First the Gurkhas now the Chagos Islanders. Is this who we are?

Along with the treatment of the Gurkhas by a series of UK Government’s lies an equally shaming and grasping episode in our colonial history which, after a ruling today by the Law Lords at Westminster, will remain a measure of our moral shoddiness.

The people of the Chagos Islands in the British Indian Ocean Territory will now, after this ruling today, never get to return home. They were illegally evicted from their homelands by us in the mid 1960s, often by deceit. Their animals, including pet dogs, were killed and the people themselves were literally dumped like spindrift, mainly in the slums of Mauritius where they met racism and other abuses.

We did this in return for financial and other favours from America. The USA, driven by their cold war fears, wanted to use the main island, Diego Garcia, to establish a naval and military base in the Indian Ocean. They offered to lease Diego Garcia if we evicted all the islanders and made sure, for security reasons, they never came back.

The perspectives of the time are hard to accept they days but are best exemplified by the British diplomat involved, Dennis Greenhill, saying: ‘Unfortunately along with the birds go some few Tarzans or Man Fridays whose origins are obscure and who are hopefully being wished on to Mauritius’.

Since their eviction between 1967 – 1971 the Chagos islanders have campaigned fiercely for a return to their homelands. The case has been a judicial yo-yo.

• In 2000, High Court judges ruled that the islanders could return to sixty five of the islands, but not to Diego Garcia.
• In 2004, the government nullified this decision by using the royal prerogative which ministers exercise in the name of the Queen.
• In 2007 the court overturned that order, rejecting the government’s argument that the royal prerogative was immune from scrutiny. The government then asked the Lords to rule on the issue.
• Today, 22nd October 2008, the Law Lords toed the line and, as the final ruling under British jurisdiction, have pronounced against the islanders’ return. The Chagossians may now take the case to Europe.

In giving the collective ruling, Lord Hoffman quite baldly said that the subtext of the case was funding. The UK might have had to pay for rebuilding the Chagossians community. He said the islanders had understandably ‘shown no inclination to return to live Crusoe-like in poor and barren conditions of life’.

In the light of this, he said Foreign Secretary David Miliband (memorably described by back bench colleague Bob Marshall Andrews as ‘looking like a pillock on his gap year’) was ‘entitled to take into account’ the possibility that the Chagossians would call on the UK to support ‘the economic, social and educational advancement of the residents’.

The notion of reparation for a wrong does not seem to occur.

Mr Milliband issued a statement saying: ‘It is appropriate on this day that I should repeat the government’s regret at the way the resettlement of the Chagossians was carried out in the 1960s and 1970s and at the hardship that followed for some of them. We do not seek to justify those actions and do not seek to excuse the conduct of an earlier generation’.

It would seem too that this Labour Government will not seek to redress the wrong done by a previous Labour administration, in living memory and to a poor indigenous people who had no inclination to suspect and no means to defend against what was done to them.

Journalist John Pilger described the judgment today as political, upholding an ‘immoral and illegal’ act. He added: ‘How could it be otherwise when the highest court in this country has found in favour of the most flagrant injustice, certainly in my lifetime?’

The details of the original case make shameful but compelling reading and viewing. See:

• A BBC piece published on 3rd November 2000: The Chagos Islands: a sordid tale
• A 2001 diary piece by journalist Simon Winchester who sailed to Diego Garcia to test the water.
• A special video report by John Pilger, 2004: Stealing a nation (Winner of the Royal Television Society Award for Best Documentary in 2004.)
• A blog piece from 2006: Yachting in the Chagos Islands
• Wikipedia: The Chagos Archipelago

Interestingly, a few years ago Argyll woman, Linda Robb, wrote a play about Diego Garcia and the cause of the Chagos Islanders. Her work was recognised by an award from the Scottish Community Drama Association. She produced the play with a youth drama group from Oban and Taynuilt who performed it in competitive festivals in the area.