UK agrees deal over Chagos Islands despite court challenge

UK agrees deal over Chagos Islands despite court challenge

Protesters outside a High Court hearing into the fate of the Chagos Islands

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Thursday he had signed a contentious deal to return the remote Chagos Islands to Mauritius after a judge overturned a last-minute legal challenge.

Labour leader Starmer said the agreement, supported by Washington, was "the only way" to maintain British and American control of a key military base on the archipelago's largest island of Diego Garcia.

The deal, first touted in autumn last year, will see Britain pay its former colony £101 million ($136 million) annually for 99 years to lease the facility, Starmer told reporters.

"There's no alternative but to act in Britain's national interest by agreeing to this deal," Starmer said. The net cost over the length of the lease would be around £3.4 billion if inflation was factored in, he added.

The UK's top allies were on board with the deal, said Starmer, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio later saying in statement that Washington "welcomes the historic agreement".

Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam hailed the accord as a "great victory" for his country, which "completes the process of decolonisation of Mauritius, which began in 1968".

But the UK opposition Conservative party accused Starmer of having "given away" British territory.

Starmer's announcement followed a morning of drama at London's High Court that had forced the postponement of the signing and threatened to embarrass his centre-left government.

- Last-minute challenge -

The premier had been due to conclude the agreement in a virtual signing ceremony with Mauritian representatives at 9:00 am (0800 GMT).

But in a last-minute pre-dawn court hearing, two Chagossian women, Bertrice Pompe and Bernadette Dugasse, won a temporary injunction from the high court to delay the announcement.

Starmer's government challenged that decision. Its lawyers insisted that for the deal to be signed on Thursday it would require court approval by 1:00 pm.

Shortly after 12:30 pm, judge Martin Chamberlain lifted the temporary injunction, ruling there was a "very strong case" that the UK national interest and public interest would be "prejudiced" by extending the ban.

Starmer insisted that as international legal rulings had put Britain's ownership of the Chagos in doubt, only a deal with Mauritius could guarantee that the military base and its satellite communications remained functional.

Without agreement, the UK would not be able to prevent China or other nations from from setting up their own bases on outer islands or from carrying out joint exercises near Britain's base, he said.

But speaking outside court, Pompe said it was a "very, very sad day".

"We don't want to hand our rights over to Mauritius. We are not Mauritians," she said.

- 'Forcibly removed' -

Britain kept control of the Chagos Islands after Mauritius gained independence in the 1960s.

But it evicted thousands of Chagos islanders, who have since mounted a series of legal claims for compensation in British courts.

Pompe, a Chagos Islands-born British national, said in court documents she had been living in exile since being "forcibly removed from the Chagos Islands by the British authorities between 1967 and 1973".

Others had been forced into destitution in Mauritius, where they had suffered decades of discrimination, she said.

The deal would "jeopardise" the limited the rights she currently enjoyed to visit the islands, including to tend the graves of relatives, she added.

The base, leased to the United States, has become one of its key military facilities in the Asia-Pacific region. It has been used as a hub for long-range bombers and ships during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Britain's Ministry of Defence said a 24-nautical mile buffer zone will be put in place around the island where nothing can be built or placed without UK consent.

Defence Secretary John Healey told parliament MPs would get to scrutinise the agreement before agreeing its ratification.

In 2019, the International Court of Justice recommended that Britain hand the archipelago to Mauritius after decades of legal battles.

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Originally published as UK agrees deal over Chagos Islands despite court challenge