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UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

bbc.co.uk

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Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#141

Post by ethbr1 »

dangus wrote: post #103
ethbr1 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is 71 and getting older. A lot of crazy things look more reasonable when you've had absolute power for a decade and aren't overly concerned about consequences in 20 years.

I think it's a mistake to give in to the temptation to jump to the conclusion that China is a tunnel-vision cult of personality everything-the-crazy-dictator-wants-he-gets government. The Chinese government under Xi has a well-established track record of long-term planning that has done nothing but elevated China's status and leverage in the world. It really couldn't be further from (e.g.) Putin's style of governance…

Sidelining potential political competitors and/or forcing them out of the public sphere doesn't inspire confidence in Xi's ability to resist using power conveniently.

> The Chinese government under Xi has a well-established track record of long-term planning that has done nothing but elevated China's status and leverage in the world.

Some of its neighbors in the South China Sea would beg to differ.

E.g. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V80MGYrWWaM&t=80s

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#142

Post by gaadd33 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #100
mmooss wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, the US and UK value Diego Garcia because currently there aren't geographical alternatives for that base. Where else could they put it that would have the same benefits?

The lease expires in 2123. The militarily strategic landscape then is pretty much unknowable. To a 1925 (99 years ago ) military force, the Diego Garcia airfield would have had zero importance.

It would have had some value as a coaling or oiling station thought

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#143

Post by mmooss »

Hopefully I'm not too late - the Guardian's coverage included this important bit:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/03/britain-to-ret...

An attempt to halt the negotiations, on the basis that the Chagossians were not consulted or involved, failed.

Chagossian Voices, a community organisation for Chagossians based in the UK and in several other countries, said of Thursday’s announcement: “Chagossian Voices deplore the exclusion of the Chagossian community from the negotiations which have produced this statement of intent concerning the sovereignty of our homeland. Chagossians have learned this outcome from the media and remain powerless and voiceless in determining our own future and the future of our homeland.

“The views of Chagossians, the Indigenous inhabitants of the islands, have been consistently and deliberately ignored and we demand full inclusion in the drafting of the treaty.”

[later in the article:]

Clive Baldwin, senior legal adviser at HRW, said: “The agreement says it will address the wrongs against the Chagossians of the past but it looks like it will continue the crimes long into the future.

“It does not guarantee that the Chagossians will return to their homeland, appears to explicitly ban them from the largest island, Diego Garcia, for another century, and does not mention the reparations they are all owed to rebuild their future. The forthcoming treaty needs to address their rights, and there should be meaningful consultations with the Chagossians, otherwise the UK, US and now Mauritius will be responsible for a still-ongoing colonial crime.”

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#144

Post by sealeck »

aguaviva wrote: post #102
bpodgursky wrote: post #11

> African nations began to speak with one voice on the issue, pushing the UK hard on the issue of decolonialisation. I wish the journalists had a little more sophistication on this. African nations began to push the UK on this because China and Russia understand that Diego Garcia is a critical port, and made investment + aid/ bribery + weapons (China / Russia respectively) conditional on forcing the issue.

In other words: The African nations have no agency or legitimate motivations of their own, and are just doing what China and Russia bully them to do. Apparently they don't even appreciate the significance of the military base on those islands. It is left for the adults in the room (Russia and China) to think and operate on such a level. Of course no one here is naive, and we all know already that external operators h…

For context the entire continent of Africa has roughly the same GDP as the UK.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#145

Post by sealeck »

hermitcrab wrote: post #33
pbiggar wrote: post #5

> The remaining British overseas territories are: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands. There are also two sovereign base areas on Cyprus under British jurisdiction. Good note at the end

And quite a few of those in shady financial dealings. Happily hiding and laundering money for various kleptocrats. It has been noted that, just as the Roman Empire didn't really disappear - it became a church, the British Empire didn't really disappear - it became a bank. The British government likes to make various noises about cleaning this up, but there are too many businesses in the City of London making money of…

There will always be some crime in any financial centre, but I think there's limited evidence that there's proportionally more financial crime going on in London than e.g. NYC or Frankfurt.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#146

Post by robjwells »

ikmckenz wrote: post #140

The US base on Diego Garcia is an exceptionally nasty bit of history: with the British murdering all the local islanders pet dogs - literally grabbing them from the arms of screaming children and telling them they were next - as part of an intimidation campaign to force them off the island so the US could have it’s intelligence outpost.

For those curious about this history, you can watch John Pilger’s 2004 documentary Stealing a Nation for free on his website: https://johnpilger.com/stealing-a-nation/

For those who prefer to read, historian Mark Curtis has published online an excerpt regarding Chagos from his 2003 book Web of Deceit: https://www.markcurtis.info/2007/02/12/the-depopulation-of-t...

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#147

Post by selimthegrim »

mhh__ wrote: post #132
skissane wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the treaty is UK law, they can take the case to UK courts. It's not guaranteed to work, it depends on the legal technicalities, but the government has no say in the findings of UK courts. Presently, the UK lacks an entrenched written constitution. Hence, any court decision can be overturned by an ordinary Act of the UK Parliament, passed by a simple majority. If a court makes a ruling which the government of the…

> Presently, the UK lacks an entrenched written constitution. Hence, any court decision can be overturned by an ordinary Act of the UK Parliament, passed by a simple majority This is something that our America obsessed cultural elite have forgotten. The "Brown versus Education versus Alien versus predator" style of activist/political focus on the courts rather than parliament is quite ridiculous at times.

Whoever wins, the King/Queen loses?

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#148

Post by lmm »

simonh wrote: post #99
scottLobster wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but Mauritius isn't China. If the UK had reneged on the Hong Kong lease, there were economic and military options for China to potentially enforce it. A lot can happen in 99 years, but even assuming a serious decline in US economic/military might I don't see a scenario where Mauritius could successfully enforce the lease on its own.

If the treaty is UK law, they can take the case to UK courts. It's not guaranteed to work, it depends on the legal technicalities, but the government has no say in the findings of UK courts. A lot can happen in 99 years, but as Hong Kong shows, the UK has a decent track record on long term legal continuity.

The UK government never wanted to keep Hong Kong. (It may have wanted to pantomime trying to keep it to placate some voters).

While the UK did have a long history of legal continuity, it's made a lot of dramatic changes in recent years - the switch to the Supreme Court which has then made some legally bizarre decisions, the complete demolition of the House of Lords over a pretty short period, the efforts to entrench human rights legislation which have simply no precedent in UK constitutional history at all...

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#149

Post by SllX »

etothepii wrote: post #130
SllX wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jersey is a Crown Dependency, not an Overseas Territory. They share a King and the UK is responsible for their defense, but domestically Crown Dependencies are more independent of Parliament than your average British overseas territory.

Do you have a source for this? I am not aware of any practically significant way in which the crown dependencies are different from the OTs. AMA 7.5 year resident of Bermuda.

Sure. Here’s the UK’s fact sheet on their relationship with the Crown Dependencies including some of the differences with overseas territories.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

High level overview is that it doesn’t look that different, and like most things concerning UK law and the laws of Crown Dependencies, a lot of it is just custom. There’s long been a debate over how much the UK’s Parliament can unilaterally legislate over them without their consent which remains largely untested because by custom they don’t. Overseas Territories are to my understanding creatures of the UK Parliament and remnants of the Empire whereas Jersey and Guernsey are the remnants of Normandy which the British Crown managed to retain when they lost the mainland to France. I don’t remember much about Manx history though, so I’ll refrain from commenting on them specifically.

But since you put out an AMA: how’s life in Bermuda? Would you recommend it?

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#150

Post by skeledrew »

BurningFrog wrote: post #133
skeledrew wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very likely that we're already beyond some of the tipping points, and others are very close[0]. We're basically going into the mitigation phase now by my understanding. [0] https://www.space.com/climate-tipping-points-closer-than-rea...

I'm quite skeptical. If we lower the CO2 levels (carbon sequestering) and cool the planet by reflecting more sunlight (SO2 injection in the stratosphere), I'm sure these alleged tipping points will be tipped back again, given some time. It's good to be aware that doom sells, and the incentive to publish doom predictions for the money they make is very high. Of course, they can still be true... We'll see how it goes :…

I don't get the reason for skepticism, when this is coming from scientists who've been studying the field for many years, and have been making predictions that have been coming true.

It's like an avalanche. After it starts you can't stop it or get all that snow back on the mountain; it has to get to level ground, melt (if it gets warm enough) and go through an entire cycle that takes time. So yes, things will likely tip back. After humanity either has already been wiped out or fully migrated to other planets and the earth gets the chance to reset itself.

I don't see it as doom, just something inevitable, which we helped to cause. And it's the ones that do all they can to downplay the consequences who make the money, in every instance, as acceptance would be bad for business.

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