Latest news with #BertricePompe
Epoch Times
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
Court Halts Conclusion of Chagos Islands Deal With Injunction
The government has temporarily been banned from concluding its negotiations on the Chagos Islands deal by an injunction granted in the early hours by a High Court judge. Downing Street insisted the deal is the 'right thing' but would not comment on the legal case. A hearing is expected to take place at 10:30 a.m. In the injunction granted at 2:25 a.m. on Thursday, brought against the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Mr. Justice Goose granted 'interim relief' to Bertrice Pompe, who had previously taken steps to bring legal action over the deal. 'The defendant shall take no conclusive or legally binding step to conclude its negotiations concerning the possible transfer of the British Indian Ocean Territory, also known as the Chagos Archipelago, to a foreign government or bind itself as to the particular terms of any such transfer,' Mr. Justice Goose said in his order. It requires the government to 'maintain the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom over the British Indian Ocean Territory until further order.' Related Stories 2/27/2025 2/5/2025 According to the order, the judge granted the injunction 'upon consideration of the claimant's application for interim relief made out of court hours' and 'upon reading the defendants' response.' Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had been expected to attend a virtual ceremony alongside representatives from the Mauritian government on Thursday morning to sign off on the deal. Britain would give up sovereignty of the island territory to Mauritius under the deal, and lease back a crucial military base on the archipelago for 99 years. A government spokesperson said: 'We do not comment on ongoing legal cases. 'This deal is the right thing to protect the British people and our national security.'
Free Malaysia Today
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
UK court gives govt green light to reach Chagos Islands deal
Thousands of Chagos islanders, like Bertrice Pompe and Bernadette Dugasse, were forcibly removed from 1967 to 1973. (AFP pic) LONDON : A British court on Thursday paved the way for a government deal on returning the remote Chagos Islands to Mauritius, lifting a temporary ban which had forced an 11th-hour halt to an accord being signed. The agreement would see Britain hand back the Indian Ocean archipelago to its former colony and pay to lease a key US-UK military base on Diego Garcia, the largest island. Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer had been due to conclude the agreement in a virtual signing ceremony with Mauritian representatives earlier on Thursday. But, in a last-minute pre-dawn court hearing, two Chagossian women, Bertrice Pompe and Bernadette Dugasse, won a temporary injunction from London's High Court on the deal's progress. It was an embarrassing turn of events for Starmer, whose government has faced huge criticism over the plan. After a morning hearing, judge Martin Chamberlain lifted the injunction, saying there was a 'very strong case' that the UK national interest and public interest would be 'prejudiced' by extending the ban. He said any further challenges would have to be heard by the court of appeal. The government was expected to announce the deal later on Thursday. A spokesman said: 'We welcome the judge's ruling today.' But, speaking outside court, Pompe said it was a 'very, very sad day'. 'We don't want to hand our rights over to Mauritius. We are not Mauritians,' she said. Britain kept control of the Chagos Islands after Mauritius gained independence in the 1960s. But, it evicted thousands of Chagos islanders, who have since mounted a series of legal claims for compensation in British courts. Pompe, a Chagos Islands-born British national, said in court documents she had been living in exile since being 'forcibly removed from the Chagos Islands by the British authorities between 1967 and 1973'. Others had been forced into destitution in Mauritius, where they had suffered decades of discrimination, she said. The deal would 'jeopardise' the limited the rights she currently enjoyed to visit the islands, including to tend the graves of relatives, she added. Britain's opposition Conservatives have condemned the accord as 'British sovereign territory being given away' in a 'bad deal' for the UK. Pompe and Dugasse applied to the court to impose the injunction after a leaked newspaper report late on Wednesday indicated the government planned to unveil the agreement. As around 50 protesters gathered outside the court, the two women's lawyer, Philip Rule, alleged the government was acting 'unlawfully' and argued there was 'significant risk' that Thursday could be last opportunity the court had to hear the case. But, Starmer has said that international legal rulings have put Britain's ownership of the Chagos in doubt and only a deal with Mauritius can guarantee that the military base remains functional. The base on Diego Garcia is leased to the US. It has become one of its key military facilities in the Asia-Pacific region, including being used as a hub for long-range bombers and ships during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 'The deal is the right thing to protect the British people and our national security,' a government spokesperson told AFP ahead of the ruling. The opposition Conservatives, however, described the deal as a 'sellout for British interests'. 'You're seeing British sovereign territory being given away to an ally of China and billions of pounds of British taxpayers' money being spent for the privilege,' said senior Tory politician Robert Jenrick. 'This was always a bad deal,' he added. In 2019, the International Court of Justice recommended that Britain hand the archipelago to Mauritius after decades of legal battles. The proposed deal would give Britain a 99-year lease of the base, with the option to extend. The UK government has not said how much the lease will cost but has not denied reports that it would be £90 million (US$111 million) a year. Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam has said his country will pursue its fight for full sovereignty over the islands if Washington refuses to support the return.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
British Chagossians accuse UK government of betrayal over sovereignty deal
Two women who brought an 11th-hour legal challenge to try to stop the UK transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius have accused the government of betrayal. British Chagossians Bertrice Pompe, 54, and Bernadette Dugasse, 68, who were both born on the largest of the islands, Diego Garcia, vowed to keep fighting to try to realise their dream of returning to their place of birth. They obtained a high court injunction in the early hours of Thursday morning preventing the UK government from signing the deal with Mauritius. But later that day, another judge discharged the injunction and the agreement to hand over Britain's last African colony was sealed. While much of the fallout has focused on the cost to the UK of leasing back Diego Garcia, which is home to a UK-US airbase, and perceived security threats from Mauritius's relationship with China, many Chagossians feel sidelined. Chief among their concerns is that Diego Garcia is exempted from the right of return for Chagossians contained in the deal and that the Mauritius government will not do right by them. Dugasse, who was two-and-a-half when her family was forced to move to Seychelles, said on Friday that she was heartbroken. 'I don't know how to put it because the night before we won, and in the morning we lost – I've been betrayed by the British government,' she said. 'I will have to keep on fighting the British government till they accept for me to settle there [on Diego Garcia]. Do I know if I'll be able to be around to keep on fighting? I'm getting older and older and I'm losing my strength so I don't think I can make it for very long.' The presence of the military base was the reason the UK severed the Chagos Islands – renaming it the British Indian Ocean Territory – from the rest of Mauritius, when it granted the latter independence in 1968. The British forcibly displaced up to 2,000 people in what has been described as a crime against humanity and one of the most shameful episodes of postwar colonialism. Related: UK signs £3.4bn deal to cede sovereignty over Chagos Islands to Mauritius An internal Foreign Office memo notoriously belittled Chagossians as 'a few Tarzans and Man Fridays' and Pompe, just six months old when her family was expelled, referred to this as she explained how the UK's current actions were exacerbating its past transgressions. She said: 'We've been ignored, we've been invisible, we don't exist. They don't even mention us. When they expelled us, everything was hidden [as if] there were no human beings on the island, just some Man Fridays. And they're not saying it [now], they're not pronouncing the [same] words, but by their actions they're doing the same thing. We're being scammed over and over again.' Given their historic treatment by the British, it might seem strange that the legal challenge sought to keep the islands under British control, but the women explained that it was intended as a temporary arrangement. Dugasse said it would be 'for the time being, until we are able to manage our island by ourselves'. She elaborated, likening the deal to going 'out of the frying pan, into the fire', and added: 'Like my grandparents used to say: 'Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.'' Of the Chagossians in Mauritius, many of whom support the deal, she said: 'They forgot that in the past they were campaigning against the Mauritian government for dumping them in rough houses, dirty places.' Pompe and Dugasse pledged to continue the fight by urging MPs to vote against the deal in parliament and also through the courts. 'I'm still feeling hopeful,' said Pompe. '[Thursday] was a little bit of a disappointment, but after that we've had so much support, especially from other Chagossian groups. 'I'm going to keep working with my lawyers, and we're going to bring another case. So it's not over until the fat lady sings – and that's me.' The government made no reference to the Chagossians in its press release on Thursday. It described the agreement as a 'legal necessity', given international court rulings which said it should return the islands to Mauritius, and said it had secured the future of the 'strategically critical' Diego Garcia base.
The Guardian
23-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
British Chagossians accuse UK government of betrayal over sovereignty deal
Two women who brought an 11th-hour legal challenge to try to stop the UK transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius have accused the government of betrayal. British Chagossians Bertrice Pompe, 54, and Bernadette Dugasse, 68, who were both born on the largest of the islands, Diego Garcia, vowed to keep fighting to try to realise their dream of returning to their place of birth. They obtained a high court injunction in the early hours of Thursday morning preventing the UK government from signing the deal with Mauritius. But later that day, another judge discharged the injunction and the agreement to hand over Britain's last African colony was sealed. While much of the fallout has focused on the cost to the UK of leasing back Diego Garcia, which is home to a UK-US airbase, and perceived security threats from Mauritius's relationship with China, many Chagossians feel sidelined. Chief among their concerns is that Diego Garcia is exempted from the right of return for Chagossians contained in the deal and that the Mauritius government will not do right by them. Dugasse, who was two-and-a-half when her family was forced to move to the Seychelles, said on Friday that she was heartbroken. 'I don't know how to put it because the night before we won, and in the morning we lost – I've been betrayed by the British government,' she said. 'I will have to keep on fighting the British government till they accept for me to settle there [on Diego Garcia]. Do I know if I'll be able to be around to keep on fighting? I'm getting older and older and I'm losing my strength so I don't think I can make it for very long.' The presence of the military base was the reason the UK severed the Chagos Islands – renaming it the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) – from the rest of Mauritius, when it granted the latter independence in 1968. The British forcibly displaced up to 2,000 people in what has been described as a crime against humanity and one of the most shameful episodes of postwar colonialism. An internal Foreign Office memo notoriously belittled Chagossians as 'a few Tarzans and Man Fridays' and Pompe, just six months old when her family was expelled, referred to this as she explained how the UK's current actions were exacerbating its past transgressions. She said: 'We've been ignored, we've been invisible, we don't exist. They don't even mention us. When they expelled us, everything was hidden [as if] there were no human beings on the island, just some Man Fridays. And they're not saying it [now], they're not pronouncing the [same] words, but by their actions they're doing the same thing. We're being scammed over and over again.' Given their historic treatment by the British, it might seem strange that the legal challenge sought to keep the islands under British control, but the women explained that it was intended as a temporary arrangement. Dugasse said it would be 'for the time being, until we are able to manage our island by ourselves'. She elaborated using two sayings. Likening the deal to going 'out of the frying pan, into the fire', she added: 'Like my grandparents used to say: 'Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know'.' Of the Chagossians in Mauritius, many of whom support the deal, she said: 'They forgot that in the past they were campaigning against the Mauritian government for dumping them in rough houses, dirty places.' Pompe and Dugasse pledged to continue the fight by urging MPs to vote against the deal in parliament and also through the courts. 'I'm still feeling hopeful,' said Pompe. '[Thursday] was a little bit of a disappointment, but after that we've had so much support, especially from other Chagossian groups. 'I'm going to keep working with my lawyers, and we're going to bring another case. So it's not over until the fat lady sings – and that's me.' The government made no reference to the Chagossians in its press release on Thursday. It described the agreement as a 'legal necessity', given international court rulings which said it should return the islands to Mauritius, and said it had secured the future of the 'strategically critical' Diego Garcia base.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Chagossian woman who brought Starmer's deal to a standstill
Bertrice Pompe had barely been asleep for two hours when she woke to a phone call at 6am on Thursday. It was her friend Bernadette Dugasse – her sister in arms in the fight to block the Government's deal to surrender the Chagos Islands, a British territory, to Mauritius. 'She said 'get up, there's [going to be] a court case'.' Pompe, 54, had been on the phone to her lawyers throughout the night as a frantic, eleventh-hour battle to secure an emergency injunction from the court played out. At 2:25am, after five hours of legal argument, Mr Justice Goose issued the injunction, preventing Sir Keir Starmer from signing the deal in the morning. It came after 24 hours of chaos. The legal team representing Pompe only became aware of Starmer's plan to attend a 'virtual signing ceremony' with the Mauritian government on Thursday morning after it was leaked to the press on Tuesday night. After The Telegraph confirmed the story on Wednesday, they were left with just hours to intervene. 'After that news, then everything was rushed,' says Pompe, speaking after the hearing. 'My lawyer was on the phone with me almost all day, all night. I slept for two hours... They were on the phone with the judge for three hours last night.' A little before 3am, it seemed they had done it. 'When my lawyer [called] me last night, he said 'we're done',' says Pompe. '[He said] 'it looks like we've put [the signing] off for a little bit, because it was supposed to happen at 9am'. But he didn't say there was going to be a hearing.' An order issued overnight set a further hearing for 10.30am and Pompe raced into town from her home in Clapham to be there in time. In a packed courtroom, Philip Rule KC, representing her, appeared on a TV screen. He made his apologies for appearing via video link and for his 'attire'. He was speaking from a hotel room in New York, where it was still the middle of the night, and lacked the customary black gown and wig so appeared in a white shirt. 'This was the only outfit I had with me that came close to fitting the bill.' And so, the 90 minutes that would decide the fate of the Chagos Islands began. The judge, Mr Justice Chamberlain, heard from Rule that the signing should be put off in order to prevent 'significant prejudice to the claimant', who has always argued the deal would make it harder for Chagossians to return to the islands of their birth. Chagossians were removed from the islands between the 1960s and 1970s – largely to Mauritius – to make way for the UK-US military base on Diego Garcia, where Pompe was born. Pompe's parents moved to the Seychelles six months after her birth in 1971. 'They were told they have to leave. They're not going to be given work, they're not going to be given food, there's no salary.' Pompe has accused the Mauritian government of being 'racist' towards Chagossians, and deems the deal to be a breach of her human rights. She says the UK Government failed to carry out a 'lawful consultation' of Chagossians living in the UK, and failed to 'properly consider' all manner of issues, from rights of residence to 'cultural heritage, and the community's expressed wishes'. Chagossians have never, she has always argued, been consulted adequately on a deal that impacts them so personally. The Conservative government entered into bilateral negotiations with Mauritius, but nothing had been concluded ahead of the general election, after which Starmer decided to press ahead and give the islands away. Critics, including the Tories and Reform UK (the deputy leader of which, Richard Tice, was present in court), say military assets on Diego Garcia will be at risk due to the close ties between Mauritius and China. The UK Government – backed by President Trump and US intelligence agencies – will now lease back the military base on the island at great expense to the taxpayer (it is expected to cost £10 billion in lease payments over 99 years). It claims it is the only way to secure the 'long-term future' of a base which is crucial to national security. For Pompe, who moved to Britain 22 years ago, it is significantly more personal. 'This new Government just jumped in and wants to disrupt everything,' she says. '[They want to] just accept the deal, and don't care about what happens even to British people who were born in Britain,' referring to the impact that the costly deal might have on public finances. 'They want to cut down on taking care of elderly people to give money to Mauritius. How can you accept that? I think more British people should be backing us. Because it's going to affect them as well.' Pompe, a fashion designer, has twin daughters who are now in their twenties. Five years ago, she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia which causes her daily discomfort and fatigue. Ultimately, Starmer's response to the spanner thrown in the works by a softly spoken mother-of-two was to send for Sir James Eadie, Whitehall's most senior lawyer, known as the 'Treasury Devil'. Eadie told the court it had no power to stand in the way of international relations and foreign policy decision making. 'My instructions from Number 10 are that we need a decision by 1pm today and that everyone is standing by,' he said. He told the court 'damage has already been done' in delaying the signing, arguing, 'There is jeopardy to international relations.' Just 20 minutes before the Government's deadline, the judge declared there should be no further interim relief and the stay should be lifted. 'The order is discharged. If you want to... you'll have to go to the Court of Appeal.' Pompe sat among a small group of campaigners, including three little girls sitting patiently with their parents, who represented a whole community. Trying to 'understand what the judge was saying', she found herself thinking about these girls who have little idea of the islands some 6,000 miles away where their ancestors came from. Speaking at a coffee shop near the court after the hearing, she says that she has a ten-year-old grandson who has little sense of his Chagossian heritage 'because all this is dying'. Pompe, dressed in black, looks exhausted. It is a deeply disappointing ending to what has been a long, personal struggle. The case has been the work of a large legal team and an even bigger campaign group, but as the woman chosen by her fellow campaigners to represent their cause, it is her name on the court paperwork. Why did she feel compelled to lead the charge? 'I'm a native. Most of those people who came today to see us, most of the people in our community, they are descendants. The natives are dying out.' Pompe says her parents didn't talk much about the homeland they had been forced to leave. Life in the Seychelles was not so very different than it would have been on Chagos – 'it's still island life', she says – but they were 'discriminated against' there. 'Even our ID card that we get from the Seychelles government is different, I think to isolate us. As soon as you look at the ID number you will know – she wasn't born here.' Pompe would like the chance to return to the place where she was born. In signing this agreement, she feels Starmer has put paid to that chance. 'Keir Starmer doesn't care,' she says. 'I bet he doesn't know anything about Chagossians. He probably doesn't know much about Diego Garcia either. They keep talking – even in court, even in the US – about how important Diego Garcia is to us, to our security. It's important to us as well but you never hear them say that.' The court heard how Pompe told the Government in March that she was considering legal action. Through the course of the hearing, the judge repeatedly questioned the delay in Pompe issuing formal proceedings. 'I knew something was going to go wrong because he kept saying the same thing? Why did we leave that big delay?' she says. Her lawyer explained that a delay in applying for legal aid had been behind it, the recent cyber attack on the Legal Aid Agency having slowed down attempts to get crucial funding. Over the past three months, there has been 'obstacle after obstacle', says Pompe. 'I don't know why the judge wouldn't understand. Maybe he's never been poor. He said we could have done this at any time – no we couldn't. We've been asking for donations, opening GoFundMe pages. It didn't work.' After the hearing, one campaigner, Jemmy Simon, said the Government 'are not treating us like we are human beings'. 'We are British citizens but our rights do not count.' 'British justice takes care of who they want, when they want. They haven't been able to rectify the wrongs they have done to us.' Pompe dreams of one day returning to Chagos, to the 'blue sea, the sun, the coconuts'. In the meantime she is proud, at least, of having done her bit to delay the signing. 'The lawyer said we should [feel proud], because if we didn't bring that, even though it's in a rush, there wouldn't be press, it would have gone quietly, just the way they wanted it to. 'Now it is like we are muddying the water, and they don't like that.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
