Exclusive: Is the Government’s Chagos Islands sovereignty deal racist?

An international group of Chagossian organisations claim the UK’s Chagos Islands treaty negotiating process is racist –  by Tessa Clarke

Chagossians and other groups at the 17th session of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, UN, July 2024/Tessa Clarke

An international group of Chagossian community organisations believe that the UK Government’s treaty negotiating process racially discriminates against them and have contacted the United Nations, THE CHAGOS FILES has exclusively learned.

Today the leaders of Chagossian Voices, a UK-based Chagossian community action group, the Chagos Asylum People group based in Mauritius, and Association Chagossiens de France have written to Michal Balcerzak, Chair of the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and other leading UN organisations.

The group is calling on the United Nations to investigate whether the UK and Mauritius Governments’ new Chagos Islands treaty deal signed last week on 22 May discriminates against the Chagossians as a distinct group of people.

The groups’ leaders Frankie Bontemps (Chagossian Voices), Claudette Lefade (Chagos Asylum Group) and Cynthia Othello (Association Chagossiens de France) believe that by excluding the Chagossian people from meaningful participation and decision-making power in the treaty negotiations that they are being racially discriminated against. 

“We should have a right to self-determination,” says Frankie Bontemps, Chair of Chagossian Voices, who met David Lammy, the UK’s Foreign Secretary, last week in a private meeting with other campaigners. “What is the difference between those living on Gibraltar who have self-determination and the Chagossians? It is skin colour.”

In 2019 the United Nations Assembly in New York voted in favour of Britain handing over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Three years later in November 2022 bi-lateral talks between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Mauritius about the Chagos Islands’ sovereignty began. 

Aside from taking a view on territorial disputes the UN can also investigate whether a nation state’s actions racially discriminate against people. 

OHCHR Press conference: Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) - 23 August 2024/The United Nations Office at Geneva Multimedia Newsroom

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination can implement preventive measures including early warning and urgent procedures to address situations that may lead to serious violations of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Through decisions and recommendations the Committee can identify and respond to patterns of racial discrimination that could escalate into conflict or further violations.

The signatories of the letter to the UN Committee say, “[The deal] further fails to uphold [Chagossians’] fundamental rights to self-determination, return, restitution, and cultural survival.” They say there will be “irreversible harm” if the treaty is enacted and call on the UN Committee to intervene.

Letters have also been sent to the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence, the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, and the Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues.

The powers of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination are limited. Although the Committee noted last year that they had concerns about the UK’s failure to allow Chagossians to return to their homeland and called for Britain to pay compensation, Britain ignored the Committee’s recommendations and signed the deal with Mauritius this month anyway. 

As reported previously in THE CHAGOS FILES David Lammy, the UK’s Foreign Secretary, has already admitted that Chagossians don’t have a guaranteed right to move back to the islands. In a response to a letter before action from two other Chagossian campaigners this year, UK government lawyers admitted that “very significant logistical challenges” make it “necessarily uncertain” that Mauritius will ever implement a resettlement plan, as reported by the Times. 

Although Chagossian natives and their families live all over the world today including in the UK, France, Switzerland, Mauritius and the Seychelles, the Chagossian Voices, Chagos Asylum Group and Association Chagossiens de France groups argue that Chagossians represent a “distinct ethnocultural group.” 

They argue that Chagossian identity has been “forged through generations of shared life, language, music, religious practices, and traditions on the Chagos islands” and not only by “their unique island origins but also by their collective historical trauma and exile.”

The letter’s signatories also point out that Chagossians are not all Mauritian citizens. The UK-Mauritius sovereignty deal does not return the Chagos Islands back to the Chagossians as a people, only to Mauritius where many Chagossians say they have been discriminated against too.

Sixty years ago when the UK Government removed by force several thousand Chagossians living on the Chagos Islands archipelago, the Foreign Office referred privately to the islands’ natives, who were originally from Africa and South Asia, as “a few Tarzans and Man Fridays.” Back then Chagossians and their families were immediately deported to Mauritius and the Seychelles.

From 1965 to the present day Chagossians’ collective and democratic right to live on their homeland has been ignored. The Chagossian community group leaders Bontemps, Othello and Lefade who are appealing to the United Nations today believe the UK Government’s actions are racist once again by ignoring their democratic rights in the treaty negotiation process. And, ask when will the Chagossians’ right to live on their homeland be won?

In reply to THE CHAGOS FILES’ request for a comment, a Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) spokesperson said today, “The negotiations were between the UK and Mauritius with our priority being to secure the full operation of the base on Diego Garcia.”

The Foreign Office confirms that the deal has also been welcomed by the US, 5 EYES partners and others, including the African Union, UN and Commonwealth.

The spokesperson added, “We have worked to ensure this agreement reflects the importance of the islands to Chagossians. It is important to respect the many different views within the Chagossian community, including those that have welcomed the deal.”

As part of the agreement Britain will finance a new trust fund for Mauritius to use in support of the Chagossian community and help organise a programme of visits. In the UK, separate to the deal, the government “will also increase our support to Chagossians living in the UK, through new and existing projects.”

The letters sent by the Chagossian organisations can be seen here and here.

Tessa Clarke and Alexia Psaliti/ 27 May 2025 – updated 4pm with reply from the FCDO