Britain evicted about 2,000 people from the Chagos islands in the 1960s and 1970s so the United States could build a large airbase on Diego Garcia, the largest of its atolls. These areas almost certainly harbour many undiscovered and specially adapted species. While a number of islanders had petitioned for the return of their former homes, their efforts have not been accepted by the US and UK legal systems.Diego Garcia is currently the only inhabited island in the Chagos, all of which comprise the There are no indigenous peoples living on the island, and the UK represents the Territory internationally.
“But the colonial legacy resonates so deeply at the general assembly, there is very little even the smartest US or UK diplomacy can do about it.”Earlier this month the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, His letter accused her of disregarding international law and the right of exiled islanders to return to their homeland.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered Britain to hand back the Chagos Islands, including Diego Garcia, to Mauritius “as rapidly as possible.” This follows its landmark ruling that the UK’s occupation of the Chagos Islands was unlawful.The archipelago is about 500 kilometres (310 mi) south of the The largest individual islands are Diego Garcia (32.5 kmIn addition to the seven atolls with dry land reaching at least the high-water mark, there are nine reefs and All economic activity is concentrated on the largest island of The earliest and most interesting description of the Chagos, before On 27 April 1786 the Chagos Islands and Diego Garcia were claimed for In 1793, when the first successful colony was founded on Diego Garcia, the largest island, On 31 August 1903 the Chagos Archipelago was administratively separated from the In November 1965, the UK purchased the entire Chagos Archipelago from the then self-governing colony of Mauritius for £3 million to create the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT),In 1967 the British Government bought the entire assets and real property of the Between 1967 and 1973, the entire population was removed from the islands and moved to The plantation workers and their families were initially moved to the plantations on In 2002 Diego Garcia was used twice for US rendition flights.Mauritius initiated on 20 December 2010 proceedings against the United Kingdom under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to challenge the legality of the Chagos Archipelago MPA. A sad day for an isolated, lawless, colonial Britain.”Richard Gowan, the UN director for the International Crisis Group, warned against interpreting Wednesday’s vote as a sign of a general collapse in UK diplomatic influence.“On the whole UK diplomacy at the UN has been quite good on a number of issues,” Gowan said. Published: 11 Sep 2019 The Mauritian mission to the UN believes it has reached that threshold, winning pledges of backing from more than 100 member states.Such a lopsided defeat would also serve to underline British isolation in a battle that many UN member states, particularly in Africa, see as a last stand to preserve a relic of empire, and at a time at a time when its European Union allies, dismayed by Brexit, are no longer automatically offering support.It would also reflect the diminishing persuasive power of the US, which campaigned vigorously for the UK cause. The UN had given the UK six months to give up control of the Chagos Islands - but that period has now passed. This chain of islands is the southernmost archipelago of the Chagos-Laccadive Ridge, a long submarine mountain range in the Indian Ocean. A Marine Protected Area is established around the Chagos Islands.
A UK government feasibility study into resettlement concludes it would be expensive and difficult. UK defeated in UN vote on Chagos Islands Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf described the UK's administration of the Chagos Islands - located more than 2,000 miles off the east coast of Africa - … Diego Garcia is located in the Indian Ocean's Chagos Archipelago, more than 1,000 miles from the nearest continent. Photograph: US military/PA ... Three years earlier the UK had secretly leased one of the islands, Diego Garcia… On 16 November 2016, the UK Foreign Office maintained their ban on resettlement of the islands.Structures on the islands are located in the joint defence and The tribes that inhabited the islands were forcibly removed by the US and British governments during the late 1960s and early 1970s—effectively turning the islands into a military base. © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Google Maps