When you are searching online for some of the remotest islands on the planet, it helps to get the name right. But a row has broken out over the labelling of the Chagos Islands on Google maps.
The UK maintains that it still holds sovereignty over what it terms British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) – one of the smallest of red dots on the traditional cartographic globe.
But Mauritius, which has been recognised as legitimate owner of the archipelago in a series of international court judgments and United Nations votes since 2019, has formally asked Google to re-describe the islands as part of its territory.
Letters seen by the Guardian have been sent to the search engine’s California headquarters requesting that BIOT, which includes the strategic US military base of Diego Garcia, be wiped off the map.
Mauritius first sent a request in January 2020 to Sundar Pichai, the chief executive officer at Google. It asked the company to “rectify this error immediately” and included as evidence references to the advisory opinion of the international court of justice in The Hague.
The judgment said the UK “unlawfully” detached the Chagos Islands from Mauritius prior to granting it independence in 1968. Mauritius said that an overwhelming majority vote by the United Nations General Assembly adopted the court’s opinion and “demanded that the United Kingdom terminate its unlawful colonial administration”.
The letter said the “error could be interpreted as tacit approval … of the UK’s unlawful administration”. The islands, it added, should be marked “Chagos Archipelago (Republic of Mauritius)”.
Two further requests were sent by Mauritius criticising the “mislabelling”, but no change has yet been made online. Legal proceedings, Mauritius has warned, could be brought against Google.
Jagdish Koonjul, the Mauritian ambassador to the United Nations, said: “We never received a reply. It’s disappointing. One would have assumed that Google would be the ideal place to obtain information and that whatever they are [displaying] would be accurate. What they are showing is incorrect.”
The Google Maps search engine, when it locates BIOT, merely explains that it is “a disputed British Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom situated in the Indian Ocean halfway between Tanzania and Indonesia”.
After being approached by the Guardian, Google said it was looking into the matter.
Apple Maps, by contrast, agreed to change its labelling. Searches for both “BIOT” and “British Indian Ocean Territory” on Apple Maps produce the response “No results found”.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said: “The UK has no doubt as to our sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory, which we have held continuously since 1814. Mauritius has never held sovereignty over the territory and the UK does not recognise its claim.”
Meanwhile, the former Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, a longtime supporter of exiled Chagossians, has published a letter of support following Mauritius’s first expedition to the Chagos Islands to assert its sovereignty.
He declared: “The British government must now engage with Mauritius and negotiate a settlement of these issues. I call on the government immediately to restore the right of return of the Chagossians to their homeland and work with Mauritius on a trial resettlement programme.”
Alyn Smith MP, foreign affairs spokesperson for the SNP in Westminster, said: “The SNP stands four-square behind international law and it is clear that the Chagos Islands are not UK territory. In 2019, the UN general assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn the UK’s continuing, systematic occupation of the Chagos Islands. In the same year, the international court of justice also ruled the occupation illegal. Last month, the UN’s international tribunal for the law of the sea upheld this verdict.
“It is high time for the UK to end its illegal occupation of the Chagos Islands. The SNP will continue honouring its longstanding manifesto commitment to supporting international efforts for the Chagos Islands to be returned to their rightful owners and raising the issue at home.”
