De-colonize Chagos! End Military Occupation! UK-USA Out! Even as UK-USA catch Human Rights Watch in a trap!

25.02.2023

In the past few years, the USA and Britain have finally been publicly denounced by the highest international courts and forums over their crimes concerning part of the Republic of Mauritius, the Chagos Archipelago that includes Diego Garcia. This comes after 50 long years’ struggle to get the truth out. Here is what the UK-US had so successfully been covering up for half a century and that is now out in public view: the British state stole the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius at its independence in the 1960s in an illegal act, forcibly removing the inhabitants from Chagos to Mauritius’ mainland in what was a crime against humanity, and then leased part of the stolen goods, duly depopulated, Diego Garcia, to the receiver of stolen goods, the USA, for the now-infamous military base there.

No sooner has this victory been won than the reaction has set in. Colonization dies hard. And this time, it is the American NGO, Human Rights Watch that has, despite its good intentions, gone and fallen into the trap set for it by the UK-USA. HRW is aiding and abetting the US-UK alliance in its perpetuation of its colonization of Chagos and of its military occupation of Diego Garcia by making demands that assume this perpetuation. This error is because the road to hell is, as we all know, paved with good intentions.

Let us explain. Read on. 

The African union six years ago proposed a resolution before the UN General Assembly requesting an “Advisory Opinion” from the International Court of Justice on whether Britain had decolonized Mauritius illegally, and only incompletely, in the 1960s; the resolution was passed, and the ICJ heard the case and informed the U.N. General Assembly in 2019 that Britain had indeed acted illegally, and must decolonize Mauritius completely at once i.e. get out of “the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia”[1]; the UN General Assembly voted a new Resolution making it the duty of all states to get the UK to clear out of the whole of Chagos within six months[2]; in 2020, the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea also judged (and this judgment is not “advisory” or an “opinion” but binding under international law) that the ICJ findings are correct [3a, 3b]; in short, we have reached that very moment when the entire international justice system and all the UN political forums have, one-after-the-other, exposed the UK and USA for their crimes against humanity, their forcible displacement of the Chagossians, the breaking of a colonized country into bits so as to keep some and form a colony under a new name (British Indian Ocean Territory), so as to establish a military occupation on part of the Republic of Mauritius (on Diego Garcia). With all this exposed as illegal, decolonization can thus at last proceed. Victory! 

Then HRW, the big American NGO with a London branch, has gone and fallen right into the US-UK’s “Plan B” that aims at perpetuating UK colonization and continued US military occupation of Mauritius for even longer still. All the UK and USA need is to tip the balance of forces a bit in favour of their continued colonization. 

Just getting our successive Mauritian governments, led by different Prime Ministers, over the past decades since the 1970s to take the issue to the UN has been a tough fight. The working class in Mauritius, alongside Chagossians, also mainly in the working class, have been at the forefront of this struggle. LALIT has been in almost all the struggles, too – from the 1970s until today. The motor for change has been the people, including Chagossians, who did the petitions, took to the streets in demonstrations, fought the police, faced up to court charges for illegal public protests, organized congresses, spoke in forums all over Mauritius and on five continents, held meetings, leaflets, night vigils, took the UK and USA to court, hunger strikes, even planned a flotilla to go to Diego Garcia, set up common fronts, did poster campaigns, you name it, collectively we’ve done it! And this political work at the grassroots finally had results.

So, it came as a shock that Human Rights Watch, in its Report of 14 February 2023, calls for actions by the UK and USA that assume continued colonization of Chagos and perpetuated military occupation of Diego Garcia. 

We in LALIT wrote HRW a letter forewarning them last month [4] when they were begging a place from the British Secretary of State at the “negotiating table” for UK’s proposed negotiations with Mauritius for decolonization . We could see they were falling into the trap. After sending us a lame reply, HRW then went ahead and published their Report containing the same blunder.

At no point does Human Rights Watch in its extensive Report, or in its long lists of demands, call for the BIOT to be disbanded i.e. for this vile colony to be closed down. Nor does Human Rights Watch call for Chagos to be re-united, as part of the decolonization process, with the rest of the Republic of Mauritius, as the UN General Assembly voted, following the ICJ judgment. At no point does Human Rights Watch call for the US military base to be closed down either – not even so as to respect the binding Pelindaba Treaty for a Nuclear Arms Free Africa, a treaty left to the world as political legacy of the struggle of the working class in South Africa against Apartheid.

Instead the HRW Report supports the UK’s continued colonization and USA’s continued occupation. While mentioning the UN Courts’ decisions and the UN General Assembly’s votes, HRW seems not to understand what they mean or, if it does, does not accept the logic of decolonization i.e. HRW fails to see that the UK and USA no longer have the right to run Chagos as a colony or to occupy it militarily any longer. The US-UK obviously have reparations to pay to Mauritius and to the Chagossians. But, as to what happens on Chagos in the future, HRW needs to stop acting as though the UK and USA are eternally masters of Chagos. When the UN Courts and the UN General Assembly say the UK must decolonize and get out of the whole of Chagos, including Diego Garcia, that is what it means. It means the UK-USA must “get out”.

Human Rights Watch instead unashamedly proposes a whole raft of measures that the UK can logically take only if it continues its colonization. But what’s the UK got to do with it? HRW assumes the UK will do these things via its colony, the BIOT? We cannot imagine any other way. HRW even calls for equal rights for those on BIOT, as though they expect it to continue existing, this infernal British colony. Even the Universal Postal union no longer accepts BIOT stamps. So, why does HRW accept the continued existence of such a colony? HRW suggests measures the USA should take, and these, too, are possible only on condition that the US military continue its occupation of Diego Garcia. HRW want the US to employ Chagossians on its military base on Diego Garcia, for example. And by the way, what exactly does HRW predict that people will be employed to do? Clean up rooms used for torture? Prepare infra-structure for men and women to go bomb civilians in countries we are not at war with? Unbelievable but true. HRW, a human rights organization, fails to see that de-colonization is, itself, a human rights issue, and fails to see that military occupation is, itself, a human rights issue. On the contrary, HRW at this key moment in history stands in opposition to de-colonization and against putting an end to this military occupation.

So outraged were they, we can only think, at the genuinely inhuman treatment that they so belatedly found out about, that HRW have gone and called for the UK and USA to continue their colonization and occupation, presumably as a way to, in the future, somehow, make amends for this cruelty and egregiousness by being nice to the people they displaced, from now on? It can surely not be that HRW intends to “reward” these colonial and imperial powers for their criminality, racism and general colonial and imperial disdain by colluding so patently with their continued colonization and continued military occupation? But, they do. Surely this is, on the part of HRW, moral turpitude? 

It is truly outrageous, what the British and American state apparatuses did to Mauritius and to Chagossians. That is all the more reason for HRW to tell the Governments of the UK and USA to get out of Chagos, once and for all. The whole of the Republic of Mauritius must be decolonized.

This is evidently the thing HRW should call for of its own accord. But, at the very least, they should do it so as to add their voice to all those calling on the UK-USA to do no more than respect the decisions of the UN’s highest courts (ICJ and ITLOS) and of the UN General Assembly’s overwhelming vote that the UK-USA should get out of “Chagos, including Diego Garcia” – to use the exact formula in quotes that the UN system uses. It seems that HRW has, perhaps as a fig-leaf, included the following tepid, vague phrase on page 99 of the Report towards the end of a list of bullet-points that the UK should “Cooperate with and comply with the findings and recommendations of UN bodies ….” HRW conspicuously avoids saying that the UK-USA should “get out of Chagos”.

Yet that is the urgent demand they need to make: “UK-USA, get out!” The absence of this demand is a crying shame. It would be a demand in harmony with the international law on decolonization. It would be in harmony with what is now known to the whole world to be the international law on decolonization. It would be in harmony with the peace movement. It would be in harmony with human rights philosophy. It would herald the possibility of future democratic control over Chagos, including Diego Garcia, by the whole of the people of Mauritius, including Chagossians. For over 50 years, the UK and USA have occupied Chagos not just illegally, but under conditions of extreme opacity. This must stop! 

But, instead, Human Rights Watch is doing just what Greenpeace did before it. Let us recapitulate.

Greenpeace is another western NGO that fell for a previous UK-USA plot in 2010, a prior trap laid for an NGO, for the very same reason, i.e. so as to prolong the UK-USA’s joint colonization and military occupation of Mauritius. The UK-USA laid a trap for Greenpeace, and the Wikileaks cables between the UK and USA – for whose publication by Julian Assange we should all be eternally grateful – proved that it was a consciously laid plot. The reason the UK set up a Marine Protected Area, with Greenpeace support, was in order to prolong colonization and military occupation of this part of Mauritius. So Greenpeace, willy-nilly, aided and abetted continued colonization and occupation. Greenpeace, besotted no doubt by the offer of a marine park, fell right into the trap. Ram Seegobin, for LALIT, wrote Greenpeace an open letter fore-warning them. They justified their stance somewhat haughtily at the time and, even after Wikileaks exposed their either stupidity, or blunder, or cupidity, they have never, to our knowledge, apologized to us, who forewarned them, to Mauritians who are the colonized victim of the ruse, or even to the Chagossians, whose suffering has been so immense it is hard to imagine. People like us know much better than HRW does after its having interviewed “43 Chagossians” just how much Chagossians suffered, and Chagossians, themselves, know better than anyone else, having gone through it all. We use harsh words, “stupidity”, “blunder” or “cupidity” not in order to be hard on well-meaning NGOs, but simply because either the colonial mentality does indeed affect cognitive functioning of those in its sway (like many western NGOs are), or the tunnel-vision of single-issue organizations makes them blunder into such obvious traps laid just outside their field of vision, or the funding of the NGOs, which often depend upon donors in the capitalist class or linked to the capitalist state, that might shy away from topics like decolonization and de-militarization, who knows. Anyway, the International Tribunal under the Convention of the Law of the Sea gave short shrift to the UK’s Marine Protected Area, declaring it illegal, thus compounding the humiliation of Greenpeace.

Now, even after the lessons of Greenpeace, Human Rights Watch has fallen into a new trap of the same ilk laid this time for them, thus helping the UK-US perpetuate their colonization and occupation for another x years. 

Human Rights Watch has not even noticed that the UK-USA’s “Plan B” (that they have been lured into) had meanwhile become obsolete. Thought up so long ago, the Plan B can no longer work – after the UN system has already acted under the logic of and under the law of “decolonization” – and it collapses. 

Let us explain. The British “Plan B”, if Mauritius were ever to take them before the UN and they were to lose, as they inevitably would lose if they were taken there, and as they inevitably did once they were, has been the same for some 25-30 years if not more. Their “plan” was to dish out enough British passports to Chagossian-Mauritians; then call Chagossians a separate nation; then hold “consultations” or a “referendum” in this “segment” of the population of their former colony, Mauritius, as to whether this fragment would prefer to “remain” British or not. (In Mauritius, this is called the “Mayotte trick”, referring to France’s theft of one of Comoros main islands, Mayotte – as if Britain and France could have kept the gold and diamond mines after little tricked referenda in all their former colonies all over the world, and then given “the rest” of each country its independence!) Thus the UK-USA attempts to cast a veil of legitimacy by means of such a “referendum” over its continued cruel colonization via their BIOT, or at least to confuse everyone for another 50 years or so, thus protecting the tenure of the UK’s lease of part (Diego Garcia) of the UK’s goods (Chagos) stolen from Mauritius. This way the USA can continue as before: bombing wedding processions in Afghanistan, bombarding civilian cities in Iraq, and torturing illegally rendered prisoners in situ. This way the Chagos will continue to be outside the democratic control of Mauritians, including Chagossians, who are the people of the then colony who are responsible. We are supposed to control democratically what happens there. We do not approve of bombing cities or wedding celebrations in serial illegal wars. We do not approve of torture and rendition either. And we do not think it is good enough to go ask, as Human Rights Watch does, the UK and USA, while agreeing with their continued colonization and occupation of this part of Africa, not to do these nasty things ever again. And HRW intends just to take the word of the UK and USA spokespeople when they reply? Even when these two imperial and colonial powers have been shown to have lied, lied, and lied again on this very issue through their teeth, tricked people, again and again, for over 50 years – even the UK Parliament and even the US Congress? Then you ask them to continue as before, only promise on their hearts, hope-to-die, not to overdo the torture?

Let us explain how the Plan B, as it turns out, cannot work. It’s just too late.

The UK-USA alliance did not, being of colonial mentality, expect that, at the time it invented its Plan B, the original dreaded Resolution that would come before the UN General Assembly would come from the entire African union. They “knew”, with the certainty only emperors have, that it would be just little state of Mauritius up against big UK-USA. They did not foresee either, again being trapped in their own colonial mind-set, that the issue would then when proposed by the African union, by definition, be one of decolonization. Decolonization of Africa, at that. They did not predict that the issue would come up on the UN General Assembly and at the ICJ not as a “bilateral” issue but as decolonization, decolonization, decolonization. The wording of the resolution was pitch-perfect. So the issue was not exposed as some quarrel over “sovereignty” that could be negotiated “bilaterally” but exposed as Britain not having “decolonized Africa” completely, and so the whole process that has unfolded and led to victory has been following the iron logic of de-colonization. Decolonization is not the same as any other sovereignty issue. But, the Plan B of the colonizers was to try to pretend it is. Decolonization has its own internal logic, and its own international, legal framework. Britain cannot just choose a bit of the “whole people” and conduct consultations or even hold a referendum. It is not in line with international law, or even basic logic. But, HRW has fallen into the colonizer’s logic and has even, in public, called Chagos a “sovereignty” issue, declaring this to be “secondary”![7] But, the very logic of decolonization undoes this UK-US Plan B. The plan can only perhaps be saved in extremis by something as grotesque as the UK-USA getting enough support starting with HRW and then adding on to this. So, HRW role is to denounce the UK and USA in no uncertain terms for their awful human rights abuses in the past, and demand they apologize and turn over a new leaf in their treatment of Chagossians in the future. But the UK-USA, then, have to continue their colonization and occupation – they have to, don’t they, to put into action the HRW demands? HRW calls on them to consult the Chagossians and to prepare Chagos for their return.  Just like the plan to set up a Marine Protected Area around an environmentally poisoned US nuclear military base needed Greenpeace’s contribution so as to make it at least “seem” feasible, so the plan to continue colonization needs the Human Rights Watch’s veneer, in order to mask the UK-USA’s violation of the international law of decolonization, as well as the UK-USA’s flaunting of the ICJ, the highest international court, the US-UK’s even ignoring the binding ITLOS judgment, and to help the powerful turn a deaf ear whenever the overwhelming vote of the UN General Assembly is mentioned. So, the role of Human Rights Watch is to focus on the truly hideous harm done to Chagossians, and to call merely for things like UK and US apologies, and promises of equal treatment for people on and from BIOT in future, relative to other people in Britain’s “empire”, and for jobs for Chagossians on the US base. Being accused of colonial crimes, crimes against humanity, even genocide, is something the UK-USA are quite accustomed to dealing with. HRW is not the first to accuse them of this, over Chagos. The UK-USA have committed such crimes for hundreds of years now, and continue to do so. They do not mind being called names. Just don’t ask them to depart from Chagos, especially Diego Garcia. Even if the ICJ and UNGA say so.

The whole world had somehow miraculously come together, after all these decades of struggles, and cornered the US and UK. The UK-USA are isolated. Now is the time to tell them to get out of Chagos, including Diego Garcia.

Look how isolated they are: Who, for example, at the UN General Assembly supported the UK-USA on this decolonization issue? Who? In case anyone thinks we are exaggerating about this isolation of the US-UK. Only Victor Orban’s Hungary, Bibi Netanyahu’s Israel and at the time, Scott Morrison’s Australia. That is who HRW now stands alongside. Those are the only three miserable regimes that support the USA-UK continued colonization and occupation of Chagos. (Maldives has since corrected its stand, which had been a tactical one to protest another issue, now settled.)

In fact, we cannot understand how an organization like HRW can go and attach itself to the coat-tails of the colonizer and of the military occupier, then intervene as a kind of self-appointed spokesperson for “Chagossians”, while seeking a place at a little side table of negotiations on decolonization, at a time when the decolonization issue has already been decided, and when the colonizer is being refractory. The only thing left to negotiate is the exact time-table for the UK-USA to get out. 

And, it is too late, now, for the Plan B of a referendum. It would be illegal. Much, more clearly illegal than Russia’s referendums in part of Ukraine. 

Chagos is to be decolonized. Mauritius is to be reunited. It is a fact no longer disputed. The UN courts and forums have all said that Mauritius’ de-colonization is not complete until the UK withdraws from the whole of Chagos, including Diego Garcia.

We in LALIT, like all the mainstream Mauritian opposition foreign policy spokespeople – Milan Meetarbhan, Arvin Boolell and Vijay Makhan -- find Human Rights Watch’s stand most disturbing.[8]

We, unlike the Opposition parties in the National Assembly, call for the military base to be closed down. We call on the opposition parties to change their stand at least to one that calls for a timetable for military base closure. 

A clear stand is what is called for. No more, no less. Decolonize! End occupation! Continued colonization and occupation is a human rights abuse. 

We, in LALIT, seize this opportunity to denounce the Mauritian Prime Minister for offering a 99-year lease of Diego Garcia for a US military base in exchange for money. This means “selling Diego” (to translate literally from the Mauritian Kreol) for the very first time. Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam did not “sell Diego” prior to Mauritian Independence because it was not his to sell. It belonged, through colonization, to the Queen of England. She could not very well have sold something to herself.

We call for the Prime Minister to withdraw the offer, and to call instead for a timetable for complete colonial withdrawal by Britain and an end to military occupation of Diego Garcia by the USA.

LALIT

25 February 2023

Notes

[1] Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J.Reports 2019. On 25 February 2019, the International Court of Justice gave its Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965: “the process of decolonization of Mauritius was not lawfully completed when that country acceded to independence in 1968, following the separation of the Chagos Archipelago;” and “that the United Kingdom is under an obligation to bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible;”

[2] United Nations Digital Library, Record 3806313, Resolution 75/295 adopted by the United Nations General Assembly by a vote of 116 in favour and 6 against “Calling for Mauritius’ Complete Decolonization.”, 83rd plenary meeting, 22 May 2019

[3a] MU-UK 20150318, Arbitral Tribunal Award, 18 March 2015, in the matter of the Chagos Marine Protected Area Arbitration under The United Nations Convention on The Law of the Sea between the Republic of Mauritius and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Tribunal in its Award “concludes that the United Kingdom has breached Articles 2(3) and 56(2) and therefore finds that the proclamation of the MPA was incompatible with the Convention”.

[3b] Special Chamber ITLOS, case no 28, 28 January 2021, the Special Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea ruling on preliminary objections in the Dispute concerning delimitation of the maritime boundary between Mauritius and Maldives in the Indian Ocean states that ICJ’s determinations in the Chagos advisory opinion do have legal effect.

[4] LALIT Mauritius website News section, 8 February, 2010 – LALIT “Open Letter to Greenpeace not to Fall into UK Trap”

[5] LALIT Mauritius website News section, 5 January, 2023 – LALIT “Urgent Open Letter to Human Rights Watch – Be Careful not to Fall into U.K. Trap on Chagos Issue!”

[6] HRW website, 15 December 2022 - HRW letter to Mr. Cleverly on Chagos Archipelago negotiations 

[7] HRW Website News, 8 November 2022 – “Chagos Islands: Include Long-Expelled Residents in Negotiations” Mausi Segun, Africa director at Human Rights Watch “The question of who is sovereign over the islands should be secondary to the rights and welfare of the people who call Chagos home.”

[8] L’Express Dimanche, 19 February 2023, “Does the Human Rights Watch Report Fall into the Same Trap as Greenpeace”, Iqbal Ahmed Khan