A UN panel has urged the UK to renegotiate a deal returning the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, saying it “fails to guarantee” the rights of the Chagossian people.The deal, signed last month, returned sovereignty of the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius, but the UK retained the right to run a military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos Islands.By preventing the Chagossian people from returning to Diego Garcia, “the agreement appears to be at variance with the Chagossians’ right to return,” the UN experts wrote.A Foreign Office spokesperson said the UK-Mauritius deal had been “welcomed by international organisations including the UN secretary general”.The panel of four experts were appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, but are not UN staff and are independent from the UN.They said by the UK keeping the military base of Diego Garcia, the Chagossian people were hindered from being able to “exercise their cultural rights in accessing their ancestral lands from which they were expelled”.The panel called for the current deal to be suspended and for a new agreement to be negotiated.Under the agreement, the UK would pay an average of £101m a year for 99 years to continue operating the military base on Diego Garcia, in concert with the US.The Chagos Islands are located in the Indian Ocean about 5,799 miles (9,332km) south-east of the UK, and about 1,250 miles north-east of Mauritius.The UK purchased the islands for £3m in 1968, but Mauritius has argued it was illegally forced to give away the islands in order to gain independence from Britain.Diego Garcia was then cleared to make way for a military base, wi …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnA UN panel has urged the UK to renegotiate a deal returning the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, saying it “fails to guarantee” the rights of the Chagossian people.The deal, signed last month, returned sovereignty of the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius, but the UK retained the right to run a military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos Islands.By preventing the Chagossian people from returning to Diego Garcia, “the agreement appears to be at variance with the Chagossians’ right to return,” the UN experts wrote.A Foreign Office spokesperson said the UK-Mauritius deal had been “welcomed by international organisations including the UN secretary general”.The panel of four experts were appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, but are not UN staff and are independent from the UN.They said by the UK keeping the military base of Diego Garcia, the Chagossian people were hindered from being able to “exercise their cultural rights in accessing their ancestral lands from which they were expelled”.The panel called for the current deal to be suspended and for a new agreement to be negotiated.Under the agreement, the UK would pay an average of £101m a year for 99 years to continue operating the military base on Diego Garcia, in concert with the US.The Chagos Islands are located in the Indian Ocean about 5,799 miles (9,332km) south-east of the UK, and about 1,250 miles north-east of Mauritius.The UK purchased the islands for £3m in 1968, but Mauritius has argued it was illegally forced to give away the islands in order to gain independence from Britain.Diego Garcia was then cleared to make way for a military base, wi …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
