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Chagos Islands

1814
Britain began overseeing the Chagos Archipelago.
Links: Britain, Chagos Islands     Click to see the source(s) for this event 
 
1966
Britain leased Diego Garcia, the largest island of the Chagos Archipelago, to the United States and allowed the US to build an air and naval base there. The existing population of around 1,500 was moved to nearby Mauritius and the Seychelles and effectively barred from returning. Many eventually settled in southern England.
Links: Britain, USA, Mauritius, Seychelles, Chagos Islands     Click to see the source(s) for this event 
 
1968
1974
The UK forcibly removed thousands of Chagossians from their homelands and sent them more than 1,600 km (1,000 miles) away to Mauritius and the Seychelles, where they faced extreme poverty and discrimination.
Links: Britain, Mauritius, Seychelles, Chagos Islands     Click to see the source(s) for this event 
 
2002
The British Overseas Territories Act granted British citizenship to resettled Chagossians born between 1969 and 1982. But the 13-year window has left some families divided.
Links: Britain, Chagos Islands     Click to see the source(s) for this event 
 
2007 May 23
The High Court in London upheld a ruling letting families return to their Indian Ocean island homes, from where they were forced out 30 years ago to make way for a US military base. The Court of Appeal backed a High Court ruling in May last year that allowed the families to return to the Chagos Islands, except for Diego Garcia, a launchpad for US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Links: Britain, Chagos Islands     Click to see the source(s) for this event 
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2008 Oct 22
The British government won its appeal to the highest court against previous rulings allowing displaced Indian Ocean Chagos islanders to return home. The resettlement of the Chagossians in the 1960s and1970s allowed Britain to lease the main island, Diego Garcia, to the United States military for 50 years.
Links: Britain, Chagos Islands     Click to see the source(s) for this event 
 
2010 Apr 1
Britain said it will create the world's largest marine reserve by banning fishing around the Chagos Islands, a U.K.-owned archipelago in the Indian Ocean. The cluster of 55 islands is spread across about a quarter of a million square miles of ocean.
Links: Britain, Environment, Chagos Islands     Click to see the source(s) for this event 
 
2016 Nov 16
The British Foreign Office said Indian Ocean islanders expelled from the British-ruled Chagos archipelago during the Cold War to make way for a U.S. military base will not be given the right to return to resettle.
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2016
Britain's Foreign Ministry extended the lease on Diego Garcia, the Chagos Islands’ biggest island, to the US until 2036 and declared the expelled islanders would not be allowed to go back.
Links: Britain, USA, Chagos Islands     Click to see the source(s) for this event 
 
2018 Sep 3
Mauritius tried to persuade judges at the World Court to find that it was illegally stripped by Britain of another Indian Ocean archipelago, the Chagos Islands, now home to a major US air base. Britain apologized for the "shameful way" it evicted residents of the disputed Chagos islands but insisted Mauritius was wrong to bring the increasingly bitter dispute to the UN's top court.
Links: Britain, USA, Mauritius, World Court, Chagos Islands     Click to see the source(s) for this event 
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2018 Sep 5
The United States told the UN's top court it had "a duty" not to take a position on a bitter dispute over the British-ruled Chagos islands, home to a strategic joint US military base. London split off the remote islands from Mauritius in 1965.
Links: USA, UN, Mauritius, Chagos Islands     Click to see the source(s) for this event 
 
2019 Feb 25
The United Nations' highest court ruled that Britain carved up Mauritius illegally when it agreed to end colonial rule and must "bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible." The ICJ said that the Chagos Islands archipelago should be handed over to Mauritius in order to complete its "decolonization." Three months later, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Chagos Islands being returned - with 116 states backing the move and only six against.
Links: Britain, UN, Mauritius, ICJ, Chagos Islands     Click to see the source(s) for this event 
 
2019 Nov 22
Demonstrators from the Chagos Islands protested at British defiance of a United Nations deadline to end their "illegal occupation" of the Indian Ocean archipelago. A six-month UN deadline to return control of the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius came and looked set to pass, with the UK refusing to recognize Mauritius's claim of sovereignty over the islands.
Links: Britain, Mauritius, Chagos Islands     Click to see the source(s) for this event 
 
2020 Oct 18
Mauritian PM Pravind Jugnauth labelled the British and Americans "hypocrites" and "champions of double talk" for the way they have behaved over the Chagos Islands.
Links: Britain, USA, Mauritius, Chagos Islands     Click to see the source(s) for this event 
 
2021 Jan 28
The maritime law tribunal of the UN ruled that Britain has no sovereignty over the Chagos Islands and criticized London for its failure to hand the territory back to Mauritius. The decision confirmed a ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and a vote in the UN General Assembly. The ruling should enable Mauritius to start settling its new maritime borders.
Links: Britain, UN, Mauritius, Chagos Islands     Click to see the source(s) for this event 
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2021 Aug 25
It was reported that the Universal Postal Union (UPU), a UN agency in charge of the world's postal policies, has voted to block the use of UK stamps from the Chagos Islands. All post to and from the remote archipelago must now bear stamps from Mauritius.
Links: UN, Postage, Mauritius, Chagos Islands     Click to see the source(s) for this event 
 
2022 Feb 14
The British government reaffirmed its sovereignty over a remote Indian Ocean archipelago after Mauritius underlined its own territorial claim by planting a flag on the Chagos Islands.
Links: Britain, Mauritius, Chagos Islands     Click to see the source(s) for this event 
 
2022 Feb
The government of the independent island nation of Mauritius dispatched a boat to the Chagos archipelago, dramatically asserting its right to visit what it insists is its sovereign territory. The United Nations' highest court has ruled that Britain's occupation of the islands is illegal, but Britain has refused to hand control to Mauritius.
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