This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Batchel with Gordon Chang at Gordon G. Chang, and we're off to the

Indian Ocean Basin, thanks to Cleo Pascal, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy.

This story is about Oceania, and the many aspects of Oceania left over from the colonial supremacy days of the 18th and 19th and 20th century.

In this instance, it involves large islands grouped together called the Mauritius Islands off the coast of Africa.

There was a scene of naval battles in the Napoleonic age

when Britain took possession in some fashion as a colonial master.

It's also about a group of islands way in the middle of the Indian Ocean

called the Chegos Islands.

And to help us tell this story of why in the 21st century there's a controversy,

I welcome Cleo to comment, first of all, on these intentions by the United Kingdom

to do the right thing, to allow the people of the Chegos Islands,

that includes the very important air bases, Diego Garcia,

to have possession of their island without the interference from Europe.

But there's more to this.

The Mauritius Islands as well. Cleo, I fall silent

because I didn't want to make the leap. A very good evening to you. Maricious is over here.

Diego Garcia's and Lachegos Islands are over there. How do they get together? What is the

intention here? Good evening. So the background to this is that the UK had several possessions in the Indian Ocean

and divested itself of them in pieces.

And when it divested itself of Mauritius, it kept the Chego Sarcoecoecoecoe.

Now, the Chego's archipelago is the people who live there,

the Chagosians, they're culturally, ethnically, linguistically different than the Mauritians,

...