British defeat in a case similar to Malvinas | L …

The United Nations General Assembly has demanded that the United Kingdom withdraw from the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean within six months, housing a large military base rented by the United States. The demand is not binding but has great political value and calls on London to "withdraw its colonial administration" from the archipelago in six months, in accordance with the decision of the International Court of Justice.

The decision was adopted in the General Assembly by 116 votes, including that of Argentina, against 6 votes against, the United States and Great Britain being at the head of this group. 56 others abstained among the 193 members.

The Chagos Archipelago has been at the center of controversy for decades because of the United Kingdom's decision to separate it from what will later become the Republic of Mauritius in 1965 and to install a common base with the United States on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands.

At the United Nations forum, the country argued that the dispute was a bilateral affair and its organizational ambbadador, Karen Pierce, defended the "vital role" of the Diego Garcia military base "in the security of allies and friends of the region, including Mauritius. "The United States, which used the base to send bombers to Afghanistan and Iraq or as a CIA interrogation center after the bombings of 2001, renewed the lease agreement with the UK in 2016 until 2036.

Asked about the possible implications of this decision for Gibraltar and the Falklands, Pierce said that he was not expecting a change of position from Spain and Argentina , two countries with which, he recalled, London maintains good relations. The Spanish delegation, like Argentina, voted to demand their withdrawal from London.

The resolution of the United Nations General Assembly supports an opinion of the International Court of Justice, which determined last February that the process of decolonization of the Chagos was not completed in accordance with international law and that, by Therefore, the archipelago was an integral part of the Republic of Mauritius.

The United Kingdom considered that this resolution could set a dangerous precedent, since the Chagos dispute is a "bilateral" dispute in which the ICJ should not enter without the agreement of both parties.

When the ICJ rendered its decision in February, the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs considered that this resolution was "relevant to the question of the Malvinas Islands, because it was a situation of territorial dismemberment, and referred to fundamental principles in the claim on our islands ".

"In the case of the Chagos Archipelago, as in that of Malvinas, it is a territorial dismemberment," said Chancellor Faurie, "where the island population was transferred to their will, on the continent, in 1833. "