles to make way for the Diego Garcia airbase on the largest island.
In October, the government announced a draft agreement to hand the islands to Mauritius and allow Britain and the United States to continue using the Diego Garcia base under a 99-year lease.
US President Donald Trump’s administration, which was consulted on the deal, gave its approval. However, finalizing the agreement was delayed by a change in government in Mauritius and reported last-minute negotiations over costs.
In October, last year after a dispute running for more than 50 years, the United Kingdom will finally hand back the Chagos Islands, an archipelago located in the Indian Ocean, to the southeast African island country of Mauritius.
As part of an agreement on Thursday, the governments of the UK and Mauritius jointly announced that full sovereignty of the Chagos, a remote group of more than 60 islands, would again belong to Mauritius in exchange for guarantees that a United States military base could continue operating there for the next 99 years.
The announcement has prompted mixed feelings among Chagossians who were exiled from the archipelago to Mauritius, the Seychelles and the UK in the 1960s and 1970s, and have for years fought to return to their ancestral homeland without any conditions attached.
While many acknowledge this is a crucial step towards asserting the rights of Chagossians, some also point out that they were not included in the negotiations between the two governments.
What’s happening?
Mauritius will now control the Chagos, taking over sovereignty from its former colonial ruler of 1815 to 1968, the UK.
According to the terms of the deal, Mauritius is “free” to legally resettle the islands of the Chagos, excluding Diego Garcia, the largest and most southerly island, home to a US military base, and the only one that has remained inhabited since the 1970s. The archipelago is otherwise empty, with no inhabitants. (Int’l News Desk)
