Today the Government’s highly controversial Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill has its first day of Committee Stage in the House of Lords.
The Bill plays a critical role in facilitating the UK Government’s proposal to transfer sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to the Republic of Mauritius, not least because the treaty provisions for this change cannot be ratified unless or until after the Bill becomes law.
The Bill arises from the fact that in 1965 the UK divided the British colony that had previously covered both Mauritius and the Chagos Islands, ahead of decolonising Mauritius in 1968. The Chagos Islands were then kept on in what became the British Indian Overseas Territory (BIOT), to accommodate a US military base. The Chagossians were not even consulted about being split off from the rest of the colony, let alone the decision to deny them independence. This, however, is hardly surprising given that their detachment and reconstitution as a new colony was actually preparatory to a deeply shameful act, the UK then forcibly moving the Chagossians to Mauritius and the Seychelles (between 1968 and 73) and thereby taking their islands from them. Since then, BIOT has continued as a colony without a population.
In this there is no question that the UK has a clear and pressing moral responsibility to take action to try and put right, as much as possible, the gross failures of the period 1965-1973.
However, the Government’s Treaty and Bill, which claim to rise to this challenge, have become mired in deep controversy.
There is no disagreement that decolonisation is incomplete. To the extent that self-determination has not been afforded all the people of the previous colonial administrative unit, that pertaining to both Mauritius and the Chagos Islands, decolonisation plainly is incomplete. The point at issue is rather how to complete decolonisation through affording the people of the part of the previous colonial unit that were not afforded self-determination in 1968, self-determination in 2025.
The Mauritius Treaty seeks to answer this question by acting as if the people the Chagos Islands are Mauritian such that the completion of decolonisation is simply a matter of affirming what has since 1968 constituted a partial, frustrated Mauritian self-determination, that can now be completed by returning the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
The problem, however, is that the Chagossians are not the same as Mauritians.
In this context the precedent created by the UK Government’s handling of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands is hugely important.
For much of the twentieth century, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (like Mauritius and the Chagos Islands) were administered together as one British colony, despite being separated by around 800 miles of ocean and inhabited by two culturally and ethnically distinct peoples. The Gilbert Islanders were Micronesian, while the Ellice Islanders, were Polynesian.
In having discussions with the islands about decolonisation it became apparent to the British Government that the representatives of the Ellice Islands were very concerned by the prospect of forming a sovereign independent state with the Gilbert Islands because the population of the Gilbert Islands was much greater than that of the Ellice Islands. They did not believe that any future country embracing both sets of islands could properly reflect the distinct identity and interests of the Ellice Islands.
The UK Government responded by suggesting a self-determination referendum for all the people of the Ellice Islands, giving them the option of either becoming an independent state as part of the same unit as the Gilbert Islands or separate from the Gilbert Islands.
While not unanimous the result was very clear. 3,799 votes for separating from the Gilbert Islands compared to 293 votes in favour of remaining joined to the Gilbert Islands.
The UK respected that decision and in 1976, formally divided the colony into two, one for each set of islands. Then in 1978 the Ellice islands gained independence as Tuvalu and the following year the Gilbert Islands became the Republic of Kiribati.
When viewed from the vantage point of today, the impetrative to afford the Chagossians a self-determination referendum arising from the Tuvaluan precedent is now even greater than it was in relation to Tuvalu in the 1970s.
In the first instance, the distance between Mauritius and the Chagos Islands is 1,339 miles not 800.
In the second instance, the numbers differential between Mauritians and Chagossians is significantly greater than that between the Gilbert and Ellice islands, and thus the concern that the residents of the Ellice Islands had that their distinct interests and identity would be lost are compounded many times over for the Chagossians.
Finally, the imperative for providing a self-determination referendum for the Chagossians is now far greater than it was for the residents of the Ellice Islands because events since 1965 make it even more inappropriate to assume that Chagossioans will feel able to happily adopt a civic Mauritian identity. Specifically, Mauritius acquiesced with decisions that many Chagossians have regarded as deeply inimical to their own, agreeing to the detachment of the Chagos Islands without affording them self-determination and then playing a key part in facilitating their forced removal from their islands.
None of this is to say that Chagossians should not self-determine to become part of the Republic of Mauritius. It is simply to say with even greater clarity than pertained to the residents of the Ellice Islands, that we cannot assume that this is what Chagossians will want to do, without repeating the moral failures of the past.
As the Chagossians recognised yesterday, in publishing their Statement on Self-Determination, it does not reflect at all well on the current government that it is effectively marking the sixtieth anniversary of failing to provide self-determination for the Chagossian people in November 1965, with a treaty and a Bill that repeats this failure in 2025, transferring the sovereignty of their islands without consulting them.
This matters because a survey of over 3000 Chagossians – a very significant proportion of living Chagossians – indicates that over 99% do not wish their islands to be given to Mauritius.
Instead, they would like their island to be given back to them, and for them to self-determine, like Anguilla, to be a British Overseas Territory.
This is surely the least we can do for them.
Instead, the UK Government proposes, through the Mauritius Treaty and Diego Garcia Bill, to pay the Republic of Mauritius more money for the privilege of leasing one of the Chagossians’ islands from the Mauritians than the 2015 KPMG report demonstrates it would take to resettle the islands with its people.
This suggests an unparalleled measure of more moral disorientation in our government.
The House of Lords now has a very important job of work to do.
It can save us from a further moral humiliation if it denies this Bill a Third Reading.
