By Emma Farge<\/p>\n
GENEVA, Dec 8 (Reuters) – A U.N. committee on Monday urged Britain and Mauritius not to ratify a deal seeking to settle the future of the \u200bChagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, saying it risks perpetuating long-standing violations of Chagossians’ \u200crights.<\/p>\n
The deal, struck in May after years of talks, passes sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius while allowing Britain to \u200cretain control of the strategically important U.S.-UK air base on the largest island, Diego Garcia, under a long-term lease.<\/p>\n
Up to 2,000 Chagossians were forcibly removed from the archipelago in the 1960s and 1970s. Many ended up in Britain, and some have sought the right to return.<\/p>\n
The U.N. Committee on the \u2060Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which \u200cmet in Geneva this month, said it was concerned that the deal “explicitly prevents the return of the Chagossian people to their ancestral lands in Diego \u200dGarcia Island”.<\/p>\n
It also voiced concern that the deal did not formally acknowledge past injustices, provide full reparation for harms, or allow the islands to preserve their distinct cultural heritage.<\/p>\n
“The decision is very promising. It gives us \u200bstrength to keep pushing, fighting, and working together,” said Bertrice Pompe, a British Chagossian who \u200cfiled the U.N. complaint.<\/p>\n
Britain and Mauritius, along with some 180 other states, are parties to the legally binding 1965 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination overseen by the U.N. Committee.<\/p>\n
“We recognise the importance of the islands to Chagossians,” said a British Foreign Office spokesperson.<\/p>\n
“Under the treaty, Mauritius will be able to develop a programme of resettlement to islands other than \u2060Diego Garcia, and the UK has separately committed to \u200bsupport heritage visits to the archipelago, including Diego Garcia.”<\/p>\n
Mauritius’ diplomatic \u200bmission in Geneva did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The World Court urged Britain in 2019 to return the islands to Mauritius. London has \u200dsince acknowledged that the \u2060removal of Chagossians was “deeply wrong and regrettable”.<\/p>\n
The committee issued the decision under its early warning system, which discusses urgent matters to limit treaty violations and prevent them escalating into \u2060conflicts.<\/p>\n
It urges the parties to “continue cooperating to bring an end to the harm suffered by the Chagossian people and the \u200cviolations of their rights”.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Emma Farge; Additional reporting by Sam Tabahriti in \u200cLondon; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Lisa Shumaker)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Emma Farge GENEVA, Dec 8 (Reuters) – A U.N. committee on Monday urged Britain and Mauritius not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,72204,54496,393,4884,54314,1144,712,165504,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-620918","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-chagossians","12":"tag-diego-garcia","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-mauritius","16":"tag-northern-ireland","17":"tag-scotland","18":"tag-u-n","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115686294441612082","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}