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Britain labelled "illegal colonial occupier" after refusing to return islands to Mauritius

Britain has been labelled an ‘illegal colonial occupier’ for refusing to return a set of isla...
Newstalk
Newstalk

13.40 22 Nov 2019


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Britain labelled "illegal...

Britain labelled "illegal colonial occupier" after refusing to return islands to Mauritius

Newstalk
Newstalk

13.40 22 Nov 2019


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Britain has been labelled an ‘illegal colonial occupier’ for refusing to return a set of islands it took from Mauritius in the 1960s.

It comes after the UN General overwhelmingly agreed that the Chagos Islands should be returned.

The archipelago is located around 500km from the Maldives.

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Britain purchased the islands for £3m in 1965 when Mauritius was still a British colony.

The country has said it was forced to give up the archipelago in exchange for independence, which it won in 1968.

The UK is refusing to recognise the Mauritius sovereignty over the islands and insisting it has every right to hold on to them.

One of the islands, Diego Garcia, is home to a US military airbase.

In order to build the base, Britain expelled thousands of Chagossians from their homelands between 1968 and 1974.

They were sent more than 1,000 miles away to Mauritius and the Seychelles, where they faced extreme poverty and discrimination.

The UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has called for the islands to be returned “as a symbol of the way in which we wish to behave in international law.”

In May, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly voted for the islands to be returned to Mauritius within six months.

Some 116 backed the move with only six voting against.

That came just three months after the UN’s high court called on Britain to leave the islands “as rapidly as possible.”

The UN said that the decolonisation of Mauritius “was not conducted in a manner consistent with the right to self-determination” and that therefore the UKs contuned administration of the islands “constitutes a wrongful act.”

The six month deadline passed this afternoon and the Mauritian Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth has said that the UK was now an illegal colonial occupier.


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