Sea Control - Sea Control 552 Diego Garcia with Nitya Labh

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

Links1. "Why Diego Garcia Matters," by Nitya Labh, Foreign Policy, May 30, 2024.

You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International and Maritime Security. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. Today, we're welcoming Nitya Lab, and we're going to discuss her recent article in Foreign Policy Magazine, Why Diego Garcia Matters. Nitya, welcome, and can you please tell us a little bit more about yourself? Sure. Hi, everyone. My name is Nitya Lab. I am a former James C. Gaither Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where I worked for the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs on South Asia issues and the Indo-Pacific. In the time after that, I was accepted for the Schwarzman Scholarship and will be going abroad in the next year to complete my graduate studies at

Tsinghua University in Beijing, studying Indo-Pacific and U.S.-China cooperation. Thanks. And as a reminder, all opinions are our own and not reflective of any institution with which we might be otherwise associated. So let's just dive right in and just get started with a very basic question. Where is Diego Garcia and why is that important? Yeah, thanks. I think that those two questions really go hand in hand because why Diego Garcia is important is very closely tied to where Diego Garcia is. Diego Garcia is an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It's the largest and southernmost of 60 islands in the Chagos Archipelago, which currently falls in an area called the British Indian Ocean Territory.

This is geographically significant because it's equidistant from the Straits of Malacca in Southeast Asia, as it is from the Bab el-Mandeb Strait near the Red Sea. So it's equally spread between Indonesia and the east coast of Africa. It sits at the heart of the Indian Ocean, which is a critical maritime theater that covers Africa, the Middle East, South, Southeast Asia, all the way down to Australia. The Indian Ocean hosts over a third of the world's bulk cargo traffic and two-thirds of the world's oil shipments. From a demographic perspective, Africa and Southeast Asia are expected to see major population growth in the coming decades. Already, India has become the world's most populous country. Much of this population lives and trades along the Indian Ocean

Rim. So in total, the Indian Ocean hosts about 2.9 billion people. And so Diego Garcia sitting at the heart of it makes it really strategically important. Second, and maybe more importantly than that, is that the island of Diego Garcia hosts a joint U.S.-U.K. military base, the only U.S. military base in this part of the world. It's previously been used to support U.S. operations in the Middle East, and as part of the Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility, Diego Garcia is a huge part of U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy. Diego Garcia has been the subject of a sovereignty dispute between the United Kingdom and Mauritius over the past few decades. The island's role in U.S. strategy raises the specter of this dispute so that it's not just about territory, but the

Diego-Garcia dispute has huge implications for U.S. credibility, international order, the British Commonwealth, and rule of law. And I want to expand on that just a little bit. Today, the world is facing an increasingly contested political and geographic environment. Over the past few years, there have been a significant increase in interstate conflict around the world, from Russia-Ukraine to Israel-Palestine to India-China and the South China Sea, just to name a few. In this moment, it's extremely important that countries like the U.S. and the U.K. take actions to affirm their commitments to sovereignty, rule of law, and international order. The International Court of Justice, the U.N. General Assembly, and the

International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea have all ruled judgments on the Diego Garcia dispute in favor of Mauritius. Regardless of this international opinion, the UK and the US have ignored them. The Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, the Court of Justice, and the UN are institutions that we rely on to respond to and defend the current global order against aggressors and adversaries. So we need to hold ourselves to the same or a higher standard from the US perspective. I would argue that the successful resolution of the Diego Garcia dispute would reaffirm Western commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, reinforce U.S. credibility, and demonstrate the ability of the international order to deliver results for all of its members, not just those with big militaries. thank you um so in regard to the dispute is there an actual prospect of settlement in the near future yeah i think to summarize the dispute at a surface level we could say diego garcia is about

which country has rightful claim over the chagos archipelago the united kingdom or the republic of mauritius however over the course of the history the dispute has spilled over into other issues, including decolonization, force removal, environmental protection, and nuclear nonproliferation. So to explain where we are today, I kind of want to walk you through the history of the dispute and touch on all these issues as I do. Okay. For centuries, the Chagos archipelago was the subject of European colonialism, thanks in part to its geography, which I talked about earlier. Around the 1950s and 60s, the United States began seeking a base in the Indian Ocean to contain the Soviet threat during the Cold War. U.S. planners approached the U.K., and in 1964,

both countries began formulating a plan to detach and retain the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius when they anticipated Mauritius would seek independence. In exchange, Mauritius was promised continued fishing rights and access to the archipelago, which its residents depended on for their livelihoods. It's important to note that at this time, the United Nations had passed multiple resolutions on decolonization, one of which banned the breakup of colonies before independence. So at the inception of this joint US-UK project, there was already a violation of international rules and norms. In 1971, the US and UK forcefully removed all the inhabitants of the archipelago and began construction of their military facility. The islanders were sent to

Mauritius and nearby Seychelles, where they faced extreme poverty and discrimination, and many eventually died as a result of those circumstances. By 2000, the British High Court found that its own government's forceful removal of the islanders had been illegal and granted them the immediate right of return to any islands except Diego Garcia. At the time of the ruling, British and U.S. officials opposed the plan for resettlement, so much so that in 2008, the British House of Lords overturned the court's ruling. The U.K. government faced a lot of backlash for its decision. By 2009 and 2010, the British government decided to establish a marine protected area around the archipelago. Why? Well, according to leaked diplomatic cables

between the UK and the US, the marine protected area was specifically designed to prevent any resettlement plans for the Chagosians. By banning fishing, the MPA also reversed the UK's original commitment to provide Mauritians with continued fishing rights and access to the waters around the Chagos archipelago. That's not all. The MPA makes a special exception for Diego Garcia to serve the interests of those living on the military base. Recreational fishing in the Diego Garcia exclusion zone amounts to about 28 tons of fishing catch per year, including regionally protected fishing stock. So it raises the question, what does a marine protected area protect? In this way, it becomes clear that the U.S. and the U.K. used environmental law as a tool to uphold their

security interests in violation of legal commitments to Mauritius. And this isn't some old issue that's being dug up. This was established in 2010, which is fairly recent history. Over time, this dispute has also become entrenched in regional debates over nuclear proliferation. In 1996, Africa became a nuclear weapon-free zone under the Treaty of Pelindaba. The treaty also includes two supplementary protocols for non-African nuclear states to commit that they won't violate the terms of the treaty. As an African country, Mauritius is party to the agreement, and as nuclear weapons states, the U.K. and the U.S. signed the additional protocols. According to all African countries participating, the Chagos Archipelago and Diego

Garcia are included in the nuclear weapons freeze zone's parameters. However, the U.K., U.S., and France claim that Chagos and Diego Garcia are exempt. The exemption preserves the ability of either the U.S. or the U.K. to station nuclear weapons on Diego Garcia in the future if deemed necessary, but it's inconsistent with their enforcement of other related treaty commitments and their principles to nuclear non-proliferation. In 2019, the International Court of Justice found that the U.K. breached international law in seeking to maintain its claim over the Chagos Archipelago. A vote by the UN General Assembly endorsed this ruling and demanded that the UK remove its colonial administration within six months. In January 2021, the International Tribunal for

the Law of the Sea, the same tribunal that ruled against China's claims in the South China Sea, ruled that Mauritius, not the UK, has legal sovereignty over Diego Garcia. Regardless of that international opinion, London and Washington ignored the decisions, like I said before. And that kind of brings us up to today. Around 2022-2023, the UK reopened negotiations with Mauritius to try to settle the dispute. But six months ago, the UK dropped the negotiations, citing government concerns that ceding Chagos to Mauritius would endanger UK and US defense interests in the Indo-Pacific. In terms of a chance for settlement in the future, I don't know. Noting the significance of the base in Diego Garcia, Mauritius offered the U.S.

a 99-year lease on the island in exchange for full sovereignty. But the offer included this commitment of unhindered operation in accordance with all international law. But when Mauritius says unhindered operation and international law, there's this outstanding question about whether or not Diego Garcia is part of the African nuclear weapons free zone international law. And so the proposed lease raises an underlying tension about the principles of American and British nuclear nonproliferation. So under the current terms, the nuclear status of Diego Garcia has to be settled before the sovereignty dispute can be settled. The U.S. lease of Diego Garcia will expire in 2036. That's a lease from the United Kingdom. So there's a lot

on the table for everyone here. I think that there are ways the US and UK can fulfill their operational defense requirements while addressing Mauritius's concerns and complying with international law. But ultimately, it'll be up to the governments of each country. Thank you. And just one thing I'd like to ask. The issue with the non-nuclear would be that it would prevent nuclear carriers and submarines from even docking there. Yes. So it's not an issue of weapons? Yes. Okay. So how does Diego Garcia contribute to U.K.'s strategic operations in the Pacific?

Okay. Historically, the base on Diego Garcia has served as a critical node for American air operations during the Gulf War, Operation Desert Fox in 1998, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Post 9-11, it has also been used, allegedly, as a detention center by the CIA. As I mentioned before, Diego Garcia is the only U.S. military base in the Indian Ocean, so it's hugely important for anchoring the American presence in this part of the world. In March, April of this year, the U.S. sent two B-52 bombers to Diego Garcia as part of a mission to strengthen readiness and deterrence in this region. In this way, I think Diego Garcia supports U.S. power projection in the Indo-Pacific. And that's where I want to go back to a previous point that I made. If the purpose of Diego Garcia

is to project U.S. power in the Indo-Pacific, then the dispute over the island also says something about the kind of power that we are projecting. There are 14 ongoing sovereignty disputes in the Indian Ocean, demonstrating the tension between the priorities of Indian Ocean countries and great powers. Many of these disputes are remnants of colonialism. Resolution of the dispute would then project a moral power, not just a military one. Diego Garcia is an opportunity to affirm the rules-based international order, and this order's ability to deliver results for everyone. Projecting that message in the Indo-Pacific matters, especially as a corollary to sovereignty disputes elsewhere in this theater, like in the South China Sea.

Right. And what is the United States' view of this dispute? To date, the U.S. government hasn't acknowledged culpability, paid compensation, or proper compensation, or assisted the Chagosians in any of their efforts. Funny enough, the U.S. Navy planner who initiated the plan to build a base on Diego Garcia, named Stuart Barber, urged the U.S. to provide assistance to the Chagosians after he found out what happened to them. Professor David Vine from American University has done extensive archival research on the island of Diego Garcia, and he published a quote that he found from Stuart Barber that I want to share here. The quote says,

The U.S. will justifiably be held guilty as the most obvious beneficiary of being an accessory and evading responsibility or compassion. It's too late to undo most of the human damage, but perhaps it will allow and assist those evictees who still wish to return to at least the northern Chagos. It is my firm opinion that there was never any good reason for evicting the residents of the northern Chagos, a hundred miles or more from Diego Garcia. Probably the natives could have even been safely allowed to remain on the east side of the Diego Garcia Atoll. It would be safe to let them go back to the northern Chagos, certainly. Now, the United States doesn't have a direct say over who controls Chagos. That would be the

United Kingdom. However, as someone who jointly operates the base and pushed for its creation, Washington has powerful say with the United Kingdom. I think it's also important to note that Mauritius, the UK, and the U.S. are not the only ones who have an interest at stake here. Both China and India have a relationship with Mauritius and a presence in the Indian Ocean region. So the U.S. view is one thing, but its strategy and competition is another. We'll have to see how the U.S. calculus evolves, if at all, in the coming years over Diego Garcia. All right. So can you expand on what Meritus' view of the usage of Diego Garcia as a major strategic outpost is? And what is Meritus' general view of the strategic balance of the region?

So from public statements, Mauritius is aware of the importance that the U.S. has attached to its base in Diego Garcia, and it appreciates the fact that the base has been used to protect oil routes and ensure security in the Indo-Pacific. Because it recognizes the common good purposes that the base serves and the importance to the U.S., it offered the U.S. a 99-year lease on the island. But again, that goes back to the nuclear questions and who really has sovereignty in that least situation. Generally speaking, though, island states in the Indian Ocean prioritize different issues than larger countries like the U.S. In general, they prioritize sovereignty, blue economy, and climate change, whereas littoral nations or outside powers speak in terms of great

power competition, access to commerce, and protection of sea lanes of communication. The difference between those two agendas and perspectives often creates a disconnect between countries that engage in the Indian Ocean and the island states that live there. So it's not so much about balance of power and strategy for Mauritius. Since the early 1980s, every Mauritian leader has continued to make clear that Chagos is an integral part of the country. For descendants and former inhabitants of the Chagos Archipelago, this dispute is about their dignity, heritage, and legacy. I don't claim to speak for Mauritius, but I think that its government will take steps that it believes are in the country's best interest, whether that's with the U.S., the U.K., India,

China, or any other partner. The United States and U.K. should take advantage of the opportunity to strengthen their relationship to Mauritius and reinforce their regional security status by resolving the dispute in a way that hopefully serves the interests of all three countries. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today. I'd like to thank my guest, Nitya Lab. Nitya, where can we find you online and what are you working on next? You can find me on LinkedIn. I don't have an academic Twitter quite yet, but I hope to continue publishing research, please stay tuned. And I hope to report from Beijing. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks again for joining us. To listeners, thanks for tuning in,

and we'll see you next time. Thank you. Oh, my.