MAURITIUS SAYS BULLIED INTO GIVING UP PART OF TERRITORY

THE HAGUE: Mauritius told UN judges on Monday that the Indian Ocean nation was strong-armed by former colonial power Britain into giving up part of its territory as a condition for gaining independence half a century ago.

The claim came as judges at the International Court of Justice began hearing arguments in a UN General Assembly request for an advisory opinion on the legality of British sovereignty over the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean that include Diego Garcia, home to a major US military base.

“The process of decolonisation of Mauritius remains incomplete as a result of the unlawful detachment of an integral part of our territory on the eve of our independence,” Mauritius defence minister Anerood Jugnauth said.

Mauritius argues that the Chagos archipelago was part of its territory since at least the 18th century and was unlawfully taken by the UK in 1965, three years before the island nation gained independence.

Jugnauth said during independence negotiations, thenBritish premier Harold Wilson told Mauritius’ leader Seewoosagur Ramgoolam that “he and his colleagues could return to Mauritius either with independence or without it and that the best solution for all might be independence and detachment (of the Chagos Islands) by agreement.”

Ramgoolam understood Wilson’s words “to be in the nature of a threat,” Jugnauth said.