The people reclaim the Chagos islands
On 14 February the Mauritian ambassador to the UN raised his country’s flag above Peros Banhos, part of the Chagos archipelago north east of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. Jagdish Koonjul explained: “We are performing the symbolic act of raising the flag as the British have done so many times to establish colonies. We, however, are reclaiming what has always been our own.” In the run up to Mauritian independence in 1968, the UK (Labour) government separated off the Chagos islands and maintained control of them. Between 1967 and 1973, Britain evicted the islands' inhabitants, about a thousand...