Island of Agalega

Island of Agalega

Subject: Mapping

Context: Mauritius has denied a report that it has allowed India to build a military base on the remote island of Agalega, with a government official telling AFP that no such agreement exists between the two nations

Concept:

• The small, remote Mauritian island of North Agalega, located in the south-western Indian Ocean, 1,122 kilometres north of Mauritius
• North Agalega Island is some 12 kilometres long and 1.5 kilometres wide, with a total population of less than 300 people
• There is anMoU between the governments of Mauritius and India to develop the Agaléga islands and resolve infrastructural problems faced by Agaleans.
• The jetty and port facilities India is constructing. A port is being constructed at the north end of the island. This development is a manifestation of Modi’s 2016 vision for the Indian Ocean, articulated as Security and Growth for All in the Region(SAGAR). Under SAGAR, New Delhi aims to work together with Indian Ocean regional governments to “engineer virtuous cycles of cooperation”.

 The Chagossian experience 

• The people were forcibly removed from the Chagos Archipelago in the early 1970s to make way for the joint UK-US military base on Diego Garcia – sound alarms for ethnic Creole Agaléens and their supporters.
• The 1965 decision by Britain to separate the Chagos Islands from Mauritius and set up a joint military base with the United States on Diego Garcia, the largest of the isles. The decades-old move has sparked protests by Chagossians, who accuse Britain of carrying out an “illegal occupation” and barring them from their homeland.
• Britain insists the islands belong to London and has renewed a lease agreement with the United States to use Diego Garcia until 2036. Diego Garcia played a strategic role during the Cold War, and then as an airbase, including during the war in Afghanistan