Sea Control - Sea Control 267 - Resolving Diego Garcia with Chirayu Thakkar

Episode Date: August 8, 2021

Links1.  "Overcoming the Diego Garcia Stalemate," by  Chirayu Thakkar, War on the Rocks, July 12, 2021.This episode was edited and produced by Marie Williams.

Hey folks, Sherrod here. Today I'm joined by Chirayu Thakkar to discuss his recent article in War on the Rocks on possible solutions for resolving the sovereignty dispute in the Chagos Archipelago. This episode was produced and edited by Marie Williams. Don't miss everything going on over at the website, simsec.org. The final call for articles for Project Triton is live. We're partnering with Lockheed Martin and Naval Warfare Studies Institute at the Naval Postgraduate School for Emerging Technologies. You can find more information about submission at simsec.org. We've also officially put out our call for articles for our end-of-year fiction contests in partnership with USNI. Again, go over to simsec.org for full details.

Finally, I want to take the opportunity to recommend our partners in the SimSec Podcast Network, the Bilge Pumps. You can find Alex, Jamie, Drack, and Apollo of Iron Brew Bottles wherever you download your podcasts. On that note, I'll turn it over to Kimber's men. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security Aloha shipmates and welcome aboard Sea Control I am joined today by Chirayu Taka and we'll be discussing his recent article in War on the Rocks Overcoming the Diego Garcia Stalemate

Chirayu, welcome and would you mind introducing yourself to our listeners Hi, Jared. Thanks for inviting me to your podcast. I'm Chirayu Thakkar, and I'm a visiting fellow at the Stimson Center. And simultaneously, I'm doing my PhD at the National University of Singapore. Well, thank you. And as a reminder, all opinions expressed are our own and not reflective of any institutions with which we might be otherwise associated. We'll jump right into the questions here then, Jirayu. How did Britain manage to retain sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago when it granted Mauritius independence in 1965? Basically, there are two ways at looking at this. One is the British way that we can't grant it complete. I mean, the British granted the complete independence to Mauritius, and they said that, okay, this particular part or this piece of land or this set of islands we need for defense purposes, and you have to lend it to us. And they allegedly paid £3 million in 1965. I think it was the Wilson administration that negotiated it during the famous Lancaster House talks.

so this was tied to independence of Mauritius and then there is other way of looking at it or the side of the story if you want that is the Mauritius side of this story which says that this was tied to independence it was not a free and fair negotiation implying there was some sort of strings attached or some sort of decision making that happened under Duras and therefore it is an incomplete decolonization. What's the significance of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius and why is the government so set on getting it back? There are multiple levels at which this question can be answered. As I said, first of all, it's an issue of national sentiment that a part of us never actually got decolonized completely. And it's a matter of national

fulfillment. There are some public sentiments associated with it. So that is at the national level. Now, speaking to people who have lived in Chagos. So in 1965, this talks, the Lancaster house talks this settlement was negotiated and 1968 onwards there were around 2 000 people who were living on this island and they were relocated some of them they went to seychelles some of them they went to the uk some of them they went to mauritius so for those people it is about reclaiming their land so that's another constituency third for mauritius it is an issue about resources so even at the height of uh lancaster house talks and uh this i have not discussed in my article but this is something i'm saying exclusively in this podcast at the height height of lancaster

house talks there is a a note as a part of the archives uh by sir siu sagar ram gulam who was actually leading the delegation and who became the first prime minister of mauritius uh and uh he says okay fine if you want this for defense purposes if you are so keen and just tied to the independence process it's okay but there are three or four caveats or riders from our end and two of them were related to fishing rights and also about any minerals or oil that may appear in the chagos bank in the future so even in this critical moment of independence the elite head the fishing rights and and the resources on mine so it is also about that uh at the fourth level uh for mauritius it is also about political glory so if you look at the

post-independence history of mauritius primarily two families have ruled mauritius uh they have alternated power between two uh between two of them barring a brief interregnum of two years so whoever completes this incomplete decolonization process he will go down into history and i'm saying he deliberately because no she has come from the family so he will go down into history as someone who actually addressed this national fulfillment issue so that is that level and finally if you look at the east african littorals you will see that all the strategic real estate that jibouti and the countries they are leasing out they are gaining millions for doing nothing i mean uh taking example of jibouti just from the united states

they get 70 million dollars a year and from china they get another 20 million and they have i think now given base to six seven eight countries so in a way uh it's a financial loss it's a resource laws. It's a sentimental issue. It's a reclaiming issue and a political issue. So there are multiple ways in which Mauritians look at it. I'd like to ask two follow-up questions, if you'll permit me, based on that answer. The first being, do Mauritians have the rights to fish inside the Chagos archipelago? Were they able to successfully negotiate those rights? the key one of the key uh troubles that mauritians had with the brits uh was in 2010 when uh britain this uh actually declared the entire area as a marine protected area mpa

which curtailed the rights so if you are asking me about present status because this marine protected area is enforced around Chagos Bank. Currently, in the restricted area, no. Got it. Thank you. Then the second follow-up question was specifically related to the quote-unquote lease terms between the U.S. and the U.K. Does the U.S. actually pay the U.K. for its basing rights in Diego Garcia? No, it's a free right currently for the United States. And there are some archival documents that the research and development surcharge for the Polaris missile, that was around, I think, 14 million or something, roughly. And at that time, the United States waived that surcharge.

So it was a one-time fee, if you want to say, for the Diego Garcia. I think it was some sort of a quid pro quo. But presently, the United States is paying nothing. Thank you for addressing those two follow-ups there. So what is India's role in this dispute, and why have they chosen to align themselves with Mauritius? Okay. So we have to first understand that India is not a direct stakeholder in this dispute.

So United Kingdom and Mauritius, they are contesting the sovereignty. United States has a base, but India doesn't have a direct role in it. But still, I have mentioned India as a key player in the article and there are reasons for it. First, India and Mauritius, they have very close ties. In fact, it is often referred to in joint statements or sometimes by political elites as little India, there is huge diaspora or people of Indian origin who are now important, even to the extent that the Mauritian Coast Guard, it's always headed by an officer that is deputed by New Delhi.

so in a way if you look this is like a multi-stranded very strong bond between India and Mauritius and any international offensive or any international step that Mauritius wants to take it will usually have India by its side so most recently Mauritius was on the financial action task force that is the global terror watchdog on its gray list and it wanted to exit the gray list and it reached out to New Delhi that please help us and there are UN insiders whom I have interacted with and they think that Mauritius would never have been able to pull off such a diplomatic victory against the United Kingdom without India drumming up support directly indirectly or whatever phase. Now why India

is doing with this is because if India does not continue to support Mauritius as an old friend first of all it's a principal issue because India has always stood by decolonization it has its own history with colonization so that's a principal issue but at a more instrumental level if it does not stand with Mauritius China is already making huge progress politically as well as economically with Mauritius and not having India on its side leaves it in the search of another patron and that can be disastrous both for India's foreign policy as well and for this issue as well so and on the other hand India is also good friend with the United States and the United Kingdom as well so when Mauritius launched this international offensive going to the United Nations Central

Assembly or going to the International Court of Justice. It was both then British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and then US National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster who reached out to Delhi and said that, can you please lean on Mauritius and try to stop it from going international and embarrassing us? So this makes India as a key arbiter and a key stakeholder. So we've discussed sort of the defense implications. I think we've mentioned them in passing. We haven't gone deep into them. But what is the significance of the archipelago to the United Kingdom? Talking about United Kingdom, I think at the most basic level, it is about prestige. So as a former self of its grand empire and as a waning naval power, having overseas base is a matter of prestige. But more than that, I think it allows Britain to contribute to the Western Alliance or the Five Eyes Alliance, because a lot of important intelligence and recon facilities are based there.

So without expanding resources, it allows the United Kingdom to say that, OK, we are also contributing to this alliance and we are contributing to the United States and this system of architecture, this architecture, security architecture that the United States has put in place. So directly, the United Kingdom does not have a lot of skin. But it's an indirect way of showing to the alliance that, OK, we are also contributing. We haven't brought up the major complicating factor, and that's the U.S. military facility at Diego Garcia. Why is that facility important to the region? Yeah, why is that facility important? I think there are some scholars, and allow me to quote them, who have said that it is the most important and expensive U.S. military base overseas. and perhaps Jared I think it is because of the sensible central location that it is and we have seen its utility without like even speculating that how it can be even if we look at the past utilities and current utilities Diego Garcia is currently considered as you know one of the

central hub for the worldwide network of supply depots for fuel and combat so it hosts a lot of critical inventories and sometimes you can have strategy but if you don't have enough logistics strategy is useless so it it is actually some people have described to me as a backbone of logistics so so that is one way of of looking at it the second is it's a critical launch pad So we know the many bombers it has. And in the past, it has used it as a launchpad for air force missions in the Middle East. And it can reach up to Afghanistan from that particular base. And given the tumult and turmoil Afghanistan has had, the United States is looking for bases nearby.

But if need be, actually, flight sorties can go from Diego Garcia all the way up to Afghanistan. That's what I'm being told. And in the past, in the Iraq war and other operations in the Middle East, it played a very critical role. But even more important to that, it has one of the four or five GPS ground stations. So that makes it critical for the United States. It has deep space surveillance systems and also subsurface oceanic intelligence station. So in terms of recon, in terms of having a launch pad for airstrikes, in terms of critical inventory and logistics. And apart from that, we have heard some unsubstantiated reports about rendition of flights also. So in a way, everything that you can imagine a base can do, all those facilities are either stationed or reported in the past.

Now, Mauritius has offered to lease a facility back to the U.S. in exchange for U.S. support in the sovereignty dispute. So why, in your opinion, has the U.S. refused to accept that offer? let me put it uh this way that the u.s would be uh more happy uh with such an arrangement with an old ally uh whose common uh interest are and mesh uh and there is no reason for united states to actually snub and an old ally like the united kingdom but if you look at the offer and the fine print of the offer it is not until most recently that mauritius has come out in open and said that okay we are going to offer you the base back and we want your presence so they have come out in open publicly started endorsing united states presence there earlier

from what we know from cables is that these conversations were happening in private and whenever they reached out to the Americans the Americans would say that oh we are tenants it's not for us you go and negotiate this with United Kingdom and when they would go to United Kingdom there is this infamous phrase now by Prime Minister Gordon Brown where it says it is up to the americans we don't use it so it was a bit of a ping pong between the uh between united kingdom and the united states but when mauritius started making public offer to to make it persuasive for washington they usually say this that we want to give this base to you we want uh the military facility and its utility uninterrupted but the important rider that comes along with this public

offer is that in accordance with international law and in my own analysis and in analysis of a lot of other international law scholars this particular phase in accordance with international law can be problematic at many levels now most importantly to start with is at the nuclear level So, it's the United States policy to neither confirm nor deny nuclear weapons on its submarines, on its other weapons, other platforms, maybe its bombers or any other actually vehicles while they are in transport internationally. uh now mauritius is signatory to the palindaba treaty and this palindaba treaty has a particular clause that uh you cannot have nuclear weapons of your own but you also cannot station nuclear weapons by any other nuclear weapon state so the five uh official nws states the nuclear weapon states they can also not uh station nuclear weapons on your territory now today technically

the the diego garcia base is a british territory but tomorrow if it becomes a mauritian territory then even on diego garcia the palindaba treaty would be applicable it means that the united states cannot use it for uh any stationing or or passing off of submarines or passing off of any other vehicle that has a nuclear bomb loaded on it or a nuclear explosive loaded on it so that that's the first aspect now there are some people who have said that okay you can actually enter there is no port call timing in it and that's the that's the way you can actually skirt around the treaty and station for some time or you can continuously station for a little longer so on and so forth but mauritius has never shown that eagerness or or the behavior

past behavior of the mauritian leaders is contrary to that and i have described a few instances in my article that they have called for IAEA inspection of the Diego Garcia base or there was this USS Amorias land that was passing through Diego Garcia and they would have been tipped off from somewhere that has nukes on it and they launched a diplomatic protest with the local mission that this is unacceptable, we are signatories of Palinda by treaty, so on and so forth. So, this can be an issue. Now, allow me to stretch this a little bit. United States, as a nuclear weapon state, as an NWS, has not signed the treaty. It has signed the treaty, but the US Congress has not ratified the treaty. and same way but taking a cue from United States even Russia has signed the treaty but its Duma

has never ratified it so technically speaking United States does not have to abide by it because not someone who has ratified the treaty interestingly United Kingdom as a nuclear weapon state it has both signed and ratified it this treaty but has put an asterisk mark saying that this treaty would not be applicable to BIOT, that is British Indian Overseas Territories, which includes Diego Garcia Beves. And it says that it's not applicable because it's not a part of Africa, it's a British territory. And to extend your point, Britain has not only made this arrangement just for the Palindaba Treaty, it has made similar arrangement for another eight or nine treaties which are environmental which are human rights and torture related

so some scholars have essentially described Diego Garcia Bezos or this old Chagos Hachipilago as a some sort of a treaty black hole so no international law no international convention or covenant is applicable there and therefore there is unrestricted utility Coming back to the question that why Mauritius' offer is unacceptable, my hunch is that so far as they continue to trumpet this in accordance with international law, it would remain as unattractive as it can be. So you have proposed co-management of the archipelago as a means of resolving this solution. What does co-management mean in this instance, and why are you suggesting that as a solution? Okay. So first, let me give you the why part. So there are a few reasons that all four countries can resolve this issue. And one, primarily, all four parties are democracies. Second, all four parties have a very clear, and again, I mean, India has a very restricted role, but at least if you want the three parties, they have a very common geopolitical orientation. and mauritians have time and again privately and publicly said that we won't do anything that

geopolitizes uh india's interest or that of its uh partners or its friends so in a way nobody wants to uproot uh american military presence from this particular piece of land so to say uh it's not about a geopolitical game where who will try to get the other out they are all on the same side but they are unable to negotiate because parties are not able to understand each other's interests now the base was initially leased for 50 years which ended in 2016 and there has been now an extension for another 20 years so the new renegotiation will happen in 2036 now until 2036 comes you cannot sit across the table and continue pointing fingers at each other because this issue is now becoming an international embarrassment for the united kingdom for the united states

and when china lost the case against the philippines the global times said that oh no this is something similar to the kingdom and mauritius so it is china who is actually pointing fingers at you in a very tacit way i have not come across any foreign office statement so far but uh global times uh it effectively speaks for the ccp as we understand so uh instead of this issue going on like this without any resolution until 2036 and it creates problems within parties who who want rules-based order in a way but this is finding a middle ground and you can find middle ground between democracies it's it's not difficult so this is the why part of it that why some solution i call it a co-management solution but there can be any solution to this this is just

one way of pointing that a solution is possible so what is co-management and what co-management looks like now i have not prepared like a detailed fine print and i can or any analyst cannot prepare a fine print to the extent that every possible issue is covered unless parties sit across the table. But I have mooted an idea and what co-management looks like. So in this co-management, you don't give up your sovereignty prejudice. You don't give up your sovereignty claims. But currently, it is actually administered by the United Kingdom. So there is a London-based administrator who looks after the issues, revenues, permits, so on and so forth. Everything is administered by this this can be shared by a committee or two administrators one is from

mauritius one is from the united kingdom they can jointly manage and they can jointly manage in a way that does not disrupt the the logistical part of it the military logistical part of it so all the civilian issues are there you can start from there as a first point and then gradually move along second uh now it is out in open that united kingdom uh actually created this marine protected area not for the purpose of conservation there are leaked cables which are produced in the court as well uh there is very clear uh negotiation or discussion happening between uh diplomats uh from London and Washington, that the primary purpose of creating this MPA is to give uninterrupted access

to the Americans. So I think that is unfair. And that is the Northern part of Chagos bank. There are big islands and you don't need to curtail fishing in that particular part. It in no ways interrupts your base or the services at the base. And then you are partly unfair to the Mauritians.

So the marine protected area can be reduced, fishing rights can be restored, and this joint committee or a pair of administrators, they can sit, they can look after civil issues, they can issue fishing rights, revenue sharing arrangement can be there. And if, let's say, Mauritius is also interested in conserving the Chagos Bank, then the way Seychelles basically did a debt swap for its conservation efforts, I think in a way Mauritius can benefit by allowing the conservation activity to continue. a Chagos bank can actually be put under some trust and in a way that process can continue and whatever amount it is losing because of fishing rights that swap can't happen so this is a matter of fine print and each party's concerns to be addressed but I think that it is not difficult to come to table and give Mauritius some say to this until 2036 happens until or at least before that, when you are prepared, all these legal issues are sorted and you are prepared for the transfer of sovereignty, which eventually has to happen at some point.

So final question then, in your opinion, would the Mauritians agree with your proposal or some variant of your proposal here? Jared, I don't see a reason why they would not. And let me give the credit where it is due i'm not the originator of this plan it it is mauritians who did this for a similar island with the french so there is island uh in the vicinity known as the tourmaline island uh variety of it is contested between france and mauritius and in the 1990s i mean it's a one mile by one mile island it's it's not at this big but uh france had some utility to it maybe dual use uh but uh it has some utility to that island and in the 1990s they decided that let's go for joint management and it's mauritians who came up with the plan in 1990s

and then in 2010 they prepared the fine print of it uh the negotiations went on for a while But after 2010, the French were going to ratify it. It did not go to the parliament until 2017. And at the 11th hour, the French parliament decided not to ratify it. So if the Mauritians, they were willing, the cases are both similar, but if they were willing to go for co-management of Tromelin Island, I don't see a reason why they could not go for the co-management of Chagos Island. And again, this is temporary. I'm not saying that this is a permanent solution. But until you sort out the legal issues or international law issues or the utility related issues, or the repatriation of Chagossians issues, there's a lot at stake. This is, as I have said, it's a stopgap measure. Instead of this issue festering and becoming an embarrassment for all four democracies and China pointing finger at you, it's better that you create at least this as a stopgap measure. So this is a stopgap measure. That's what I want to re-emphasize. And yeah, that's my answer. This was phenomenal. I want to thank you for coming on today. Where can we find you online and what are you working on next? Thanks, Jared, again for inviting me. I can be reached on Twitter at Thakka Chirayu. And yeah, I started researching on this issue, fascinated by why India did not vote with its close partners, United States and United Kingdom. And I'm looking at more such not so, or let's say, counterintuitive India's behavior in international arena and Indian multilateralism. So yeah, these are some of the projects I'm working on next.

Thank you for joining us and to the listeners. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 Oh, help me, Bob, I'm going to be out of here. Why are you going to be out of here? Oh, help me, Bob, I'm going to be out of here. I'm going to be out of here tomorrow.