Open Letter to the Ambassador of the United States of America in the Maldives

Chagos: A Case for the Rules-Based Order, Not Bilateral Convenience

Maldivians for Chagos (civil society movement)
Website: www.maldivians4chagos.com
Email: admin@maldivians4chagos.com
Media: maldivians4chagos@gmail.com
Twitter/X: @MaldivianChagos
Tel: (+960) 9913632

Her Excellency Hugo Yon
Embassy of the United States of America
Malé, Republic of Maldives

Your Excellency,

A test of principle, not of power

The rules-based international order is tested in cases where expediency tempts us away from law. Chagos is such a case. A bilateral handover from the United Kingdom to Mauritius would not resolve a colonial injustice; it would repackage it. Unless this matter is restored to the United Nations decolonisation process, the message will be that bilateral convenience can supersede Charter obligations.

History written before the empire

The Indian Ocean’s memory predates its colonial maps. In the late fifteenth century, Ahmad ibn Majid described a Maldivian-centred oceanic sphere extending across Chagos and reaching toward Mauritius, Rodrigues, and Seychelles. In 1561, Sultan Hassan IX of the Maldives, later known as Don Manuel, issued letters in Cochin naming the “seven islands of Pullobay,” understood as Peros Banhos in Chagos, as part of the Maldives.

That thread runs through Pyrard de Laval’s seventeenth-century testimony, Maldivian folklore of “giant cats from the sea” recalling slave raids, gravestones in Diego Garcia inscribed in Dhivehi Thaana, and a 1924 British newspaper that called Diego Garcia “one of the Maldive Islands.” The evidence is consistent across centuries and sources.

A separation resisted at once

The first administrative detachment was in 1834, when Captain Robert Moresby separated Chagos from the Maldives on his charts. Maldivian leaders protested immediately, and Moresby recorded it. Later coercion, Protectorate in 1887, agreements in 1948 and 1953, narrowed our voice. By 1965, when Britain proclaimed the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), the foundation for silence had been laid.

The UN defect and its consequences

The decisive act was not detachment but non-listing: BIOT was never placed on the UN’s list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. That omission withdrew the C-24 and Fourth Committee from the field and silenced the Maldives. Yet Chagos was populated, 1,200-1,500 islanders lived there. Under Article 73(e) of the UN Charter, Britain was obliged to report on them. Instead, they were expelled in the early 1970s to both Seychelles and Mauritius.

From omission to distortion

From that silence grew distortion. UNGA Resolution 2066 (1965) condemned detachment from Mauritius but said nothing of the Maldives. UNGA Resolution 71/272 (2017) referred the matter to the ICJ framed only as UK-Mauritius, and the ICJ Advisory Opinion (2019) with UNGA Resolution 73/295 (2019) followed that frame. Meanwhile, the defect has manufactured a fiction: a non-contiguous reach of more than two thousand kilometres, presented as decolonisation. That is neocolonialism by distance, not the rules-based order.

The law is plain

Article 34 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) makes clear: a treaty does not create rights or obligations for a third state without its consent. The Maldives is that third state. No bilateral instrument can extinguish our sovereign rights or pre-judge title.

A respectful request to the United States

We ask the United States, champion of the rules-based order, to support the correction of this defect. Encourage the United Kingdom to list BIOT/Chagos and transmit the overdue Article 73(e) information. Support referral to the C-24 and Fourth Committee, where the Maldives and the Chagossian people can be heard. And oppose any bilateral arrangement that decides the fate of a third state by exclusion.

Chagos is Maldives. It has been true in the verses of navigators, the parchment of a sultan, the protest of a surveyor, and the ink of a newspaper. We ask America to stand with principle and make it true in law.

Respectfully,

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

Annex I: Timeline of the UN Defect

Date / Period	Event	Significance
Late 1400s	Ibn Majid’s sphere incl. Chagos	Pre-colonial locus of Maldivian navigation/influence.
1561	Hassan IX letters (Pullobay/Peros Banhos)	Earliest written Maldivian claim.
1600s	Pyrard de Laval	European corroboration of Maldivian range.
17th–18th c.	Folklore of slave raids	Cultural testimony of historic depredations.
Undated	Dhivehi gravestones in Diego Garcia	Physical evidence of presence.
1715	French terra nullius	Colonial legal fiction.
1810/1814	Treaty of Paris dependencies	Administrative transfer sans Maldivian consent.
1834	Moresby separation + protests	Documented Maldivian resistance.
1887 / 1948 / 1953	Protectorate/controls	Constrains external agency.
1924	UK press: Maldivian Diego Garcia	Ongoing recognition.
1965	BIOT + population; non-listing	Defect that blocks UN oversight.
1971–73	Expulsions	Confirms non-Mauritian-only community; rights breach.

Annex II : Timeline of the UN Defect

Date / Period	Event	Significance
1946	NSGT list omits BIOT	Foundational decolonisation norm.
1960	UNGA 1514	Foundational decolonization norm.
1965	BIOT; no 73(e) reporting	Charter obligation evaded.
Dec 1965	UNGA 2066	Maldives excluded from framing.
1971–73	Expulsions	Consequence of defect; harms people/process.
1969 / ongoing	VCLT 34	Third-state rights preserved against bilateralism.
2017	UNGA 71/272 to ICJ	UK–Mauritius frame persists.
2019	ICJ AO & UNGA 73/295	Outcomes mirror omission.
2023–25	Signal of transfer	Must be preceded by NSGT listing + UN review.