Souveraineté : « The detachment of the Chagos Archipelago was already decided whether Mauritius gave its consent or not “

Le Dissenting Ruling de la Permanent Court of Arbitration sur le Marine Protected Area des Chagos sous la Convention des Droits de la Mer est une cinglante gifle  administrée à Londres au sujet du démembrement du territoire de Maurice à la veille de l’inedépendance. C’est ce que soulignent les juges Kateka and Wolfrum dans un jugement de 25 pages rendus le 18 mars à La Haye.
« The detachment of the Chagos Archipelago was already decided whether Mauritius gave its consent or not. A look at the discussion between Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Premier Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam suggests that the Wilson’s threat that Ramgoolam could return home without independence amounts to duress. The Private Secretary of Wilson used the language of “frighten[ing]” the Premier “with hope”. The Colonial Secretary equally resorted to the language of intimidation,”font-ils ressortir aux paragraphes 76 et 77 du document.
Plus loin le Dissenting Ruling remet en question la validité du consentement accordé par le Council of Minuisters de 1965 et ajoute : « The Council of Ministers of Mauritius was presided over by the British Governor who could nominate some of the members of the Council. Thus there was a clear situation of inequality between the two sides. As Mauritius states, if the Mauritian people, through their Government, had made a free choice without coercion, they could have given valid consent in the pre-independence period to the excision of the Chagos Archipelago. This was not the case. If it is accepted that the consent given is invalid on either of the two grounds mentioned above, the question is to be raised why it took Mauritius so long to make this point”.
En conclusion, le communiqué de la Cour Permanente d’Arbitrage note que “on the merits, Judges Kateka and Wolfrum would have found that the Mauritian Ministers were coerced in 1965 into agreeing to detachment and that the United Kingdom’s detachment of the Archipelago violated the international law of self-determination.”
A sujet des chagos, les juges notent avec force que “British and American defence interests were put above Mauritius’s rights” both in 1965 when the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) was established and in 2010 when the marine zone, which involves a ban on fishing, was set up. »