Let the Chagossians return to their paradise islands

Whatever your appreciation of John Prescott, he is right on the case of Chagos these days:

Last year I wrote about one of the worst cases of forced ­repatriation in British history.

Two thousand people were scared into fleeing their island ­paradise after their dogs were rounded up and gassed to death.

The Chagos Islands were leased to the US for 50 years by the Harold Wilson government as part of a squalid deal on nuclear weapons. The islanders were made to flee because the US wanted to turn one of the islands, Diego Garcia, into an ­American ­military base.

Further reading.

Should the Chagos Islands be resettled?

Summary and conclusion of an academic paper.
In conclusion, after exploring on the different arguments for and against the resettlement of the Chagos islands, the author of this paper strongly believes that the Chagos islands should be resettled. Although the resettlement would be costly and would entail expensive underwriting by the British taxpayer for an open-ended period, in September 2010 the Conservative MEP, Charles Tannock, was told by the European Commissioner for development, that if the UK requested the Commission to explore options whether it would be willing to make a financial contribution towards the cost of resettlement under the Overseas Association 2001/822/EC, it would happily be willing in doing so
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. One supports the arguments which have been put forward by David Snoxell, a former British High Commissioner to Mauritius 2000-2004 and Deputy Commissioner of BIOT 1995-1997, about the resettlement on the outer islands of the Chagos archipelago as well as an agreement on sovereignty of such islands. The British government is currently on a contract with the US with regards to Diego Garcia where the US military base is located, it would be highly preposterous to expect the US to abandon their base or to welcome resettlement there. As Snoxell argues that it is possible for the British government to restore the Chagossians right of return to the outer islands of the Chagos archipelago without prejudice to the security of the US military base
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. Finally, the resettlement of the Chagos islands would be a great opportunity to right a great wrong as well as to wipe a national shame of the British government, the Chagossians should no longer be the victims of an injustice that deprived them of their birth right

UK Appeal Court hearing - government must address Chagossians' situation without delay, new report - MRG press release

On the eve of a case in the UK's Appeal Court challenging the creation of the Chagos Marine Protected Area, Minority Rights Group International (MRG) calls on the UK government to address the situation facing the Chagossians without delay.

In 2010 the UK government created the world's largest marine reserve around the Chagos Islands, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean. The Islands' original inhabitants were evicted 50 years ago to make way for a US air base on the island of Diego Garcia.

A new MRG report says that the creation of the Marine Protected Area, and the subsequent banning of commercial fishing in its waters, effectively bars Islanders from returning to their homes. Under international law, the Chagossians have a right to return to their homeland, unless such return is not feasible, in which case they should be offered appropriate compensation.

‘The Court case highlights the pressing need for a new feasibility study to clarify, once and for all, the possible means and arrangements for return to the islands,' says Lucy Claridge, MRG's Head of Law.

‘Given that the 2002 investigation commissioned by the UK government on resettlement of the Chagos Islands was found to be seriously flawed, it is imperative that any new feasibility study must be carried out with the full participation of the Chagossians,' she adds.

The Islanders' struggle to return home has led to a decades-long legal battle in the UK courts, and culminated in a December 2012 European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) dismissal of their claims to return, citing reasons based on technical grounds.

Over a year has passed since the ECtHR's decision, and the situation confronting the Chagos Islanders remains unresolved.

The report, Still dispossessed - the battle of the Chagos Islanders to return to their homeland, summarises the case as it now stands and reminds the world of the Chagossians' plight. It also discusses some of the potential ways forward for addressing this prolonged violation of human rights.

‘Apart from the right to return, the Chagossians have the right to an effective remedy and reparation for the violations of their rights. No satisfactory explanation has ever been advanced for the unwarranted forced relocation of them from their homeland,' says Lucy Claridge.

‘At the very least the UK government should issue a formal apology for the injustice suffered by the Chagossian people over the past 50 years,' she adds.

MRG has supported the islanders in their long struggle to return home, and was a joint intervener in the case before the ECtHR. The case at the UK Court of Appeal will be held on 31 March 201

- See more at: http://www.minorityrights.org/12326/press-releases/uk-appeal-court-hearing-government-must-address-chagossians-situation-without-delay-new-report.html#sthash.Ghbxh71u.dpuf

Prominent Labour politician Prescott pleads for Chagossians

The scandal of what happened to the ­people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean is a terrible injustice.
Imagine you lived on a paradise island. Your ­family could trace its roots back more than 200 years.

Life was good. Home was a four-bedroom house and nearly everyone had a job – unemployment was only 3 per cent.

But then, without warning, you were told everyone was being ­expelled – you’d been sold out ­because your country had done a deal with a foreign power to get a discount on an arms deal.

And just in case you resisted, more than 1,000 dogs were rounded up and gassed to death, the threat being it could happen to you if you didn’t leave.

So you were frightened into ­leaving and dumped on the ­dockside of a foreign land 1,000 miles away with no money and no home. You had to live in a slum, seven people ­sharing one room and ­treated as second-class citizens by the local population.

This actually happened. But it wasn’t an African dictatorship that did this.

It was British ­governments, and the people ­expelled were ­British subjects.

Former UK vice-prime-minister John Prescott in the Sunday Mirror for further reading.

ECHR agrees glass beads and mirrors should calm Chagossians down

Exiled Chagos Islanders living in Britain and Mauritius have said they are "dumbstruck" by a European court ruling that it has no jurisdiction to examine their forced expulsion by the British government in the 1960s.

Their comments followed a decision by the European court of rights in Strasbourg which declared that the islanders "effectively renounced" their claims 30 years ago when they received compensation for resettlement from the UK authorities.

The ruling dashed the Chagossians' hopes of returning and appeared to block all legal avenues through the ECHR by concluding that individual Chagossians had no right of individual petition to the court in future.

"These proceedings were settled in 1982 on payment of £4m by the United Kingdom and provision of land worth £1m by Mauritius," the decision by the seven judges declared.

"In so settling, the islanders agreed to give up their claims. In the later Chagos Islanders case, the [UK] high court found that an attempt to claim further compensation and make further claims arising out of the expulsion and exclusion from the islands was an abuse since the claims had been renounced by the islanders."

Further reading.

Judgement postponed

R (Bancoult) v. Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Divisional Court, 21 November 2012: read judgment. (T)the Divisional Court was due to hear the Chagossians’ challenge to the designation of the waters around the islands as a Marine Protected Area, which prohibited all fishing. They said that this designation was motivated by a decision to stymie any remaining economic viability which the islands may have – the Chagossians’ traditional livelihood arose out of fishing. The main hearing of this challenge was due this week. The Court has now adjourned it, to be heard sometime in the New Year.

Rest of the story.

New colonial objections against return of Chagossians

The manoeuvres by which the Chagossians were evicted from their islands in the Indian Ocean, the late 1960s and early 1970s, so to enable the US to operate an air base on Diego Garcia, do not show the UK Foreign Office in its best light. Indeed, after a severe rebuke from the courts in 2000, the FCO accepted that the original law underlying their departure was unlawful, and agreed to investigate their possible resettlement on some of their islands. The first of these new cases is an environmental information appeal concerning the next phase of the story – how the FCO decided that it was not feasible to resettle the islanders in 2002-2004. This decision was taken in the modern way – backed by a feasibility study prepared by consultants supporting the stance which the FCO ultimately were to take. And this case concerns the islanders’ attempts to get documents lying behind and around the taking of this decision. From the islanders’ point of view, this decision by the FCO was more of the same. Unfeasible and uneconomic resettlement suited the FCO nicely. Yes, we moved you unlawfully 30 years ago, but you have to stay where you are because we now say it is impractical to move you back. The FCO countered – it is unfeasible, the islands need significant investment in infrastructure and employment (which the Chagossians could not provide from their own resources), and our consultants who carried out the review agree with us.

Further reading.

An illusion to be cherished for - weeks? months? certainly not years

Chagossupport.org.uk believes in the new UK government. Hope against hope, barring a miracle. Unfortunately, it is very hard to believe why the Liberal Democrats - with their admittedly clean slate as far as Chagos is concerned - will not cave in for "security reasons" to be quoted by the US government when the right of return would be taken seriously.

"After days of haggling, the UK now has a new Government. With it comes new hope for supporters of the Chagossians’ right of return: both the Foreign Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister, as well as several other key figures, have already pledged to take action on the issue.

Unsurprisingly, former Tory leader William Hague was one of the first people to be appointed to the cabinet, taking over from David Miliband at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This is positive news, as Mr Hague is on record as saying:

I can assure you that if elected to serve as the next British government we will work to ensure a fair settlement of this long-standing dispute.

In this same letter, Mr Hague also referenced his deputy, Keith Simpson, who has made two parliamentary speeches on the Chagossians’ right of return in recent months, declaring:

“There is a great deal of sympathy from those on both sides of the house for the plight of the Chagossians, and their interests must be placed at the heart of any decision made about their homeland.”

“…there should at the very least be a timetable for the return of those people to the outer islands. The Foreign Office should recognise that the House of Commons feels very strongly on that”.

Other Conservatives who have spoken out in favour of the right of return, or who have otherwise expressed their support, include Henry Smith (the new MP for Crawley), Mark Field, Peter Bottomley, Bill Cash, Lorraine Fullbrook, Helen Grant and Anne McIntosh (expected to be re-elected in Thirsk and Malton later this month).

For the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg’s office has previously written to state:

“Nick and the Liberal Democrats believe that the Government has a moral responsibility to allow these people to at last return home.”

This is a strong and unequivocal statement from the UK’s new Deputy Prime Minister, perhaps the second most powerful man in the country, and adds to the reams of pledges of support that other senior Liberal Democrats such as Jo Swinson have given.

The coalition talks between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats took several days to complete, with difficult policy compromises being made by each side. However, on the issue of the Chagossians’ right of return, there should be no difference between the two parties.

Labour failed to deliver justice for the Chagossians because of the unwillingness to perform a U-Turn and because of a disappointing lack of leadership. Whilst the case for resettlement was unanswerable, the political will was nowhere to be seen. Thankfully, the new coalition government offers a fresh start and a real opportunity for a swift and just resolution to the saga.

The coalition government has already written its policy on the Chagos islands. Let’s hope that the right to return can be implemented swiftly and with conviction."

Source.

Tombstone of independence

Diego Garcia is the oceanic tombstone of British independence. The UK's violation of international law there is yet another of its epitaphs


Ian Williams

Of course we are all shocked, shocked, that the CIA would have misled the British government about renditions taking place via so-called British territory Diego Garcia.

But we should also be shocked that Whitehall did not suspect or know about it. We would not be that shocked if it turned out that that the CIA's assurances that none of the prisoners were tortured was more than a little wobbly. Indeed, five years ago, exactly such questions were being raised - and waffled away by Tony Blair's ministers. It is, let us say, coyly, not beyond probability that the CIA, which lies to its own legislators, may be economical with the truth with satellite state governments.

But apart from putting some truth in Robert Harris's novel The Ghost about a former British prime minister wanted by the International Criminal Court for aiding and abetting just such rendition, the brief flurry of interest in these islands may remind people worldwide of the original mass rendition, by which the British deported the island's inhabitants in order to hand over a nominal British colony to effective American control.

Luckily, the politicians involved then are now mostly dead, and the ICC has no retrospective authority, otherwise the ethnic cleansing and continued exclusion of the inhabitants would be subject to prosecution, as indeed would be complicity in the renditions.

Indeed, the British signature on the International Court of Justice, which precludes liability for any act occurring before 1974 and from any present or past member of the Commonwealth, also handily stops the Seychelles from protesting the timely removal of the islands from its jurisdiction just before independence.

Of course the American presence, and the islanders' absence from their home, is all in the name of defending the world for democracy and the rule of law - which is why the British government is defying successive court rulings in favour of the cleansees.

Indeed Diego Garcia is the distilled essence of the "special relationship" between Britain and the US. The British government stole the islands from their own inhabitants and the Seychellois, and handed them over rent-free to the US in return for a discount on the Polaris submarines that in turn marked the end of the genuinely independent British deterrent that the post-war Labour government had strived for, and tied the country's fate almost inextricably to the US. It involved giving up Blue Streak, the successful rocket which would have allowed Britain to have a presence in space as well.

Harold McMillan, who did the Polaris deal, believed like Blair that Britain could be Athens to Washington's Rome. He had marginally better expectations of constructive results from John F Kennedy than Blair did from his diplomatic duet with George Bush. At the insistence of the latter, Blair over-rode decisions of British courts on letting the inhabitants of Diego Garcia return.

Surely it's time for a declaration of independence. The lease of Diego Garcia is up for renewal in 2016. Britain should let the islanders back immediately and let them take it over then and join the Seychelles if they wish. And it should drop the pretensions to "independent" nuclear power and give up on the Trident replacement. Any relationship that involves the country in violations of international human rights law is indeed "special", but it is not necessarily desirable.

(Guardian, 26 Feb. 2008 - alas, as applicable now as it was then)

Petition for Chagos nature and humans

The UK Government is considering declaring the Chagos Archipelago the World’s largest Marine Protected Area, in order to conserve its globally important coral reefs and related ecosystems.

This is a unique and vital opportunity for marine conservation, but the issue is not as simple as that.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has launched a consultation on Chagos. The consultation proposes three main options for a Marine Protected Area, all of which exclude any kind of fisheries or similar marine activities within the reef areas.

What these options do not take account of are the wishes of the Chagossian community. The islanders were removed from their homeland by the British Government in the late 1960s and have been campaigning ever since for their right to return.

The full no-take protection of reef areas (as proposed by the consultation) would provide no means for resettled islanders to utilise their marine resources for subsistence or income generation. Communities and Marine Protected Areas coexist across the world, and there is no reason why the islanders could not be successful stewards of their coral reef environment.

We endorse the efforts of the Foreign Secretary to protect the marine ecosystems of the Chagos archipelago but we call on him to work with the Chagos islanders and the Government of Mauritius to devise an MPA solution that makes provision for resettlement and protects Mauritius’ legitimate interests.

Further reading and site to sign on:
here.
This petition was closed on March 5th 2010. Please scroll down for other postings.