By any reasonable measure, the Indian Ocean has become one of the world’s most crowded strategic theatres. Sea lanes that carry the bulk of global energy supplies intersect with the ambitions of great powers and the anxieties of small island states. It is against this backdrop that Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu’s recent comments on the Chagos Archipelago should be read—not as a casual diplomatic aside, but as a calculated and potentially dangerous move in a region where history, law, and power politics collide.

In an interview with Newsweek, Muizzu floated an extraordinary proposition: if the Chagos Islands were handed over to the Maldives, the United States could continue to operate its naval base at Diego Garcia. On the surface, it sounds pragmatic, even conciliatory. In reality, it is a proposal untethered from international law, dismissive of colonial history, and blind to the regional consequences—particularly for India and Mauritius.

The Chagos Archipelago has long been one of international politics’ unresolved moral debts. Detached from Mauritius by Britain in the 1960s, its inhabitants were forcibly removed to make way for a US military base. Decades later, the International Court of Justice and the United Nations General Assembly made their positions clear: Britain’s continued control of Chagos is unlawful, and sovereignty rightfully belongs to Mauritius. India, notably, has stood firmly behind this position, seeing it as part of a broader commitment to post-colonial justice and rule-based order in the Indian Ocean.

Muizzu’s proposal ignores this entire legal and historical edifice. The Maldives........

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