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BRITAIN must complete its decolonisation of Mauritius, the country’s leader told the UN general assembly in a debate on the Chagos Islands.
Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth said the depopulation of the Indian Ocean archipelago by former colonial power Britain to make way for a US military base “remains a very dark episode of human history, akin to a crime against humanity.”
The debate comes after Britain rejected February’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion that the islands should be returned to Mauritius. Britain split the Chagos archipelago from Mauritian territory in 1965, prior to the latter’s independence in 1968.
Beatrice Pompe and Bernadette Dugasse have submitted a UN complaint against Labour’s deal with Mauritius, highlighting how exclusion from ancestral lands is denying their right of return and justice for historical abuses, reports ELIZABETH MISTRY
