India reaffirms support to Mauritius' stand on Chagos Archipelago
India on Saturday reaffirmed its support to Mauritius in its stance on its sovereignty over Chagos Archipelago.
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, in response to questions from reporters at special briefing for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mauritius visit, said, "We support Mauritius in its stance on its sovereignty over Chagos, and this is obviously keeping with our long-standing position with regard to decolonisation and support for sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries.”
The archipelago consists of approximately 58 small, flat islands located in the central Indian Ocean. Historically, the archipelago was considered a dependency of Mauritius, which originally was a French colony. Mauritius was later ceded to the England under the Treaty of Paris in 1814. Mauritius remained under English till its independence in 1968.
In the subsequent years, the UK government, during negotiations acceded to a US request to lease Diego Garcia, the largest island in the archipelago, for the establishment of a joint military base. As part of this agreement, known as the Lancaster House Agreement, the UK government employed coercive measures to separate the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius before independence and forcibly relocated its inhabitants to Mauritius and Seychelles.
Since the 1980s, Mauritius has contested UK sovereignty over the islands, arguing that the agreement was signed under duress. Additionally, various groups of Chagossians, now dispersed among Seychelles, Mauritius, and the UK, have been advocating for their right to return to their homeland. The UK government split the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius, creating a new colony in Africa, the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), according to a Human Rights Watch report.
Commenting on the contestations between the UK and Mauritius, Foreign Secretary Misri said India understood that both the countries had engaged each other quite intensively and have also perhaps arrived at a mutually acceptable deal on the subject.
“The details are really for them to agree on. The previous government in Mauritius was also involved with these negotiations and certain arrangement had been arrived at. Naturally, after a new government has taken power in Mauritius,” he said.
He added, “Of course, the additional element is that there has been a change in government in the United States as well, which is in some senses, also associated or affected by these discussions.”
