Yearbook 2008
Mauritius. The mountain Le Morne in southwestern Mauritius was listed on the UN agency UNESCO World Heritage List in July. Le Morne’s caves and cliffs were used as hiding places by escaped slaves during the 18th and 19th centuries, and the mountain is therefore an important symbol of the slaves’ freedom struggle. In the 18th century, the French used slaves from the African mainland as laborers on their sugar plantations in Mauritius. In the 19th century, British colonizers continued the slave trade until it was banned in the 1830s.
The displaced people from the British-controlled Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean are not allowed to return home. It decided the House of Lords’ House of Lords, the House of Lords, on October 22. The decision in the UK’s highest legal body is final after several trips in an extended legal dispute between the Chagos and the British state. As recently as 2007, a British Court of Appeal had granted the Chagos residents the right to move back.
- ABBREVIATIONFINDER: Click to see the meanings of 2-letter acronym and abbreviation of MU in general and in geography as Mauritius in particular.
The conflict between Mauritius and Britain dates back to 1966, when Britain leased the Chagos Islands’ largest island, Diego Garcia, to the United States, which built a military base there. Britain forced the approximately 2,000 Chagos to move to Mauritius, 20 miles southeast of the islands. Many of them are living in poverty today, while others are refugees in the UK.
According to one of the lords, the reason for the decision was financial; if the forced displaced were allowed to return, they would require the UK to make major investments in the Chagos Islands.
Forced displacements now need permission from the British immigration authorities to visit, for example, family graves in the Chagos Islands, but the British government has promised that the permits will only be a formality.
Chagosbora’s hope now stands for Mauritius President Anerood Jugnauth to take the matter to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which he has previously considered. In 2007, he also threatened to leave the Commonwealth in protest of Britain’s “barbaric treatment” of the people of the Chagos Islands.
On September 19, Jugnauth was re-elected as the country’s president for another five years.
Population 2008
According to Countryaah reports, the population of Mauritius in 2008 was 1,247,844, ranking number 154 in the world. The population growth rate was 0.420% yearly, and the population density was 614.7562 people per km2.