Both the United States and the United Kingdom are on board with the transfer of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. The U.S. and the U.K. are also both committed to stopping Chinese encroachment in the area.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the agreement between the U.K. and Mauritius and said in a statement that President Trump “expressed his support for this monumental achievement” when he met British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House in February. The prime minister of Mauritius, Navin Ramgoolam, hailed the deal as a “great victory for the Mauritian nation,” and said, “We are completing the process of total decolonization.”
Reactions to the proposed handover in the United Kingdom were more muted, on both sides of the aisle.
The largest Chagossian community in the U.K. is in Crawley, Sussex, in South East England. The town’s Parliament representative, Labour member Peter Lamb, criticized the deal, saying it did not secure the right for Chagossians to return to their homeland.
Government officials were also wary of the deal. Prime Minister Starmer underscored the significance of being able to lease back the island where the key military base is located.
Opposition leaders went further. “The Chagos Islands have been British since 1814. Only Keir Starmer’s Labour Party would negotiate a deal where we’re paying to give something away,” Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said. “This is a vital military base. Mauritius is an ally of China.”
Controversy in Diego Garcia
The deal comes after a lengthy dispute over the islands that has involved questions over Britain’s colonial legacy.
The Chagos Archipelago became a British territory in 1814. In 1965, the U.K. formally separated the islands from its then-colony Mauritius, shortly before Mauritius gained independence three years later. In the late 1960s, the U.K. invited the U.S. to build a military base on Diego Garcia. The construction uprooted several thousand native islanders.
The controversy escalated significantly when “woke” movements began taking hold in the United States and other countries around 2015. In a nonbinding opinion in 2019, the International Court of Justice in The Hague concluded that the move was illegal and “the United Kingdom is under an obligation to bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible.”
The ICJ is a purely advisory body with no political power. But in 2021, a United Nations maritime court rejected Britain’s claim to sovereignty over the islands. At that point, things got serious.
The turnover deal settles the sovereignty controversy, but a new controversy over Diego Garcia’s military significance and military legacy is now brewing.
What Contractors Do
The hundreds of private military contractors who live and work on Diego Garcia are mostly construction and security contractors.
Many of Diego Garcia’s facilities have not been significantly updated since they were built during the Cold War era. Today’s weapons and aircraft are infinitely more advanced. Runways need lengthening, harbors need expanding, and the list goes on. Construction contractors are usually on-site supervisors. They keep the project moving, so it is done according to specifications, on time, and under budget.
Other construction contractors renovate and expand barracks and common areas. Deployment to a remote area like Diego Garcia is a tough pill to swallow. If the facilities are up to date, the time passes more quickly. Furthermore, up-to-date facilities are tangible evidence that the higher-ups care about what ordinary soldiers, sailors, and contractors must endure.
The isolation of Diego Garcia contributes to many alcohol-related offenses. Frequently, contractors help the provost deal with these matters quietly yet effectively.
Injury Compensation Available
These assignments are dangerous. Construction is consistently at or near the top of the “most dangerous jobs” lists that appear from time to time. Furthermore, people who drink behave erratically. There is simply not telling how they will respond to a certain situation.
Compounding these injuries, limited medical assistance is available on Diego Garcia. The atoll’s medical facilities are more like first-aid stations. Extensive injury treatment means evacuation to a larger medical facility that’s usually in the Middle East or Australia. The long flight aboard a flying hospital could easily add tens of thousands of dollars to the medical bills in an injury case.
Because of the delayed treatment, the victim’s injuries are usually more difficult to treat and more expensive to treat. However, many insurance companies don’t take this factor into account when they determine what medical expenses were reasonably necessary. So, a Defense Base Act lawyer must strongly advocate for victims.
The “reasonably necessary” standard is very subjective. This standard requires plaintiffs to show they received necessary medical services because of the defendant’s actions or negligence, and that the cost was reasonable for the services. This confusing, yet widely-used, definition uses the term “reasonably necessary” to define “reasonably necessary.”
Many insurance adjusters interpret the subjective definition to mean that “average” is the same thing as “reasonable.” But that’s not true in most cases, especially regarding injuries that occur in remote locations.
- Transportation: Front-line medical centers stabilize patients for transport but do not address their underlying injuries, such as head injuries. As a result, by the time a doctor sees the victim, usually more than twelve hours later, the underlying injuries have degraded.
- Emergency Care: The same principle applies to emergency care. Doctors must use more aggressive means than normal to treat these wounds. These aggressive methods are more expensive than average. So, the boilerplate actuarial tables most adjusters use don’t apply.
- Follow-Up Care: This aggressive treatment normally means doctors must perform several smaller surgical procedures, instead of one long one. That is not a cost-effective approach, but doctors cannot concern themselves with such matters. They must do what is best for their patients, regardless of the cost.
Injured contractors may choose their own doctors. So, they can be sure that they get the treatment they need, as opposed to the “average” treatment for their injuries.
For more information about lost wage replacement, contact Barnett, Lerner, Karsen, Frankel & Castro, P.A.