Live data from Hacker News

UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

bbc.co.uk

231–240 of 296 posts

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Humanity would be better off living at the bottom of the ocean than on any other planet; and to think that climate change could make earth less hospitable than any other planet is just absurd. So this is an incredibly naive statement.

Yes agreed. There is no chance that humans are completely wiped out. We, or our ancestors, by definition have survived until today though multiple actual ice ages. We've survived though massive floods and glaciers and who knows what else.

On top of that, the closer we get to doomsday the more people will care.

I don't know where I heard it, but there's a saying that "capitalism can solve anything it just waits until the last minute".

That when the time comes enough money and resources will be poured into the solutions(s) that we can fix it.

When is that time? When profits are threatened and our continued way of existence.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#232
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is the Mauritian connection to the Chagos Archipelago? Is it just because a lot of Chagossians went to Mauritius after getting kicked out? Obviously Mauritius and Chagos were ruled by the same people previous (French, then British), but is there a deeper history there? I ask this because the Chagos archipelago is like 1500 miles away from Mauritius - the Maldives, Seychelles, and even Sri Lanka and India…

There isn’t one, as you say it’s over 2000km between them, the only link is that when Britain was administrating them it did so as a single territory. This is not some reunification of a country separated by a colonial power.

Its more a sort of shakedown of a ex-colonial power

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#233

Pathetic weak UK government

I absolutely agree. Lammy’s justification about “closing a vector for illegal immigration” just shows how spineless they all are (especially the new lot Kier & Co.). No creativity, no defense of national interests. Just fear of negative tabloid headlines.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#235
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is the Mauritian connection to the Chagos Archipelago? Is it just because a lot of Chagossians went to Mauritius after getting kicked out? Obviously Mauritius and Chagos were ruled by the same people previous (French, then British), but is there a deeper history there? I ask this because the Chagos archipelago is like 1500 miles away from Mauritius - the Maldives, Seychelles, and even Sri Lanka and India…

>What exactly is the Mauritian connection to the Chagos Archipelago? I can see where this line of questioning is going but what's the connection between Britain and Chagos or the US and Chagos for that matter?

215 years of British sovereignty?

The United States of America has had sovereignty of itself for 248 years, should the USA give up it's sovereignty in North America or do you draw the line between somewhere between 215 and 248?

At what point do you say, it is what it is?

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#236
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is the Mauritian connection to the Chagos Archipelago? Is it just because a lot of Chagossians went to Mauritius after getting kicked out? Obviously Mauritius and Chagos were ruled by the same people previous (French, then British), but is there a deeper history there? I ask this because the Chagos archipelago is like 1500 miles away from Mauritius - the Maldives, Seychelles, and even Sri Lanka and India…

>What exactly is the Mauritian connection to the Chagos Archipelago? I can see where this line of questioning is going but what's the connection between Britain and Chagos or the US and Chagos for that matter?

If both sovereigns have equal claim to the land, keeping the status quo should be preferred.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#237

Very sad for the United Kingdom, I think. Back in 1982 Queen Elizabeth II refused to give up the Falklands at gunpoint; in 2024 King Charles III gives up the British Indian Ocean Territory without even a shot being fired.

Queen Elizabeth II had no involvement in the decision to defend the Falklands, other than perhaps some private counsel with the then Prime Minister, just as King Charles III will have had no involvement in this decision.

Officially sure. Practically? Not a chance.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#238
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn’t one, as you say it’s over 2000km between them, the only link is that when Britain was administrating them it did so as a single territory. This is not some reunification of a country separated by a colonial power.

Its more a sort of shakedown of a ex-colonial power

More like reparations

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Q: Is there a reason for making a lease 99 years, rather than - say - 999 years?

999 years is considered a "permanent" lease [1]. 99 years is considered a "more than a lifetime lease" [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/999-year_lease [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99-year_lease

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#240
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is the Mauritian connection to the Chagos Archipelago? Is it just because a lot of Chagossians went to Mauritius after getting kicked out? Obviously Mauritius and Chagos were ruled by the same people previous (French, then British), but is there a deeper history there? I ask this because the Chagos archipelago is like 1500 miles away from Mauritius - the Maldives, Seychelles, and even Sri Lanka and India…

>What exactly is the Mauritian connection to the Chagos Archipelago? I can see where this line of questioning is going but what's the connection between Britain and Chagos or the US and Chagos for that matter?

I think this is missing the point of the original question, which is - why would a Mauritian feel "relief" at the return of a geographical territory which is extremely far from itself? The claims of the UK or the US are irrelevant to this reasoning.

Indeed, I would like to understand the answer to the above question better, since the only reason I can see is that Mauritius as a colony used to govern the islands, and that seems to have just been a convenience of the French that doesn't strongly justify any current claims of sovereignty. And since the UK were the ones to forcibly evict the Chagossians from the islands, it seems a double-injustice to "return" their land to another sovereign power which is equally at a distance from the islands themselves. Do the Chagossians support this claim by the Mauritian government?

Post reply on HN