Mauritius has lengthy argued it was compelled to offer the Chagos Islands away in return for its personal independence from Britain, with greater than 1,000 islanders forcibly eliminated on the request of the U.S.
A 2019 advisory opinion from the Worldwide Court docket of Justice, which adjudicates on disputes between nations, discovered that the detachment of the Chagos Islands from Mauritius was “not primarily based on the free and real expression of the desire of the folks involved.”
It mentioned the U.Okay. was “underneath an obligation to convey to an finish its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as quickly as potential.”
The overseas secretary additionally highlighted that negotiations had begun underneath the earlier Conservative authorities, and mentioned indecision threatened the way forward for the bottom, probably harming U.S. relations.
However Shadow International Secretary Andrew Mitchell accused Britain of giving freely a “key strategic army asset to a state which has by no means managed it, and to which the Chagossian folks really feel little affinity, if any” amid intense geopolitical instability.
Switch of the islands “provides succour to our enemies … and undermines the strategic net of Britain’s protection pursuits,” he argued.