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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

#241

Post by hermitcrab »

sealeck wrote: post #145
hermitcrab wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>there's limited evidence

Because the UK government is trying very hard to look the other way?

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#242

Post by p_l »

eadmund wrote: post #117

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.

The difference is that Falklanders at multiple times established they want to be British, more than the government in London wanted them.

Whereas Chagos Islands inhabitants were violently expulsed and the only people on site are occupation forces.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#243

Post by throw310822 »

defrost wrote: post #209
throw310822 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the incorrect interpretation by BurningFrog above was that >> that this [ Climate tipping points ] may possibly happen, not that it will! > whereas the text (again, correct or not) was definite that Climate tipping points are real and will happen when thresholds are crossed. It will happen IF thresholds are crossed. And crucially, we don't know where the thresholds are. So it could happen. "The Empire State Buildin…

We know that critical parameters are climbing, we know that (for example) CO2 sequestration is not happening nor planned to occur at a scale that matches the century of industry that put the CO2 out there. It's a physical fact that once thresholds are reached then irreversible problems occur. > The Empire State Building WILL fall over WHEN it tips beyond some threshold Not a good example as the Empire State Building…

> Not a good example as the Empire State Building isn't tipping.

Sorry but I have to insist: the tipping points of the ESB are real, it will fall over if it leans above a certain threshold, and the threshold could be lower than we think.

This statement is trivially true and yet it tells you nothing about the current state of the ESB.

Note: I am not saying that I don't believe climate change is happening, or that we should not be worried about it, or even that tipping points are a fiction. But I agree with BurningFrog that these statements are full of hypotheticals and that they seem to say more than they actually do- exactly like the statement about the ESB. There is an obvious incentive for publishing results that attract attention and nothing attracts attention more than prophecies of doom; this is in addition to the normal publication bias of non-neutral results. We have a replication crisis in actual experimental disciplines- where the papers detail what experiments were made and how to replicate them; but much of climate science is a speculative science that operates on models and extrapolations. And, differently from say, medicine, there is an actual political side to these results that muddies things even more- we want to see results that confirm our current opinion. This should makes us doubly careful on the topic.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#244

Post by KolenCh »

avinash wrote: post #17

I'm a citizen of the Republic of Mauritius and, when this news was announced today, there was a general sense of relief. Mauritius has been fighting for its sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago (with Diego Garcia being the largest island) for 56 years. Today, the Chagos Archipelago is part of Mauritius again and a treaty will (hopefully) soon be signed between the UK and Mauritius. From there, Mauritius will sign…

I’m sure the context is totally different. And yours is right as you are the citizen there.

But being a Hong Kong citizen, I have a totally different reaction to this news. (Projected to our own context.)

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#245

Post by toyg »

Thiez wrote: post #221
toyg wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but when $dictator shows up on tv and talks about figthing $bloodyColonialists at the UN, it's uncontroversial (regardless of the issue being fought) and takes time from talking about his embezzlement/corruption/etc. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, they can go cap in hand to $bloodyColonialists and ask "do you want me to shut up? Give me $something". This requires no shadowy influence from this or that supposed Gr…

This all just speaks in favor of decolonialization, does it not? When decolonialisation is complete the $dictator won't be able to use it as a distraction, nor can it be a source of corruption. And apart from that it's a noble and objectively good goal in itself.

Absolutely.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#246

Post by Yeul »

ItCouldBeWorse wrote: post #232
rndmio wrote: 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

The UK was shaking down the US for this military base.

The whole thing stands as a monument to the decline of the British Empire.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#247

Post by toyg »

ivanbakel wrote: post #240
s_dev wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> Do the Chagossians support this claim by the Mauritian government?

They've complained about not being part to the discussion, but in practice most of them have Mauritian citizenship now, and it should be easier for them to deal with the Mauritian government to reclaim some of their land. It's a lesser-evil situation.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#248

Post by Yeul »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #202
fosk wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure that if at the end of 99 years the US or the UK still really really want to retain them, they will find a way (another lease, or by force). Mauritius is not China. Not that I am suggesting for this to happen, but what are they going to do if the UK just decides not to leave after 99 years?

They said basically the same thing about HongKong. You can’t predict political landscape in 100 years

The Chinese negotiators for Kowloon deliberately settled on 99 years. Probably because they knew they'd be lynched by the Chinese public otherwise. It was not a mistake made by the British they just couldn't get a better deal.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#249

Post by eadmund »

p_l wrote: post #242
eadmund wrote: post #117

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.

The difference is that Falklanders at multiple times established they want to be British, more than the government in London wanted them. Whereas Chagos Islands inhabitants were violently expulsed and the only people on site are occupation forces.

The inhabitants were planters and their workers (originally slaves imported in the 1700s); no-one is native to the islands.

And the poor folks who were expelled (and their descendants) were not even consulted this time around — this is purely a deal between the United Kingdom and Mauritius, whose only relationship with the islands is that they were both lumped together under the old colonial administration.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#250

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Maken wrote: post #200
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming if the were ruled as the same entity for a significant amount of time that there was a lot of movement between the two regions during that time with all that implies, intermarriage etc. All of which would probably still mean there are lots of people still alive from the time the regions were separated that feel themselves to be nonetheless connected and unfairly kept apart.

There is no people to be reunited here. Everyone was kicked out of Chagos to Mauritius so the UK military base could be build.

Ok, assumed the base just had part of it. So I guess there are people who want to go back to where they came from - but they can't because the base is still there?
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