WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO: The U.S. Government Must Redress Wrongs Against the Chagossians
For generations, the Chagossians lived on the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. But in the 1960s, the U.S. and U.K. governments expelled the Chagossians from their homes to allow the United States to build a military base on Diego Garcia. Facing social, cultural, and economic despair, the Chagossians now live as a marginalized community in Mauritius and Seychelles and have not been allowed to return home. The recent passing of the oldest member of the exiled population underscores the urgent need to improve the human rights of the Chagossians. We cannot let others die without the opportunity to return home and obtain redress. The United States should provide relief to the Chagossians in the form of resettlement to the outer Chagos islands, employment, and compensation.
Source: whitehouse.gov
With excerpts taken from my book, “When the White House Calls”
Since 1966, Diego Garcia has been the most important piece of real estate the United States has access to in the Indian Ocean. Often referred to as “Camp Justice,” Diego Garcia is a British territory mostly populated now by U.S. military and British personnel. Diego Garcia serves as a U.S. Naval Support Facility and as a regional base for U.S. Air Force B‑2 and B‑52 bombers and Navy P‑3 patrol planes; USAF KC-135 tankers based there are used for refueling and other logistical support activities.
In 1965, the British Indian Ocean Territory was established. A formal agreement was signed in 1966 between the United Kingdom and the United States making Diego Garcia available for defense purposes for both countries for the next fifty years, running through 2016, with an option to extend the agreement until 2036.
Until 1971, the indigenous inhabitants of the archipelago–Chagossians as they are commonly referred to–made a profitable living working on copra and coconut plantations. Their ancestors were African slaves and Indian contract workers brought to the Chagos Archipelago by the French in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Between 1967 and 1973, the British government forced 1,500 to 2,000 Chagossians to relocate so that the island could be turned into a military base. Today, approximately 4,500 Chagossian descendants live in Mauritius and Seychelles, while some who have British citizenship live in the United Kingdom. During the Cold War era, the strategic atoll became an important tracking station from which to monitor the Soviet Union’s activities in the region. Beginning in the late 1960s, Soviet warships were regularly deployed to Indian Ocean and East African ports, and over the next few years the Soviets escalated their intelligence gathering. The 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran dramatically impacted Diego Garcia’s significance for the protection of U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf region. The island’s location in the vast Indian Ocean made it a critical security and supply link 2,000 miles east of Africa, 1,000 miles south of India, and 2,500 miles south of the Persian Gulf and Red Sea.
The 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, followed by the 1991 Persian Gulf War and Operation Desert Fox in 1998, underscored Diego Garcia’s importance as a strategic base from which to carry out midair refueling of aircraft for attacks inside Iraq, some 3,000 miles away. In 2001, Diego Garcia was crucial again as the United States launched B‑2 and B‑52 bombers to attack Taliban strongholds inside Afghanistan. Then on March 20, 2003, when the invasion of Iraq began as Operation Freedom, air strikes were continuously launched from the Diego Garcia base.
One needs to think of this air base as no bigger than ten aircraft carriers—connected end-to-end. According to U.S. Admiral Robert Hanks, every small island in the ocean could be considered like an unsinkable aircraft carrier, so one can readily grasp the importance of preserving unimpeded access to this small but strategically located atoll. Diego Garcia is the largest of the fifty-two islands in the archipelago. A long ribbon of land, Diego Garcia is shaped like a horseshoe and is approximately 40 miles from tip to tip, with an opening at the north allowing access to a 60–100-foot deep lagoon that is 6.5 miles wide by 13 miles long. The land is tropically vegetated and covers 6,720 acres, approximately 10.5 square miles. Sandy stretches rise 22–24 feet in some places but generally are no more than 2–4 feet above sea level. The air base itself is less than two miles wide, with the 12,000- foot runway located on a landmass less than a mile wide. Most parts of the island, in fact, are less than one mile wide.
The Chagossians have been seeking the right, through the British courts, to return to the Chagos Archipelago, which they consider their homeland, to tend family cemeteries and reestablish their communities. In 2000, the British High Court ruled that the Chagossians could go back to the islands. Three years later, the High Court ruled their compensation claims were unfounded; in 2004, the British government successfully overruled the 2000 court decision by an order-in-council. In a 2006 appeal to the High Court, the Chagossians again won the right to return to the islands; in 2007, the British government lost another appeal. However, under their lease agreement with the United States, the British continued to pursue this cause. In 2008, the House of Lords agreed in favor of the British government—once more eclipsing the islanders’ hopes of returning. Most Chagossians, I believe, know they cannot return to Diego Garcia, but some press to return to the outer islands of the archipelago—namely, the Salomon and Peros Banhos Islands, which are between fifty and a hundred miles from Diego Garcia. For security reasons, the United States is opposed to any access. Meanwhile, Olivier Bancoult, a Chagossian descendant living in Mauritius, had been a leading activist in the continuing pursuit to allow the Chagossians to return to the outer islands and seek compensation for the descendants.
Reportedly, reparations on behalf of the Chagossians had been made previously to settle any claims regarding their relocation: the British government had paid £3 million to Mauritius in 1968 for the resettlement of the Chagossians, and then an additional £650,000 in 1973 in conjunction with a full release agreement regarding any claims against the British government. In October 1982 another £4 million was paid to establish a trust fund to support the Chagossians; the bulk of this money was reportedly disbursed in 1983–84 to the Chagossians, with a balance of £250,000 distributed in 1987. The Chagossians claimed that most of the money had never reached them; that some of these funds had been eroded by high administrative costs in the Mauritian government, and that they still lacked a full accounting.
I understood that when Diego Garcia was no longer needed for military purposes, the United Kingdom would cede the islands to Mauritius. However, the government of Mauritius contended that the archipelago should have been ceded to them with their independence in 1968. In the meantime, the United Kingdom has taken responsibility regarding the Chagossians’ claims. As U.S. ambassador, I fully understood our stated policy regarding the continued use of the Chagos Archipelago, and more particularly the island of Diego Garcia, which housed our military base. Without Diego Garcia, I believe, our country’s security would be at risk. However, I also understood the Chagossians’ plight, and the desire to go back to their ancestral home. They had never been fully integrated into the Mauritian culture; they had no roots there, and even after thirty years, most still lived in abject poverty. On several occasio ns on my way to or from the U.S. Embassy in Port Louis, Mauritius, I had taken a circuitous route through the Cassis district at the foot of Signal Mountain, about a mile from the embassy where a Chagossian community was located. They live in crowded shacks made of rusted corrugated metal, with skinny chickens picking through the garbage. With high unemployment, poor health conditions, and limited education opportunities, little will change in the lives of these Chagossians. I could see why many believe their only option was to ultimately return to the Chagos Archipelago. At least it would feel like home, and eking out a living there would be better than struggling to exist in the rat-infested environment of Cassis.
The pressure from the government of Mauritius was mounting, as was the Chagossians’ insistence on making a visit to Diego Garcia. Hence, on March 10, 2004, I decided to make my “third request” to visit Diego Garcia on a fact-finding mission. Among the various people who received my email was the first secretary at the U.S. Embassy in London. He wrote back reiterating the political sensitivity surrounding the island, suggested support for my visit should first come from Washington; then they could take the request to Her Majesty’s Government to explain the rationale for such a visit.
In my reply I acknowledged there were sensitivities about anybody going to Diego Garcia. However as U.S. ambassador with oversight for Diego Garcia, I wanted to have a better understanding of what exactly the Chagossians kept alluding to, and to see if their claim that they could sustain themselves on the islands was valid. On March 15, we received an email from our country desk officer saying that the Bureau of East African Affairs would not encourage my visit to Diego Garcia at this time. The message went on to say that Diego Garcia was used only as a military base and that “Ambassador Price is not engaging any officials regarding the Chagos Archipelago.” Of course, the U.S. Embassy in Port Louis had had countless bilateral discussions with a number of Mauritian government leaders, UK diplomats, and the U.S. Embassy in London for almost two years on Diego Garcia issues, contrary to the State Department’s reference in their cable of the embassy’s involvement.
On several occasions, I proffered the need to make the Chagossian community more viable, and better integrated into the communities in which they resided in Mauritius. There was also the need to explore the sustainability of life on the outer islands of Salomon and Peros Banhos, 50-100 miles from Diego Garcia. The UK had undertaken such a study when I arrived in 2002, but our embassy had not heard the results by the time I left in 2005. I believe that Diego Garcia needs an outer safety ring to keep the military core area sanitized from any access by unauthorized personnel.
However if the study shows that the Chagossians can survive in the outer low-lying coralline islands, which are subject to annual cyclones; and be assured that enough culinary water sources can be found; sanitation and garbage disposal facilities can be established without impacting the environment, then maybe habitation by the Chagossians could be possible. With subsistence farming and raising of livestock they may be able to achieve a meager existence, which is certainly better than their current situation. In addition the military base imports contract workers, hence hiring the Chagossians would be a humanitarian gesture, as well as an economic benefit for them.
There is no question as to the importance of Diego Garcia for our national security interests, especially in today’s struggle with Iran which threatens its neighbors and beyond. If Iran were to develop a nuclear weapons-grade capability, any proposed U.S. air strikes will need to take place without prior conditions. If Iran attempts to close the Strait of Hormuz, our sea and air power will be called upon to react quickly to prevent this from happening. Diego Garcia serves that purpose. So for the foreseeable future, the United States cannot consider giving up this strategic military base in the Indian Ocean. However the Chagossians’ plight will need to be addressed at some point in the near future; to find a permanent solution for the destitute Chagossian Diaspora.