It won’t be long before someone self-identifying as a patriot says it’s time to send the Royal Navy to defend the Chagos Islands. But they probably won’t be able to say who from, exactly .
This group of stunningly beautiful atolls lies smack dab in the middle of the Indian Ocean, halfway between Africa and Australia, and just over 1,000 miles south of India’s tip. And in many ways it’s a lot like the Falklands, which is why there’s a flag-frotting frenzy about it not being British any more.
The Falklands are windswept, fairly desolate unless you like sheep, and populated by an ethnic, mostly-white hodge-podge descended from the international sea trade and those who have long argued about their ownership, and whose opinion that they would like to be British is the first and last word in the British government’s opinion as to whether that’s worth fighting for.
The Chagos are sunkissed, abundant, and were in their turn populated by an ethnic hodge podge descended from the remnants of slavery, empires, and those who have long argued about who should own it. There are two differences: the Chagossians were mostly-brown, so what they wanted has never once concerned the British government. And while the Falklands became ours because no-one else wanted them, it is the United States of America which squats over the Chagos like a toad.
For centururies, Mauritius to the south and the Maldives to the north argued over the Chagos, which neither of them settled. India had a huge influence too, via trade, shipwrecks, and local politics. It was found by the Portugese in the 16th century and swiftly claimed by the French, who already had Mauritius and wanted the complete set.
In 1786 the East India Company (prop: British politicians, bankers, and other ne’er-do-wells) spotted the Chagos would be a handy staging point for the spice and slave trades, and claimed it for Britain. The French ignored them until Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, and it was one of the many things they had to sign over. So we got it by accident, in Belgium.
The Chagos were covered in coconut plantations by this point, and the inhabitants were enslaved. Although Britain ended slavery throughout its empire in 1807, we didn’t release the Chagossians until after 1840. By that point, the workers were slaves descended of slaves, with a heavy dose of French Creole culture. They had their own language, lifestyle, and a more African heritage than their neighbours.
The British drew an arbitrary line between the Maldives and the Chagos, and had the atolls administered from the Seychelles which they’d likewise got off France in a fight. By 1903 that switched to Mauritius, and this was the only point at which its historic claim of sovereignty ever approached reality: it’s where the British did their paperwork.
After the Second World War, Britain let Mauritius have independence and £3million (about £46m today) so long as it let us keep the Chagos. What we didn’t say was the Americans had their beady eye on Diego Garcia, the largest island, and wanted a 50-year lease to build a military base covering 67 square miles.
A Foreign Office memo from 1966 said the British plan “was to get some rocks which will remain ours; there will be no indigenous people except seagulls”. Another stated there might be “some few Tarzans or Man Fridays whose origins are obscure and are hopefully being wished on to Mauritius”. There were in fact 1,000 or more Chagossians, who were rounded up, herded onto ships, and deported from the only homes they had. Their dogs were gassed in sheds. The Mauritians did not make them feel welcome, and they later claimed to have suffered racism because of their African heritage. This happened not in the long ago past, but while the Beatles were growing their hair long.
Three decades later, Tony Blair granted them the right to British citizenship, and many took him up on it. There are now around 10,000 Chagossians in the UK, most living around Crawley in West Sussex, close to Gatwick Airport. They’ve campaigned ever since to be allowed to get on a plane home. Recent refugees have been refused council accommodation, which leaves about a dozen Chagossians in the position of not being welcome even in Crawley.
Can you imagine any of that happening to the Falkland Islanders?
Mauritius and the Maldives still argue who owns it, and repeated court rulings, combined with the impending end of the US lease in 2036, made it impossible for the British government not to negotiate a way out. The deal arrived at was to pay Mauritius £9billion – about 195 times the previous asking price – to take back the thing we had bought once already. The kickback was a 99-year lease on Diego Garcia for our American friends.
That base has been used to send planes to Afghanistan and Iraq, and to carry out extraordinary renditions. Journalists are not welcome, and while it’s technically British even our representatives aren’t allowed to go anywhere the Americans won’t let them. The US government has spent so long innocently denying its use as a CIA blacksite for off-the-books interrogations that it seems a nailed-on certainty.
The deal also includes a trust fund for Chagossians, who could in theory return to some of the outer islands. But they’d be ruled by Mauritius, which has recently passed a law banning anyone from questioning sovereignty of the Chagos. Chagossians were excluded from the negotiations, and the few journalists who have sought their view have been told they’d like a referendum on who to be ruled by, and many of them would say Britain. Not because we’ve covered ourselves in glory, but our laws and standards give them more confidence than those of an historic adversary that legislated in advance to shut them up.
In short, it’s a bloody mess. Mauritius has no more right to the Chagos than Donald Trump has, but despite having none of his heft seems to have wangled it anyway. Britain has treated the descendants of slaves far worse than the descendants of guano miners or mutinous sailors who live on other British territories, and the only way we’d go to war for the Chagos is if America told us to.
Keir Starmer’s deal is appalling, if only because we’d never allow it for the people of Gibraltar, Pitcairn, or the Falklands. We should grant a return of the Chagossians, which would cost about £25m, and give them the referendum on self-determination they are long overdue. Let them have British help to negotiate with the US in return for investment in a sustainable tourism industry. It would remain an ally, Trump could get himself some nice beachside real estate, and Britain would have done the right thing for once. And anyone who really loves their country could not argue with that.
