Open Letter to the Ambassador of the French Republic to the Maldives (resident in Colombo, Sri Lanka)

Chagos: From Terra Nullius to Truth – A Duty of Candour

Maldivians for Chagos (civil society coalition)
Website: http://www.maldivians4chagos.com
Email: admin@maldivians4chagos.com
Tel: (+960) 9913632

His Excellency Mr Jean-François Pactet
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the French Republic
to the Republic of Maldives (resident in Colombo, Sri Lanka)
Embassy of France
Colombo, Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka

Your Excellency,

Terra nullius as fiction

Some fictions are elegant because they are brief. Terra nullius was one of them. In 1715, France extended it to Mauritius and its “dependencies,” including Chagos. Britain inherited the fiction; the Maldives inherited the wound. We ask France to help close this chapter with candour and law.

The silence engineered: the Maldives not fully self-governing (1887–1965)

From 1887, the Maldives was a protectorate. The 1948 and 1953 control arrangements vested Britain with foreign affairs and defence, and no Maldivian head of government could assume office without British approval. Only in 1965 did the Maldives achieve full independence.

Britain’s duty under Article 73(e) was clear: report the Maldives as a Non-Self-Governing Territory. London did so for many other protectorates, Bechuanaland Protectorate, British Solomon Islands Protectorate, British Somaliland Protectorate, Brunei, among others, yet not for the Maldives. And when BIOT was created in 1965, it too was omitted. This dual omission was a systematic erasure: neither the Maldives nor BIOT appeared on the UN list, ensuring the Maldives had no voice at the C-24 or Fourth Committee while its territory was detached.

Older than the French claim: the Maldivian record

The fifteenth-century writings of Ibn Majid placed the Maldives at the centre of an oceanic sphere across Chagos, Mauritius, Rodrigues, and Seychelles. In 1561, Sultan Hassan IX’s Cochin letters claimed the “seven islands of Pullobay,” understood as Peros Banhos (Chagos), as Maldivian. Pyrard de Laval later described our maritime range; our folklore remembered the slave-raiding centuries as “giant cats from the sea”; Dhivehi gravestones in Diego Garcia survive; and in 1924, a British newspaper called Diego Garcia “one of the Maldive Islands.” The evidence is cumulative.

Distortion disguised as decolonisation

UNGA Resolution 2066 addressed detachment from Mauritius; UNGA Resolution 71/272 sent the case to the ICJ framed as UK–Mauritius; the 2019 advisory opinion with UNGA Resolution 73/295 followed. Meanwhile, a non-contiguous reach of more than two thousand kilometres has been re-badged as decolonisation. That is not law; it is neocolonialism by distance.

Law restores truth

Article 34 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties confirms that no treaty creates rights or obligations for a third state without its consent. The Maldives is that third state. No bilateral transfer can erase that.

A respectful request to France

We ask France to help correct the fiction once extended from Paris. Support the listing of BIOT/Chagos, the transmission of Article 73(e) information for BIOT and (historically) the Maldives, and referral to the C-24 and the Fourth Committee so that the Maldives and the Chagossian people can be heard. This is not reproach but an invitation to candour.

Chagos is Maldives. It has been traced in navigation, claimed in parchment, protested to a surveyor, and printed in news. Let it now be recognised in law, with France lending its voice.

Respectfully,

International Outreach Coordination Desk
Maldivians for Chagos
http://www.maldivians4chagos.com
admin@maldivians4chagos.com
(+960) 9913632

Annex I — Timeline of Historical Facts

Date / Period	Event	Significance
Late 1400s	Ibn Majid charts Maldivian sphere incl. Chagos, Mauritius, Rodrigues, Seychelles	Pre-colonial mapping placing Chagos within Maldivian oceanic domain.
1561	Hassan IX letters (Pullobay/Peros Banhos)	Earliest written Maldivian claim to Chagos.
1600s	Pyrard de Laval	European recognition of Maldivian range.
17th–18th c.	Folklore of slave raids	Cultural memory of Indian Ocean slaving era.
Undated	Dhivehi gravestones in Diego Garcia	Physical evidence of Maldivian presence.
1715	French terra nullius to Mauritius/Chagos	Origin of legal fiction later inherited by Britain.
1810/1814	Treaty of Paris dependencies	Administrative bundling under Mauritius.
1834	Moresby separation + protests	Shows non-acquiescence by Maldives.
1887 / 1948 / 1953	Protectorate/controls	Suppresses Maldivian external agency.
1924	UK press: Diego Garcia Maldivian	Recognition in British media.
1965	BIOT with population; non-listing	Evades UN decolonization oversight.
1971–73	Evades UN decolonisation oversight.	Refutes “Mauritian dependency” and harms rights.

Annex II — Timeline of the UN Defect

Date / Period	Event	Significance
1946	NSGT list omits BIOT	Removes Chagos from UN decolonization mandate.
1946–1965	Maldives (protectorate; not fully self-governing) not reported as NSGT, even though the UK reported other protectorates (e.g., Bechuanaland Protectorate, British Solomon Islands Protectorate, British Somaliland Protectorate, Brunei)	The decolonisation principle sidelined.
1960	UNGA 1514	Decolonization principle sidelined.
1965	BIOT; no 73(e)	Administering power’s reporting duty unmet.
Dec 1965	UNGA 2066	Maldives excluded from deliberation.
1971–73	Expulsions	Human consequence of the defect.
1969 / ongoing	VCLT Art. 34	Third-state consent rule.
2017	UNGA 71/272 to ICJ	UK–Mauritius frame persists.
2019	ICJ AO & UNGA 73/295	Outcomes mirror narrow frame.
2023–25	Proposed transfer to Mauritius	Lawful path requires NSGT listing + UN review first.