US&UK Steal Land, Promote Squalor

[PatrickHenry]

The UK has ruled that the island they stole from the native owners will never be returned. The Americans paid $14 M in reduced costs on Polaris misslies in the 1960s. The 1500 natives were forcibly removed and reduced to destitution in squalorous slums far from their ancestral home:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/062304I.shtml

The Diego Garcia atoll "Ilois" are overwhelmed. A legal decree discreetly promulgated by the Foreign Office on June 10 while Iraq and the European elections held the news, prohibits the natives of the largest island in the Chagos archipelago, right in the middle of the Indian Ocean, from ever returning to the territory from which they were expelled 35 years ago by the British authorities. In November 2000, however, the London High Court had ruled that their "transfer" was "illegal" and recognized the grounds for their "right of return" to their ancestral land. <snip> "It's unacceptable," inveighs Alan Vincatassin, leader of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) Movement, which contests the ministerial decision. "It's the most barbarous law I have ever seen adopted in the Queen's name," he adds. "The real reason for it? The American demand that there be no witnesses on this island they've transformed into a military base," he insists. <snip> The Ilois' "transfer" began in the beginning of the 1970s in the greatest secrecy with Mauritius and the Seychelles as their destination. At the time, London asserted to the "deportees" that they had no territorial claim on the islands to which their parents had come from other African countries or Indian Ocean islands as "contract workers". The 426 families who lived from vegetable farming, coastal fishing, and coconut oil culture found themselves stripped of their possessions and without any assistance in the slums of Port-Louis in Mauritius and Victoria in the Seychelles. Alcoholism, drug use, and misery ravaged their community, while the United States, armed with a fifty year lease renewable for an additional twenty year period, transformed Diego Garcia into a fortress.

This story was on 60 Minutes last year and the video was infuriating and heartbreaking. Those who would attempt to justify this as a security issue are apologists for the Law of the Jungle(aka Might Makes Right) and have no recourse to appeal to the Rule of Law when their own ox is gored. What I mean is: Don't complain that someone wronged you. If you have been f'ed over, well, that's just the LotJ/MMR.

Another source for the story:
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/tex...2004-55558.asp
Mauritius says the island belongs to it: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/hrcommi...itius2002.html
Here's the Socialist Party page on the issue: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/hrcommi...itius2002.html
Here's the timeline/chronology:
http://www.lalitmauritius.com/kronoloziprufrid.htm
More: http://www.cosmos.ne.jp/~miyagawa/nagocnet...gogarcia1e.html

[Osborn F Enready]

Very interesting Pat, thanks for the info. I will have to go through the rest of those links, but it looks intriguing.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Unparalleled Arrogance. How can they get away with this kind of thing?

[PatrickHenry]

Simple: poor brown people with no military, no power base, no independent media presence.

The Empire's attitude: "F 'em. We'll do what we want 'cause we are Billy Badass!"

[PatrickHenry]

Here's a charitable trust that has set about to help the Chagos Islanders in their struggle against the unjust Brits.
ILOIS TRUST Online

the Chagossians remain on the margins of Mauritian society, socially excluded and extremely poor. Living conditions for many families remain cramped and inadequate to cope with the extremes of heat and rain that characterise Mauritius' climate. Unemployment is at 60% compared with the national figure of 4% (men) and 11 % (women). Illiteracy rates, only 15% in Mauritius as a whole are 45% amongst the Chagossians. Excluded from work, education and the possibility of a decent livelihood, many younger members of the community have turned to negative coping strategies; national problems of drug abuse and alcoholism are dramatically worse amongst the Chagossians, prostitution is rife, and suicide rates are very high. This project and the work of IST in general seeks to provide opportunity for learning, skills development and employment for the Chagossian youth in particular. Donald Anderson, Chair of Foreign Affairs Select Committee said: "It's clearly been found that there was an indigenous population, that the government of the day was wrong, and that successive governments from the middle 1960s have colluded in that."

[jose]

Hundreds of Indian Ocean islanders who were forcibly deported from their homeland by Britain 40 years ago won a battle yesterday which could see them set sail for an emotional return within days. The court of appeal in London found the British government guilty of "abuse of power" for attempting to prevent the Chagos Islanders from reclaiming land leased from under their feet by Britain to the US in the 1960s. Three judges upheld a ruling in the islanders' favour last year, ordered the government to pay their legal costs and withheld support for an appeal to the House of Lords. Giving his reason for the ruling Lord Justice Sedley wrote: "Few things are more important to a social group than its sense of belonging, not only to each other but to a place. What has sustained peoples in exile, from Babylon onwards, has been the possibility of one day returning home." The judge added: "The barring of that door, however remote or inaccessible it may be for the present, is an act requiring overwhelming justification." An estimated 2,000 Chagossians were driven from their homes between 1967 and 1971 after Britain made a secret deal to lease the island of Diego Garcia to the US for use as an airbase. They were tricked out of their homes, encouraged to leave on temporary trips, and not allowed back. Later, the islanders were subjected to intimidation. At one point US soldiers rounded up their dogs and gassed them. The departing Chagossians were loaded on to boats, allowed to take only one bag with them, and deposited in Mauritius, where most have lived in poverty ever since. The base has served as a refuelling stop and base for air raids in a succession of wars, most recently in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Exiled islanders win 40-year battle to return home as judges accuse UK of abuse of power | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited
note they won´t be going to Dieego Garcia, but rather to other islands in the group
more info on D.G. Link Up To Everywhere On Diego Garcia

[PatrickHenry]

Ethnic cleansing being reversed.

Think of the possibilities for the Palestinians.

[notworthabean]

yea, the Palestinians will have to finally give up their claims to the jews land.

[Slevin57]

Urm, this is how Israel came to be as well. The missiles just came AFTER the Palestinians moved away from the territory that is now Israel.

[notworthabean]

No, Israel was the jew's getting their land back after being displaced for many years.

[brien]

Simple: poor brown people with no military, no power base, no independent media presence.

Today them, tomorrow us.