Chagos Treaty: A Good Deal for the UK and Mauritius Despite Delays
Opinion
It should be possible for the treaty to be agreed by Parliament in time for both parties to sign it before President Bidden leaves office on 20 January
By David Snoxell
There have been unexpected delays to concluding a UK/Mauritius treaty on Chagos.
One was the decision by Prime Minister Ramgoolam to review the agreement which Mauritius and the UK made public in a joint statement on 3 October, just before the election timetable was announced. This should not have been a surprise since the PM had not seen the agreement before the election, so wanted time to consider its details. We await the recommendations of the review he commissioned on 29 November.
Given that Dr Ramgoolam and his legal adviser Philippe Sands were the architects of the litigation which led to the 2017 ICJ Advisory Opinion and the UNGA resolution which endorsed it, one would expect the Prime Minister to want to take forward the agreement with any improvements that both sides have agreed for the treaty. It will then be signed by both parties and go to the UK Parliament for discussion. As primary legislation concerning the legal status of Diego Garcia and the winding up of a former colony is required the treaty may not be ratified until 2026.
Another issue has been the opposition in the British Parliament and media to returning the Archipelago to Mauritius on the grounds that it would weaken the western alliance and security of the joint UK/US base by enabling China to establish itself in the Archipelago under Mauritian sovereignty. This anti-China fear mongering is a specious argument but has appeal for those who don’t want what they regard as British territory to be “surrendered.”
A further argument used against the agreement is that the Chagossians do not want Mauritius to get control of their islands. They want the Archipelago to remain British. Some Chagossians in the UK and politicians are calling for a referendum of all Chagossians to decide on this issue. Those who deploy this line conveniently ignore the fact that the majority of Chagossians live in Mauritius and support the agreement restoring sovereignty to Mauritius, as the only means by which they will be allowed to return and resettle in the islands. A referendum that included Chagossians in Mauritius would result in a majority for the agreement. In any case in international law a referendum would apply to the entire population of Mauritius including Chagossians.
An editorial in The Times on 2 December deployed all these arguments and more, alleging that Dr Ramgoolam denounced the proposed agreement as ‘high treason’. Nothing could be further from the truth. In a letter on 3 December to The Times I wrote:Read More… Become a Subscriber
Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 13 December 2024
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