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India backs Mauritius in sovereignty dispute with UK on Chagos Island
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar assured Mauritius that India will support the island nation on the issue of the Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean.
File photo shows Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos archipelago. (Image: Reuters)
India Today News Desk
New Delhi,UPDATED: Jul 16, 2024 18:48 IST
Written By: Anuja Jha
In Short
- Jaishankar reaffirms India's stand on Chagos dispute
- Chagos includes strategic US airbase Diego Garcia
- Mauritius disputes British control, demands rights over islands
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who is on a two-day visit to Mauritius, held wide-ranging talks with the country's leadership to cement bilateral ties.
Jaishankar said, “I would like to again assure you today that on the issue of Chagos, India will continue its consistent support to Mauritius in line with its principal stand on decolonisation and support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of nations.”
The Chagos Islands include the strategic US airbase of Diego Garcia. The archipelago has been operated as a British Indian Ocean Territory. Mauritius has, however, disputed this and is demanding its rights over the islands. The dispute has been going on for decades.
ABOUT CHAGOS ISLAND DISPUTE
The Chagos dispute centres around the archipelago in the Indian Ocean, which Britain claimed along with Mauritius in 1814.
In 1966, Britain leased Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos Islands, to the United States, which was seeking a military base in the region. This move led to the forced removal of approximately 2,000 Chagossians in the 1960s and 1970s, who were relocated to Mauritius and the Seychelles, hundreds of miles away.
The Chagossians, who are mostly descendants of African slaves brought to the islands in the 18th century, have since been engaged in a prolonged legal battle for the right to return to their homeland. Despite several British court rulings in their favor, Britain's highest court overturned these decisions in 2008, citing security concerns due to the American military presence on Diego Garcia, a critical base during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.
Mauritius, which gained independence from Britain in 1968, has consistently maintained its claim over the Chagos Islands. Former Mauritian President Anerood Jugnauth had emphasised that the separation of Chagos from Mauritius was against United Nations resolutions and represented a grave injustice to the country.
In 2019, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) dismissed the UK's right to govern the Chagos Islands and called on its government to withdraw from the archipelago.
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/sto...e-with-uk-on-chagos-island-2567638-2024-07-16
Fun fact: Britain losing Diego Garcia(a British Indian Ocean Territory-BIOT) would be a win both for decolonisation and one more nail in the coffin for the phrase "the empire on which the sun never sets"
This is to say we are getting closer to the sun actually setting on the already flimsy British "Empire".
