Subject: Re: Diego Garcia
Which is why they're insisting on keeping the base.

A 99 year lease. How'd that work out for us with the Panama Canal? No, if you're going to do something like this you go all Gitmo on it (do a lease with no expiration date).

In some ways, it's an elegant solution - they keep the base, but let Mauritius become the sovereign over the islands again.

Did they ever really have sovereignty over Diego Garcia? Mauritius has never had any historical claim to DG. Historically they've...not really been a nation at all.

That's the point. They're giving away DG to an island chain that was discovered *uninhabited* by the Portuguese in 1507 (after Arabs had first landed there in the 900 something).