AP
London
A startled British government on Tuesday defended its decision to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, after US President Donald Trump attacked the plan, which his administration had previously supported.
Trump said that relinquishing the remote Indian Ocean archipelago, home to a strategically important American naval and bomber base, was an act of stupidity that shows why he needs to take over Greenland.
“Shockingly, our brilliant’ NATO Ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital US Military Base, to Mauritius, and to do so for no reason whatsoever,” he said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. “There is no doubt that China and Russia have noticed this act of total weakness.”
“The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of Great Stupidity, and is another in a very long line of National Security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired,” Trump said.
The United Kingdom and Mauritius signed a deal in May to give Mauritius sovereignty over the Chago Islands after two centuries under British control, though the UK will lease back Diego Garcia where the US base is located, for at least 99 years.
UK Cabinet Minister Darren Jones said Tuesday that the agreement would “secure that military base for the next 100 years.”
But the deal has met strong opposition from British opposition parties, which say that giving up the islands puts them at risk of interference by China and Russia.
Islanders who were displaced from the islands to make way for the US base say they weren’t consulted and worry the deal will make it harder for them to go home.
The US has described the Diego Garcia base, which is home to about 2,500 mostly American personnel, as “an all but indispensable platform” for security operations in the Middle East, South Asia and
East Africa.
The Chagos Islands have been under British control since 1814. An estimated 10,000 displaced Chagossians and their descendants now live primarily in Britain, Mauritius and the Seychelles. The UK-Mauritius deal calls for a resettlement fund to be created for displaced islanders to help them move back to the islands — apart from Diego Garcia.
