Britain has agreed to cede the Chagos Islands to Mauritius

The Chagossians seem set to benefit less than China
查戈斯人似乎比中国受益更少

10月 10, 2024 08:23 上午

FEW PLACES in the world are quite so remote as the 60 or so islands that make up the Chagos Archipelago. Africa sits 3,000km to the west, Indonesia 3,000km to the east; the nearest large land mass is Sri Lanka, 1,700km to the north-east. More than 50 types of shark live in its pristine reefs. But the archipelago’s main resident is much more lethal: a military base on Diego Garcia, the largest island, leased to America by Britain since the 1970s.

世界上的 FEW 地方与组成查戈斯群岛的 60 多个岛屿一样偏远。非洲位于西部 3,000 公里处，印度尼西亚位于东部 3,000 公里处;最近的大片陆地是斯里兰卡，位于东北部 1,700 公里处。超过 50 种鲨鱼生活在其原始的珊瑚礁中。但该群岛的主要居民要致命得多：迪戈加西亚岛（Diego Garcia）上的军事基地，这是最大的岛屿，自1970年代以来一直被英国租借给美国。

The case of Diego Garcia pulls together Britain’s troubling colonial legacy, modern concerns about human rights and international law, and the hard realities of geopolitics. Its location—midway between the Middle East and Asia—is strategically important; American planes flew sorties from it during both Gulf wars and the war in Afghanistan. Britain set up the base for America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, forcibly expelling the archipelago’s inhabitants—the Chagossians—and holding on to the islands as the British Indian Ocean Territory after Mauritius, another colonial possession in the ocean, had gained independence. America granted Britain a discount on a nuclear-weapons deal in return.

迭戈·加西亚 （Diego Garcia） 的案件将英国令人不安的殖民遗产、现代对人权和国际法的担忧以及地缘政治的严酷现实结合在一起。它位于中东和亚洲之间，具有重要的战略意义;在海湾战争和阿富汗战争期间，美国飞机都从那里出动。英国在 1960 年代末和 1970 年代初为美国建立了基地，强行驱逐了该群岛的居民——查戈斯人——并在另一个海洋殖民地毛里求斯获得独立后将这些岛屿作为英属印度洋领土。作为回报，美国在核武器交易上给予英国折扣。

On October 3rd the British government announced a preliminary deal to cede sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius. Under the agreement the Diego Garcia base will remain in British hands and under American control for the term of a (renewable) 99-year lease. Britain will also pay Mauritius to build infrastructure and, eventually, resettle some of the smaller Chagos islands. The deal is clearly good for Mauritius, and soothes a diplomatic irritant for Britain. But it doesn’t much help the Chagossians themselves. And the real beneficiary may well be the government in Beijing.

10 月 3 日，英国政府宣布了一项初步协议，将这些岛屿的主权割让给毛里求斯。根据协议，迭戈加西亚基地将继续在英国手中，并在美国控制下，租期为 99 年（可续签）。英国还将向毛里求斯支付费用，用于建设基础设施，并最终重新安置一些较小的查戈斯群岛。该协议显然对毛里求斯有利，并缓解了英国的外交刺激。但这对查戈斯人自己并没有多大帮助。而真正的受益者很可能是北京的政府。

The Mauritian government has argued that the deal marks the return of Britain’s last African colony and the righting of a historic injustice. That perspective has caught on internationally; the United Nations General Assembly voted in support of Mauritius’s claim. The reality is much messier. The link between Mauritius and the Chagos islands is fairly flimsy; the two territories are 2,000km apart and share no pre-colonial history. They were governed together as a single colony only between 1903 and 1965, when Britain paid Mauritius £3m (then $8.4m) to renounce its claim. Although the islands’ economic value is limited, claiming them allows Mauritius to greatly expand its territorial waters, as well as charge Britain and America for the Diego Garcia base.

毛里求斯政府辩称，该协议标志着英国最后一个非洲殖民地的回归，并纠正了历史上的不公正。这种观点在国际上已经流行起来;联合国大会投票支持毛里求斯的主张。现实要混乱得多。毛里求斯和查戈斯群岛之间的联系相当脆弱;这两个地区相距 2,000 公里，没有前殖民历史。仅在 1903 年至 1965 年期间，他们才作为一个单一的殖民地一起治理，当时英国向毛里求斯支付了 3m 英镑（当时为 $8.4m）以放弃其主张。尽管这些岛屿的经济价值有限，但声称拥有这些岛屿使毛里求斯能够大大扩大其领海，并向英国和美国收取迭戈加西亚基地的费用。

In 2019 the International Court of Justice issued a non-binding opinion determining that Britain’s separation of Mauritius and the Chagos Islands was unlawful, on the basis that international law forbade a colonial power from dividing a territory prior to independence. Although unenforceable, that decision galvanised international outrage and became an increasing diplomatic headache for Britain.

2019 年，国际法院发布了一份不具约束力的意见，认定英国将毛里求斯和查戈斯群岛分离为非法，理由是国际法禁止殖民国家在独立前分割领土。尽管无法执行，但这一决定激起了国际公愤，并成为英国日益头疼的外交问题。

Mostly left out of the negotiations leading up to this week’s announcement have been the Chagossians themselves. Initially taken, after expulsion, to the Seychelles or Mauritius, where many faced marginalisation and racial discrimination, they were eventually offered British citizenship; a sizable community now lives in Crawley, near Gatwick Airport. “The majority of us feel stabbed [in the back] by the UK government: unhappy, disappointed, frustrated,” says Pascalina Nellan, one British-based Chagossian. “We don’t want a change in sovereignty without consulting us. We were never consulted.” Peter Lamb, the MP for Crawley, said he has not heard a single local Chagossian voice in favour of ceding the islands to Mauritius. Pravind Jugnauth, the Mauritian prime minister, has used language that may mean only Chagossians with Mauritian citizenship would be eligible to resettle on the islands, leaving many in Britain or the Seychelles excluded.

在本周宣布这一消息的谈判中，查戈斯人自己大多被排除在外。最初，在被驱逐后，他们被带到塞舌尔或毛里求斯，那里的许多人面临边缘化和种族歧视，最终他们获得了英国公民身份;一个相当大的社区现在居住在盖特威克机场附近的克劳利。“我们大多数人都觉得英国政府在背后捅了一刀：不高兴、失望、沮丧，”一位居住在英国的查戈斯人帕斯卡利娜·内兰 （Pascalina Nellan） 说。我们不希望在没有与我们协商的情况下改变主权。我们从来没有被征询过意见。克劳利的国会议员彼得·兰姆（Peter Lamb）表示，他还没有听到任何当地查戈斯人赞成将这些岛屿割让给毛里求斯的声音。毛里求斯总理普拉温德·贾格纳特（Pravind Jugnauth）使用的语言可能意味着只有拥有毛里求斯公民身份的查戈斯人才有资格在这些岛屿上重新定居，而英国或塞舌尔的许多人被排除在外。

Publicly, the American government has been supportive of the deal. “Clearly the Americans can live with this deal enough to sign off on it, because it’s happened,” says David Blagden, of Exeter University. But “they may well retain some significant security concerns that they’ve voiced privately to the British and will have sought to get the Mauritians to mitigate.”

美国政府公开表示支持这项协议。“显然，美国人可以接受这项协议，以至于签署了它，因为它已经发生了，”埃克塞特大学（Exeter University）的戴维·布拉登（David Blagden）说。但是，“他们很可能保留一些重大的安全担忧，这些担忧已经私下向英国人表达过，并将试图让毛里求斯人缓解。

Further out, the loss of sovereignty means future Mauritian governments could also call the lease into question. Backers of the deal argue that ending legal ambiguity about the base puts it on a firmer footing. But the Philippines closed an American naval base in Subic Bay in 1992 after the Senate in Manila rejected an extension. Libya shut British and American bases in the 1970s, after Muammar Qaddafi took power. “Mauritius can always renege. When you have sovereignty you can get away with almost anything really,” says Yuan Yi Zhu, a legal academic at Policy Exchange, a think-tank. “Sovereignty is very powerful; a lease isn’t.”

此外，主权的丧失意味着未来的毛里求斯政府也可能对租约提出质疑。该协议的支持者认为，结束关于该基地的法律模糊性使其有了更坚实的基础。但在马尼拉参议院否决延期后，菲律宾于 1992 年关闭了位于苏比克湾的美国海军基地。1970 年代，穆阿迈尔·卡扎菲 （Muammar Qaddafi） 掌权后，利比亚关闭了英国和美国的基地。“毛里求斯总是会背叛。当你拥有主权时，你几乎可以逃脱任何事情，“智库政策交流（Policy Exchange）的法律学者朱袁义说。“主权非常强大;但租约不是。”

穆阿迈尔·卡扎菲 图源:百度

For Britain the upside is a diplomatic boost and the end to an embarrassing narrative about a remnant of the British Empire·. But just how much cachet Britain has bought remains uncertain. One former foreign secretary, opposed to the deal, is sceptical. “You won’t get the global south on board. This won’t do it. There will be another demand,” he says. “It is naive. Once you do something, you cannot reverse it. You’ve lost it for ever.” ■

对英国来说，好处是外交上的推动，结束了关于大英帝国残余势力的尴尬叙事。但英国究竟买了多少声望仍然不确定。一位反对该协议的前外交大臣对此表示怀疑。“你不会让南半球参与进来。这不会。还会有另一个需求，“他说。“这太天真了。一旦你做了某件事，你就无法逆转它。你已经永远失去了它。■