A superyacht hired by Mauritius recently set out to conduct a scientific survey of the Blenheim reef, 230km off the coast of Diego Garcia in the Chagos archipelago. A group of Chagossians accompanied the scientists in what has been hailed as an “historic” event by Mauritian prime minister Pravind Jugnauth.

This trip was controversial not only among Chagossians but also because the international legal status of the islands has been in contention for the past 60 years. The visit took in the outer atolls of Peros Banhos and the Salomon, the last to be inhabited by Chagossians before the British government removed them in the 1960s to establish an American military base in the archipelago.

This was the first time Chagossians were visiting their homeland without UK support. The Mauritian flag was raised by Mauritian officials on both atolls and on Blenheim reef. At stake is the issue of Mauritian sovereignty.

British involvement

The Chagos archipelago is a collection of seven coral atolls made up of over 60 islands in the Indian Ocean, about 500km south of the Maldives, midway between Tanzania and Indonesia. In the late 18th century French planters established coconut plantations and brought in enslaved people, initially from Senegal, and later labourers from Madagascar, Mozambique and India to work on these plantations.

Today many of those identifying as Chagossians are the descendants of these enslaved and indentured labourers. Some research refers to them as the islands’ indigenous people.

These issues are significant because of the historical and contemporary relationship of the UK, US and Mauritius with the islands. The Chagos islands, which were dependencies of Mauritius, came under British sovereignty in 1814, having formerly been part of the French empire.

Internationally, the islands were largely neglected until the cold war. In the 1960s the US and the UK jointly identified Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands, as an ideal location for a military base in the Indian Ocean. Consequently, in 1965, the UK government detached the Chagos islands from Mauritius and from Seychelles.

While some islands were already uninhabited, between 1967 and 1973 the remaining population, around 1,500 inhabitants, was removed and relocated. Some were resettled in Mauritius, some in Seychelles and some in the UK. Laws were subsequently passed by the UK government to prevent people resettling to the islands.