PORT LOUIS: Mauritius Foreign Minister Dhananjay Ramful on Saturday vowed to “spare no effort” to reclaim the strategic Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, whose main island of Diego Garcia hosts a US-UK military base.
His remarks come after Britain indicated it would shelve plans to hand back the islands unless the US supports the deal.
US President Donald Trump has previously criticized the agreement, describing it as “an act of great stupidity.”
“We will spare no effort to seize any diplomatic or legal avenue to complete the decolonization process in this part of the Indian Ocean,” Ramful said at an Indian Ocean Conference held in Mauritius.
“This is a matter of justice,”
he added.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Downing Street office said in a statement the deal would proceed only “if it has US support,” after reports the Chagos legislation risked running out of parliamentary time with no fresh bill planned.
Mauritius Attorney General Gavin Glover said the outcome “does not come as a surprise,” blaming it on strained relations between Trump and Starmer.
“We are dependent on Anglo-American relations ... the US and Britain will have to reach an agreement,” Glover told a local newspaper.
Mauritius is set to meet the British government on April 22 over the Chagos deal, Glover said.
The remote Indian Ocean archipelago -— whose main island is Diego Garcia — was bought by Britain in 1965 before Mauritius gained independence.
Following the purchase, the local population was expelled and Britain leased the territory to the US for what became one of its most strategic military bases.
Britain’s ownership was disputed for years, with the UN ruling in 2019 that the UK should hand back the roughly 55 islands and atolls.
In 1965, Britain separated the Chagos Islands from the rest of Mauritius, then a semi-autonomous British territory, and paid 3 million pounds to acquire them, the equivalent of around $65 million today.
When Mauritius became independent three years later, the islands remained under British control and were renamed the British Indian Ocean Territory.
In 1966, Britain leased the islands to the US for 50 years so that it could set up a military base. In 2016, the deal was extended to 2036.
Between 1968 and 1973, around 2,000 Chagos islanders were evicted, described in a British diplomatic cable at the time as the removal of a few “Tarzans and Man Fridays.” Most were shipped to Mauritius and the Seychelles.
Mauritius argued it was illegal for Britain to break up its territory and demanded the right to resettle the former residents.
The US military base on Diego Garcia, the largest island, took a major strategic role in the Cold War.
