The betrayal of the Chagossians

When MPs get their chance later this month to debate the British government’s decision to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, they should take note of the views of the Chagossians themselves. This is something our government and its Mauritian counterpart has signally failed to do so far in agreeing to the handover.

They should listen to 67-year-old Bernadette Dugasse, the head of UK-based campaign group Chagossian Voices. She tells me she is ‘shocked’ by the decision being taken over and above the heads of the islands’ former inhabitants. ‘It is my right to be included in the negotiations and heard as a native of the Chagos Islands’, she says.

Dugasse was born on Diego Garcia, the largest island of this remote archipelago in the Indian Ocean. But during the 1960s, Britain’s then Labour government deported her alongside 2,000 other Chagossians. It did so in order to lease Diego Garcia to the US for military use. Many of those who were forced to leave headed to the UK, where many now still live. Crawley, in the south-east, is now home to one of the largest Chagossian communities in the world. Other Chagossians eventually settled in places such as France, Canada and Mauritius itself.

You might think that those who used to live on the islands before being removed against their will would be consulted over the future of the archipelago. But that hasn’t been the case.

Instead, Labour’s whole approach to the future of Britain’s last remaining African colony has been shockingly undemocratic. Using Royal Prerogative powers, prime minister Keir Starmer agreed a deal, subject to finalisation of a treaty, with his Mauritian counterpart, Pravind Jugnauth, without having to consult parliament. Furthermore, both leaders announced the decision last week, when the British parliament was in recess and the Mauritius National Assembly was about to be dissolved. Neither side has provided much detail about the agreement, including the terms of the new lease which has secured the future of the UK-US Diego Garcia military base.

Furthermore, Labour gave no indication at all that any deal was imminent. And its election manifesto made no mention of handing over the islands’ sovereignty to Mauritius. Despite Starmer’s attempts to avoid parliamentary scrutiny entirely, the UK-Mauritius agreement will now be debated in the Commons.

Since the deal was announced, Starmer has tried to strike an anti-colonial pose. He said the deal would ‘address wrongs of the past’ – a reference to Britain’s seizure of the islands in 1814.

Yet it is one thing for a former imperial power to hand the final bit of territory back to a former colony, in this case, Mauritius. But it is quite another for it to do so while ignoring the will of the people who actually used to live there.

It’s true that those Chagossians who are now citizens of Mauritius are rejoicing at the decision. But those now living outside Mauritius are not – some who wanted the right to live on the islands, to go back to their homeland, fear they will have no rights to do so at all in the future.

All Chagossians should have been able to have their say in the negotiations. Instead, it’s as if the British government has decided to punish and disenfranchise Chagossians for being forcibly removed 60 years ago. These people, many of whom live in Crawley, Croydon and Manchester, have been ignored. In effect, the British government has betrayed its own British passport-holding Chagossian citizens in favour of other Chagossians living in Mauritius.

Labour and its cheerleaders claim that giving Mauritius control over its former territory ends an embarrassing, racist legacy of British rule over faraway islands. But in doing so, they are watering down the democratic rights of Chagossians themselves. They are denying a people, no matter small in number, the chance to decide their own future.

Handing the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is not righting a colonial wrong. It’s a betrayal of a people’s desire for self-determination.

Tessa Clarke is a journalist and author.