Pope says Chagos treaty ‘delivers message about rights of the weakest’

The Pope has strongly affirmed the rights of the weakest against the ambitions of the powerful during an audience with refugees from Chagos, the contested Indian Ocean archipelago that is home to a strategic US-UK military base.

History’s first American pope insisted on the right of the Chagossian people to return to their homes and hailed a recent UK-Mauritius treaty over the archipelago’s future as symbolically important on the international stage.

Leo XIV met with a delegation of refugees from Chagos, some 2,000 of whom who were evicted from their homes by the UK in the 1960s and 1970s so the US could build a naval and bomber base on the largest of the islands, Diego Garcia.

Displaced islanders fought for years in UK courts for the right to go home. In May, the UK and Mauritius signed a treaty to hand sovereignty over the islands to Mauritius while still ensuring the future of the base.

Leo told the refugees he was “delighted” that the treaty had been reached, saying it represented a “significant victory” in their long battle to “repair a grave injustice”.

He praised in particular the role of the Chagossian women in peacefully asserting their rights to go home.

Leo said in French: “The renewed prospect of your return to your native archipelago is an encouraging sign and a powerful symbol on the international stage: all peoples, even the smallest and weakest, must be respected by the powerful in their identity and rights, in particular the right to live on their land; and no-one can force them into exile.”

He said he hoped that Mauritian authorities will commit to ensuring their return, and pledged the help of the local Catholic Church.

Under the agreement, the UK will pay Mauritius an average of £101 million a year to lease back the base for at least 99 years.

It establishes a trust fund to benefit the Chagossians and says “Mauritius is free to implement a program of resettlement” on the islands other than Diego Garcia.

But it does not require the residents to be resettled, and some displaced islanders fear it will be even harder to return to their place of birth after Mauritius takes control.

Mauritius had long contested the UK’s claim to the archipelago, and the United Nations and its top court had urged Britain to return the Chagos to Mauritius, 1,250 miles south-west of the islands.

In a non-binding 2019 opinion, the International Court of Justice ruled that the UK had unlawfully carved up Mauritius when it agreed to end colonial rule in the late 1960s.

The late Pope Francis visited Mauritius in 2019 and met a group of Chagossians at the Vatican in 2023.

Francis told reporters en route home from Mauritius in 2019 that the UK should obey the UN and return the islands to Mauritius.