As Britain hands the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius, the continued exclusion of Diego Garcia from resettlement and scrutiny raises alarms. Despite Mauritius’s commitments under the Pelindaba Treaty establishing an African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, US control of the base may violate the treaty.
On May 22, Keir Starmer, Britain’s Prime Minister, formally handed back sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
In 1965, when Mauritius was still a UK colony, the Chagos island chain was separated from it, declared a British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) subject only to British law. It was not returned when Mauritius achieved independence in 1968. This meant that Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos archipelago, was retained by Britain and in the early 1970s, a 99-year lease was given to the US to enable it to construct a major military base there while the island’s local and indigenous population was forcibly removed and dumped on Mauritius. That in itself was a violation of human rights for which Britain should have been held to account. The reason for this illegitimate transfer was that the US had learnt from its Okinawan experience.
In 1945 the US took over the Japanese island of Okinawa and established its military presence there. It was returned to Japanese administration in 1972 but throughout the 1950s and 1960s there were periodic outbursts of mass protests and demonstrations against US military presence and on issues associated with this such as drug running and prostitution. Resentment and periodic protests remains a feature ever since as the US retains a substantial Okinawan military presence well into the new millennium. The lesson of Okinawa was clear hence the decision to depopulate in Diego Garcia.
In the latest deal between London and Port Louis, the UK-US duo retains control of the military base and the Mauritius government gets a deal sweetener in the form of $136 million annually while the lease remains in operation. The return of sovereignty is of course to be welcomed. Mauritius had repeatedly in the past taken Britain to the International Court of Justice and got support from the UN General Assembly as well as from most of the African countries, but to no avail. Chagos remained till now a BIOT.
However, this deal brings with it two serious problems.
First, while the original residents of all the other over 50 islands in the Chagos archipelago will be allowed to return and Britain will provide a trust fund of $54 million for helping this, no resettlement will be allowed back in Diego Garcia. The shadow of Okinawa apparently remains.
The second shock pertains to the issue of the possible presence of nuclear weapons where they should never be allowed.
Also read: Why the Largest Island in Chagos Is So Important to The UK
In 1996 the Treaty of Pelindaba, which creates an African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (ANWFZ), was opened for government signatures. Mauritius signed and ratified the Treaty in 1996. It is also a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). 44 other countries and islands that are considered part of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) have also signed and ratified Pelindaba, with 10 others having signed but not ratified it. Only South Sudan has not signed or ratified the Treaty. Pelindaba came into force in August 2009 and an AFCONE, or African Commission on Nuclear Energy, was set up to ensure compliance with the Treaty.
It will be no surprise to anyone that the US either stores nuclear warheads or uses its Diego Garcia base for transport of NWs or stations nuclear weapons equipped aircraft there or carries out any combination of these acts. This suspicion is reinforced by the fact that while the US has both signed and ratified the protocols of Treaty of Tlatelolco that makes Latin America and the Caribbean a NWFZ and thereby respecting its terms regarding no use, storage or transit of NWs, it has so far refused to ratify Pelindaba.
Given the new deal does Mauritius have an interest in, or a willingness to, ensure that there must, from now on, be no NWs ever in Diego Garcia or passing through it? Mauritius can also call on AFCONE to help monitor this absence and thereby put continental pressure on the US to fully cooperate. Washington may not have ratified the Treaty but its military base is now on the sovereign territory of Mauritius which can therefore demand such compliance if it so wills. There is also the IAEA which oversees Port Louis’s peaceful nuclear energy programme and facilities for fighting agricultural pests and for a national cancer institute. The IAEA can also oversee that what happens in DG is within the legal ambit Mauritius accepted when it signed its agreement with that body.
It is not known beyond doubt whether the US has NWs in DG now or intends to have them whenever it wants. This uncertainty cannot be allowed to remain if the integrity of the Pelindaba Treaty is to be preserved. Otherwise a dangerous precedent will be set for further erosion of the African NWFZ through a similar pattern of collaboration between another member of the OAU and a Nuclear Weapons State. The onus rests on the government of Mauritius. Here, it is notable that though Mauritius has since 2018 regularly supported the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in annual UN general assembly resolutions and called for its universal adherence, it has itself neither signed nor ratified it.
Now that it has established its recognised sovereignty over Chagos and DG, what is it going to do next? Will it take some positive steps or will it do little or nothing? Then there will be those in the OAU who precisely to preserve the integrity of Africa’s NWFZ can quite understandably consider calling for the expulsion of Mauritius from this Treaty. Whether matters move or do not move in this direction remains to be seen.
Achin Vanaik is a retired professor of International Relations and a member of Indians for Palestine.
https://thewire.in/world/chagos-diego-garcia-nuclear-ambiguity