evidence: The deal – reached after years of negotiations - will see the UK hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in a historic move. [...] The Chagos islanders themselves – some in Mauritius and the Seychelles, but others living in Crawley in Sussex – do not speak with one voice on the fate of their homeland. [...] The government of Mauritius has long argued that it was illegally forced to give the Chagos Islands away in return for its own independence from the UK in 1968.