Depopulation of Diego Garcia
Encyclopedia
The Diego Garcia depopulation controversy pertains to the expulsion of the indigenous inhabitants
of the island of Diego Garcia
and the other islands of the British Indian Ocean Territory
(BIOT) by the United Kingdom
, beginning in 1968 and concluding on 27 April 1973 with the evacuation of Peros Banhos
atoll. These people, known at the time as the Ilois; are today known as Chagos Islanders or Chagossians.
Some Chagossians and human rights
advocates have claimed that the Chagossian right of occupation was violated by the British Foreign Office
as a result of the 1966 agreement between the British
and American governments to provide an unpopulated island
for a U.S. military base
, and that additional compensation and a right of return
be provided.
Legal action to claim compensation and the right of abode in the Chagos began in April 1973 when 280 islanders, represented by a Mauritian
attorney, petitioned the government of Mauritius to distribute the £650,000 compensation provided in 1972 by the British government for distribution by the Mauritian government (it was not distributed until 1977). In October 1974, after receiving no assistance from the Mauritian Government, a Mr. Saminaden and Mr. Michel Vincatassin presented the British High Commissioner
to Mauritius with a petition detailing the lack of support the islanders had received from the Mauritian government, noting that 40 islanders had died since arriving on Mauritius, and asking for the UK Government to work on their behalf with the Mauritian Government, or to return the Ilois to the Chagos.
From this initial petitioning grew a series of presentations and lawsuits culminating in the 27 March 1982 agreement among the British Government, the Mauritian Government, and the Islanders (numbering 1,419 adults and 160 minors), which was intended to settle all islander claims for the sum of £4 millions in cash from the British Government and £1 million in land from the Mauritius Government.
Beginning in 1983, a new series of compensation claims were made against the British Government by an Ilois group called the Chagos Refugee Group, located on Mauritius. The founders and officers formed the core of inhabitants who, beginning in 1999, brought three lawsuits to British Courts - in 1999, 2002, and 2006 - and one to an American Court in 2001, all requesting additional compensation and the right of abode in the Chagos. The U.S. case and two of these three British cases were defeated on appeal, the other was not appealed by the British Government.
In 2005, these same litigants filed a brief with the European Court of Human Rights
(ECHR), which was brought before that court in 2008 following the final defeat of the final British lawsuit before the House of Lords, and that case remains in litigation as of August 2010.
The British government has consistently denied any illegalities in the expulsion. Even so, various officials (including the Foreign Minister
) have apologised to the Chagossians for long-ago wrongdoing, while still disputing that the deportees have a right to be repatriated at this time.
On April 1, 2010, the British Cabinet announced the creation of the world’s largest Marine Protected Area
(MPA) which consists of most of the Chagos Archipelago
, homeland of the Chagossians. The MPA will prohibit extractive industry of all kinds, including commercial fishing
and oil and gas exploration. Some Chagossians have claimed that this MPA was created to prevent the islanders from returning to the islands. The UK Government claims that the restrictions of the MPA will be modified pending the decision of the ECHR.
On December 1, 2010, a leaked US Embassy London diplomatic cable exposed British and US intentions in creating the marine nature reserve. The cable relays exchanges between US Political Counselor Richard Mills
and British Director of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Colin Roberts, in which Roberts "asserted that establishing a marine park would, in effect, put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago’s former residents." Richard Mills concludes:
The cable (reference ID "09LONDON1156") was classified as confidential and "no foreigners", and leaked as part of the Cablegate cache.
The Chagos Archipelago was uninhabited when first visited by European explorers, and remained that way until the French successfully established a small colony on the island of Diego Garcia, composed of 50-60 “men” and “a complement of slaves”. The slaves came from what are now Mozambique
and Madagascar
via Mauritius. Thus the original Chagossians were a mixture of the Bantu and Austronesian peoples.
The French surrendered Mauritius and its dependencies (including the Chagos) to the UK in the 1814 Treaty of Paris
, and the British immediately outlawed the slave trade. However, nothing precluded the transport of slaves within the colony, and so the ancestors of the Chagossians were routinely shipped from Mauritius to Rodrigues
to the Chagos to the Seychelles
, and elsewhere. In addition, from 1820-1840 the atoll of Diego Garcia in the Chagos became the staging post for slave ships trading between Sumatra
, the Seychelles, and the French island of Bourbon, adding a population of Malay slaves into the Chagos gene pool
.
The British Government abolished slavery in 1834, and the Colonial administration of the Seychelles (which administered the Chagos at the time) followed suit in 1835, with the former slaves “apprenticed
” to their former masters until 1 February 1839, at which time they became freemen. Following emancipation, the former slaves became contract employees of the various Plantation owners throughout the Chagos. Contracts were required by colonial law to be renewed before a Magistrate
at least every two years, but the distance from the nearest Colonial headquarters (on Mauritius) meant few visits by officials, and that meant that these contract workers often stayed for decades between the visits of the Magistrate, and this is little doubt that some remained for a lifetime.
Those workers born in the Chagos were referred to as Creoles des Iles, or Ilois for short, a French Creole
word meaning "Islanders" until the late 1990s, when they adopted the name Chagossians or Chagos Islanders.
With no other work to be had, and all the islands granted by the Governor of Mauritius to the Plantation owners, life continued for the Chagossians as it would in a Eurocentric slave society with European managers and Ilois workers and their families.
On the Chagos, this involved specific tasks, and rewards including housing (such as it was), rations and rum
, and a relatively distinct Creole
society developed. Over the decades, Mauritian, Seychellois, Chinese, Somali
, and Indian workers were employed on the island at various times in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, contributing to the Chagossian culture, as did as Plantation managers and administrators, visiting ships crews and passengers, British and Indian garrison
troops stationed on the island in World War II
, and residents of Mauritius - to which individual Chagossians and their families traveled and spent lengthy periods of time.
Significant demographic shifts in the island population began in 1962 when the French financed, Mauritian Company, Societe Huiliere de Diego et Peros, which had consolidated ownership of all the plantations in the Chagos in 1883, sold the plantations to the Seychelles Company, Chagos-Agalega Company, which then owned the entire Chagos Archipelago, except for six acres at the mouth of the Diego Garcia lagoon. Thus, At no time did anyone living on the islands actually own a piece of real property there. Even the “resident” managers of the plantations were simply employees of absentee landlords.
In the 1930s, Father Dussercle reported that 60% of the plantation workers were “Children of the Isles”; that is, born in the Chagos. However, beginning in 1962, the Chagos-Agalega Company began hiring Seychellois contract workers almost exclusively, along with a few from Mauritius, as many of the Ilois left the Chagos because of the change in management; by 1964, 80% of the population were Seychellois under 18-month or 2-year contracts.
At this same time, the UK and U.S. began talks with the objective of establishing a military base in the Indian Ocean region. The base would need to be on British Territory as the U.S. had no possessions in the region. The U.S. was deeply concerned with the stability of the host nation of any potential base, and sought an unpopulated territory, to avoid the U.N.'s decolonisation requirements and the resulting political issues of sovereignty
or anti-Western sentiment
. The political posture of an independent Mauritius, from which the remote British islands of the central Indian Ocean were administered, was not clearly known, but was of a nature expected to work against the security of the base.
As a direct result of these geopolitical
concerns, the British Colonial Office recommended to the UK Government in October 1964 to detach the Chagos from Mauritius.
In January 1965, the U.S. Embassy in London formally requested the detachment of the Chagos as well. On November 8, the UK created the BIOT by an Order in Council On December 30, 1966, the U.S. and UK signed a 50-year agreement to use the Chagos for military purposes, and that each island so used would be without a resident civilian population. This and other evidence at trial led the UK High Court of Justice
Queen’s Bench to decide in 2003 that the UK government ultimately decided to depopulate the entire Chagos to avoid scrutiny by the U.N.'s Special Committee on the Situation with Regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, known as the “Committee of 24”.
In April 1967, The BIOT Administration bought out Chagos-Agalega for £600,000, thus becoming the sole property owner in the BIOT. The Crown immediately leased back the properties to Chagos-Agalega but the company terminated the lease at the end of 1967, after which the BIOT assigned management of the plantations to the former managers of Chagos-Agalega, who had incorporated in the Seychelles as Moulinie and Company, Limited.
Throughout the 20th Century, there existed a total population of approximately one thousand individuals, with a peak population of 1,142 on all islands was recorded in 1953. In 1966, the population was 924. This population was fully employed. Although it was common for local plantation managers to allow “pensioners” and the disabled to remain in the islands and continue to receive rations in exchange for light work, children after the age of 12 were required to work In 1964, only 3 of a population of 963 were unemployed.
In the latter half of the 20th century, there were thus three major strands to the population - Mauritian and Seychelles contract workers (including management), and the Ilois. There is no agreement as to the numbers of Ilois living in the BIOT prior to 1971. However, the UK and Mauritius agreed in 1972 that there were 426 Ilois families numbering 1,151 individuals who left the Chagos for Mauritius voluntarily or involuntarily between 1965 and 1973. In 1977, the Mauritian government independently listed a total of 557 families totaling 2,323 people - 1,068 adults and 1,255 children - a number which included families that left voluntarily before the creation of the BIOT and never returned to the Chagos. The number reported by the Mauritian government in 1978 to have received compensation was 2,365 - 1,081 adults and 1,284 minor children. The Mauritian Government’s Ilois Trust Fund Board certified 1,579 individuals as Ilois in 1982.
The entire population of the Chagos, including the Ilois, was removed to Mauritius and the Seychelles by 27 April 1973.
At some stage prior to this date, the United States
and the United Kingdom
consulted each other on the fate of the islands. The United States wanted "an austere communications facility" in the Indian Ocean
and asked Britain for use of any Indian Ocean territory that might be suitable.
This would be under a leasing agreement — British-owned but US-run, as at Ascension Island
or Lakenheath
.
The United States government initially asked for the Aldabra Atoll, which had no human inhabitants. However, it was found to be home to the rare Aldabra tortoise
. There are around 100,000 of these creatures on the islands which, due to their isolation, form a natural 'niche'. The wildlife lobby ensured that the US plans for Aldabra were dropped.
Diego Garcia is the largest of the Chagos Islands. At fourteen miles by four, it is large enough to build a number of full-length runways. The island is also horseshoe
-shaped, making it a natural harbour capable of containing a large US Naval fleet
. To the Cabinet of Harold Wilson
, Diego Garcia seemed a natural second choice for the US government, who wished the island to be unpopulated for security reasons.
However, this was considered a problem insofar as it may have been contrary to international law
to separate Diego Garcia and retain it after Mauritian independence. The second problem facing the British was that, under principles of self-determination
expressed by Article 73 of the UN Charter, it is stated that "the interests of the inhabitants of a territory are paramount" in determining its future.
conference prior to the independence of Mauritius. Mauritian Prime Minister Seewoosagur Ramgoolam
was persuaded to sell the Chagos to Britain for the price of £3 million (1967 rate). Ramgoolam was later awarded a knighthood in the 1965 New Year's Honours List, and it is speculated that this may have been a form of reward for the sale.
Through the sale the Chagos and a handful of other Indian Ocean islands (including tortoise-rich Aldabra
and neighbouring Agalega) became a new British overseas territory — the British Indian Ocean Territory
.
In 1966, with the ownership of the Chagos secured, Great Britain and the United States executed an "exchange of notes" making the island of Diego Garcia available for the defence needs of both countries for the next 50 years.
head Denis Greenhill (later Lord Greenhill of Harrow) wrote to the British Delegation at the UN:
Another internal Colonial Office memo read:
Advocates of the Chagossians (see links below) claim that the number of Chagossian residents on Diego Garcia was deliberately under-counted in order to play down the scale of the proposed depopulation. Three years before the depopulation plan was concocted, the British Governor of Mauritius, Sir Robert Scott, is said to have estimated the permanent population of Diego Garcia at 1,700. In a BIOT report made in June 1968, the British government estimated that only 354 Chagossians were third generation 'belongers' on the islands. This number subsequently fell in further reports.
Later that year, the British government asked for help from the legal department of their own Foreign and Commonwealth Office
(FCO) in creating a legal basis for depopulating the islands. The first paragraph of the FCO's reply read:
The government is therefore often accused of deciding to clear all the islanders by denying they ever belonged on Diego Garcia in the first place and then removing them. This was to be done by issuing an ordinance that the island be cleared of all non-inhabitants. The legal obligation to announce the decision was fulfilled by publishing the notice in a small-circulation gazette not generally read outside of FCO staff.
For many years, family groups of Chagossians had made trips to the Mauritian mainland on the periodic steamers that collected the copra
from Diego Garcia. There they would spend the money they had earned in the townships, and experience something of modern life. When they had tired of this, they would simply get on the next steamer home - even though this might mean a wait on Mauritius of several months.
Starting in March 1969, Chagossians visiting Mauritius found that they were no longer allowed to get on the steamer home. They were told their contracts to work on Diego Garcia had expired. This left them homeless, jobless and without means of support. It also prevented word from reaching the rest of the Diego Garcia population. Relatives who travelled to Mauritius to seek their missing family members also found themselves unable to return.
Tam Dalyell
heard about what was happening to the Chagossians and gave notice that he intended to ask a number of questions in Parliament
. Within days of Dalyell's notification, Eleanor Emery, head of the Indian Ocean Department at the FCO, drafted a 'memorandum of guidance' for internal circulation. The reason for the memorandum, she stated, was 'a recent revival of public interest in the British Indian Ocean Territory'.
She then stated:
On 23 January 1971, a nine-man advance party from the U.S. Navy's
Naval Mobile Construction Battalion
40 (NMCB-40) landed on Diego Garcia to confirm planning information and conduct a survey for beach landing areas.
At 5 p.m. local time on 9 March 1971, the USS Vernon County (LST-1161)
arrived at Diego Garcia. The next day, she began underwater and beach surveys in preparation for beaching. Two days after that, the ship beached and began offloading men and construction equipment for construction of a U.S. Navy base on Diego Garcia.
Construction continued for the remainder of the summer, with the completion (28 July 1971) of the first runway
on the island (3,500 ft in length).
Some weeks later, the remaining Chagossians began packing their belongings and nailing shut their houses. They were shipped to Mauritius by the U.S. Navy as they became ready. On 15 October 1971, the few remaining Chagossians held a last Mass in the island's one church.
Later that day, the last of the Chagossians and their families were shipped out on the MV Nordvaer. They arrived at Mauritius and were left at Port Louis.
or the UN Human Rights Committee.
According to Article 7(d) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
which established the International Criminal Court
(ICC), "deportation or forcible transfer of population" constitutes a crime against humanity
if it is "committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack". The ICC is not retroactive: alleged crimes committed before 1 July 2002 cannot be judged by the ICC.
A few of the literate exiles put together a petition that they presented to the British High Commissioner, asking for a house and a plot of land for each family, so that they could support themselves. The Commissioner immediately delivered this petition to the Mauritian Government.
Mauritian opposition party the Mouvement Militant Mauricien (MMM) began to question the validity under international law of the purchase of the Chagos and the removal of the Chagossians.
In 1975, David Ottaway of the Washington Post wrote and published an article entitled: "Islanders Were Evicted for U.S. Base" which related the plight of the Chagossians in detail.
This prompted two U.S. Congressional committees to look into the matter. They were told that the 'entire subject of Diego Garcia is considered classified'.
In November 1975, the Sunday Times
published an article entitled The islanders that Britain sold.
That year, a Methodist preacher from Kent
, Mr George Champion, began a one-man picket of the FCO, with a placard reading simply: 'DIEGO GARCIA'. This continued until his death in 1982.
In 1976, the government of the Seychelles took the British government to court. The Aldabra, Desroches and Farquhar Islands were returned to the Seychelles and the United States cancelled its 60-year lease of the islands from Britain.
In 1978, at Bain Des Dames in Port Louis, six Chagossian women went on hunger strike and there were demonstrations in the streets (mainly organised by the MMM) over Diego Garcia. In 1979, a Mauritian Committee asked Mr. Vencatassen’s lawyer to negotiate more compensation. In response to this, the British Government offered £1.25m to the surviving Chagossians on the express condition that Vencatassen withdraw his case and that all Chagossians sign a "full and final" document renouncing any right of return to the island. Some of the Chagossians did indeed sign. The document also contained provisions for those that could not write, by allowing the impression of an inked thumbprint to ratify the document.
However, some illiterate islanders claim that they were tricked into signing the documents and that they would never have signed sincerely had they known the outcome of their signatures.
In 2000 the British High Court granted the islanders the right to return to the Archipelago. In 2002 the islanders and their descendants, now numbering 4,500, returned to court claiming compensation, after what they said were two years of delays by the British Foreign Office.
However, on 10 June 2004 the British government made two Orders in Council under the Royal Prerogative
forever banning the islanders from returning home, to override the effect of the 2000 court decision. Some of the Chagossians are making return plans to turn Diego Garcia into a sugarcane and fishing enterprise as soon as the defence agreement expires (some see this as early as 2016). A few dozen other Chagossians are still fighting to be housed in the UK
.
On 11 May 2006 the British High Court ruled that the 2004 Orders-in-Council were unlawful, and consequently that the Chagossians were entitled to return to the Chagos Archipelago. An action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia
against Robert McNamara
, the former United States Secretary of Defense
, was dismissed as a nonjusticiable
political question
.
On 23 May 2007, the UK Government's appeal against the 2006 High Court ruling was dismissed, and they took the matter to the House of Lords
. On 22 October 2008, the UK Government won on appeal, the House of Lords overturned the 2006 High Court ruling and upheld the two 2004 Orders-in-Council and with them the Government's ban on anyone returning.
obtained by Wikileaks
and released in 2010, in a calculated move in 2009 to prevent re-settlement of the BIOT by native Chagossians, the UK proposed that the BIOT become a "marine reserve" with the aim of preventing the former inhabitants from returning to their lands. The summary of the diplomatic cable is as follows :
Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
of the island of Diego Garcia
Diego Garcia
Diego Garcia is a tropical, footprint-shaped coral atoll located south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean at 7 degrees, 26 minutes south latitude. It is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory [BIOT] and is positioned at 72°23' east longitude....
and the other islands of the British Indian Ocean Territory
British Indian Ocean Territory
The British Indian Ocean Territory or Chagos Islands is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom situated in the Indian Ocean, halfway between Africa and Indonesia...
(BIOT) by the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, beginning in 1968 and concluding on 27 April 1973 with the evacuation of Peros Banhos
Peros Banhos
Peros Banhos, Pedro dos Banhos or Baixo de Pero dos Banhos in old maps, is a formerly inhabited atoll in the Chagos Archipelago of the British Indian Ocean Territory....
atoll. These people, known at the time as the Ilois; are today known as Chagos Islanders or Chagossians.
Some Chagossians and human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
advocates have claimed that the Chagossian right of occupation was violated by the British Foreign Office
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...
as a result of the 1966 agreement between the British
Government of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Government is the central government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Government is led by the Prime Minister, who selects all the remaining Ministers...
and American governments to provide an unpopulated island
Desert island
A desert island or uninhabited island is an island that has yet to be populated by humans. Uninhabited islands are often used in movies or stories about shipwrecked people, and are also used as stereotypes for the idea of "paradise". Some uninhabited islands are protected as nature reserves and...
for a U.S. military base
Military base
A military base is a facility directly owned and operated by or for the military or one of its branches that shelters military equipment and personnel, and facilitates training and operations. In general, a military base provides accommodations for one or more units, but it may also be used as a...
, and that additional compensation and a right of return
Right of return
The term right of return refers to a principle of international law, codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, giving any person the right to return to, and re-enter, his or her country of origin...
be provided.
Legal action to claim compensation and the right of abode in the Chagos began in April 1973 when 280 islanders, represented by a Mauritian
Mauritius
Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...
attorney, petitioned the government of Mauritius to distribute the £650,000 compensation provided in 1972 by the British government for distribution by the Mauritian government (it was not distributed until 1977). In October 1974, after receiving no assistance from the Mauritian Government, a Mr. Saminaden and Mr. Michel Vincatassin presented the British High Commissioner
High Commissioner (Commonwealth)
In the Commonwealth of Nations, a High Commissioner is the senior diplomat in charge of the diplomatic mission of one Commonwealth government to another.-History:...
to Mauritius with a petition detailing the lack of support the islanders had received from the Mauritian government, noting that 40 islanders had died since arriving on Mauritius, and asking for the UK Government to work on their behalf with the Mauritian Government, or to return the Ilois to the Chagos.
From this initial petitioning grew a series of presentations and lawsuits culminating in the 27 March 1982 agreement among the British Government, the Mauritian Government, and the Islanders (numbering 1,419 adults and 160 minors), which was intended to settle all islander claims for the sum of £4 millions in cash from the British Government and £1 million in land from the Mauritius Government.
Beginning in 1983, a new series of compensation claims were made against the British Government by an Ilois group called the Chagos Refugee Group, located on Mauritius. The founders and officers formed the core of inhabitants who, beginning in 1999, brought three lawsuits to British Courts - in 1999, 2002, and 2006 - and one to an American Court in 2001, all requesting additional compensation and the right of abode in the Chagos. The U.S. case and two of these three British cases were defeated on appeal, the other was not appealed by the British Government.
In 2005, these same litigants filed a brief with the European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
(ECHR), which was brought before that court in 2008 following the final defeat of the final British lawsuit before the House of Lords, and that case remains in litigation as of August 2010.
The British government has consistently denied any illegalities in the expulsion. Even so, various officials (including the Foreign Minister
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, commonly referred to as the Foreign Secretary, is a senior member of Her Majesty's Government heading the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and regarded as one of the Great Offices of State...
) have apologised to the Chagossians for long-ago wrongdoing, while still disputing that the deportees have a right to be repatriated at this time.
On April 1, 2010, the British Cabinet announced the creation of the world’s largest Marine Protected Area
Marine Protected Area
Marine Protected Areas, like any protected area, are regions in which human activity has been placed under some restrictions in the interest of conserving the natural environment, it's surrounding waters and the occupant ecosystems, and any cultural or historical resources that may require...
(MPA) which consists of most of the Chagos Archipelago
Chagos Archipelago
The Chagos Archipelago , is a group of seven atolls comprising more than 60 individual tropical islands in the Indian Ocean; situated some due south of the Maldives archipelago. This chain of islands are the southernmost archipelago of the Chagos-Laccadive Ridge a long submarine mountain range...
, homeland of the Chagossians. The MPA will prohibit extractive industry of all kinds, including commercial fishing
Commercial fishing
Commercial fishing is the activity of catching fish and other seafood for commercial profit, mostly from wild fisheries. It provides a large quantity of food to many countries around the world, but those who practice it as an industry must often pursue fish far into the ocean under adverse conditions...
and oil and gas exploration. Some Chagossians have claimed that this MPA was created to prevent the islanders from returning to the islands. The UK Government claims that the restrictions of the MPA will be modified pending the decision of the ECHR.
On December 1, 2010, a leaked US Embassy London diplomatic cable exposed British and US intentions in creating the marine nature reserve. The cable relays exchanges between US Political Counselor Richard Mills
and British Director of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Colin Roberts, in which Roberts "asserted that establishing a marine park would, in effect, put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago’s former residents." Richard Mills concludes:
The cable (reference ID "09LONDON1156") was classified as confidential and "no foreigners", and leaked as part of the Cablegate cache.
The Chagossians
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
and Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
via Mauritius. Thus the original Chagossians were a mixture of the Bantu and Austronesian peoples.
The French surrendered Mauritius and its dependencies (including the Chagos) to the UK in the 1814 Treaty of Paris
Treaty of Paris (1814)
The Treaty of Paris, signed on 30 May 1814, ended the war between France and the Sixth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars, following an armistice signed on 23 May between Charles, Count of Artois, and the allies...
, and the British immediately outlawed the slave trade. However, nothing precluded the transport of slaves within the colony, and so the ancestors of the Chagossians were routinely shipped from Mauritius to Rodrigues
Rodrigues
Rodrigues is a common surname in the Portuguese language. It was originally a Patronymic, meaning Son of Rodrigo or Son of Rui. The "es" signifies "son of". The name Rodrigo is the Portuguese form of Roderick, meaning "famous power" or "famous ruler", from the Germanic elements "hrod" and "ric" ,...
to the Chagos to the Seychelles
Seychelles
Seychelles , officially the Republic of Seychelles , is an island country spanning an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar....
, and elsewhere. In addition, from 1820-1840 the atoll of Diego Garcia in the Chagos became the staging post for slave ships trading between Sumatra
Sumatra
Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
, the Seychelles, and the French island of Bourbon, adding a population of Malay slaves into the Chagos gene pool
Gene pool
In population genetics, a gene pool is the complete set of unique alleles in a species or population.- Description :A large gene pool indicates extensive genetic diversity, which is associated with robust populations that can survive bouts of intense selection...
.
The British Government abolished slavery in 1834, and the Colonial administration of the Seychelles (which administered the Chagos at the time) followed suit in 1835, with the former slaves “apprenticed
Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...
” to their former masters until 1 February 1839, at which time they became freemen. Following emancipation, the former slaves became contract employees of the various Plantation owners throughout the Chagos. Contracts were required by colonial law to be renewed before a Magistrate
Magistrate
A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...
at least every two years, but the distance from the nearest Colonial headquarters (on Mauritius) meant few visits by officials, and that meant that these contract workers often stayed for decades between the visits of the Magistrate, and this is little doubt that some remained for a lifetime.
Those workers born in the Chagos were referred to as Creoles des Iles, or Ilois for short, a French Creole
French-based creole languages
A French Creole, or French-based Creole language, is a creole language based on the French language, more specifically on a 17th century koiné French extant in Paris, the French Atlantic harbors, and the nascent French colonies...
word meaning "Islanders" until the late 1990s, when they adopted the name Chagossians or Chagos Islanders.
With no other work to be had, and all the islands granted by the Governor of Mauritius to the Plantation owners, life continued for the Chagossians as it would in a Eurocentric slave society with European managers and Ilois workers and their families.
On the Chagos, this involved specific tasks, and rewards including housing (such as it was), rations and rum
Rum
Rum is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from sugarcane by-products such as molasses, or directly from sugarcane juice, by a process of fermentation and distillation. The distillate, a clear liquid, is then usually aged in oak barrels...
, and a relatively distinct Creole
Creole peoples
The term Creole and its cognates in other languages — such as crioulo, criollo, créole, kriolu, criol, kreyol, kreol, kriulo, kriol, krio, etc. — have been applied to people in different countries and epochs, with rather different meanings...
society developed. Over the decades, Mauritian, Seychellois, Chinese, Somali
Somali people
Somalis are an ethnic group located in the Horn of Africa, also known as the Somali Peninsula. The overwhelming majority of Somalis speak the Somali language, which is part of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family...
, and Indian workers were employed on the island at various times in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, contributing to the Chagossian culture, as did as Plantation managers and administrators, visiting ships crews and passengers, British and Indian garrison
Garrison
Garrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, but now often simply using it as a home base....
troops stationed on the island in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and residents of Mauritius - to which individual Chagossians and their families traveled and spent lengthy periods of time.
Significant demographic shifts in the island population began in 1962 when the French financed, Mauritian Company, Societe Huiliere de Diego et Peros, which had consolidated ownership of all the plantations in the Chagos in 1883, sold the plantations to the Seychelles Company, Chagos-Agalega Company, which then owned the entire Chagos Archipelago, except for six acres at the mouth of the Diego Garcia lagoon. Thus, At no time did anyone living on the islands actually own a piece of real property there. Even the “resident” managers of the plantations were simply employees of absentee landlords.
In the 1930s, Father Dussercle reported that 60% of the plantation workers were “Children of the Isles”; that is, born in the Chagos. However, beginning in 1962, the Chagos-Agalega Company began hiring Seychellois contract workers almost exclusively, along with a few from Mauritius, as many of the Ilois left the Chagos because of the change in management; by 1964, 80% of the population were Seychellois under 18-month or 2-year contracts.
At this same time, the UK and U.S. began talks with the objective of establishing a military base in the Indian Ocean region. The base would need to be on British Territory as the U.S. had no possessions in the region. The U.S. was deeply concerned with the stability of the host nation of any potential base, and sought an unpopulated territory, to avoid the U.N.'s decolonisation requirements and the resulting political issues of sovereignty
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...
or anti-Western sentiment
Anti-Western sentiment
Anti-Western sentiment refers to broad opposition or hostility to the people, policies, or governments in the western world. In many cases the United States, Israël and the United Kingdom are the subject of discussion or hostility...
. The political posture of an independent Mauritius, from which the remote British islands of the central Indian Ocean were administered, was not clearly known, but was of a nature expected to work against the security of the base.
As a direct result of these geopolitical
Geopolitics
Geopolitics, from Greek Γη and Πολιτική in broad terms, is a theory that describes the relation between politics and territory whether on local or international scale....
concerns, the British Colonial Office recommended to the UK Government in October 1964 to detach the Chagos from Mauritius.
In January 1965, the U.S. Embassy in London formally requested the detachment of the Chagos as well. On November 8, the UK created the BIOT by an Order in Council On December 30, 1966, the U.S. and UK signed a 50-year agreement to use the Chagos for military purposes, and that each island so used would be without a resident civilian population. This and other evidence at trial led the UK High Court of Justice
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...
Queen’s Bench to decide in 2003 that the UK government ultimately decided to depopulate the entire Chagos to avoid scrutiny by the U.N.'s Special Committee on the Situation with Regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, known as the “Committee of 24”.
In April 1967, The BIOT Administration bought out Chagos-Agalega for £600,000, thus becoming the sole property owner in the BIOT. The Crown immediately leased back the properties to Chagos-Agalega but the company terminated the lease at the end of 1967, after which the BIOT assigned management of the plantations to the former managers of Chagos-Agalega, who had incorporated in the Seychelles as Moulinie and Company, Limited.
Throughout the 20th Century, there existed a total population of approximately one thousand individuals, with a peak population of 1,142 on all islands was recorded in 1953. In 1966, the population was 924. This population was fully employed. Although it was common for local plantation managers to allow “pensioners” and the disabled to remain in the islands and continue to receive rations in exchange for light work, children after the age of 12 were required to work In 1964, only 3 of a population of 963 were unemployed.
In the latter half of the 20th century, there were thus three major strands to the population - Mauritian and Seychelles contract workers (including management), and the Ilois. There is no agreement as to the numbers of Ilois living in the BIOT prior to 1971. However, the UK and Mauritius agreed in 1972 that there were 426 Ilois families numbering 1,151 individuals who left the Chagos for Mauritius voluntarily or involuntarily between 1965 and 1973. In 1977, the Mauritian government independently listed a total of 557 families totaling 2,323 people - 1,068 adults and 1,255 children - a number which included families that left voluntarily before the creation of the BIOT and never returned to the Chagos. The number reported by the Mauritian government in 1978 to have received compensation was 2,365 - 1,081 adults and 1,284 minor children. The Mauritian Government’s Ilois Trust Fund Board certified 1,579 individuals as Ilois in 1982.
The entire population of the Chagos, including the Ilois, was removed to Mauritius and the Seychelles by 27 April 1973.
Diego Garcia and Mauritian independence
On 12 March 1968, Mauritius gained independence from Britain.At some stage prior to this date, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
consulted each other on the fate of the islands. The United States wanted "an austere communications facility" in the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
and asked Britain for use of any Indian Ocean territory that might be suitable.
This would be under a leasing agreement — British-owned but US-run, as at Ascension Island
Ascension Island
Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic island in the equatorial waters of the South Atlantic Ocean, around from the coast of Africa and from the coast of South America, which is roughly midway between the horn of South America and Africa...
or Lakenheath
Lakenheath
Lakenheath is a village in Suffolk, England. It has around 8,200 residents, and is situated in the Forest Heath district of Suffolk, close to the county boundaries of both Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, and at the meeting point of the The Fens and the Breckland natural environments.Lakenheath is host...
.
Aldabra Giant Tortoise
The Aldabra giant tortoise , from the islands of the Aldabra Atoll in the Seychelles, is one of the largest tortoises in the world....
. There are around 100,000 of these creatures on the islands which, due to their isolation, form a natural 'niche'. The wildlife lobby ensured that the US plans for Aldabra were dropped.
Diego Garcia is the largest of the Chagos Islands. At fourteen miles by four, it is large enough to build a number of full-length runways. The island is also horseshoe
Horseshoe
A horseshoe, is a fabricated product, normally made of metal, although sometimes made partially or wholly of modern synthetic materials, designed to protect a horse's hoof from wear and tear. Shoes are attached on the palmar surface of the hooves, usually nailed through the insensitive hoof wall...
-shaped, making it a natural harbour capable of containing a large US Naval fleet
Current United States Navy ships
This is a list of current ships of the United States Navy. There are more than 400 ships believed to be in active service with the United States Navy, on reserve, or under construction, based on public reports compiled in this list. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet...
. To the Cabinet of Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
, Diego Garcia seemed a natural second choice for the US government, who wished the island to be unpopulated for security reasons.
However, this was considered a problem insofar as it may have been contrary to international law
International law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
to separate Diego Garcia and retain it after Mauritian independence. The second problem facing the British was that, under principles of self-determination
Self-determination
Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...
expressed by Article 73 of the UN Charter, it is stated that "the interests of the inhabitants of a territory are paramount" in determining its future.
British purchase of the Chagos
The problem of Mauritian sovereignty over the Chagos archipelago was circumvented at a 1965 LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
conference prior to the independence of Mauritius. Mauritian Prime Minister Seewoosagur Ramgoolam
Seewoosagur Ramgoolam
Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam KT,GCMG,KCMG,LRCP, MRCS is the first Chief Minister, Prime Minister and sixth Governor General of Mauritius....
was persuaded to sell the Chagos to Britain for the price of £3 million (1967 rate). Ramgoolam was later awarded a knighthood in the 1965 New Year's Honours List, and it is speculated that this may have been a form of reward for the sale.
Through the sale the Chagos and a handful of other Indian Ocean islands (including tortoise-rich Aldabra
Aldabra
Aldabra, the world's second largest coral atoll, is in the Aldabra Group of islands in the Indian Ocean that form part of the Seychelles. Uninhabited and extremely isolated, Aldabra is virtually untouched by humans, has distinctive island fauna including the Aldabra Giant Tortoise, and is...
and neighbouring Agalega) became a new British overseas territory — the British Indian Ocean Territory
British Indian Ocean Territory
The British Indian Ocean Territory or Chagos Islands is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom situated in the Indian Ocean, halfway between Africa and Indonesia...
.
In 1966, with the ownership of the Chagos secured, Great Britain and the United States executed an "exchange of notes" making the island of Diego Garcia available for the defence needs of both countries for the next 50 years.
Depopulation
In early March 1967, the British Commissioner declared BIOT Ordinance Number Two. This unilateral proclamation was called the Acquisition of Land for Public Purposes (Private Treaty) Ordinance and enabled him to acquire any land he liked (for the UK government). On 3 April of that year, under the provisions of the order, the British government bought all the plantations of the Chagos archipelago for £660,000 from the Chagos Agalega Company. It has been suggested that the plan was to deprive the Chagossians of an income and so encourage them to leave the island voluntarily. In a memo dating from this period, Colonial OfficeColonial Office
Colonial Office is the government agency which serves to oversee and supervise their colony* Colonial Office - The British Government department* Office of Insular Affairs - the American government agency* Reichskolonialamt - the German Colonial Office...
head Denis Greenhill (later Lord Greenhill of Harrow) wrote to the British Delegation at the UN:
- The object of the exercise is to get some rocks which will remain ours; there will be no indigenous population except seagulls who have not yet got a committee. Unfortunately, along with the seagulls go some few TarzanTarzanTarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
s and Man FridayMan FridayFriday is one of the main characters of Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe. Robinson Crusoe names the man, with whom he cannot at first communicate, Friday because they first meet on that day...
s that are hopefully being wished on Mauritius.
Another internal Colonial Office memo read:
- The Colonial Office is at present considering the line to be taken in dealing with the existing inhabitants of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). They wish to avoid using the phrase 'permanent inhabitants' in relation to any of the islands in the territory because to recognise that there are any permanent inhabitants will imply that there is a population whose democratic rights will have to be safeguarded and which will therefore be deemed by the UN to come within its purlieu. The solution proposed is to issue them with documents making it clear that they are 'belongers' of Mauritius and the Seychelles and only temporary residents of BIOT. This devise, [sic] although rather transparent, would at least give us a defensible position to take up at the UN.
Advocates of the Chagossians (see links below) claim that the number of Chagossian residents on Diego Garcia was deliberately under-counted in order to play down the scale of the proposed depopulation. Three years before the depopulation plan was concocted, the British Governor of Mauritius, Sir Robert Scott, is said to have estimated the permanent population of Diego Garcia at 1,700. In a BIOT report made in June 1968, the British government estimated that only 354 Chagossians were third generation 'belongers' on the islands. This number subsequently fell in further reports.
Later that year, the British government asked for help from the legal department of their own Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...
(FCO) in creating a legal basis for depopulating the islands. The first paragraph of the FCO's reply read:
- The purpose of the Immigration Ordinance is to maintain the fiction that the inhabitants of the Chagos are not a permanent or semi-permanent population. The Ordinance would be published in the BIOT gazette which has only very limited circulation. Publicity will therefore be minimal.
The government is therefore often accused of deciding to clear all the islanders by denying they ever belonged on Diego Garcia in the first place and then removing them. This was to be done by issuing an ordinance that the island be cleared of all non-inhabitants. The legal obligation to announce the decision was fulfilled by publishing the notice in a small-circulation gazette not generally read outside of FCO staff.
For many years, family groups of Chagossians had made trips to the Mauritian mainland on the periodic steamers that collected the copra
Copra
Copra is the dried meat, or kernel, of the coconut. Coconut oil extracted from it has made copra an important agricultural commodity for many coconut-producing countries. It also yields coconut cake which is mainly used as feed for livestock.-Production:...
from Diego Garcia. There they would spend the money they had earned in the townships, and experience something of modern life. When they had tired of this, they would simply get on the next steamer home - even though this might mean a wait on Mauritius of several months.
Starting in March 1969, Chagossians visiting Mauritius found that they were no longer allowed to get on the steamer home. They were told their contracts to work on Diego Garcia had expired. This left them homeless, jobless and without means of support. It also prevented word from reaching the rest of the Diego Garcia population. Relatives who travelled to Mauritius to seek their missing family members also found themselves unable to return.
'A Memorandum of Guidance' (1970)
In 1970, British MPMember of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
Tam Dalyell
Tam Dalyell
Sir Thomas Dalyell Loch, 11th Baronet , known as Tam Dalyell, is a British Labour Party politician, who was a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons from 1962 to 2005, first for West Lothian and then for Linlithgow.-Early life:...
heard about what was happening to the Chagossians and gave notice that he intended to ask a number of questions in Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
. Within days of Dalyell's notification, Eleanor Emery, head of the Indian Ocean Department at the FCO, drafted a 'memorandum of guidance' for internal circulation. The reason for the memorandum, she stated, was 'a recent revival of public interest in the British Indian Ocean Territory'.
She then stated:
- We shall continue to try to say as little as possible to avoid embarrassing the United States administration.
- Apart from our overall strategic and defence interests, we are also concerned at present not to have to elaborate on the administrative implications for the present population of Diego Garcia of the establishment of any base there.
- We would not wish it to become general knowledge that some of the inhabitants have lived on Diego Garcia for several generations and could, therefore, be regarded as 'belongers'.
- We shall advise ministers in handling supplementary questions to say that there is only a small number of contract workers from the Seychelles and Mauritius, engaged to work on the copra plantations.
- Should an MP ask about what would happen to these contract labourers in the event of a base being set up on the island, we hope that, for the present, this can be brushed aside as a hypothetical question at least until any decision to go ahead with the Diego Garcia facility becomes public.
U.S. Navy personnel arrive
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
Naval Mobile Construction Battalion
Naval Mobile Construction Battalion
There are 9 active-duty Naval Mobile Construction Battalions — known as C.B.'s — in the United States Navy, split between the east and west coasts...
40 (NMCB-40) landed on Diego Garcia to confirm planning information and conduct a survey for beach landing areas.
At 5 p.m. local time on 9 March 1971, the USS Vernon County (LST-1161)
USS Vernon County (LST-1161)
USS Vernon County was a United States Navy, in commission from 1953 to 1973. She saw extensive service in the Vietnam war before being transferred to the Venezuelan Navy, where she became Amazonas .-Construction and commissioning:...
arrived at Diego Garcia. The next day, she began underwater and beach surveys in preparation for beaching. Two days after that, the ship beached and began offloading men and construction equipment for construction of a U.S. Navy base on Diego Garcia.
Construction continued for the remainder of the summer, with the completion (28 July 1971) of the first runway
Runway
According to ICAO a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and take-off of aircraft." Runways may be a man-made surface or a natural surface .- Orientation and dimensions :Runways are named by a number between 01 and 36, which is generally one tenth...
on the island (3,500 ft in length).
The last Chagossians are removed
In March 1971, a BIOT civil servant travelled from Mauritius to tell the Chagossians that they were to leave. A memorandum related that:- I told the inhabitants that we intended to close the island in July. A few of them asked whether they could receive some compensation for leaving 'their own country.' I kicked this into touch by saying that our intention was to cause as little disruption to their lives as possible.
Some weeks later, the remaining Chagossians began packing their belongings and nailing shut their houses. They were shipped to Mauritius by the U.S. Navy as they became ready. On 15 October 1971, the few remaining Chagossians held a last Mass in the island's one church.
Later that day, the last of the Chagossians and their families were shipped out on the MV Nordvaer. They arrived at Mauritius and were left at Port Louis.
International law
The case has not been heard by any international court of law. No right of petition exists "in right of" the British Indian Ocean Territory to either the European Court of Human RightsEuropean Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
or the UN Human Rights Committee.
According to Article 7(d) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court . It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome on 17 July 1998 and it entered into force on 1 July 2002. As of 13 October 2011, 119 states are party to the statute...
which established the International Criminal Court
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...
(ICC), "deportation or forcible transfer of population" constitutes a crime against humanity
Crime against humanity
Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings...
if it is "committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack". The ICC is not retroactive: alleged crimes committed before 1 July 2002 cannot be judged by the ICC.
Compensation
The British Government had allocated £650,000 "in full and final settlement of HMG's obligations" towards its dispossessed citizens - slightly less than £3000 per head. This money went to the Mauritian government to defray the costs of resettling the Chagossians. The Mauritian government, however, did not recognise it had a duty to resettle the Chagossians.Protests
The Chagossians had been left homeless in an island where unemployment already stood at 20 percent. Moreover, their trade was copra farming which was not translatable to the local economy as Mauritius's chief crop was sugar cane. The Chagossians also spoke a patois unique to Diego Garcia, meaning it would be difficult to integrate with Mauritians.A few of the literate exiles put together a petition that they presented to the British High Commissioner, asking for a house and a plot of land for each family, so that they could support themselves. The Commissioner immediately delivered this petition to the Mauritian Government.
Mauritian opposition party the Mouvement Militant Mauricien (MMM) began to question the validity under international law of the purchase of the Chagos and the removal of the Chagossians.
This prompted two U.S. Congressional committees to look into the matter. They were told that the 'entire subject of Diego Garcia is considered classified'.
In November 1975, the Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
published an article entitled The islanders that Britain sold.
That year, a Methodist preacher from Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, Mr George Champion, began a one-man picket of the FCO, with a placard reading simply: 'DIEGO GARCIA'. This continued until his death in 1982.
In 1976, the government of the Seychelles took the British government to court. The Aldabra, Desroches and Farquhar Islands were returned to the Seychelles and the United States cancelled its 60-year lease of the islands from Britain.
However, some illiterate islanders claim that they were tricked into signing the documents and that they would never have signed sincerely had they known the outcome of their signatures.
Developments since 2000
However, on 10 June 2004 the British government made two Orders in Council under the Royal Prerogative
Royal Prerogative
The royal prerogative is a body of customary authority, privilege, and immunity, recognized in common law and, sometimes, in civil law jurisdictions possessing a monarchy as belonging to the sovereign alone. It is the means by which some of the executive powers of government, possessed by and...
forever banning the islanders from returning home, to override the effect of the 2000 court decision. Some of the Chagossians are making return plans to turn Diego Garcia into a sugarcane and fishing enterprise as soon as the defence agreement expires (some see this as early as 2016). A few dozen other Chagossians are still fighting to be housed in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
On 11 May 2006 the British High Court ruled that the 2004 Orders-in-Council were unlawful, and consequently that the Chagossians were entitled to return to the Chagos Archipelago. An action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia
United States District Court for the District of Columbia
The United States District Court for the District of Columbia is a federal district court. Appeals from the District are taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit The United States District Court for the District of Columbia (in case citations, D.D.C.) is a...
against Robert McNamara
Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, during which time he played a large role in escalating the United States involvement in the Vietnam War...
, the former United States Secretary of Defense
United States Secretary of Defense
The Secretary of Defense is the head and chief executive officer of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. This position corresponds to what is generally known as a Defense Minister in other countries...
, was dismissed as a nonjusticiable
Justiciability
Justiciability concerns the limits upon legal issues over which a court can exercise its judicial authority. It includes, but is not limited to, the legal concept of standing, which is used to determine if the party bringing the suit is a party appropriate to establishing whether an actual...
political question
Political question
In American Constitutional law, the political question doctrine is closely linked to the concept of justiciability, as it comes down to a question of whether or not the court system is an appropriate forum in which to hear the case. This is because the court system only has authority to hear and...
.
On 23 May 2007, the UK Government's appeal against the 2006 High Court ruling was dismissed, and they took the matter to the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
. On 22 October 2008, the UK Government won on appeal, the House of Lords overturned the 2006 High Court ruling and upheld the two 2004 Orders-in-Council and with them the Government's ban on anyone returning.
Diplomatic cables leaks
According to leaked diplomatic cablesUnited States diplomatic cables leak
The United States diplomatic cables leak, widely known as Cablegate, began in February 2010 when WikiLeaks—a non-profit organization that publishes submissions from anonymous whistleblowers—began releasing classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by 274 of its consulates,...
obtained by Wikileaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
and released in 2010, in a calculated move in 2009 to prevent re-settlement of the BIOT by native Chagossians, the UK proposed that the BIOT become a "marine reserve" with the aim of preventing the former inhabitants from returning to their lands. The summary of the diplomatic cable is as follows :
External links
- Archive of "Let Them Return", The Chagos People's Homeland Campaign
- Chagossian protestor site
- UK Chagos support
- http://www.counterpunch.org/pilger10062004.html
- http://www.granta.com/Magazine/73
- http://www.lalitmauritius.com/deigohowdiego.htm
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/uk_politics/1005064.stm
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/oct/02/foreignpolicy.comment Paradise cleansed, an article by John PilgerJohn PilgerJohn Richard Pilger is an Australian journalist and documentary maker, based in London. He has twice won Britain's Journalist of the Year Award, and his documentaries have received academy awards in Britain and the US....
, October 2, 2004. See also Pilger, John, Freedom Next Time http://www.amazon.co.uk/Freedom-Next-Time-John-Pilger/dp/0552773328 / http://www.booksattransworld.co.uk/catalog/book.htm?command=Search&db=twmain.txt&eqisbndata=0593055527 - Stealing a Nation, a 2004 documentary by John PilgerJohn PilgerJohn Richard Pilger is an Australian journalist and documentary maker, based in London. He has twice won Britain's Journalist of the Year Award, and his documentaries have received academy awards in Britain and the US....
(at Google Video) - A Return from Exile in Sight? The Chagossians and their Struggle, from the Northwestern Journal of International Human Rights
- http://web.archive.org/web/20051023230212/http://www.lalitmauritius.com/kronoloziprufrid.htm Chagos Archipelagos timeline (October 2005 archive)