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Comment by avinash | Hacker News Reader

I'm a citizen of the Republic of Mauritius and, when this news was announced today, there was a general sense of relief.

Mauritius has been fighting for its sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago (with Diego Garcia being the largest island) for 56 years.

Today, the Chagos Archipelago is part of Mauritius again and a treaty will (hopefully) soon be signed between the UK and Mauritius.

From there, Mauritius will sign a lease agreement of 99 years with the USA so that the military base there can continue to operate.

Of course, there will surely be a lot of money involved but we don't have the details yet.

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What exactly is the Mauritian connection to the Chagos Archipelago?

Is it just because a lot of Chagossians went to Mauritius after getting kicked out? Obviously Mauritius and Chagos were ruled by the same people previous (French, then British), but is there a deeper history there?

I ask this because the Chagos archipelago is like 1500 miles away from Mauritius - the Maldives, Seychelles, and even Sri Lanka and India are all closer than that. And to my untrained eye, the Chagos archipelago looks like an extension of whatever process created the Maldives.

There isn’t one, as you say it’s over 2000km between them, the only link is that when Britain was administrating them it did so as a single territory. This is not some reunification of a country separated by a colonial power.

Its more a sort of shakedown of a ex-colonial power

More like reparations

The UK was shaking down the US for this military base.

The whole thing stands as a monument to the decline of the British Empire.

As someone pointed out on Reddit, for the first time in centuries the United Kingdom will no longer be the empire on which the sun never sets.

There will still be a British presence there (an overseas military base if I recall correctly), so you could argue it doesn't, but yep.

Randall got it wrong in What If (https://what-if.xkcd.com/48/). The sun's going to set on it because of the Indian Ocean territory going.

https://www.icj-cij.org/case/169

I'm assuming if the were ruled as the same entity for a significant amount of time that there was a lot of movement between the two regions during that time with all that implies, intermarriage etc.

All of which would probably still mean there are lots of people still alive from the time the regions were separated that feel themselves to be nonetheless connected and unfairly kept apart.

There is no people to be reunited here. Everyone was kicked out of Chagos to Mauritius so the UK military base could be build.

Ok, assumed the base just had part of it. So I guess there are people who want to go back to where they came from - but they can't because the base is still there?

The plantation workers still on the island in 1971-1973 were forcibly relocated to Mauritius.

> However, the UK and Mauritius agreed in 1972 that there were 426 Ilois families numbering 1,151 individuals[24] who left the Chagos for Mauritius voluntarily or involuntarily between 1965 and 1973.[14]: par 417 In 1977, the Mauritian government independently listed a total of 557 families totaling 2,323 people — 1,068 adults and 1,255 children — a number that included families that had left voluntarily before the creation of the BIOT and never returned to the Chagos.

>What exactly is the Mauritian connection to the Chagos Archipelago?

I can see where this line of questioning is going but what's the connection between Britain and Chagos or the US and Chagos for that matter?

215 years of British sovereignty?

The United States of America has had sovereignty of itself for 248 years, should the USA give up it's sovereignty in North America or do you draw the line between somewhere between 215 and 248?

At what point do you say, it is what it is?

The obvious difference, is that you're comparing sovereignty over a nation/state's mainland, vs sovereignty over a separate colony, thousands of km away from the mainland (and even used only for military purposes, apparently)

Hawaii then, 3,200 km away from the US mainland, home to one of the largest US navel bases and only part of the US for the last 126 years when they annexed it?

I'm not aware of nations in nearby islands/archipelago who are claiming the territory of Hawaii, so that's one difference.

But for sure, the locals would've appreciated it if the US didn't colonise Hawaii

https://x.com/SilverSpookGuy/status/1836132280806576289

>At what point do you say, it is what it is?

When you've lost the argument.

215 years of sovereignty Or 215 years of colonialism? Are the displaced people able to vote for UK parliamentary elections? Are they UK citizen?

"People with roots in the Chagos Islands have criticised what they called their "exclusion" from negotiations leading to the UK government's deal to give up its sovereignty of the region."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy78ejg71exo

If both sovereigns have equal claim to the land, keeping the status quo should be preferred.

I think this is missing the point of the original question, which is - why would a Mauritian feel "relief" at the return of a geographical territory which is extremely far from itself? The claims of the UK or the US are irrelevant to this reasoning.

Indeed, I would like to understand the answer to the above question better, since the only reason I can see is that Mauritius as a colony used to govern the islands, and that seems to have just been a convenience of the French that doesn't strongly justify any current claims of sovereignty. And since the UK were the ones to forcibly evict the Chagossians from the islands, it seems a double-injustice to "return" their land to another sovereign power which is equally at a distance from the islands themselves. Do the Chagossians support this claim by the Mauritian government?

> Do the Chagossians support this claim by the Mauritian government?

They've complained about not being part to the discussion, but in practice most of them have Mauritian citizenship now, and it should be easier for them to deal with the Mauritian government to reclaim some of their land. It's a lesser-evil situation.

Perhaps things would have turned out differently if the UK had given British citizenship to the Chagossians instead of kicking them out of their islands. After all, this method worked in the Falklands.

Their “relief” comes in form of US dollars to be deposited

I imagine for such a small island chain you'd need a "parent" country to provide services, so picking the one where most people when when they were exiled probably makes sense. May also be a language thing?

> From there, Mauritius will sign a lease agreement of 99 years with the USA so that the military base there can continue to operate.

Seems to be a lease with the UK (which then 'sub-leases' to the US?):

* https://www.reuters.com/world/britain-agrees-chagos-island-s...

Curious to know if there will be extension provisions: people think 99 years is a long time (which isn't wrong), but Hong Kong went back to China after that period of time.

Possibly. The treaty has not been signed yet.

Things will become clearer in the coming weeks.

Legally that makes the most sense as it leaves everything where it is. The whole place is a weird combination of US/UK culture and standards.

It's easier to move a single military base at the end of a lease than an entire country

AFAIK, the US and UK value Diego Garcia because currently there aren't geographical alternatives for that base. Where else could they put it that would have the same benefits?

There are multiple islands and archipelagos in the region.

Close to Africa/ME: Maldives, Seychelles, Comoros, Mayotte

Close to SE Asia: Cocos and Christmas Island

Diego Garcia just happened to be forcibly depopulated by the British, so was a convenient choice.

  Close to Africa/ME: Maldives, Seychelles, Comoros, Mayotte
  Close to SE Asia: Cocos and Christmas Island

That's the whole point of Diego Garcia: It's not "close to" anywhere, and it's nearly in the middle of a bunch of places. That's what give it its strategic importance.

The Maldives are only ~400mi N of Diego Garcia.

So its 400mi away from another set of tiny islands which themselves are hundreds of miles from the mainland.

I'd still argue that's pretty much "not close to anywhere."

I mean, what current option is equivalent to Diego Garcia? Are any of those options realistic right now?

They're all pretty far from land and in the same general area.

If Diego Garcia were no longer an option, there would be alternatives. Especially with US levels of lease money.

That said, few of them are quite as remote as Diego Garcia. Which means not quite as easy to secretly fly RQ-180s or whatever the hell is more clandestinely based there.

I don't think geography is the challenge as much as politics. What country and populace will give up their ancestral land to a foreign military base. Would you?

Remember that the small islands don't have much land to begin with, and bases are large.

A country that's desperate for infrastructure investment and foreign reserves, because they don't have much usable land to start with?

At some point leasing away an island, so that everyone else can have a better quality of life, is an attractive tradeoff.

The lease expires in 2123. The militarily strategic landscape then is pretty much unknowable.

To a 1925 (99 years ago) military force, the Diego Garcia airfield would have had zero importance.

I wonder if they would have anticipated its value. I can anticipate a moon base would be valuable in 2123 even though it has little present value.

Considering that 99 years ago both Maldives and India were still colonised (and would remain so for decades), I'm gonna go out on a limb by saying that no, Chagos Islands weren't seen as particularly important back then.

in 99 years, most of the island probably will be underwater due to climate change.

The island is certainly in the risk zone, but I think that is also unknowable.

My guess is that by carbon sequestering and/or SO2 injection in the stratosphere, the climate change will be controllable within a few decades.

It's very likely that we're already beyond some of the tipping points, and others are very close[0]. We're basically going into the mitigation phase now by my understanding.

[0] https://www.space.com/climate-tipping-points-closer-than-rea...

I'm quite skeptical.

If we lower the CO2 levels (carbon sequestering) and cool the planet by reflecting more sunlight (SO2 injection in the stratosphere), I'm sure these alleged tipping points will be tipped back again, given some time.

It's good to be aware that doom sells, and the incentive to publish doom predictions for the money they make is very high. Of course, they can still be true...

We'll see how it goes :)

I don't get the reason for skepticism, when this is coming from scientists who've been studying the field for many years, and have been making predictions that have been coming true.

It's like an avalanche. After it starts you can't stop it or get all that snow back on the mountain; it has to get to level ground, melt (if it gets warm enough) and go through an entire cycle that takes time. So yes, things will likely tip back. After humanity either has already been wiped out or fully migrated to other planets and the earth gets the chance to reset itself.

I don't see it as doom, just something inevitable, which we helped to cause. And it's the ones that do all they can to downplay the consequences who make the money, in every instance, as acceptance would be bad for business.

Well, look at this section:

> Climate tipping points — the "points of no return" past which key components of Earth's climate will begin to irreversibly break down — could be triggered by much lower temperatures than scientists previously thought, with some tipping points potentially already reached. There are also many more potential tipping points than scientists previously identified, according to a new study.

I count to 3 maybes only there:

1. tipping points "could be triggered by much lower temperatures" 2. "some tipping points potentially already reached" 3. "according to a new study"

Number 1 and 2 says that this may possibly happen, not that it will!

Number 3 is the worst. Many - probably most - new studies with unexpected results turn out to be wrong, as the Replication Crisis has painfully taught us. They also get the most press, because "new study confirms what we thought" stories don't go viral.

> it's the ones that do all they can to downplay the consequences who make the money

That's absolutely not true in science or publishing. The most sensational results get the most attention and grants and ad dollars.

> So yes, things will likely tip back. After humanity either has already been wiped out or fully migrated to other planets and the earth gets the chance to reset itself.

Humanity would be better off living at the bottom of the ocean than on any other planet; and to think that climate change could make earth less hospitable than any other planet is just absurd. So this is an incredibly naive statement.

Yes agreed. There is no chance that humans are completely wiped out. We, or our ancestors, by definition have survived until today though multiple actual ice ages. We've survived though massive floods and glaciers and who knows what else.

On top of that, the closer we get to doomsday the more people will care.

I don't know where I heard it, but there's a saying that "capitalism can solve anything it just waits until the last minute".

That when the time comes enough money and resources will be poured into the solutions(s) that we can fix it.

When is that time? When profits are threatened and our continued way of existence.

The climate is a chaotic system, not a seesaw.

I would assume that "given some time" outlasts the median life expectancy of humans. If it ever happeens. Like others said it's a chaotic system in many ways, not as if you can predict more than a few decades.

Given this, after "giving it some time" a lot of people would be dead as a direct consequence of it not been given enough time.

we're talking about 99 years, so outside the life expectancy of a lot of people on this thread

> If we lower the CO2 levels (carbon sequestering

This is simply fantasy. Sequestering carbon mechanically is an energy losing process. It is also inefficient.

If we burned oil in year 2,000 at (generously) 50% efficiency, it will cost us 4X more in year 2040 to sequester it at 50% (very generous) efficiency.

On the face of it, we would need a sequestering industry that is 4X bigger than the oil industry, and it will be just losing money. Politically, it’s just not going to happen.

Natural sequestration (I.e. tree planting) is not enough by a very large margin (like over 10x)

Restoring CO₂ levels will use plenty of money and energy, however it's done. It can still be very much worth doing!

I don't believe much in tree planting, since it uses up huge areas of the planet forever.

The best way is to separate out CO2 from the atmosphere and pump it into underground cavities. This is the just reversing natural gas extraction, which means it's well established tech. Aside from the separating CO2 part, but that's being worked on.

In a decade or three I expect solar powered machines like this slowly but surely turning the atmosphere back to normal.

> SO2 injection in the stratosphere

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Piercer#Plot

We know from studying when volcanoes spew SO₂ to the stratosphere that is breaks down by itself over 1-2 years.

So if it somehow causes some unforeseen bad effect, we just have to wait a while as it goes away.

And in 299 years the climate may have changed again, as it is wont to do (and has always done).

Is that a subtle attempt to argue that climate is changing on it's own, and not by human agency? Say it if you mean it.

And in 1000 years it will be different again. What’s your point? The fact it has and will always change doesn’t change anything about what’s happening now.

We can choose to mitigate the change or make it worse for ourselves.

And 65 million years ago an asteroid detonated with the power of all of the world’s nukes combined, so there is no need to worry about nuclear war.

And timespans are like that for climate too, millions of years not 299

The little ice age lasted from 1300 to 1850 [0], so 299 years is not orders of magnitudes off.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

That’s less that half a degree, barely noticeable. Climate change is predicted to be 6 degrees or thereabouts

Wow I predict things too, they don't always come true. Remind me when we go up 6 degrees and i'll care.

Further information on 13,000 islands: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17538947.2024.2...

"Of over 13,000 islands examined, approximately 12% experienced significant shifts in shoreline positions. The total shoreline length of these islands approaches 200,000 km, with 7.57% showing signs of landward erosion and 6.05% expanding seaward. Human activities, particularly reclamation and land filling, were identified as primary drivers of local shoreline transformations, while natural factors have a comparatively minor impact. "

It would have had some value as a coaling or oiling station thought

Why would the worlds superpower need that when they had India?

Q: Is there a reason for making a lease 99 years, rather than - say - 999 years?

So they can renegotiate the terms of the leasing in a reasonable time span?

Historically 99 years was the longest term for leases in English laws. I don't think that's incorporated in laws any more, but it has just continued as common practice.

You may be right historically, but I don't think it's common practice any more - there are quite a few "virtual freehold" leases of 999 years, and most other domestic leaseholds are 125+ years when they start. When a leashold goes below 90 years its value dips sharply.

999 years is considered a "permanent" lease [1]. 99 years is considered a "more than a lifetime lease" [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/999-year_lease [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99-year_lease

> The lease expires in 2123. The militarily strategic landscape then is pretty much unknowable.

I bet that's what the UK thought about Hong Kong in the late 1800s, but when 1996 rolled around I think they (and many HKers) would have liked a longer-and-99-years lease.

While geography isn't quite destiny, it is fairly important, and having a random rock in a place where there are no other rocks will always be useful IMHO (unless we perhaps develop teleportation).

I am sure that if at the end of 99 years the US or the UK still really really want to retain them, they will find a way (another lease, or by force).

Mauritius is not China. Not that I am suggesting for this to happen, but what are they going to do if the UK just decides not to leave after 99 years?

They said basically the same thing about HongKong. You can’t predict political landscape in 100 years

The Chinese negotiators for Kowloon deliberately settled on 99 years. Probably because they knew they'd be lynched by the Chinese public otherwise. It was not a mistake made by the British they just couldn't get a better deal.

Yeah, but Mauritius isn't China. If the UK had reneged on the Hong Kong lease, there were economic and military options for China to potentially enforce it.

A lot can happen in 99 years, but even assuming a serious decline in US economic/military might I don't see a scenario where Mauritius could successfully enforce the lease on its own.

Mauritius isn't China today. In 99 years time it could be part of a China. Or a future country that is more powerful than China.

Well someone more powerful would not care about the lease agreements anyway so if the U.S can’t fight back the lease agreement won’t help them anyway. See Russia-Ukcraine and the agreements that were signed. They are not worth their paper

If the treaty is UK law, they can take the case to UK courts. It's not guaranteed to work, it depends on the legal technicalities, but the government has no say in the findings of UK courts.

A lot can happen in 99 years, but as Hong Kong shows, the UK has a decent track record on long term legal continuity.

> If the treaty is UK law, they can take the case to UK courts. It's not guaranteed to work, it depends on the legal technicalities, but the government has no say in the findings of UK courts.

Presently, the UK lacks an entrenched written constitution. Hence, any court decision can be overturned by an ordinary Act of the UK Parliament, passed by a simple majority. If a court makes a ruling which the government of the day sufficiently dislikes, the court ruling will be overturned, assuming the government has the numbers to get the legislation through the House of Commons and House of Lords.

But, in 99 years time, who knows. Maybe by then, the UK will have a written constitution. Maybe by then, the UK won't even exist anymore. Maybe by the time the lease expires, it will actually be between Mauritius and the English Republic.

> Presently, the UK lacks an entrenched written constitution. Hence, any court decision can be overturned by an ordinary Act of the UK Parliament, passed by a simple majority

This is something that our America obsessed cultural elite have forgotten. The "Brown versus Education versus Alien versus predator" style of activist/political focus on the courts rather than parliament is quite ridiculous at times.

Whoever wins, the King/Queen loses?

until the government decides that only evidence they like can be presented to the court like the last administration did with their Rwanda plan for migrants.

The UK government never wanted to keep Hong Kong. (It may have wanted to pantomime trying to keep it to placate some voters).

While the UK did have a long history of legal continuity, it's made a lot of dramatic changes in recent years - the switch to the Supreme Court which has then made some legally bizarre decisions, the complete demolition of the House of Lords over a pretty short period, the efforts to entrench human rights legislation which have simply no precedent in UK constitutional history at all...

> efforts to entrench human rights legislation which have simply no precedent in UK constitutional history at all...

How so? UK was instrumental in creating the European Court of Human rights? Surely they did not believe at the time that they are just creating it for everyone else?

The people who created the ECHR were very conscious that they were doing something unprecedented, that would change European jurisprudence dramatically. Indeed that was something they trumpeted.

as always UK courts favour their country/people.

The BBC article refers to it as an initial period, so I'd assume it can be extended.

> There, the UK will ensure operation of the military base for "an initial period" of 99 years.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98ynejg4l5o

Congratulations! Would you be willing to go into more depth on why you feel relieved? You've spelled out the terms; I'm asking if you might connect the dots between those terms and your feelings about the whole thing.

Also, are you concerned that Diego Garcia might be a target in a war?

I’m sure the context is totally different. And yours is right as you are the citizen there.

But being a Hong Kong citizen, I have a totally different reaction to this news. (Projected to our own context.)

How does this affect fishing territory and economic zones for Mauritius?

> From there, Mauritius will sign a lease agreement of 99 years with the USA so that the military base there can continue to operate.

So basically nothing of essence will change, this is just a Panama-fication of those islands.

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