Quizzes & Puzzles48 mins ago
Starmer’s Friend Revealed To Be Mauritius’ Chief Legal Adviser.
Unbelievable, how much more are the British public to take ?
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ."It is a clear demonstration that through diplomacy and partnership, countries can overcome long-standing historical challenges"
I don't know who briefs Sleepy Joe, but I don' believe there's actually been any "long-standing historical challenges" over this particular issue.
The Guardian ran an article announcing that ”The UK has agreed to hand the archipelago over to Mauritius after decades of diplomatic dispute.” It provided a timeline of the history of the islands and contained in that is this gem:
1814
After Napoleon’s abdication and exile during the Napoleonic wars, Britain formally takes possession of the Chagos Islands and nearby [my emphasis] Mauritius from France.
Mauritius is not by any stretch “nearby” the Chagos islands. It is almost 1,400 miles away. In fact the southern extremity of the Maldives (where, until 1976, the UK had a strategic military base at Gan) is far closer at about 250 miles. Geographically the Chagos Islands are actually the southern end of the Lakkadives-Maldives-Chagos ridge in the Indian Ocean. The terminology used in the paper is clearly designed deliberately to portray some sort of appropriation by a wicked foreign power.
It should be emphasised that the Chagos Islands were never "appropriated" from Mauritius. In fact I don't see that Mauritius ever had a claim to sovereignty over them, except in te minds of those delivering the UN decision.
The islands were administered from Mauritius by both France and Britain/the UK for expediency. Part of that expediency meant they formed a dependency of Mauritius, itself a dependency firstly of France and then of Britain. Mauritius had no involvement in the administration of the islands, no economic connections and there was no social association between Mauritians and the Chagossians. Those living there were either descendants of freed slaves or were brought in from many Indian Ocean Islands as contractors working on the coconut plantations.
It was only when the Constitution of the soon-to-be-independent Mauritius was being drawn up that it was declared that Mauritius included a handful of islands in the near vicinity as well as the Chagos archipelago.
If the French hadn't colonised Mauritius and set off on their adventured to the north-east, I doubt many Mauritians would have even been aware the islands existed.
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