Olivier Bancoult, leader of Chagos Refugees, came to the United States last week seeking support from the American people for the plight of nearly 2,000 Chagossians, expelled from their islands by the British Government 40 years ago to make way for a U.S. military base.
Bancoult had meetings with small groups in five cities along the East Coast of US, and explained the history of the expulsions and the failure of the U.K. and U .S. governments to acknowledge the injustice of the forced removals.
More than 1,800 islanders were evicted at the end of 1960s and shipped to Mauritius and Seychelles when the U.K. secretly handed over the tiny islands to the United States to develop a strategic air and naval base on the island of Diego Garcia. The base has recently been used to bomb Iraq and Afghanistan, and contains important security and intelligence equipment.
As a condition of independence in 1968, Mauritius accepted the deal and agreed to relinquish authority over the Chagos islands.
Bancoult was 4 years old when he left the Chagos as part of the forced evictions. He said his people have waged a long legal battle largely on their own to win the right to return to the islands. "Everyone is afraid of the U.K. government and of the United States government because they have such power," he told a group of about 50 people gathered at a Washington, D.C. restaurant Friday night to hear his remarks. They also watched excerpts of “Stealing a Nation”,a British film on the Chagos.
Held on the first night of the Jewish holiday of Passover, the meeting was called a "Freedom Seder for the Exiled People of Diego Garcia." It was organized by David Vine, an American researcher who has documented the plight of the Chagossians and will publish the findings in a book due out next year.
"The Freedom Seder links the message of Passover to the lives of the Chagossian people who were forcibly exiled form their homeland," When they arrived in Mauritius, they received no resettlement assistance, homeless, jobless they were soon living in abject poverty. Despite receiving two small amounts of compensation five and ten years after the last deportations, most Chagossians have remained deeply impoverished in exile."
The next major step on the legal front will come on June 30, said Bancoult, when the House of Lords in London begins hearings on the British government's appeal of a May 2007 court decision that the Chagossians won their rights to retain to the outer islands. Bancoult asked Americans to donate funds to finance the trip to London of about 25 Chagossians who want to attend the hearing. The Chagossians have formed a U.K.-based lobbying and public relations group called "Let Them Return" that presses for the cause of the islanders. (www.letthemreturn.com)
If the High Court rules favorably for the Chagossians and they are able to move back to the islands, resettlement money will be available from the European Community. Michael Tigar, an American university law professor who filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against the U.S. government on behalf of the Chagos people, said he will work with Congress to get additional compensation. This will be difficult, however, after the huge expenses of the Iraq war. Tigar added that the chances of getting attention in Washington to the plight of the Chagossians will improve with the new U.S. president to be elected in November.
For Bancoult, the 40-year struggle is a campaign to restore the human rights of his people as well as their rights to return to their islands. He said Chagossians can co-exist with the American base, especially since resettlement would occur on an out island, far from Diego Garcia. It is not their intention to close the base, he said. A small airport could be developed as well as an eco-tourism industry.
"Even in Mauritius, poor people live in their birthplace, but we are the poor people living in a forei
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