Anti-China fearmongers on both sides of the Atlantic are pushing U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to overturn the rule of international law and a surprising recent victory for diplomacy — rather than military might — to resolve international disputes.
Backed by conservative and other news outlets, a campaign of disinformation, smears, and falsehoods is escalating to get Trump to try to tank a historic deal announced in October that actually gives the U.S. military exactly what it wants: control of its base on the secretive Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia for 99 years or more.
In his final days as president, Joe Biden should help formalize the Diego Garcia deal in a planned treaty while correcting the glaring error in the announced agreement.
Failing to finalize the deal could have grave consequences for emboldening Trump, undermining the rule of law, and further delaying justice for the long-ignored Chagossian people who were exiled from their homeland by the U.S. and UK governments during the creation of the U.S. base on Diego Garcia in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Diego Garcia deal
Diego Garcia is the tiny island, smaller than Manhattan, in the middle of the Indian Ocean that’s home to a major U.S. Navy and Air Force base. The military built the base thanks to a secret agreement with the United Kingdom, which has controlled Diego Garcia and the rest of the surrounding Chagos Archipelago since 1814.
In exchange for the Pentagon’s covert transfer of $14 million, the British government agreed to U.S. officials’ request that they remove the Chagossians. The people’s African and Indian ancestors had lived in the islands since the time of the American Revolution. During the deportations, British agents and U.S. military personnel even gassed Chagossians’ pet dogs to death, burning their carcasses. Chagossians quickly found themselves living in exile in profound poverty.
Diego Garcia shot into the news last month when the governments of the United Kingdom and the Indian Ocean nation of Mauritius announced an agreement settling their decades-old sovereignty dispute over Chagos. For the first time, the UK acknowledged the sovereignty of Mauritius, which previously was a British colony united with Chagos — until the U.S. military came looking for a base. Most in the international community have recognized Mauritian sovereignty since the International Court of Justice and the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly came to this conclusion in 2019.
For its part, Mauritius agreed to allow Britain to continue to exercise sovereignty rights over Diego Garcia for a period of at least 99 years to allow the continued operation of the U.S. base. In exchange the United Kingdom will make annual rental payments and provide other support to Mauritius.
The two governments further announced that Britain would provide a compensation fund for the Chagossians and for the first time in more than 50 years, the islanders would be allowed to return to all but one of their islands. To the people’s dismay, the agreement continues to bar them from living on Diego Garcia.
Right wing critics in the UK and the United States pounced on the Chagos deal to bash the new Labour Party government and the Biden-Harris administration. They spouted a range of bogus theories suggesting the agreement would benefit China because the Chinese government might establish a military or spy presence on the other Chagos islands or because Mauritius might somehow “give” Diego Garcia to the Chinese.
Both reputable and not-so-reputable news outlets repeated these claims without fact checking or questioning whether they have any factual basis.
They do not.
‘Baseless smear’
The idea that Mauritius will let the Chinese military build a base in some of the Chagos islands or give the base on Diego Garcia to the Chinese has no basis in reality. “Baseless smear” is how political scientist and Diego Garcia expert Peter Harris described an accusation he has repeatedly debunked.
“There is no evidence–none, zero, zilch–that Mauritius has any interest in hosting a Chinese base or that China has an interest in a Mauritian base. They’re not allies or security partners or particularly close in any way other than a trade deal. It’s a straight up smear,” Harris told me in an email.
It’s hard to overstate how absurd the critics' narrative is. The Chagos deal was clearly blessed by the U.S. government and demonstrates the deep alliance between the three countries. “I applaud the historic agreement,” President Biden said. The deal effectively gives the U.S. military, as well as the UK government, a 99-year lease on Diego Garcia, ending a decades-long political and legal headache for both.
This tall tale about Beijing taking over is particularly nonsensical because Mauritius’s other closest ally is not China but India, whose greatest rival (other than Pakistan) historically has been China.
The idea that Mauritius is aligned with or under the thumb of China is based on nothing more than the fact of Mauritius — like the US, UK, and almost every country on Earth — being a significant trading partner with China and receiving some Chinese loans. Mauritius is one of only two African countries that is not part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
In other words, opponents of the deal have grasped at the convenient straw of anti-China fearmongering to shamelessly support maintaining old school Anglo-American colonial control in Chagos. In an apparent sign of desperation, some opponents are now peddling a new and equally bogus theory that Russia is actually controlling the Mauritian government. The absurdity of all these attacks, particularly from those in Britain's Conservative Party, deepens given that negotiations to return Chagos to Mauritius started under Conservative Party Prime Minister Liz Truss in 2022.
Finalizing and fixing the treaty
President Biden, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and new Prime Minister of Mauritius Navin Ramgoolam should ignore the disinformation campaign and quickly finalize the Chagos treaty, which represents a rare, if partial, victory for international law and the decolonization movement.
In finalizing the treaty, the three governments must correct the major problem in the deal announced in October: Barring Chagossians from returning home to Diego Garcia perpetuates their exile and decades of injustice. Returning to the other Chagos islands, at least 150 miles away, is not the same as returning to Diego Garcia where most Chagossians were born and have their ancestors buried.
Continuing the Diego Garcia ban also violates the International Court of Justice’s ruling and a U.N. General Assembly resolution demanding the UK and other countries uphold Chagossians’ full human rights and aid their resettlement.
While U.S. and UK officials have long used “security” concerns to justify banning Chagossians from Diego Garcia, Chagossians could live on the other half of Diego Garcia, miles from the base, just as civilians live near U.S. bases worldwide, including at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Civilian laborers who are neither U.S. nor UK citizens already live and work on the base.
Before Donald Trump takes office, President Biden and the leaders of the UK and Mauritius must finalize their treaty recognizing Mauritian sovereignty over Chagos and allowing Chagossians to return to all their islands including Diego Garcia. For a president whose foreign policy record is a blight on his legacy, Biden has a chance to make a powerful final statement in support of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. Biden should go farther by issuing a formal apology for the U.S. government’s leading role in exiling the Chagossians and commit the U.S. to assisting resettlement.
Once Trump takes office, perhaps his ability to question foreign policy orthodoxy and desire to cut government waste will lead him to ask why the United States is spending billions of dollars to maintain a military base in the Indian Ocean, thousands of miles from U.S. borders — and then take steps to close it.
Contrary to bogus claims that Diego Garcia plays a “vital” security role, the base has been a launchpad for the catastrophic endless wars in the Middle East that Trump claims to oppose.
First and foremost, the simple truth is that President Biden can and must help Chagossians return home.
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