Mauritius Prime Minister accuses UK of 'crimes against humanity'

The British government has come under renewed pressure over its steadfast refusal to return the occupied Chagos Islands, despite an unequivocal ruling by the United Nations’ highest court.

The Prime Minister of Mauritius, Pravind Jugnauth, has now accused the UK of committing “crimes against humanity” by its refusal to allow Chagossians to return to their former homes.

Describing the UK’s attitude as “stubborn” and “shameful”, Jugnauth accused the British government of violating the basic human rights of Chagossians.

In February, the UN’s highest court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague (Netherlands) ruled that the UK’s continuing occupation of the Chagos Islands is “illegal” and ordered its return to Mauritius “as rapidly as possible”.

In a follow-up diplomatic blow, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly demanded in late May that the UK relinquishes control over the Chagos Islands within six months.

The UK ignored the deadline thus drawing the ire of the international community. The decision was also unpopular domestically with the Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, denouncing the UK’s attitude and pledging to renounce British sovereignty over the Indian Ocean islands in the event of becoming Prime Minister.

From a historical perspective, the UK has had a military presence in the region since 1814, but it only detached the Chagos Islands from Mauritius in 1965, to create the British Indian Ocean Territory.

In an additional act of colonial vandalism, between 1968 and 1974 the UK forcibly removed thousands of Chagossians from their homelands and exiled them more than 1,000 miles away in Mauritius and the Seychelles, where they were exposed to severe poverty and discrimination.

To make matters worse, the UK then invited the US to build a military base on Diego Garcia, one of the islands comprising the Chagos Archipelago.

Diego Garcia has been used as the staging ground for bombing raids on Iraq and Afghanistan. It was also used as a so-called “black site” by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to detain and torture terrorism suspects.

The UK’s decision to defy the UN by refusing to hand over the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius is in large measure informed by the islands’ military utility to the UK and the US.

Absent concrete punitive measures, the UK is unlikely to change its attitude and will likely continue to defy the will of the international community.

Meanwhile, elderly Chagossians (now mostly resident in Mauritius) continue to pay the price for Britain’s neo-colonial attitude as they face the bleak prospect of dying in exile.

Many of them have told the international media that the UK is deliberately dragging its heels on the issue in the hope they all perish in exile.    

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