As they negotiate with Mauritius, British leaders are mostly interested in securing guarantees that America’s military interests will not be harmed by a transfer of authority to Port Louis.
Attention is on the UK to relinquish its hold on the islands. What’s missing is an acknowledgment of the enduring role of the US in this international crime.
Diego Garcia is the site of a joint military facility of the United Kingdom and the United States.
CPA Media Pte Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo
In the early 1960s, British and American diplomats conspired to establish a military base on Diego Garcia, the largest atoll of the Chagos Archipelago.
A beach on Diego Garcia, one of the Chagos Islands.
Stephen P. Mallory/Shutterstock
The UK is increasingly isolated in its claim to the Chagos Islands. If an international court finds in Mauritius’s favour, the implications could be huge.
A satellite-tracking study of green turtles in the Indian Ocean has rewritten the record books for long-distance marine animal migration, showing that they can travel some 4000 kilometres without stopping…
Chagos: more marine life than practically anywhere else, and Captain Bird’s Eye is getting his hands on none of it.
Anne Sheppard/Chagos Trust
The Chagos Islands marine protected area is the largest of its kind in the world, encircling the dozens of tiny islands of the Chagos archipelago that lie in thousands of miles of Indian Ocean between…