Mauritius told U.N. judges Monday that the Indian Ocean nation was strong-armed by former colonial power Britain into giving up part of its territory as a condition for gaining independence half a century ago, in a case that could have an impact on a strategically important U.S. military base.
The claim came as judges at the International Court of Justice began hearing arguments in a U.N. General Assembly request for an advisory opinion on the legality of British sovereignty over the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean that include Diego Garcia, home to a major U.S. military base.
“The process of decolonization of Mauritius remains incomplete as a result of the unlawful detachment of an integral part of our territory on the eve of our independence,” Mauritius Defense Minister Anerood Jugnauth told judges.
Mauritius argues that the Chagos archipelago was part of its territory since at least the 18th century and was unlawfully taken by the U.K. in 1965, three years before the island nation gained independence. Britain insists it has sovereignty over the archipelago, which it calls the British Indian Ocean Territory.
Jugnauth said that during independence negotiations, then-British Prime Minister Harold Wilson told Mauritius’ leader, Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, that “he and his colleagues could return to Mauritius either with independence or without it and that the best solution for all might be independence and detachment (of the Chagos Islands) by agreement.”
Ramgoolam understood Wilson’s words “to be in the nature of a threat,” Jugnauth said.
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