Diego Garcia: Chagos islands return 'puts US base at risk'

[kskiska]

Source: The Guardian

Islanders seeking to return to the homes from which they were removed to make way for a US military base nearly 40 years ago have no right to return, the law lords were told yesterday. Allowing the Chagossian islanders to go back to their Indian Ocean homes would be a "precarious and costly" operation, and the United States had said that it would also present an "unacceptable risk" to its base on Diego Garcia, the law lords heard.

The Foreign Office is appealing this week to the House of Lords against earlier judgments which have granted the Chagossians the right to return to the islands in the British Indian Ocean Territory. A group of islanders have arrived from Mauritius, where most of them have lived since being evicted, to hear the final chapter in their legal battle. Both the divisional court and the court of appeal have already found in favour of the Chagossians.

While there were "undeniably unattractive aspects" to what had happened to the islanders in the 1970s, that was no longer what the case was about, Jonathan Crow QC, for the foreign secretary, told lords Bingham, Hoffmann, Rodger, Carswell and Mance.

The issue now was whether the government had been entitled in 2004 to issue orders in council forbidding the return of the islanders, he said. Britain took the Chagos islands from France in the Napoleonic wars and, under a 1971 immigration ordinance, removed the inhabitants compulsorily so that the main island in the archipelago, Diego Garcia, could be used as a US base.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/01/humanrights.usforeignpolicy

[Warpy]

1. Good, the Chagos Islands were simply stolen

from the people who had lived there for generations. The fallout from that among the "resettled" Chagosians has been appalling in terms of family breakdown, alcoholism and crime.

They should have tried to accommodate the islanders from the beginning. Instead they harassed them for years, even rounding up and killing all their household pets, trying to get them to leave voluntarily.

The UK and US have a lot to answer for in this one.

[hobbit709]

2. Yep. Let the Islanders return-evict the US and UK

[Warpy]

10. Why does it have to be all or nothing?

That's the kind of stinkin' thinkin' that led to the original problem.

The islanders should have been accommodated from the start instead of brutalized and evicted from their homes.

The arrogance of the UK and US in this matter is beyond belief.

[Demonaut]

3. gonzo station

oh well, it's their land

[PDJane]

4. Since the US military presents an "unacceptable risk"

To the life and limb and well-being of the middle east, among others, from that particular base, I suggest that the right of the chagos islanders outweighs the rights of the US military. However, I suggest that the US government should be forced to pay for the toxic clean up; wherever the US military goes, it pollutes.

[Voice for Peace]

5. John Pilger's article on Diego Garcia, heartbreaking story

http://www.counterpunch.org/pilger10062004.html

Stealing Diego Garcia

By JOHN PILGER

There are times when one tragedy, one crime tells us how a whole system works behind its democratic facade and helps us to understand how much of the world is run for the benefit of the powerful and how governments lie. To understand the catastrophe of Iraq, and all the other Iraqs along imperial history's trail of blood and tears, one need look no further than Diego Garcia.

The story of Diego Garcia is shocking, almost incredible. A British colony lying midway between Africa and Asia in the Indian Ocean, the island is one of 64 unique coral islands that form the Chagos Archipelago, a phenomenon of natural beauty, and once of peace. Newsreaders refer to it in passing: "American B-52 and Stealth bombers last night took off from the uninhabited British island of Diego Garcia to bomb Iraq (or Afghanistan)." It is the word "uninhabited" that turns the key on the horror of what was done there. In the 1970s, the Ministry of Defence in London produced this epic lie: "There is nothing in our files about a population and an evacuation."

Diego Garcia was first settled in the late 18th century. At least 2,000 people lived there: a gentle creole nation with thriving villages, a school, a hospital, a church, a prison, a railway, docks, a copra plantation. Watching a film shot by missionaries in the 1960s, I can understand why every Chagos islander I have met calls it paradise; there is a grainy sequence where the islanders' beloved dogs are swimming in the sheltered, palm-fringed lagoon, catching fish.

All this began to end when an American rear-admiral stepped ashore in 1961 and Diego Garcia was marked as the site of what is today one of the biggest American bases in the world. There are now more than 2,000 troops, anchorage for 30 warships, a nuclear dump, a satellite spy station, shopping malls, bars and a golf course. "Camp Justice" the Americans call it. (story at link http://www.counterpunch.org/pilger10062004.html)

[EFerrari]

6. Bastards.

[gratuitous]

7. Yeah, those Chagossians hatin' our freedom like that

Bastards all! Don't they understand that some people are going to have to make some sacrifices for the greater glory of the American wehrmacht? Sounds like they could use a little tour and maybe even a little down time at Guantanamo to inspire a proper appreciation of what our proud nation and its glorious leader are trying to accomplish.

For the folks on the shorter bus, this is meant sarcastically, of course.

[PDittie]

8. Wasn't DG basically a launch point for

B-52s? Isn't that plane finally obsolete?

Why would we still need to be there, beyond imperialist tendencies?

[Thothmes]

9. No its not obsolete

the buff will still be flying 10 years from now. In addition to using the island for a bomber base, we use it as an anchorage for prepositioned cargo ships ladden with military stores such as ammunition, rations, and other materials.

[formercia]

11. When the balloon goes up, Diego Garcia will be no more.

A hostile boat could flatten that place before anyone could hit the panic button.

[Thothmes]

15. What with?

[formercia]

16. SLBM or SLCM

It wouldn't surprise me if there were nuclear armed, potentially hostile subs on station within range of DG.

It's a big ocean out there. I had the pleasure of sailing across it from Australia to Suez once. It took a long time.

There's plenty of deep water to hide in out there.

[Thothmes]

17. Oh you mean like the icbm type subs that

use to/maybe still patrol off the east/west coasts of the United States. Virtually every square inch of the United states can be targeted by submaring launched nuclear missiles with MIRV capablity. Its been that way for the last 20 years. From a strategic standpoint DG would barely worth the cost of a nuc to take out. No bombers perminately stationed there. They come from Guam when needed. A lot of MAC traffic headed for the gulf.

[lakercub]

12. DG also has quite a few satellite defense resources.

GPS has one of its ground stations there
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System

As does the AFSCN
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Force_Satellite_Control_Network

And probably others. Diego is a very good location for these things but I can't justify that over, once again, evicting people we have no right to evict, just to help ourselves.

[happydreams]

13. This was the base that was built up months prior to the 1st Gulf War....

that is prior to Saddam being given a greeen light to attack Kuwait.

[Thothmes]

14. It was being built up in the late seventies. I was there and there

was a very large amount of new construction going on at the time.

[happydreams]

18. I've been trying to find out more on this. Apparently there was a spike

in activity in early 1990 before the first Gulf War.
Do you know anything about that?
Thanks.