By PETER YOUNG

Amidst all the current criticism of the new Labour government in Britain, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has now been censured yet again following last week’s announcement that Britain was giving up, after half a century, sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. These are a remote and uninhabited - but strategically important - group of some sixty small islands in the Indian Ocean more than 1,500 miles south of the subcontinent.

It seems that this move by the British government has had little coverage in the international media. But the UK press have been examining the significance of its action following considerable interest domestically, including a debate on the subject in the House of Commons yesterday. It has been described as at the very least odd – if not naïve and even reckless - at a time of heightened global tensions and the rising power of China in the region.

Under a deal with Mauritius, after what are said to be years of negotiations, the UK will hand over the Chagos Islands to that country in what has been described as a historic move. The archipelago includes the tropical atoll of Diego Garcia which is used by the US and Britain as a military and naval base, in particular for long-range aircraft.

According to press reports, in view of the rivalries in the region between the West, China and India the key factor in the negotiations was the ultimate agreement that this UK/US base will remain for an initial period of 99 years. The UK and Mauritius have said they are committed to “ensure long-term the secure and effective operation of the existing base which plays a vital role in regional and global security”. Another significant factor for the UK is that the islands will be closed down as a potential illegal migration route.

As agreed, Britain will give a package of financial support to Mauritius. Reportedly, this is in connection with Mauritius’s claim that it was forced to give away the Chagos Islands in return for its own independence from Britain in 1968. But, apparently, the records suggest that at the independence negotiations Mauritius received a substantial payment for agreeing to keep Chagos out of the settlement.

A brief look at the history shows that in the 1700s French colonialists settled in the then uninhabited Chagos islands but that after the Napoleonic wars in the 19th century the British took over. Administratively, the archipelago was grouped with Mauritius which was acquired as a colony in 1810.

At the time of Mauritius’s independence negotiations Britain forcibly removed more than 1,000 inhabitants from the entire archipelago, some of whom were then settled in Mauritius and the Seychelles and some in the UK (currently a Chagosian community of some 3,000 is living in Crawley in Sussex) and, according to Mauritius, Britain promised to hand the uninhabited islands to them when no longer needed for “strategic purposes”. Apparently, some Chagosians want to return to their homeland and have attempted to achieve that while others are more focused on their rights and status in the UK.

Meanwhile, Mauritius, which argues that it was illegally forced to give away the Chagos Islands in return for its independence from Britain, has for long maintained that the islands belong to them. As recently as 2021, the UN’s highest court ruled that the UK’s control of the territory was unlawful and should be surrendered to Mauritius. Thus, the formal position seems to be clear and Britain’s latest decision has rightly emerged from a long period of negotiation. However, critics – presumably without knowing the details of the negotiations - have called it a shameful and weak deal. They argue that the current political and diplomatic circumstances in the region should not be ignored and that insufficient weight has been given to the danger of Chinese expansion while the timing of the government’s decision has not been considered properly.

The UK government insists that the deal secures the future of the UK/US base on Diego Garcia, but leading Tories suggest that it could open the door to China establishing a base on another of the cluster of islands, not least because it is actively trying to increase its presence across the Indo-Pacific - both commercially and militarily - and establish a greater foothold in the Indian Ocean. It has already been transforming uninhabited reef islands into high tech military bases - from the South China Sea, where it has also been creating new islands, through to the Indian Ocean. It is already working to expand an artificial island in the Maldives and is investing heavily in the region, including in Mauritius which has been strengthening its ties with Beijing for some time. Unofficially, it seems that that there is some US concern about all this even though President Biden has publicly welcomed the deal.

Another problem that has arisen from Britain handing over sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius is in relation to other overseas territories. Already, this appears to have whetted afresh Argentina’s appetite to acquire sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, and Gibraltar may also come under a new threat.

The Argentines have vowed once again to reclaim what they call the Islas Malvinas. But Starmer has reportedly declined to guarantee that no other overseas territory will, in the words of the critics, be “given away”. However, the key factor in the case of the Falklands is the wishes of the people concerned when, in a recent referendum, practically everybody living there voted to stay under Britain’s umbrella. Of course, attitudes and priorities change, but it has always seemed to me that, after the 1982 Falklands’ conflict in which 255 British armed services personnel lost their lives, it would be political suicide for any British government to weaken a commitment to honour the wishes of the Falkland Islanders themselves – an example of self-determination, as preached by the UN, in practice.

The conclusion of all this is that there are fears by some in the West that Britain has handed a big win to China. The prime minister is already under heavy pressure because of a less than stellar performance by his government since taking power only three months ago. They wonder why he should have allowed an issue like this - that could surely have been deferred - to make his life even more difficult at such a precarious time.

Haiti in international news again

It has been noticeable how much Haiti’s ongoing security woes have been in the international news recently. One headline in the UK press last week screamed “Children among 70 killed in Haiti group massacre”. This incident has come about a month after declaration of a state of emergency to cover the whole country as up to 700,000 people have been displaced.

From what I hear, Bahamians are asking what is going on most recently in our nearest but most unstable and lawless neighbour of some 11 million people, not least because doubts are being expressed about the effectiveness of the much-vaunted Kenyan police force, a contingent of which is now in Haiti.

This force was deployed in June as the advance guard of the UN-mandated multinational force seeking to restore peace by taking on the murderous gangs now operating not only in the capital Port-au-Prince but in large swathes of the country as well. There were high hopes that the Kenyan police would bring much-needed muscle to Haiti’s beleaguered National Police as they struggled to control the gangs who have been terrorising the country for more than three years.

The latest outbreak of violence seems to have been precipitated by the assassination of President Jovenal Moise in 2021. But the situation worsened earlier this year when the gangs launched attacks on prisons, police stations and other state institutions, including blocking the country’s fuel terminal.

The surge in violence, which has been called by the UN “inhuman”, forced the resignation last April of Haiti’s unelected prime minister, Ariel Henry, and the post of president remained vacant. In the margins of this year’s UN General Assembly meeting, new interim prime minister Garry Conille gave a grim review of the security situation and the anti-gang struggle. He declared that more international support was needed in the form of a robust use of force as the humanitarian crisis deepened, and he vowed to crack down on the gangs.

A Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission was authorised by the UN Security Council in October, 2023. Led by Kenya, which also provides the core of the mission, reportedly it has been deployed with only about a quarter of its agreed capacity and is said to lack the equipment and logistical and technical capacity to counter the gangs.

Kenya’s president, William Ruto, visited Haiti in September. Declaring his country’s mission to have been a success, he has agreed apparently to turn the security mission into a full UN peacekeeping operation if increased funding is made available. Nonetheless, there is reported to be frustration within Haiti that the MSS has not moved more quickly and decisively against the gangs; and the local press is calling for “action not words” and some concrete results.

Overall, the judgement seems to be that the Kenyans have been slow to make their presence felt. The UN says that in order to overcome the gangs the MSS must be given the resources it needs to support the police, as well as to implement other measures required by the UN like a sanctions regime and an arms embargo.

As always, there seems to be a long way to go to resolve the never-ending problem of Haiti’s security. But with the Kenyans’ involvement the prospects look to have improved – despite what appears to have been a relatively sluggish start.

A reminder of pure evil

Yesterday, October 7, was the first anniversary of the deadliest day in the history of Israel. It is a date now etched in the memories of millions around the world. But I wanted nonetheless to draw special attention to it.

The murderous rampage by Hamas gunmen, who killed and maimed 1,200 people on Israeli soil and then fled with 251 hostages, was an appalling atrocity. It unleashed the terrible consequences of war, mayhem, grief and sorrow and almost unlimited human suffering in a living nightmare. Its anniversary is a grim reminder of these horrific acts.

For Israelis, it was a day of unspeakable national trauma, and from the outset they vowed vengeance which they are now carrying out. Who can tell how it will all end? Many say October 7 will be a sad day of remembrance for Jewish people for centuries to come.