Americans may have never heard of Diego Garcia, but today Diego Garcia is very much on the minds of thousands of people.
After more than four decades, Chagossians get to go home to Diego Garcia, a British colony and US air and naval base. Yesterday the British High Court ruled in favor of the Chagossian people. The judges denounced the British government’s move to “exile a whole population” from its home as “repugnant” and that the right of Chagossians to return home is “one of the most fundamental liberties known to human beings”. The High Court also said that the government can no longer appeal as it had unsuccessfully tried three times in the past. Chagossians had won a legal victory in 2000, but in 2004 the British government overturned it via a royal prerogative.
Why were they kicked off in the first place? The British colony has been “colonized by the Americans” since the 1960’s, when more than 2,000 inhabitants of the island were forcibly “repatriated” to Mauritius and the Seychelles. The Brits gave the Americans a 50-year lease, which will expire in 2016. The U.S. has launched memorable military campaigns from the Diego Garcia base, including bombing Afghanistan and Iraq.
In the past years, the US military said it was against the idea of allowing Chagossians back to their land because it would undermine the “security” of Diego Garcia. And while it has fought to keep the natives off the land, the US Navy still calls the Diego Garcia base its “Footprint of Freedom.”
—Neha Inamdar
