In a shocking turn of events, in August 2022 President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih sent over a letter to the Mauritius Prime Minister expressing the Maldives’ acknowledgement and support of the Mauritius claim on the Chagos Islands.
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The British-Indian territory Chagos Islands has become an interest between countries in the past two years. Since 2022, a handful of countries have been debating about who has the biggest claims to these beautiful lands, with people sharing their own version of how civilization came to be in the Chagos Islands.
Located relatively near the Southern islands of the Maldives, the Chagos Archipelago are 64 islands divided into seven different Atolls. According to the most commonly shared knowledge about the history of the Chagos Islands, these beautiful and scenic islands were uninhabited until the 18th century when the French established copra plantations with the usage of slavery in 1793. And by the 18th century, the islands were under the British territory ceded with Mauritius. As far as this history goes, the first islanders in the Chagos Archipelago were slave workers who were contracted by plantation owners. Though they were known as residents of the island, the residents were not allowed to own land or houses on this island.
According to the British Indian Territory, the United Kingdom gave Mauritius a grant of £3 million in recognition of the Chagos Archipelago and, among other legally binding undertakings, made a promise to cede the islands to Mauritius once they were no longer needed for defence. This promise was repeated by succeeding governments. Along with this, the UK also contributed to the cost of building an airport to acknowledge the separation of their islands, even though they were given up after Seychelles gained independence.
So where does the Maldives come into play in all this talk between the Chagos islands, the UK and Mauritius?
In a shocking turn of events, in August 2022 President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih sent over a letter to the Mauritius Prime Minister expressing the Maldives’ acknowledgement and support of the Mauritius claim on the Chagos Islands. This came as a surprise to many as the Maldives has taken no explicit sides on this argument in the past, and for the President of the nation to take this stand made a majority of the people feel extremely blindsided.
While there were no recent sidings on this in the 90s Maldives is known to side with the Brits on this matter, later changing their opinion leading to major criticism. The latest stance, however, got a lot of criticism domestically as Maldivians started talking about the Maldives’ own history with Chagos Islands.
Following this stance by the President, many of his rivals and those in power also publicly voiced their disapproval regarding this matter. One of the most influential people and the Speaker of the parliament of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed also publicly stated that the Government has no right to stand in conceding with another country while the Maldives has its own claim to these islands.
With all these countries fighting over the claims to Mauritius, the Maldives comes into play because if the Chagos Islands are given away as part of Mauritius the Maldives would be losing claim to the fishing zone where Southern Atolls such as Fuvahmulah and Addu are known to fish popularly.
While former President Mohamed Nasheed has publicly stated his disagreement, local news media have pointed out the fact that this is also a different stance than the one he took back in 2011 during his visit to Mauritius, then as President.
These heated discussions surrounding the claims on Chagos Islands have been going on for decades, however, the most heated discussions started in 2022 and it is finally going to come to an end on the 28th of April 2023.
For the Maldivians, this decision will be an important one as this will be the final decision as to whether or not how much of the Maldivian southern fishing zone will be lost to this decision.
