On 1 December 2023, Bernadette Dugasse woke to a phone call from her lawyers. Britain will not let go of the Chagos Islands, they told her. A year before, Dugasse began legal action against the British government for excluding her and her people from the negotiations over handing sovereignty of the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius. Chagos is one of Britain’s last colonies; it is also her home. Dugasse has fought for the right to return to Chagos her whole life.
The Telegraph reported on the same day as her call from lawyers that the Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps, wanted to cancel the Foreign Office’s 2022 decision to hand the territory over to Mauritius. “I am not surprised at all,” Dugasse told me over the phone. “The UK is ignoring our right to self-determination once again.”
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