Open Letter to the British High Commissioner in the Maldives

Chagos: Correcting a Colonial Defect Before It Becomes a Neocolonial Fraud

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

His Excellency Nick Low
British High Commission
Malé, Republic of Maldives

Your Excellency,

Some questions of history refuse to fade because they were never truly answered. Chagos is one of them.

The United Kingdom now contemplates a bilateral handover of Chagos to Mauritius. Respectfully, such a step would not heal a colonial wound; it would seal it. Unless this matter is returned to the United Nations decolonisation process, the injustice first engineered in London will be repeated in London, this time dressed as a transfer rather than a detachment.

A Maldivian sphere older than the empire

Before Europe drew lines on maps, the ocean already bore the stamp of our presence. In the late fifteenth century, the master navigator Ahmad ibn Majid, the “Lion of the Sea”, described an Indian Ocean sphere centred on the Maldives, reaching across the Chagos, Mauritius, Rodrigues, and Seychelles. Long before colonial paperwork, Arab seafaring knowledge and Maldivian voyaging affirmed that this was our ocean.

A century later, in 1561, Sultan Hassan IX of the Maldives, later known in exile as Don Manuel, issued letters in Cochin styling himself ruler of the Maldives, including “seven islands of Pullobay,” understood to be Foalhavahi/Peros Banhos in the Chagos group. That parchment is the earliest written Maldivian claim to Chagos, predating France’s terra nullius (1715), Britain’s conquest of Mauritius (1810), and the Order in Council that created BIOT (1965). Our title came first.

The record keeps repeating itself. François Pyrard de Laval described the Maldivian archipelago across the central ocean. Maldivian folklore recalls slave raids as “giant cats from the sea.” In Diego Garcia, gravestones inscribed in the ancient Dhivehi script (Thaana) stand as witnesses. As late as 1924, the Western Morning News in Devon described Diego Garcia as “one of the Maldive Islands.” Every century leaves its trace: Chagos is Maldives.

The separation we never accepted

The first cut was not in 1965, but in 1834, when Captain Robert Moresby separated the Chagos Islands from the Maldives on his charts. Maldivians protested immediately, and Moresby recorded their objections. We resisted in the moment, not in hindsight.

Later instruments of coercion, the 1887 Protectorate, control agreements of 1948 and 1953, narrowed our external voice. By the time Britain proclaimed the British Indian Ocean Territory in 1965, the groundwork for silence had been laid.

The final act was not just detachment but non-listing: BIOT was never placed on the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. That omission withdrew the C-24 and the Fourth Committee from the field, silencing both the Maldives and the Chagossians in the very forum designed for them.

A duty evaded, a people expelled

When BIOT was created, approximately 1,200–1,500 islanders lived on the Chagos Islands. Under Article 73(e) of the UN Charter, Britain was duty-bound to report on their status. Instead, in the early 1970s, they were expelled to both Seychelles and Mauritius. This dual exile exposes the fiction that the Chagos Islands were merely a “Mauritian dependency.” It was not only an injustice to the islanders but a deliberate evasion of oversight and an erasure of Maldivian Sovereignty from the UN record.

How a defect manufactures a neocolonial state

This omission has warped into something worse: a political fiction in which a plantation colony is rebranded as a trans-oceanic state. From Port Louis to Diego Garcia is over 2,100 kilometres, yet the defect allows Mauritius to claim a non-contiguous reach across the ocean, a cartographic empire stitched together out of colonial detachment. That is not decolonisation; it is neocolonialism by distance.

From omission to distortion

The United Nations record is clear. UNGA Resolution 2066 (1965) condemned detachment from Mauritius but said nothing of the Maldives, which the defect had silenced. In 2017, UNGA Resolution 71/272 requested the ICJ to provide an opinion on a question framed solely as the UK–Mauritius dispute. The ICJ Advisory Opinion (2019) and UNGA Resolution 73/295 (2019) predictably mirrored that narrowed canvas. What began as a procedural omission turned into political arithmetic. Justice was not served; it was crowded out.

The law that cannot be wished away

Article 34 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) is plain: no treaty creates rights or obligations for a third State without its consent. The Maldives is that third State. Any UK-Mauritius arrangement that excludes us is not only unjust but without effect against us in law.

Decolonisation is not a bilateral gift. It is a process the UN Charter requires, and the United Kingdom still holds the key.

A respectful request to Britain

Your Excellency, Britain has always known. It was known when Ibn Mājid charted a Maldivian ocean; when Hassan IX claimed Chagos in 1561; when Moresby recorded our protest in 1834; and when a British newspaper in 1924 called Diego Garcia “one of the Maldive Islands.” Knowing creates responsibility.

We therefore respectfully urge the United Kingdom to:

List BIOT/Chagos as an NSGT and transmit overdue Article 73(e) information.
Refer the matter to the C-24 and Fourth Committee, so that both the Maldives and the Chagossian people may finally be heard.
Suspend any bilateral transfer pending the UN process.
Place this question before the Lords, Commons, and Privy Council as a correction of Britain’s own omission.

Chagos is Maldives

It was true when navigators sang it, when a sultan wrote it, when a British surveyor heard it, and when a British paper printed it. Let it now be true in law.

Respectfully,

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

Annex I — Timeline of Historical Facts

Date / Period	Event	Significance
Late 1400s	Ibn Majid maps a Maldivian oceanic sphere, embracing Chagos, Mauritius, Rodrigues, Seychelles	Demonstrates Maldivian seafaring sphere pre-colonization, placing Chagos naturally within Maldivian domain.
1561	Sultan Hassan IX (Don Manuel) issues letters in Cochin claiming the Maldives including “seven islands of Pullobay” (Peros Banhos/Chagos)	Earliest written Maldivian sovereign claim to parts of Chagos; precedes European claims.
1600s	François Pyrard de Laval records Maldivian maritime reach	European testimony confirming Maldivian range across the central Indian Ocean.
17th–18th c.	Britain captures Mauritius; Treaty of Paris cedes “dependencies,” incl. Chagos	Oral memory consistent with Indian Ocean slave-raiding through southern Maldives/Chagos.
Undated	Diego Garcia gravestones with Dhivehi Thaana inscriptions	Material evidence of Maldivian presence (settlement/burial) in Chagos.
1715	France extends terra nullius to Mauritius and Chagos	Maldivian folklore recalls slave raids as “giant cats from the sea”
1810/1814	Britain captures Mauritius; Treaty of Paris cedes “dependencies,” incl. Chagos	Chagos bundled under Mauritius without Maldivian consent; seeds today’s dispute.
1834	Captain Robert Moresby separates Chagos from Maldives; protests recorded	Maldives resisted in real time; no acquiescence.
1887 / 1948 / 1953	Protectorate & control agreements narrow Maldives’ external voice	Constrained diplomacy set stage for 1960s UN exclusion.
1924	Devon’s Western Morning News calls Diego Garcia “one of the Maldive Islands.”	British press acknowledgement of Maldives–Chagos link into 20th c.
1965	UK proclaims BIOT (1,200–1,500 inhabitants); fails to list as NSGT	Colonial legal fiction erasing Maldivian Sovereignty, later inherited by Britain.
1971–73	UK expels inhabitants to Seychelles and Mauritius	Dual destination undercuts “Mauritian dependency” narrative; deepens illegality.

Annex II — Timeline of the UN Defect

Date / Period	Event	Significance
1946	UN compiles NSGT list; BIOT omitted	Foundational defect: Chagos excluded from UN decolonization process.
1960	UNGA 1514 (Declaration on Decolonization)	Governing principle bypassed by BIOT’s omission.
1965	BIOT created; no Article 73(e) reporting	UK evades Charter duty to report on a non-self-governing people.
Dec 1965	UNGA 2066 condemns detachment from Mauritius; Maldives excluded	Debate narrowed to Mauritius; Maldives silenced by non-listing.
1971–73	Expulsions of Chagossians	Violates self-determination; confirms BIOT’s non-listing harms people and process.
1969 / ongoing	Vienna Convention Art. 34: no treaty binds a third State without consent	Any UK–Mauritius deal cannot extinguish Maldivian rights.
2017	UNGA 71/272 refers UK–Mauritius to ICJ	Frame excludes Maldives due to the original defect.
2019	ICJ AO & UNGA 73/295 mirror that frame	Outcomes shaped by omission, not full party participation.
2023–25	UK signals bilateral transfer to Mauritius	Lawful only if BIOT first listed as NSGT and reviewed by UN process.