For many Chagossians, the phrase “dying of a broken heart” is all too true. Known in Creole as “Sagren,” this feeling of profound sorrow still resonates among the Chagossian community more than 50 years after their eviction from Diego Garcia in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the United States (U.S.) and United Kingdom (UK). In an attempt to “cleanse” and “sanitize” the Chagos Archipelago, of which Diego Garcia is the largest island, the UK proceeded to separate the group of islands from the nearby British Colony of Mauritius to form the British Indian Ocean Territory in 1965. Years later, Mauritius gained independence in 1968 while Britain maintained control over the Chagos Islands.
In the next decade after 1965, the British forcibly expelled thousands of members of the local Chagossian population to make way for the creation of a joint U.S.-UK military base known as Camp Justice. Relocated to the nearby islands of Mauritius and Seychelles, the Chagossians received little to no resettlement aid or compensation and instead were subjected to incredibly poor living conditions. Post-relocation, many Chagossians ended up settling in the UK where they were given British citizenship. To this day, the UK government still prevents the Chagossians from returning to Diego Garcia.
Importance of Diego Garcia
The eviction of the Chagossians from Diego Garcia was purely on behalf of furthering U.S. strategic foreign policy objectives. The island’s isolated location in the middle of the Indian Ocean--south of the tip of India and nearly equidistant from Australia, the Saudi peninsula, and the eastern coast of Africa--allows the U.S. to have a military presence in an otherwise untouched geographical area. The position of the island, which houses one of the largest American bases outside of the U.S., provides the U.S. with the opportunity to exert military force on neighboring countries or provide military support to nearby allies if the need arises. Diego Garcia also remains under British control, a close American ally. This strengthens the U.S.-UK relationship by further tying the two countries together over the shared interest of the continuous operation of the base.
Additionally, according to The National Interest, the U.S. relies on Camp Justice military for “long-range bomber operations, the replenishment of naval vessels, and the prepositioning of heavy equipment to expedite the rapid deployment of Army and Marine Corps brigades.” The facility has also played a key role over the years, serving as the primary base for air operations and bombing raids during the Persian Gulf War in the 1990s and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s.
External Factors
Chinese Influence
China’s presence in the Indian Ocean has increased since President Xi Jinping announced the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013. The BRI is a geopolitical strategy that funds a variety of infrastructure projects that help to economically connect China with over sixty countries in Eurasia and Africa. During a 2018 tour of Africa by President Jinping, Senegal, Rwanda, and South Africa signed onto the BRI. However, because Mauritius is an economically prosperous country with high foreign direct investment from the U.S. and a booming tourist industry, it agreed to sign on at a later date. The addition of these countries to the BRI highlights China’s growing influence on the continent, exposing Africans to Chinese culture and overall strengthening Afro-Sino relations.
China’s military presence in the Indian Ocean is also increasing with the construction of Shandong, a modified version of China’s first flattop aircraft carrier Liaoning, further expanding China’s oceanic fleet. According to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, “the primary purpose of this first domestic aircraft carrier [Liaoning] will be to serve a regional defense mission,” but “Beijing probably also will use the carrier to project power throughout the South China Sea and possibly into the Indian Ocean.” China’s economic and military expansion into the Indian Ocean, catalyzed by the BRI, threatens U.S. hegemony in the region. This is a cause for concern for many U.S. defense scholars and adds fuel to the argument that the U.S. must maintain their naval presence on Diego Garcia in order to counter growing Chinese influence in the region.
Brexit Impact
In a landmark speech prior to the December 2019 general UK election, UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn pledged to “right one of the wrongs of history” and renounce British sovereignty of the Chagos Islands if he were elected Prime Minister. Per their manifesto for the upcoming election, the Labour Party committed to “allow[ing] the people of the Chagos Islands and their descendants the right to return to the lands from which they should never have been removed.” As for the current status of the Chagossians living in both the UK and on Mauritius, Corbyn called the entire situation “utterly disgraceful” and asserted that “[the Chagossians] need a full apology and they need adequate compensation.” Corbyn added that “I believe the right of return to those islands is absolutely important as a symbol of the way in which we [Britain] wish to behave in international law.”
However, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit success in late January 2020, many of the departure’s impacts will be felt in Britain’s 14 Overseas Territories. According to a representative from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, “the UK has put in place a number of measures for the Overseas Territories in the event of a no-deal.” What this means for the Chagos Islands is not entirely clear, especially because the terms of Brexit have not been explicitly defined thus far in the transition period.
The focus of a pro-Brexit deal was primarily centered on the repercussions regarding Northern Ireland and the potential return of a hard border between the north and the south, thus news on the impact on Britain’s Overseas Territories has been limited. Some of these Overseas Territories rely on aid from the European Union (EU), and a hard Brexit is likely to severely damage the economies of these territories that rely on the UK’s involvement in the larger EU community.
Current Affairs
In 2017, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) sent the territorial dispute between Mauritius and the U.K. to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ ruled in February 2019 that the British separation of the Chagos Islands from Mauritius was illegal and ordered the U.K. to relinquish control of the islands “as rapidly as possible.” However, because the ruling was merely an advisory opinion, the case was referred back to the United Nations (UN) for a vote. In May 2019, UNGA’s final vote was shockingly low: 116 countries condemned the UK’s decision and only six supported it. Despite extensive lobbying by the U.S. and the surprising abstention of 56 countries--many of them being U.K. allies such as Canada, France, and Germany--the single-digit support highlights the magnitude of international dissatisfaction regarding the UK’s imperialistic behavior in the Indian Ocean. While the vote was nonbinding, it affirmed the ICJ’s previous ruling and set a six-month deadline by which the UK must withdraw from the Chagos Archipelago so that it could be reunified with Mauritius. As of April 2020, no progress has been made in achieving this objective.
What Comes Next?
For the UK, the UN vote was crucial in highlighting Britain’s waning popularity in the international community, seeing as how a number of UK allies failed to actively support the UK during the voting process, instead choosing to abstain. For the U.S., they have an interest in maintaining Camp Justice. Increasing Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean and the close proximity of the island to both U.S. adversaries and allies furthers American foreign policy objectives by allowing the U.S. to maintain a formidable presence in the area. However, the United States’ lease on Diego Garcia is effective only until the year 2036. What happens after the lease runs out is currently unknown.