
UK suffers defeat in UN vote on Chagos Islands - kaisix
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/22/uk-suffers-crushing-defeat-un-vote-chagos-islands
======
tangue
This is why you shouldn't use .io domains. It sounds cool but you're
indirectly sponsoring a military base where people were tortured and because
of which people were deported.

~~~
crowbahr
Based on cursory research the British government has refuted the claim that
any money is given to them from .io domain registrations.

~~~
tangue
That's an answer to a question in the House of Lords. It needs to be read
between the lines. Government doesn't effectively receive anything but
according to the second article cited by Wikipedia, Paul Kane, who originally
runned the .io domain said that the _Crown Bank_ was receiving money :

 _" In a second conversation with Kane, he reiterated that “we do remit money
to the Crown bank in accordance with our agreement. We pay X amount per name.”
Kane did not say what “X amount” was, due to confidentiality."_

Meanwhile it seems that in 2017 Affilias has bought the .io domain for 70
millions dollars...

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duxup
>The UK retained possession of the Chagos archipelago after Mauritius gained
independence in 1968, effectively paying Mauritius more than £4m for the
islands.

Is the idea here that this deal was unfair?

~~~
kaisix
As I understand, there were 2 main issues (1) sovereignty over the Chagos
islands (2) the int'l human rights issue because of the forced exile of the
natives.

The natives are not allowed to return to the archipelago because of the US
military base in Diego Garcia,

Mauritius argued that it leased the land to the UK and the UK sub-leased it to
the US. On the other hand, UK said the archipelago is a British territory and
it has sovereignty over the islands.

can £4m compensate for the human rights violations on that scale ?

~~~
duxup
Well that was the price a while back but:

>The UK recently set aside £40m for exiled Chagossians who live mainly in the
UK, Seychelles and Mauritius. Relatively little has been spent so far because
programmes are being developed.

Not to say that automatically resolves anything of course.

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ilaksh
Does this mean that people can return to those islands?

Certainly seems unlikely they would close the military base unless they were
forced to so do by some military or substantial economic action.

This type of thing is what makes me worried about the long term sustainability
of US security. The paradigm is not really rule of law when it comes right
down to it, it's might makes right. This is an inherently insecure paradigm.

Whether there can actually ever be a different paradigm seems difficult
though.

~~~
pc2g4d
I'd imagine this is the sort of situation where Mauritius uses this
embarrassing (for the UK and US) defeat to pressure the UK/US for a lucrative
base hosting agreement. There's little value to Mauritius themselves in having
a massive naval complex on an isolated island, their economy can't sustain the
sort of military that would benefit from it. Their best use of it would likely
be to reestablish sovereignty and then "rent" it to "great powers" like the
US/UK, Russia, China, India, etc.

~~~
hudibras
Mauritius has made it clear to the US that they do not intend to change the
status of the base in any way. It will simply be on a Mauritian island instead
of a UK island.

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papaf
This is a British source that describes why the Chagos islands are so
contentious:

[https://politicsfirst.co.uk/editorials/britains-shame-the-
et...](https://politicsfirst.co.uk/editorials/britains-shame-the-ethnic-
cleansing-of-the-chagos-islands/)

~~~
gedy
That article is misleading, calling it ethnic cleansing of "indigenous
peoples". These islands were uninhabited prior to European contact.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia)

~~~
ganeshkrishnan
Not true at all. Diego Garcia is just one island among these Archipelago and
it was always inhabited by the native creole-speaking "Chagossians".

UK evicted them forcefully in the 70's or 80's I think.

~~~
viraptor
The way I understand what I've found is, the islands were not inhabited before
the Europeans arrived there, and "Chagossians" weren't native. They were
brought in as slave workers after the settlement. (Then, the population
expanded with voluntary migration)

~~~
ganeshkrishnan
Regardless of their ancestry timeline, the natives have known to have been
living there for at least three centuries. Expelling them now is cruel and
unwarranted.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Chagossians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Chagossians)

~~~
viraptor
What do you mean by "natives"? It's often used for the first people - and as
weird as it is in this case, by that definition Europeans were the natives on
that island. If we ignore the timeline, then does Dubai become natively
Indian?

This does not mean I disagree with the expelling being cruel and unwarranted.
I do think it shouldn't belong to the UK, just don't think that "natives" is
meaningful here or explains the reasons.

~~~
ganeshkrishnan
I used to term natives to refer to people who have been living here for
centuries and have made it their home.

The equivalent is expelling everyone from Australia because US/UK wants to
build military base there.

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dalbasal
What do people here think about thee role of the UN here?

Without unanimity in the security council, there doesn't tend to be much
action they can take. Even with the SC, the track record of reaching
resolutions isn't great.

In principle, it makes sense for there to be a formalized "community of
nations" to express a decision. But, in terms of having a practical role that
leads to resolving these kinds of issues... would it be better if they now
aimed for a reperations/compromise solution?

I can't see british sovereignty or US occupancy changing. Is the right thing
now to leave chagosians with a recognized moral right, with no hope of
exercising it in practice or to go for compromise?

Just curious what people think.

~~~
jopsen
The UN isn't perfect, but this is still a pretty official slap in the face.

------
klipt
Réunion
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Réunion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Réunion)
is much closer to Mauritius and claimed by France, I wonder if that's why
France abstained on the vote?

~~~
sispeo
No the folks there are happy to be French, enjoying the EU passport and French
safety net.

~~~
klipt
I'm sure a bunch of people in third world countries would be happy to have
US/EU passports, but it would still be colonialism for US/European countries
to annex them, wouldn't it?

~~~
Tsubasachan
Colonialism is a double edged sword. France now has a responsibility to those
islands. The Netherlands has the same problem: a bunch of fairly useless
Caribbean islands that were a good idea at the time but are an anachronistic
leftover from a different past now.

It would be criminal to just dump them now.

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tluyben2
I am not really interested in politics, but I am curious why countries
abstain. They surely have an opinion; my countries (born in NL, live in ES)
had NL abstain and ES vote against the UK. Now I can understand why Spain
voted; a lot of people are of the opinion that UK left EU and they should
suffer a lot for it. It's a underbelly thing but it's quite accepted here.
They want Gibraltar and they want to see them (UK) suffer for what they messed
up (opinions vary but even my most angry brexit voting friends of mine would
not do that in a re-vote). That the Netherlands didn't vote is also not a
surprise; our gov has no backbone (see MH shoot down/Russia/Olympics crap;
same jellyfish still is the boss; he is smart but people want to see a lot
more action, not just moving with the tides) and just tries to be everyone's
friend. But France & Germany? That must be political but why? Is that because
ties to UK/US or ?

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
I'm sure that Spain would vote against the UK irrespective of Brexit. If you
have some territory illegally occupied by the British in your very country,
it's obvious that you are going to vote against the British occupying
territory elsewhere. It's coherent with Spanish foreign policy for many
decades, from far before Brexit was even a talking point.

I haven't noticed any will of the Spanish government to punish the UK for
Brexit. That might be an opinion of laypeople, but not of the government as
far as I know. In fact, I think Spain was the first country to sign an
agreement so that the British can keep entering the country without a visa
after Brexit, as long as there is reciprocity.

~~~
arethuza
That would perhaps be a bit hypocritical of Spain given their own enclaves
like Melilla and Ceuta in Morocco - both of which are claimed by Morocco?

~~~
narag
There are subtle differences. Gibraltar was Spanish before The Utrech Treaty,
that even included some expiration date IIRC. Ceuta and Melilla were Spanish
towns before Morocco even existed. Not that it will matter in the long run...

~~~
robin_reala
I’m not sure there is an expiration date. Wikipedia (so pinch of salt) has the
text as reading that Spain ceded to Great Britain:

“the full and entire propriety of the town and castle of Gibraltar, together
with the port, fortifications, and forts thereunto belonging ... for ever,
without any exception or impediment whatsoever.”

~~~
narag
That's right, I got confused with something else.

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kaisix
An interesting article about Australia’s Cocos Islands which was considered as
an alternative to Diego Garcia

[https://thediplomat.com/2019/04/australias-cocos-islands-
can...](https://thediplomat.com/2019/04/australias-cocos-islands-cannot-
replace-americas-troubled-diego-garcia/)

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tomohawk
Don't kid yourself that this is about the islander's claims. They are being
used as human shields.

Diego Garcia is a very strategic location. It will always be controlled by one
of the great powers. Who would benefit most if the US were to leave? Who has
the most to gain? Countries like China and Iran.

~~~
ptah
they are planning on putting it back with mauritius as it was before.

~~~
ed_balls
Meta: This comment is 20 000 000 item on HN.

~~~
latchkey
Congrats!
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19990101](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19990101)

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User23
It's not really crushing unless it's the Security Council. The GA is just
talk.

~~~
netsharc
The symbolism is telling though, US and UK used to be superpowers with
diplomatic might, now countries are openly rejecting them.

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briandear
> focusing dissatisfaction over its permanent seat on the UN security council.

But China isn’t having dissatisfaction focused on it for their permanent seat?
That’s rich. When China gives back Tibet, then perhaps we can talk about
dissatisfaction about the U.K. on the Council.

~~~
basementcat
I think China will “give back” Tibet when the USA “gives back” Indian
Territories.

