Diego Garcia: Pelindaba Treaty v. Bilateral Treaty with the UK?

12.12.2024

“How can Mauritius trade a nuclear-arms free Africa and an Indian Ocean Zone of Peace 

for “rent money” for the UK-USA’s Diego Garcia military base?”

The process of Mauritius’ decolonization is at a key moment in history. The new Government needs to avoid doing something immoral, unlawful under international law and illegal under the Constitution of the country, and in addition, somewhat ridiculous because impossible even to monitor. Some parts of the Memo signed by then Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth and Keir Starmer, UK Prime Minister, just before the last electoral campaign began, are even impossible grammatically-speaking. How on earth does one country exercise another country’s sovereignty without becoming its colony? And that is our point. 

Here is the situation:

The Republic of Mauritius has won a total legal victory at the ICJ. International Law is clear: The Chagos Archipelago including Diego Garcia is, and has been, part of Mauritius. That is that. The UN General Assembly voted to apply this judgment. This is already underway in the UN system. The UK and USA were isolated, the worst they have ever been at any time in history. They only got four miserable countries with them. So, there is not only a legal victory for Mauritius, but a political one. So, that is that. 

Now, the UK is back to wanting to put in place, instead of international law, some half-baked “bilateral treaty” after “bilateral negotiations” that clumsily draw in the USA and India, for reasons too crude to be made evident. Continuing with this absurd undermining of international law will bring defeat. Marke-garde!

Chagos including Diego Garcia must, quite simply, be decolonized as fast as possible, as called for in the conclusion of ICJ Opinion, and within six months, as voted at the UN General Assembly. What Mauritius must do is sue for reparations, and demand a time-frame for leaving the whole of Chagos. We owe it to ourselves, and to everyone in the world, starting with everyone in Africa.

Mauritius, with the support of the African union and many other states who testified before the Court, has won the legal battle. With the massive support of 116 States, Mauritius has won the political battle at the United Nations General Assembly, too. Why woo defeat now?

So the UK must simply put an end to its illegal occupation of part of Mauritius, the Chagos archipelago including Diego Garcia. And we must fight on for them to leave, and to pay reparations.

Instead, the UK is trying to get back to its old games of “bilateral treaties”. Mauritius must not be hood-winked. We have had 60 years of being hood-winked, tricked, lied to, and connived against. Enough is enough.

One reason why Mauritius cannot sell out on international law by embarking on this kind of bilateral negotiation, instead of demanding reparations and a time-line for departure and clean up, is the very existence of the binding “Pelindaba Treaty for a Nuclear Weapons Free Africa”. This is what this article is about.

Mauritius is a signatory and both the UK and USA, along with the other three powers with a Veto at the UN Security Council, have signed up to its powerful, binding Protocol I and II to the Pelindaba Treaty. 

And, the Chagos archipelago is part of Mauritius and Mauritius is part of Africa, as defined by the Treaty, which specifies that an “ ‘African nuclear-weapon-free zone’ means the territory of the continent of Africa, islands States members of OAU and all islands considered by the Organization of African Unity in its resolutions to be part of Africa.” 

In practical terms, 1.5 billion people in Africa are protected by Pelindaba from nuclear warheads that may be detonated by accident or on purpose or a mixture of the two by war-mongering powers like the UK and USA. How can a Mauritian Government even so much as consider signing away the rights of all Africa to protection? Nor, consider signing away the rights to well-being of the 33% of the world’s population that lives in States bordering the Indian Ocean, 2.7 billion people out of 8.2 billion total. Nor signing away our own right to life. 

UK-USA Nuclear Military Base on Diego Garcia Contravenes the Pelindaba Treaty

The UK and USA, both States, jointly and severally, are already guilty of breaking international law for dismantling Chagos from Mauritius. They owe reparations to the State of Mauritius and to all Chagossians displaced, for the harm they have suffered, for generations from these initial acts of colonial violence.

Now, the UK-USA tandem plans to continue the violation of international law into the future by flaunting the Pelindaba Treaty and maintaining the US-UK military-nuclear base on Diego Garcia and thus putting at risk billions of people in the region with nuclear arms pollution, as well as exposing us all to the danger of a nuclear accident or incident that can kill us all.

The UK, the USA and Mauritius are all signatories to different relevant parts of this binding Treaty, a Treaty that was possible only because South Africa organized to disband its nuclear arms industry situated at Pelindaba, between Johannesburg and Pretoria – on condition that the whole of Africa remain, by a binding Treaty, a zone free of nuclear arms, and with the counter-signature of the countries with the right to veto, i.e. the USA, UK, France, China and Russia, which are signatories to the Protocols.

Right now in the UK Parliament, there was a Question put to the Minister of Defence, under the title “Nuclear-free Zones: Treaties - Question for Ministry of Defence”. The question was tabled by Conservative MP Mark Francois on 27 November, and reads: 

“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will make an assessment of the (a) applicability of the Treaty of Pelindaba to the Chagos Archipelago and (b) potential impact of that Treaty on the UK's Defence arrangements.”

Here is the laconic reply from the Labour Government’s Junior Minister for Defence Luke Pollard on 5 December:

“The agreement with Mauritius has been negotiated based on international law, and with regards to both parties’ obligations under international law. The UK is not a Party to the Pelindaba Treaty, although it is a Party to Protocols I and II to that Treaty. The operation of the UK/US base on Diego Garcia will continue unchanged.” Plus couillonneur que ça tu meurs.

The question of the Pelindaba Treaty is the subject of an article in the UK’s The Independent of 8 December, “Trump tensions with Starmer increase over Chagos deal amid fears of nuclear weapons ban | Exclusive: Trump team see Chagos deal row as ‘day one issue’ for new administration as it is unclear whether nuclear weapons will still be allowed at the Diego Garcia base”. 

This has been taken up kumsi-ryin-ete by several media outlets – all writing as if UK-USA had not been ordered out of Chagos including Diego Garcia in an ICJ ruling duly confirmed by the overwhelming vote of member states of the UN General Assembly.

Mauritius Responsibility as a Signatory of the Pelindaba Treaty

The African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, also known as the “Pelindaba Treaty”, which countries began signing from 12 April 1996, which entered into force on 15 July 2009, and of whose implementation committee Mauritius is a Member, “prohibits the research, development, manufacture, stockpiling, acquisition, testing, possession, control or stationing of nuclear weapons, as well as the dumping of radioactive wastes anywhere within the African nuclear-weapon-free zone”. Article 16 reads, emphatically: “This Treaty shall not be subject to reservations.” [our underlining] 

So, Mauritius is bound to respect the Treaty.

AFCONE, as the main executive body of the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone Treaty, is the African union’s Specialised Agency for nuclear activities on the continent. Mauritius is one of its 12 members, who share the responsibility for respect of the Treaty. The Commission is responsible inter alia for “bringing into effect the complaints procedure”. 

The State of Mauritius as a signatory is bound to call for the closure of the Diego US-UK military base.

It is not only a moral imperative, but a legal one.

The continued existence of such a base on Mauritian territory will hamper us in our duty, for example, to call for verification of compliance with the Treaty on the totality of the territory under our legal, democratic control. “Mauritius shall be a sovereign democratic State”, as the Number Three in the new Government succinctly pointed out as being relevant here. And Mauritius is a signatory to Pelindaba.

Representatives of the USA and UK are openly saying they will use Diego Garcia to launch military attacks in the region. They even have the moral turpitude to name the Middle East as a place they might need to interfere militarily, when the USA and UK are right now providing arms to the Israel Occupation Army with which to perpetrate, and perpetuate perpetrating genocide against the people of Palestine, in particular in Gaza. 

This may, rightly, be interpreted as Mauritius being complicit with the crime of genocide when the Genocide Convention explicitly calls for the “Prevention” as well as the punishment of the crime of genocide, the crime of crimes. 

As a member of AFCONE, Mauritius has taken an additional undertaking when we read the Statement to the First Meeting of the States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Vienna, 21-23 June 2022 by Messaoud Baaliouamer, the executive Secretary of the African Commission On Nuclear Energy (AFCONE):

“The AFCONE reaffirms its full support to the United Nations Efforts for the establishment of a zone free of nuclear and all other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, as agreed at the 1995 NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty] Review Conference.

“The Signatories to the Pelindaba Treaty, recognize that the establishment of other Nuclear Weapons Free Zones [NWFZ], especially in the Middle East, would enhance the security of States Parties to the African NWFZ.” 

Now, is the time for bold action by Navin Ramgoolam, as Prime Minister of the newly elected Government. We re-iterate LALIT’s call made on 11 December 2022 to the outgoing Prime Minister to ensure “that the agenda of any negotiations is about the time-frame for closing the base down and withdrawing from the whole of Chagos, and that the Chagossians are represented by the GRC, and that the venue [for negotiation] be a place like Pelindaba that highlights the need for peace, not the acceptation of militarism.” Immediate claims for reparations need to be instituted to damage done to Mauritius and the Chagossian people.

And under Article 7, we remind the Government and, in particular Hon. Rajesh Bhagwan and Hon Joanna Bérenger, that all signatories to the Treaty undertake to prohibit the dumping of radioactive waste. How on earth will we check this when the UK is “exercising” Mauritius’ sovereignty over Chagos on all things concerning the Diego base? It is both impossible and outrageous. Signatories to the Treaty, like Mauritius, are, in fact, obliged “Not to take any action to assist or encourage the dumping of radioactive wastes and other radioactive matter anywhere within the African nuclear-weapon-free zone.” We can do this by refusing to get into this kind of infernal “bilateral negotiations” leading to a “bilateral treaty” that is clearly in the realm, not of international law, but of the “law of the jungle, where might is right, however evil it is. 

If nuclear-enabled bombers and nuclear-fuelled submarines are based or even just serviced on a US-UK-controlled Diego Garcia, how is the nuclear waste disposed of? Does it mean US-UK have already polluted Diego Garcia with the worst of pollution? What is the duty, under both the Constitution and international law, of our Government? 

Lindsey Collen and Ragini Kistnasamy

for LALIT