Government keeps us in the dark on Chagos sovereignty deal - still

More details have been publicised this week about the secretive UK’s Chagos Islands sovereignty deal with Mauritius. Unofficially.

This week the latest unofficial release of information about the deal is published in the Telegraph. “Sources close to discussions” say that Mauritius is asking for more money from the UK to lease the Diego Garcia military base. They have asked for new development funding too.

Most of this is old news. It was reported last year that the newly elected Mauritius government was asking for more money. And then again in February.  None of the differing amounts demanded and discussed have been officially confirmed by the UK Government.

Since the official Government announcement of the deal last year it has been mainly “sources” quoted in news media  – or journalists and others speculating about what they say or what the government hasn’t said - that have fleshed out details on the government’s official skeletal deal publicised so far.

Last week No.10 said the deal was now being finalised following support from the US. However nothing further was revealed about what the details of the latest version of the treaty being finalised are.

Not making information public now

The Mauritian government have publicised only a few details about their demands over past months. One of their leading lawyers Philippe Sands, the British lawyer who acted for Mauritius in the case about sovereignty at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), said dismissively in a Times interview last week that, “when the agreement becomes public, people will say, ‘What is the fuss about?’”

Or they probably won’t depending on who you talk to. Plenty of people are already asking – including parliamentarians - why the draft treaty already agreed in the main can’t be made available for public scrutiny?

Many Chagossians opposed to the deal might well point out on hearing Sands’ comment that, “We are not making a fuss. We are demanding our democratic rights to decide what happens to us and our islands.”  

Such elitist dismissal of the cry for transparency and debate on such a crucial issue seems odd coming from a man who has written about self-determination for the Chagossian people in his book about the Chagos Islands called The Last Colony (2022). But then he, and the current UK Government, see the nation of Mauritius as the true inheritors of black rights against white colonial wrongs.

The trouble with this broad sweep anti-colonial approach is not all the Chagossians are Mauritian citizens. They live all over the world now. The British, French and Swiss Chagossians, for example, who don’t agree with the deal are an inconvenient truth in this anti-colonial narrative.

In this undemocratic foreign policy culture you’d have to read across the whole news media to try and piece together the full unofficial list of supposed detailed treaty terms currently on the negotiating table. And still not know what the official treaty details are or areas of contention since nothing much is said on the record.

How can official restrictions on the flow of information aid meaningful discussion between the public and those in charge – particularly for those losing their rights to live on their homeland?

What we do know

We do know some headline issues about what the treaty says. Last year on 4 October the public were notified officially by the UK Government that sovereignty of the Chagos Islands was going to be handed to Mauritius. This followed “the conclusion of negotiations.” Fait accompli.  

David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, announced in parliament a few days later that the treaty would “serve UK national interests.” He said it would allow the UK to continue to use one of the islands as a military base, disallow foreign armed forces to use the other islands, provide a financial settlement by providing a new Trust Fund for Chagossian people and organise a programme of visits to the islands.

The Foreign Secretary confirmed Mauritius would be free to allow resettlement of the islands, something so far denied by British governments to Chagossians and others, apart from visiting UK and US military personnel and their staff.

Anything to say on democratic rights?

Has the Foreign Secretary had anything to say on the democratic rights of all Chagossians to resettle on the islands, on compensation for those Chagossians and their families who have not benefited from previous rounds of compensation and don’t hold Mauritian passports or, the involvement of Chagossians in negotiations or their right to self-determination? Zilch.

Are we all any the wiser about the important detail of the apparently ever-increasingly cost of the deal to British taxpayers? No.

In answer to parliamentary questions on 2 April, Stephen Doughty MP, Minister of State at the Foreign Office, clarified that, “We will retain full control over Diego Garcia [one of the Chagos Islands used as a military base] and have robust provisions to keep adversaries out, including unrestricted access to and use of the base for the United Kingdom and the United States, the buffer zone I mentioned, the comprehensive mechanism to prevent activity on the other islands threatening the base operations, and a ban on the presence of foreign security forces.” A useful clarification.

But on other issues, such as what will be done to help Chagossians, he could only add, “full details of that will be available in due course.” Why wait?

Meanwhile in Mauritius Navin Ramgoolam, the Prime Minister, confirmed on 4 February a payment by Britain to Mauritius of £9bn has been agreed as part of the treaty deal to lease Diego Garcia for 99 years as a military base. And then claimed the UK was offering more money, later denied by the UK Government who were reported in the Times as saying they were not going to get in to a “running commentary.”

Negotiations need a degree of privacy but the public need to know why their sovereign rights are being expunged. So why not give a running commentary given such fundamental sovereign rights at stake?

Lack of transparency creates misinformation

Clamping down on misinformation is a key policy principle of the Government. Yet the lack of transparency by No.10 and the Foreign Office has led to fearful speculation about the lack of rights offered to Chagossian people and promiscuous claims-making including how much Britain has offered Mauritius to continue to lease the military base.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy was accused of “misleading parliament” last year when he said, “Of course we kept the Chagossians informed all along the way.” In January, Peter Lamb, Labour MP for Crawley which is home to the largest number of Chagossian people living in the UK, said there is “certainly evidence” that some statements “do not appear to be true.”

Chagossian Voices, a community group comprising several Chagossian organisations, confirmed to THE CHAGOS FILES reporter Tessa Clarke last year that they have never met David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary. So they have been unable to challenge him.

Before the sovereignty deal was officially announced the group did meet Stephen Doughty, the Foreign Office minister. However Chagossian Voices representatives say he refused too to talk about the negotiations.

The way the Government restricts information on a major foreign policy treaty discussion runs counter to democratic principles.

Nothing about this deal or the Chagos Islands was in the Labour Party’s 2024 Manifesto. The Chagossian people, born on the islands, have not had a significant, meaningful political say on the negotiations nor a vote on the deal.

How can the public debate a treaty handing a part of British territory to a foreign nation if we don’t know exactly – and officially - what the main details of the treaty negotiations giving our sovereign rights away are?

Tessa Clarke/11.4.25/ updated 16.4.25