The Chagos Islands, symbol of the slow decline of the British colonial empire

It is at once the fight of a David against two Goliath and a battle for the future of one of the last crumbs of the British colonial Empire. The United Nations (UN) General Assembly issued a resolution on Wednesday (May 22nd) calling for the United Kingdom's return of the Chagos Archipelago to the Republic of Mauritius (which includes the Mauritius and Rodrigues Island) in six months at the latest.

The island state of the Indian Ocean has been struggling since its independence in 1968 to recover this archipelago of 64 islets located just over 1,200 km from Mauritius and remained under British administration . It faces two giants: the United Kingdom, which clings to these plots of land, and the United States, which have a military base considered strategic on one of the islands of the archipelago.

London condemned by the International Court of Justice

A fight that seemed lost in advance? Not necessarily. The UN has proved to be a valuable ally for Mauritius. In February 2019, the International Court of Justice - which depends on the United Nations - inflicted a real snub in London, judging that the United Kingdom should not only make these territories "to complete the process of decolonization of Mauritius" , but also help the return of the natives of Chagos Archipelago. The latter were forcibly evicted between 1968 and 1973.

This judgment was not binding and London was quick to ignore it. But he gave the Mauritian authorities a pretext to seize the UN General Assembly to increase pressure on the United Kingdom. The Republic of Mauritius is therefore preparing to celebrate a major diplomatic victory, the resolution having been adopted by 116 votes (6 against, 56 abstentions).

The British daily The Guardian said before the vote that a broad adoption of the resolution "would prove the extent to which the United Kingdom is isolated in this battle, which appears, for many UN Member the best of honor to try to preserve the vestiges of the colonial empire ".

Secret agreement between London and Washington

It must be said that the Chagos Archipelago, which does not even appear on the UN list of the 16 remaining colonies, is a dark page in recent British history. The UK government even acknowledged in 2013 that the United Kingdom "clearly acted badly" when the Republic of Mauritius gained independence.

At the height of the decolonization movement in the 1960s, this colony - which had known over the centuries the successive tutelage of the Dutch, French and British - feel that the time of its independence has come. London accepts the principle, but negotiates in parallel and secretly with the United States the detachment of the archipelago of Chagos, which has always been considered by the successive colonial powers as part of the territory of Mauritius. In 1966, two years before the declaration of independence of the Republic of Mauritius, London agreed to rent in Washington the largest of the archipelago's islands, Diego Garcia, to establish a military base there.

The Mauritian authorities will be faced with a fait accompli: the United Kingdom simply announces that it would obtain independence only in exchange for the Chagos Islands. In other words, London abandons a colony to create a new colony, which will be named British Indian Ocean Territory (British Indian Ocean Territory).

"Some Tarzan and Friday"

Remains a problem: the local population. Before the agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom, the British authorities estimated that about 1,700 people lived in Diego Garcia. In 1967, this figure had been magically reduced to just over 300. A British Foreign Office official had even assured that there was nobody on the spot besides "seasonal workers, a few Tarzan and Friday [ in reference to the native character of the novel "Robinson Crusoe" Daniel Defoe, Ed].

Statements aimed at "making the UN believe that the seizure of these territories was not done to the detriment of the local people," said Geoffrey Robertson, a British lawyer specializing in human rights issues who wrote a report. long study on the case of Chagos Archipelago in 2012.

After the independence of the Republic of Mauritius, the British and Americans organized the expulsion of the local population. These families then began a long legal battle in the United Kingdom, vain until now, to obtain compensation and the right to return home.

Meanwhile, Washington has invested more than $ 3 billion in its military base and paid tens of millions of dollars in London for the right to stay in Diego Garcia.

Fight against terrorism

The United Kingdom, however, had assured, in the early 1970s, that the US presence would be only temporary and that the archipelago would be returned to the Republic of Mauritius when the US military would no longer need. But that was before September 11, 2001. The fight against Islamist terrorism turned Diego Garcia, strategically located between Asia and the Middle East, into one of the most important military bases for Washington. The island has proved particularly useful as a supply port for ships and planes on mission, including Afghanistan and Iraq. This base is also suspected of serving as a secret prison where suspected terrorists were interrogated by the CIA.

Washington has no desire to see the status of the archipelago change. The Mauritian authorities have however repeatedly assured that they do not intend to question the US presence in Diego Garcia. But from the beginning, "the United States does not trust the stability of the Mauritian government and prefer to work with an ally who is unlikely to change his mind, like the United Kingdom," said lawyer Geoffrey Robertson.

The British authorities have also proved that this confidence was deserved since in 2016, they renewed the lease granted to the US Army until 2036. London has also been very creative to fight against the Mauritian claims on 'archipelago. In 2009, the authorities developed a plan to create a vast marine nature reserve to protect the ecosystem around Diego Garcia. But a secret American diplomatic document, published by WikiLeaks in 2010, reveals that this project was mainly aimed at making the island uninhabitable and, thus, to protect the American military presence in the name of the environment, to the detriment of the former inhabitants of Diego Garcia. Very proud of the idea, an official of the British Commonwealth Ministry had even told a US diplomat that the project would be well received because "the environmentalist lobby is more powerful than the one defending the cause of the inhabitants of the archipelago". However, in 2015, an international arbitral tribunal ruled this project "illegal".

Aware that they risked a real diplomatic snub at the UN, London and Washington have already begun trying to downplay Wednesday's vote. "This is not a question of decolonization that can be decided by the UN, but rather a territorial dispute between two countries - Mauritius and the United Kingdom," said Karen Pierce, the British ambassador to the UN. The United States also emphasized that Diego Garcia has played an important role in contributing to peace in the world. One way of saying that the nobility of the forbidden cause would prevail over the claims, however legitimate they may be, of some inhabitants deprived of their homes almost sixty years ago.