A Factual account

Known as the largest and only inhabited coral island of the Chagos Archipelago (Gifford, 2004: 2), Diego Garcia, the horseshoe-shaped atoll is equally renowned as a site for one of a number of secretive U.S military bases in the Indian Ocean. However, while this latter aspect is frequently prominent, it is typically overlooked in mainstream discussions in relation to militarisation, world peace and security (Boolell, 2010: 29). For example, this issue seems to have been almost wholly ignored during consultations on nuclear disarmament in Africa (Pelindaba Treaty, 1966) even though Mauritius and Diego Garcia irrefutably form an integral part of the African Continent (Collen, 2009). Getting to the roots of the story behind the tiny atoll, it has been claimed that Mauritius sold this particular island to the United Kingdom at the time of its negotiations pertaining to its independence in 1965 (Boolell, 2010).