Chagos Archipelago

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Chagos Archipelago
Map of the Chagos Archipelago Brown areas are dry land
Map of the Chagos Archipelago
Brown areas are dry land
Waters Indian Ocean
Geographical location 6 ° 17 ′  S , 72 ° 5 ′  E Coordinates: 6 ° 17 ′  S , 72 ° 5 ′  E
Chagos Archipelago (Indian Ocean)
Chagos Archipelago
Number of islands 7 atolls
Main island Diego Garcia
Total land area 63.17 km²
Residents 3500

The Chagos Archipelago (German also Tschagos Archipelago ) is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean . Under the political name of Chagos Archipelago, it is a British overseas territory , the last remaining part of British territory in the Indian Ocean , and serves the USA as a naval and air force base .

geography

Solomon Islands , one of the atolls in the Chagos Archipelago

The archipelago is located in the middle of the Indian Ocean, about 2150 km from Mauritius , about 1600 km southwest of India , 500 km south of the Maldives and about 1900 km east of the Seychelles . The archipelago consists of numerous atolls , some of which are completely submerged by the sea, others only during high tide . The largest property is the Great Chagos Bank , an extensive complex of coral reefs with an atoll-like structure that covers an area of ​​over 12,000 km². The land area of ​​all islands of the archipelago is comparatively small at 63.17 km². The largest island is the main island of the Diego Garcia atoll with an area of ​​around 27 km². The following atolls and islands belong to the Chagos Archipelago (from north to south):

Flora and fauna

In the classification by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), the Chagos Archipelago is combined with the nearby Maldives and the Indian island union territory of Lakshadweep to form an ecoregion . Taken together, these islands and atolls form the largest atoll and coral reef system in the world.

The climate is a tropical monsoon climate with a dry season from December to March (the time of the northeast monsoon in winter) and a rainy season from April to October (the time of the southwest monsoon). The Chagos Archipelago is one of the best protected tropical island systems. The islands are home to many species, especially sea ​​birds . Overall, pointed BirdLife International Ten Important Bird Areas (IBA) from, including Barton Point Reserve on Diego Garcia, which the world's largest population of Rotfußtölpeln ( Sula sula home).

In November 2009, a group of nine UK conservation and science organizations launched a campaign to protect the archipelago's coral reefs. The Chagos Marine Protected Area , designated on April 1, 2010, is one of the world's largest marine protected areas with an area of ​​554,000 km².

history

The archipelago was discovered in 1544 by the Spaniard Diego García de Moguer on an expedition for the Portuguese crown , but was previously known to the Maldives. At the end of the 17th century, France claimed the archipelago for itself. The French colonial power settled the four atolls Diego Garcia, Egmont Islands, Peros Banhos and Salomon Islands. In analogy to Mauritius and the Seychelles, despite British sovereignty, the French island names have often been used today. The new residents came from Réunion , Mauritius , Madagascar and Mozambique , among others . These included many slaves who had to work on coconut plantations and in fishing. In March 1786 a small expedition from the British East India Company from Bombay attempted to colonize Diego Garcia Island. Unexpectedly, the British encountered French planters when they landed on the island. They fled to the French Mauritius (then Isle de France ) and the British took Diego Garcia into possession. The French governor of Mauritius François de Souillac sent a letter of protest to the British authorities in Bombay and dispatched a warship to the Chagos Archipelago. Thereupon the British governor of Bombay Rawson Hart Boddam , who wanted to avoid a military conflict, had Diego Garcia evacuated again in October 1786. The French then officially declared the archipelago to be French.

During the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic era , France gradually lost its possessions in the Indian Ocean to Great Britain. In 1794 the Seychelles became British and in 1810 Mauritius with Chagos. In the First Peace of Paris on May 30, 1814, France officially ceded almost all of its colonial island possessions to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland .

Slavery was abolished under British rule in 1834. In the 19th century, fishermen, farmers and plantation workers immigrated from India as contract workers . Together with the previous residents, they formed the Chagossian people . They call themselves Îlois in the Creole language after the French word for “islanders” or “islanders”.

The United Kingdom administratively assigned the Chagos Archipelago first to the Seychelles and later (1903) to Mauritius. On November 8, 1965, shortly before the foreseeable independence from Mauritius, Great Britain hived off the Chagos archipelago from the previous joint administration with Mauritius. The General Assembly of the United Nations then passed a resolution on December 16, 1965 ( Resolution 2066 (XX )) calling on the United Kingdom to preserve the territorial integrity of Mauritius and to give it independence, including Chagos. Nonetheless, Mauritius gained independence in 1968 and Chagos remained with Great Britain as "British Indian Ocean Territory" . However, the island group is still claimed by Mauritius and the Seychelles.

US military base

The island of Diego Garcia was leased from Great Britain in 1966 for an initial 50 years to the USA, who wanted to operate “a base with a crew of 5,000 men, long-range bombers, warships of various sizes, submarines, an arsenal of nuclear weapons and the most modern eavesdropping equipment as unobserved as possible”. The lease has meanwhile been extended to 2036. There is also a US prison camp on Diego Garcia.

The Chagossians (Îlois) were forcibly resettled between 1967 and 1973 in order to be able to hand over the deserted archipelago to the US military. The approximately 5500 descendants of the Îlois live in Mauritius, the Seychelles and Great Britain. They have been suing the UK courts for their right of return since the 1990s (see Chagos litigation section ). In April 2006 a group of 100 Chagossians were able to visit the Chagos Archipelago at the expense of the British Foreign Office .

The travel writer Simon Winchester sent an emergency signal from a sailing yacht off the island of Diego Garcia in 1985. So he had to be allowed into the port according to current maritime law, but was then detained there for a few days.

Legal disputes over Chagos

In 1998 the Îlois brought an action for compensation and the right of return in a UK court. In 2000, the British High Court of Justice declared the deportations illegal and granted the deportees the right to return, but this had no consequences. In 2004, Queen Elizabeth II issued an Order-in-Council on behalf of the government , banning the Îlois from their homeland. This was declared unlawful by the High Court of Justice in May 2006. That was challenged by the government in the Court of Appeal . In May 2007 the Court of Appeal ruled in favor of the Îlois. The British government appealed the judgment again. On October 22, 2008, the House of Lords agreed with the British government and forbade residents to return to the island. Against this, an action was brought before the European Court of Human Rights . At the end of 2012, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Chagossians had lost their victim status as a result of a 1982 final reparation agreement between Great Britain and the Chagossians. Because of this, and because the British courts have already granted legal protection to the Chagossians, the Court of Justice dismissed the action under Article 35 of the ECHR. Another 2017 High Court lawsuit by the Queen on behalf of the government was dismissed in February 2019.

In December 2007 two small boats, the People's Navy , set off for the Chagos Archipelago to draw attention to the situation of the exiled population. After a 2000 mile journey, Pete Bouquet and Jon Castle, the crew of the Musichana boat , were arrested off Diego Garcia on March 8, 2008 and deported to Great Britain via Singapore on March 22, 2008.

In December 2010, Mauritius filed a complaint against the United Kingdom with the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. In March 2015, the arbitral tribunal stated that the United Kingdom had violated the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea by creating a marine reserve around the Chagos Archipelago in April 2010 .

On June 22, 2017, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN General Assembly) passed a resolution calling on the International Court of Justice to issue a legal opinion on the question of sovereignty over Chagos. The resolution was passed by 94 votes to 15, with 65 abstentions. The United Kingdom voted against the resolution, with the support of France, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Israel and Croatia, among others. Most of the countries of the European Union abstained. The countries voting on the UK side primarily cited the primacy of bilateral agreements and the non-jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice for their voting behavior. The International Court of Justice began the hearings in September 2018 and delivered its opinion on February 25, 2019. Accordingly, the British claim to sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago is contrary to international law and the British government has been asked to hand over the archipelago to Mauritius. In their justification, the judges referred to the illegal separation of the island from Mauritius in 1965. However, this opinion is not binding on the government in London.

On May 22, 2019, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for a majority in Great Britain to cede control to Mauritius within six months. 116 countries voted for the resolution and six against, namely the United Kingdom, the United States, Hungary, Israel, Australia and the Maldives; 56 countries abstained, including Germany, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Poland and Romania. Other European countries such as Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, Spain, Sweden and Greece voted in favor. The vote was seen by many as a serious diplomatic defeat for the United Kingdom. The deadline expired in November 2019 without a return. From the British side it was pointed out that the claim would not be recognized by Mauritius.

literature

  • David Vine: Island of Shame. The Secret History of the US Military Base on Diego Garcia . Princeton University Press, Princeton / Oxford 2009, ISBN 978-1-4008-2997-2 (English).
  • Shenaz Patel: The Silence of Chagos . Weidle Verlag, Bonn 2017, ISBN 978-3-938803-86-8 (French: Le silence des Chagos . Paris 2005. Translated by Eva Scharenberg, the book depicts the fate of some Chagossians).

Web links

Commons : Chagos Archipelago  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Maldives-Lakshadweep-Chagos Archipelago tropical moist forests. In: worldwildlife.org. WWF, accessed April 6, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Jessica Aldred: Conservationists urge Gordon Brown to create 'Britain's Great Barrier Reef'. In: The Guardian . Guardian News & Media Ltd., January 27, 2010, accessed October 1, 2016.
  3. ^ British Indian Ocean Territory Marine Protected Area (Chagos) - Marine Protected Area. In: mpatlas.org. Accessed May 27, 2019 .
  4. ^ Arbitration Under Annex VII of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea - Republic of Mauritius v. United Kingdom of Great Britaion and Northern Ireland. (PDF; 1.7 MB) In: pcacases.com. August 1, 2012, accessed November 24, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Request for an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legal consequences of the separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965. United Nations, June 15, 2017, accessed on February 25, 2019 (English).
  6. ^ Sarah Knapton: Law Lords to rule on whether Chagos Islanders can finally return home. In: The Telegraph . Telegraph Media Group, October 21, 2008, accessed October 1, 2016.
  7. ↑ Christian Schmidt: Back to Paradise. In: Tages-Anzeiger . Tamedia, January 23, 2015, accessed October 1, 2016.
  8. ^ Marc E. Rosen: Is Diego Garcia at Risk of Slipping from Washington's Grasp? In: The National Interest . September 19, 2017, accessed January 4, 2018.
  9. ↑ Susanne Amann: Island of the Forgotten. In: Spiegel Online. August 1, 2003, accessed February 25, 2019 .
  10. ↑ In pictures: Chagossians' visit. In: BBC News . April 10, 2006, accessed October 1, 2016.
  11. ↑ [2000] EWHC Admin 413 = [2001] QB 1067 ("Bancoult 1")
  12. ↑ [2006] EWHC 1038 (Admin)
  13. ↑ [2007] EWCA Civ 498
  14. ↑ Martin Fletcher: Islanders who wait in vain for justice and a paradise lost. (No longer available online.) In: timesonline.co.uk. November 9, 2007, archived from the original on July 24, 2008 ; accessed on September 14, 2019 (English).
  15. ↑ [2008] UKHL 61 = [2009] 1 AC 453 ("Bancoult 2"), confirmed by [2016] UKSC 35 = [2017] AC 300 ("Bancoult 4")
  16. ↑ Britain blocks return home for Chagos Islanders . In: The International Herald Tribune . October 22, 2008 ( online at nytimes.com [accessed October 1, 2016]).
  17. ↑ Marc Engelhardt: Expelled from Paradise. In: taz.de . January 29, 2009, accessed October 1, 2016.
  18. ↑ Chagos Islanders against the United Kingdom. Decision of the fourth section of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In: HUDOC database. European Court of Human Rights , December 11, 2012, accessed October 1, 2016.
  19. ↑ [2019] EWHC 221 (Admin)
  20. ↑ Kerstin Eitner: Bomb Paradise . In: Greenpeace magazine . Issue 4.08, 2008, ISSN  1611-3462 ( online [accessed May 14, 2017]).
  21. ↑ Owen Bowcott, John Vidal: Britain faces UN tribunal over Chagos Islands marine reserve. In: The Guardian . Guardian News & Media Ltd., January 28, 2013, accessed October 1, 2016.
  22. ↑ Chagos Marine Protected Area Arbitration (Mauritius v. United Kingdom) , case number 2011-03
  23. ↑ General Assembly Adopts Resolution Seeking International Court's Advisory Opinion on Pre-independence Separation of Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius. United Nations, June 22, 2017, accessed February 25, 2019 .
  24. ^ Roland Oliphant: International Court of Justice begins hearing on Britain's separation of Chagos islands from Mauritius. The Telegraph, September 3, 2018, accessed February 25, 2019 .
  25. ^ Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965 , general list no.169
  26. ↑ Owen Bowcott: UN court rejects UK's claimsoft of sovereignty over Chagos Islands. The Guardian, February 25, 2019, accessed February 25, 2019 .
  27. ↑ a b London is to return the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius. In: tagesschau.de. February 25, 2019, accessed February 25, 2019 .
  28. ↑ UN General Assembly calls on London to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. welt.de, May 22, 2019, accessed on May 22, 2019 .
  29. ↑ Owen Bowcott, Julian Borger: UK suffers crushing defeat in UN vote on Chagos Islands. May 22, 2019, accessed on May 22, 2019 .
  30. ↑ Chagos Islands dispute: UK misses deadline to return control. BBC, November 22, 2019, accessed the same day. (English).