The UK said on Dec. 18 that it still plans to hand over the Chagos Islands, home to a strategically vital military base, to Mauritius, after the Indian Ocean country’s new leader backed out of a deal struck with the previous government.
The two countries announced in October an arrangement to switch sovereignty of the chain of more than 60 islands just south of the equator.
Under the plan, the British–U.S. naval and bomber base on the largest of the islands, Diego Garcia, would remain under UK control for at least 99 years.
However, since the UK’s governing Labour Party said it was finalizing details of a treaty with the Mauritian government two months ago, voters in Mauritius threw out the government that made the deal.
Now, new Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam says he wants to reopen negotiations because the draft deal “would not produce the benefits that the nation could expect from such an agreement.”
He told the Mauritian Parliament on Dec. 17 that his government “is still willing to conclude an agreement with the United Kingdom” and had submitted counter-demands.
UK Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty said he was confident the deal would be finalized, adding that it was “completely understandable that the new Mauritian government will want time to study the details.”
“I am confident that we have agreed a good and fair deal that is in both sides’ interests,” he said in London.
“It protects the base at proportionate cost. It has been supported across the national security architecture in the United States and by India.”
The opposition Conservative Party criticized the deal, accusing Labour of surrendering a British territory, despite negotiations with Mauritius over sovereignty being initiated under its watch in 2022.
Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden welcomed the deal as a “historic agreement.” Supporters of incoming President-elect Donald Trump, however, have said it is a strategic blunder.
British MP Nigel Farage has said “there is very deep disquiet” among incoming administration officials “as to what this may mean for the long-term future of Diego Garcia.”
Last month, a group of British lords said they planned to force the government to hold a referendum of Chagossians over the handover of the islands.
The peers, led by former Conservative minister Lord Henry Bellingham, will table an amendment to the treaty formalizing the transfer of the British Overseas Territory when it reaches the House of Lords.
There are about 3,500 Chagossians in the UK. Holding a referendum would require the British government to hold a worldwide awareness campaign in order to ensure that anyone else from the Chagos Islands can take part in the vote.
The Chagos Islands have been under British control since the height of the empire in 1814.
In more recent years, the Diego Garcia base has supported U.S. military operations from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, and in 2008, Washington acknowledged that it also had been used for rendition flights of terror suspects.
The United States has described the base, home to about 2,500 mostly American personnel, as “an all but indispensable platform” for security operations in the Middle East, South Asia, and East Africa.
Mauritius, which lies east of Madagascar in southern Africa, is about 1,250 miles southwest of the disputed archipelago.
The island nation became independent in 1968 but has always claimed that it was forced to give up the Chagos Islands as a condition of being released from the British Empire.
