ANOTHER NAIL IN THE WESTERN COFFIN – THE DIEGO GARCIA SELLOUT
The British Indian Ocean Territory comprises over 1,000 islands in the center of the Indian Ocean and has been controlled by the UK since 1810 when it was seized from the French. Prior to French-led settlement, the islands were uninhabited. Again prior to the French settlement and when the Spanish/Portugese explorers first noted the islands, the islands were uninhabited. The territory has hosted a strategic military base since the 1960s and constitutes one of the largest marine protected areas in the world. But on 3 October 2024, London ceded sovereignty over the islands to Mauritius. The move demonstrates worrying strategic ineptitude in a world that the UK government describes as being characterised by great power competition.
Those defending the UK’s surrender of sovereignty would make three observations in defense of the deal. They would argue that after a UN General Assembly vote pushing for the UK to cede control, followed by an advisory ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to the same effect, the UK risked a binding ruling being passed against it. If forced to cede the territory under these conditions – they argue – the UK would suffer a greater blow to its soft power than if it conceded graciously, and might struggle to retain control over the military base. Instead, the deal that was struck leaves the UK with rights to the base for 99 years. Defenders of the deal would therefore also argue that the government preserved its strategic interests while resolving a diplomatic dispute that was causing friction with countries across the Global South. Really. So Chinese expansion is OK, the nation mind you which at a minimum slaughtered 75,000,000 of it’s own people possibly higher, under the brutal Maoist Communist regime are a welcome sight in the southern hemisphere, really? Second, the 99 yr lease has about as much chance of surviving as Mao’s victims of the great leap forward did. The PRC will inundate the islands with their naval forces whether the joint US/British military base is still occupied or not. NOTHING WILL STOP THEM.
Mauritius orchestrated an effective campaign to have various countries vote against the UK’s sovereign control of the territory does not alter the fact that Mauritians have never controlled it themselves. The French and British administered Mauritius and the Chagos Archipelago as one territory under their respective colonial administrations. This is the basis of the ICJ advisory opinion that they should be returned to Mauritius, but this would if anything affirm rather than nullify an artefact of colonialism.
French plantations had been established on the Chagos Archipelago in the 18th century. The great irony, however, is that while the UK evicted the Chagossians in the years following 1967, the deal struck with Mauritius does nothing to address the forced displacement of this population. The Chagossians are not indigenous inhabitants of the BIOT but were originally brought as slave labor and later free laborers operating the Copra plantation. What Mauritius has done is successful lawfare; creating a diplomatic problem to try to gain control over economically valuable territory that it wants to exploit.
An important aspect of this lawfare campaign is that the coalition supporting Mauritius was not cohered by strong interests in the cause but because a number of countries hostile to the UK, including but not limited to Russia, carried out significant diplomatic legwork to ensure Mauritius had support. Russia saw this issue as a way of imposing costs on the UK, and it succeeded.
These factors are important because the belief that this has drawn a line under the issue is wrong. Firstly, while the UK could have simply continued to assert its sovereignty, it has now created a legal precedent that will be used by other states to try to make predatory claims on British territory elsewhere. And countering such lawfare will – by virtue of the precedent set – be more difficult. Secondly, precisely because the coordination against the UK was carried out by competitors trying to impose costs on the UK, they are not going to stop pushing in this direction now that the UK has ceded sovereignty. They will simply move on to the next issue. The Chinese PRC in particular are salivating at the ability to access this vital strategic asset. Knuckling under to the United Nations Chinese shills displays the ongoing weakness and despicable self-loathing western leftist governments have for their own nations and civilization.