After decades of wrangling over the fate of the Chagos Islands and the main US and British military base they host, the British government has struck a deal to transfer the archipelago’s sovereignty to Mauritius.
The Diego Garcia Atoll – the largest of the islands, covering just 16 square kilometers of dry land – serves as a strategically important base for naval ships and long-range bombers.
Since the island’s population was exiled in the 1960s and foreign militaries took their place, few have been allowed access to its shores, fueling rumors about what is happening there.
Walter Ladwig III, lecturer in international relations at King’s College London, told the BBC that while the base “serves many important roles,” the level of secrecy surrounding it “seems to go beyond what we see in other places.”
Some 1,000 miles from the nearest landmass, where no commercial flights are allowed to land and those wanting to set foot on the island need a permit, very few people have been allowed to stay there.
Journalists have been banned for decades, with one journalist even being ejected from shore by ‘hostile’ British officials after pretending his boat was in trouble. “Go away and don’t come back,” he was told as he was led away.
For the first time, US and British authorities recently granted reporters permission to stay on Diego Garcia, giving them a glimpse of what life on the island is really like.
The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) or Chagos Islands. The largest island of the archipelago is Diego Garcia
US Naval Construction Battalion – known as the Navy ‘Seabees’ – bathes in the pool on Diego Garcia in a 1981 archive image
The island paradise is home to British and American troops and foreign contractors, and the cultural influences of both are reportedly visible everywhere.
The entrance to the base’s airport terminal is reportedly decorated with Union Jacks and photos of British figures such as Winston Churchill.
There is also a nightclub called the Brit Club, which has a bulldog as its logo, while patriotic street names include Britannia Way and Churchill Road.
British police cars are present, but drive on the right side of the road, while the dollar is the accepted currency.
It is said to have a cinema, a bowling alley, a fast food restaurant and even a gift shop selling Diego Garcia souvenirs – despite the lack of tourists.
Most of the staff living on the island are American, and there is said to be only a ‘token British presence’.
The island was leased by Britain to the US in 1966 for an initial period of 50 years, before being extended, and was due to expire in 2036 before the last agreement.
The new agreement with Mauritius should guarantee the two countries’ rights to operate the military base for at least the next 99 years.
The 1966 agreement had several benefits for Britain: it allowed the country to strengthen its military ties with the US, giving one of its key allies an important base on a key international trade route.
Its position later made it crucial to US air operations during the Gulf War and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with aircraft sent directly from the island during the ‘war on terror’.
As part of their secret deal, in return for the use of the island, the US agreed to give Britain a $14 million discount on the purchase of its Polaris nuclear missiles.
Aerial view of road buildings and forests in the Diego Garcia Islands in the Indian Ocean
Official First Day ‘Ships of the Islands’ stamps of the British Indian Ocean Territory from 1969
A 1966 State Department memo stated that the purpose of the plan “was to obtain some stones that will remain ours; there will be no native population except seagulls’.
They looked at several options, but chose Diego Garcia as the ‘prime location’ due to its strategic location in the middle of the Indian Ocean and lack of a large population.
But for the more than a thousand people who lived there, the decision was devastating.
The islands were uninhabited until the late 18th century, when the French established coconut plantations and brought slaves from Madagascar and Mozambique to work on them.
On Diego Garcia, ruins of the plantations have been preserved, with roaming wild donkeys described as a ‘ghostly remnant of the society that had existed there for almost 200 years’.
At that time, emancipated slaves and their descendants – known as Chagossians – built their own communities, developing a distinct language and culture.
More than 1,000 people lived on Diego Garcia before it was taken over and turned into an American and British military base
An undated photo released by the US Navy shows an aerial view of Diego Garcia
The islands, which from 1814 were British Territories in the Indian Ocean, were described by people who lived there as a happy and bountiful place to live, where ‘everyone had a job, their family and their culture’.
But in 1973, Chagossians were forced to leave the central Indian Ocean territory to make way for the military base, and many were shipped to Mauritius or the Seychelles.
The expulsions are considered one of the most shameful parts of Britain’s modern colonial history and the Chagossians have fought for decades to return to the islands.
Mauritius gained independence from Britain in 1968 and has since maintained that the islands belong to it.
For decades, the small island nation struggled to gain international support, but in 2019 the British claim of sovereignty was declared unlawful by the UN’s highest court, which told Britain it must return the islands as soon as possible.
Under the new treaty, Mauritius will now be able to implement a resettlement program in the Chagos Islands while still accepting the use of Diego Garcia as a military base.