Mauritius' premier said Thursday he was appalled by Britain's plans for a marine reserve around Chagos, an archipelago London forcibly evacuated to build a military base four decades ago.
"Mauritius is appalled by the British government's decision to press on with consultations for the creation of a protected marine park project around the Chagos archipelago," Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Chandra Ramgoolam said.
The Indian Ocean state's premier was speaking at an event inaugurating a building for the Chagos Refugees Group in the capital Port-Louis.
"It is unacceptable that the British claim to protect marine fauna and flora when they insist on denying Chagos-born Mauritians the right to return to their islands all the while," Ramgoolam said.
"How can you say you will protect coral and fish when you continue to violate the rights of Chagos' former inhabitants?" he went on.
The Chagos archipelago, also known as the British Indian Ocean Territory, is a tiny group of islands east of the Seychelles and north of Mauritius' main island.
Some 2,000 people were forcibly moved to Mauritius, which still claims the island and has regularly filed to that purpose with the United Nations. Most of the refugees are still campaigning to go back.
The British government has paid compensation to the Chagossians.
The islanders have won several cases on their right of return in UK courts but a 2008 split judgment by the House of Lords ruled against it.
Diego Garcia, the main island in the Chagos archipelago, is now populated by an estimated 1,700 US military personnel, 1,500 civilian contractors and a mere 50 British troops. The base played a key role in the 1991 Operation Desert Storm against Iraq.
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