Diego Garcia remains a military base.”

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From our correspondent

NEW DELHI – Anyone who has ever negotiated before realizes that the easiest way to get what you want is to offer the other party something they can do without.

Diego Garcia stays in the UK for 99 years

This rule has been brilliantly implemented by the British government, which handed over control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius on Thursday. The counterpart is the one that Downing Street and the White House cannot do without. It is called Diego Garcia and is a military base island in the heart of the Indian Ocean which, according to the agreement signed between London and Port Louis, will for the next 99 years remain a kind of giant aircraft carrier – capable of launching bombers. , not simple combatants – they are strategically placed in one of the most important quadrants of the global geopolitical chessboard. Diego Garcia's American B-52s have taken to the skies during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The movement of goods, gas and oil passes through the surrounding waters, making the route between the Far East and the Middle East the most important, sensitive and studied of the Asian century.

Long story

The story that led to the sale of Chagos is a long-standing one. Its roots go back to the era of decolonization, when – in 1965, three years before Mauritian independence – the United Kingdom, sensing the future importance of this handful of islands, turned the Chagos Islands (including Diego Garcia) into the British Indian Ocean. Territory, in order to separate their fate from the inevitable fate of the soon-to-be-liberated Mauritius. The following year, a “lease” contract was signed with the United States, and starting in the 1970s, the population began to be deported to make way for a military base on the main island of the archipelago, Diego Garcia.

Change approach

The agreement signed on Thursday represents a change in approach by the British government, whose line has always been this: the original inhabitants of the archipelago will never be able to return. But over the years, the pressure has become stronger. At first this happened to some African countries. The United Nations then also expressed its opinion on the issue in 2019, with a non-binding resolution finding that the UK should relinquish control of the islands and allow the population to return. Last year, Human Rights Watch described the case as “a crime against humanity committed by a colonial power against indigenous people,” which is not a medal that can be pinned on the chest, especially in an era of profound reconsideration of the original sins of Western powers. Like this one.