UK to hand over Chagos back to Mauritius
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
People of Chagos were useful as a leverage and international shaming tool. But once they return, and islands go to Mauritius ... they will be tiny, economically deprived minority, sitting so far unexploited resource trove. And you can ask East Timor how that goes.
The marine protection area, one of the largest in the world, is obviously going to disappear. UN calls it illegitimate land grab, and it technically is, so without the only backer (UK), there will be nothing holding back exploitation.
> UK agrees to negotiate
Title on HN:
> UK agrees to hand over
title should be changed. Did Guardian update it at their end?
This sounds from the article like a great thing — or I mean, at least a partial righting of a historical injustice — but I am also interested to know: does it have any implications for the .io TLD?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/07/reclaim...
> The abolition of slavery in 1833, and the entitlement of slaves to remain in the colony in which they were freed, meant that many freed slaves had continued to work the plantations.
so slaves worked the plantations on the island before 1838.
and as an aside, what do you mean by Marxist terminology? I didn't see "proletariat" or "bourgeoisie," nor workers seizing the means of production. it's sloppy and lazy to use "Marxism" as a catch-all bogeyman.
Yes, they were freed by the British and compensated in 1833. As they were post removal in 68. 1838 was the year they were working in Chagos on 2 year rolling contracts (as was common for non enslaved people in such businesses prior to 1833).
> so slaves worked the plantations on the island before 1838.
And they were brought there by the british & french mainly. The french & dutch inhabited it first, before any of these people's ancestors.
> and as an aside, what do you mean by Marxist terminology? I didn't see "proletariat" or "bourgeoisie," nor workers seizing the means of production. it's sloppy and lazy to use "Marxism" as a catch-all bogeyman.
Ignoring history by framing everything as a class/exploitation problem rather than looking at what really happened. It's very common to ignore history now and use feelings to assert because someone might have been exploited that overrides reality.
So were slaves in the Caribbean. Should they not have rights to the islands on which they have lived for generations?
It’s pretty simple:
They were taken from their homes as slaves. They were forced to work in plantations for generations. Slavery ended but they had no “home” to return to and called the island where they had settled home.
Whether they were forcible taken there doesn’t suddenly mean it’s not their home.
> because someone might have been exploited
Can we just be super clear that we are talking about former slaves here. As much as might like to talk about “compensation” (source??) these are people who were taken from their homes as slaves, transported across vast oceans and forced to work in generally pretty horrible conditions. There is no “might have been exploited” here, they were very clearly exploited in an extreme way.
Most of the population are descended from people who arrived subsequent to the abolition of slavery. And any former slaves died 150 years ago
You're claiming that all Europeans, by virtue of being of the race that discovered an island, have a better claim to the island than its forced residents. I don't know how you can claim to be the reasonable one here.
Franco-Mauritians still indeed exist in small but wealthy numbers.
> Making a claim that all Europeans have a better claim to Mauritius than the people and the descendants of the people who lived there
I'm saying in linear time they indeed have an earlier claim. I say it because the term in relation to the relocated people of Chagos is often that they are "indigenous". Which isn't true
Indo - 66% Afro - 28%
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Mauritius
This is common breakdown of places that were slave colonies that needed labour after the end of slavery during Empire (e.g. Guyana, Surinam).
Mauritius itself was an unpopulated island before being discovered by the Dutch. The Dutch have more claim to call themselves indigenous to Mauritius than most Mauritians
These countries were totally unpopulated before Europeans arrived. Of course it isn't irrelevant.
Every place on Earth was not populated. At one point they became populated, people made their homes there, different entities emerged. That's what happened there as well.
Claims over the Falkland Islands are likely getting dusted once again, right side of the Andes.
Importing your own population into conquered territory and letting them vote is a dirty trick we don't accept from countries like Russia but using it as a justification ourselves undermines our legitimacy of that argument. The fact that these things happened a long time ago makes it a bit less of a statement but still it remains a double standard. The Crimean deportation of locals is also a long time ago but we still blame Russia for taking it over (and rightly so). I'm really happy to see governments finally admitting their mistakes like in this case.
The Falklands, Diego Garcia, Gibraltar are all in very strategic places. Now, there is something to be said about protecting the Falklands as Argentina isn't the most stable country in the world, but would the Gibraltar population really be so much worse off if they were ruled by Spain? The hundreds of thousands of British that live in Spain clearly don't think so.
The Netherlands still has a few Carribbean islands situated next to Venezuela. You break it you buy it.
But isn't that exactly what the Europeans did in the US and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, even Argentina? Import new people, who vastly outnumber and outvote the descendants of the original inhabitants? (And not just Europeans – it is also what China did to Taiwan.)
The fact that Russia's annexation of Crimea is only a few years old is a very large part of the challenge to its legitimacy. Similar events which happened 70, 100, 200, 300+ years ago, far fewer will seriously propose overturning them (indeed, the idea of doing so is liable to be condemned as "irredentism").
> but would the Gibraltar population really be so much worse off if they were ruled by Spain?
Many people in Gibraltar are by heritage neither Spanish nor British. The UK imported a labour force – some Brits and Spaniards, but also very many Italians, Portuguese, Maltese, and North African Jews. Many of their descendants would rather be independent, but given that's unlikely to be an option, British rule is closer in practice to independence than Spanish rule would be – the UK, being much further away, is naturally going to be inclined to give them a great deal of autonomy over their internal affairs, Spain (whatever promises it might make to try to get it back) will inevitably desire to integrate it into the Spanish state and treat it as just another part of Spain.
This is an example of how something is good? These were some of the worst acts in history, and involved many, many, mass graves.
> And not just Europeans – it is also what China did to Taiwan.
Taiwan was invaded by the retreating ROC army. So this is what that army did to the Formosans, not what "China" did to "Taiwan.* Again: the current government of Taiwan were the people who brutally suppressed the Formosans, and took over their island.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_the_government_of_t...
Indigenous Taiwanese make up 2% of the current population, and live in the mountains.
> The fact that Russia's annexation of Crimea is only a few years old is a very large part of the challenge to its legitimacy.
Crimea became part of the Soviet that corresponds to Ukraine under the Soviet Union in 1954, and its population was and is Russian speaking. There is no serious challenge to its legitimacy other than the fact that the US is going to use every opportunity to harass Russia and China it can, no matter the claim.
Speaking of recent claims, The current Ukraine's claim to Crimea dates from 1995. Crimea hoped to be independent after the fall of the USSR, until: "In October 1993, the Crimean parliament established the post of president of Crimea. Tensions rose in 1994 with election of separatist leader Yury Meshkov as Crimean president. On 17 March 1995, the parliament of Ukraine abolished the Crimean constitution of 1992, all the laws and decrees contradicting those of Kyiv, and also removed Yuriy Meshkov, the then president of Crimea, along with the office itself."
No. But it is evidence that people have different standards for more distant wrongs than more recent ones. Many Argentines think the UK should “give it back” the Falklands, but how many European-descended Argentines think Argentina should be “given back” to its original indigenous inhabitants? What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
> Taiwan was invaded by the retreating ROC army.
The Qing dynasty ruled Taiwan from 1683 to 1895, and that is when Han Chinese colonisation started. The Europeans came before that - Chinese colonialism pushed out European colonialism, and Chinese colonialism was in turn displaced - for a period - by Japanese colonialism. But there were already very many Han Chinese in Taiwan before the defeat of Japan, or the flight of the KMT from the mainland.
the tens of thousands of that live in Gibraltar clearly do think so
If the vast majority of people who were born and live in a region want to be an independent country, that's their call. That could be Scotland, Falklands, Catalonia, Northern Cyprus, Texas, Ceuta, Crimea, Tibet, Hong Kong, Quebec, Reunion, etc. If they want to be part of another country then it's still their call, but obviously the other country also has to agree.
(I accept there's probably some discussion about how recent immigrants count, and the size or duration of the majority to make something change but the principal of self determination is one of the most basic rights people have)
> Almost 70% of the population identifies as Falkland Islanders, British, or a combination of both. The diversity of national identities almost doubled compared to 2016, with 86 different nationalities counted, and more people identify as being a Falkland Islander in addition to their cultural background.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Falkland_Islands_sovereig...
Gibraltar was the same, but then brexit came, so not sure if that has swung opinion but I don't think. In 2002 87% of the total registered to vote voted to remain the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gibraltar_sovereignty_ref...
Catalonia probably wants independence (40% voted for it in 2017), and should have a decent referendum and debate with independence as an option, the travesty of the referendum just shows how undemocratic Spain is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_independence_refe...
New Caledonia on the other hand wants to retain the status quo, although not much. Maybe in 30 years time that will have changed, and there's certainly both valid sides of the conversation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_New_Caledonian_independen...
The big question is when do people become native. You can't go back 200 years for obvious reasons, if you're born in America you're and American, just because your grandfather was born in Belfast it doesn't make you Irish. If you moved to Belfast when you were 10 and have lived there for 30 years though, then you clearly are.
Northern Cyprus is what it is now. Yes there were issues 50 years ago when it was partitioned, but life moves on. On the other hand if the US had invaded Basra, displaced the population, put in 2 million of its own citizens, and then claimed independence 2 months later based on overwhelming support, that wouldn't be reasonable. 100 years later, then sure.
Sometimes people lose out. It's sad, and shouldn't have happened, but after some time (that might be 10 years, it might be 100) you have just as much right to your voice as everyone else living there.
The principle of self determination worked very nicely when there were pre-existing contested territories as a way to extinguish claims. But it must not be allowed to create competing claims or else it will do vastly more harm than it has so far eliminated. This is why it's generally not recognised. This is why Crimea and Catalonia's claims of UDI were disregarded. This is why Scotland is seeking independence through internal negotiation.
What harm are you trying to heal with self-determination? Or is it just some ideological commitment to the idea no matter how much suffering comes from it?
OK, so America wants to take over say Panama. Why would Panama allow millions of Americans to live there?
> This is why Scotland is seeking independence through internal negotiation.
Scotland isn't seeking independence. A large number of people in Scotland are. They have that right, so do people in Catalonia, California and Cornwall. In the case of California and Cornwall I'm fairly certain the number wanting independence is a tiny minority, but if they want independence they have full rights, just like the people of Virginia and co had a right to independence from the Britain back in the 18th century.
The alternative view is that the people of Virginia and co did not have that right, and that may be something you believe, but it's not something I believe