Chagossians

Chagossians/Chagos Islanders
Îlois

A Chagossian and his final coconut harvest, photographed at the time of the first United States encampment (1971).
Regions with significant populations
3,000 in Mauritius and the United Kingdom
Languages
Chagossian Creole · Mauritian Creole · Seychellois Creole · English
Religion
Christianity

The Chagossians (also Îlois or Chagos Islanders) are the previous inhabitants of the Chagos Islands, British Indian Ocean Territory. The Chagossians resided in the islands of Diego Garcia, Peros Banhos, and the Salomon island chain, and had settled on other parts of the Chagos Archipelago, like Egmont Islands and Eagle Islands. Most of the Chagossians now live in Mauritius and the United Kingdom after being deported from their homeland by the British government in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This mass deportation was carried out so that Diego Garcia, the island where most Chagossians lived, could serve as the location for a military base shared between the UK and the United States. Today, there are no Chagossians that live on the island of Diego Garcia, as it is now the site of the military base Camp Justice.

The Chagossian people's ancestry is mostly of African heritage, particularly coming from Madagascar, Mozambique and other African nations including Mauritius. There is also a significant proportion of Indian and Malay ancestry. The French brought some to the Chagos islands as slaves from Mauritius in 1786. Others arrived as fishermen, farmers, and coconut plantation workers during the 19th century.

The Chagossians speak Chagossian Creole, a mix of Indigenous languages and French-based creole language and part of the Bourbonnais Creole family. Chagossian Creole is still spoken by some of their descendants in Mauritius and the Seychelles. Chagossian people living in the UK speak English.

The Archipelago later passed to the control of the United Kingdom and came to form part of the Colony of Mauritius.

Deportation from homeland

In 1965, as part of a deal to grant Mauritian independence, the Chagos Archipelago was split off from the Colony and came to form the British Indian Ocean Territory. The territory's new constitution was set out in a statutory instrument imposed unilaterally without any referendum or consultation with the Chagossians and it envisaged no democratic institutions. On April 16, 1971, The United Kingdom issued a policy called BIOT Immigration Ordinance #1 which made it a criminal offense for those without military clearance to be on the islands without a permit.

Abandoned church at Boddam Island, Salomon Atoll.

Between 1967 and 1973, the Chagossians, then numbering some 2,000 people, were expelled by the British government, first to the island of Peros Banhos, 100 miles (160 km) away from their homeland, and then, in 1973, to Mauritius (For the relationship between the Chagos Archipelago and Mauritius, see Chagos Archipelago). A number of Chagossians who were evicted reported they were threatened with being shot or bombed if they did not leave the island. One old man reported to Washington Post journalist David Ottaway that an American official told him, "If you don't leave you won't be fed any longer." BIOT commissioner Bruce Greatbatch later ordered all dogs on the island killed. Marcel Moulinie, who was in charge of managing the island, carried out this task by using raw meat to lure them into a shed for drying copra, gassing them with exhaust from U.S. military vehicles, and then setting their carcasses ablaze. Meanwhile, food stores on the island were allowed to deplete in order to pressure the remaining inhabitants to leave. The forced expulsion and dispossession of the Chagossians was for the purpose of establishing a United States air and naval base on Diego Garcia, with a population of between 3,000 to 5,000 U.S. soldiers and support staff, as well as a few troops from the United Kingdom.

High Court case

Flag of the Chagossians community.

In early April 2006, in an excursion organised and financed by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a group of around a hundred Chagossians were permitted to visit the British Indian Ocean Territory for the first time in over thirty years.

On 11 May 2006, the Chagossians won their case in the High Court of Justice, which found that they were entitled to return to the Chagos Archipelago. It remained to be seen how this judgment might be implemented in practice. However, in June 2006 the British government filed an appeal in the Court of Appeal against the High Court's decision. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office put forward an argument based on the treatment of the Japanese Canadians following the attacks on Pearl Harbor.

House of Lords decision, 2008

After the Court of Appeal had upheld the decision of the High Court, the British government appealed successfully to the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords. On October 22, 2008, the Law Lords reached a decision on the appeal made by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, David Miliband. They found in favour of the Government in a 3-2 verdict, ending the legal process in the UK and dashing the islanders' hopes of return. The judgement was published on the UK parliament website. The judges who voted to allow the government's appeal were Lord Hoffmann, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, and Lord Carswell; those dissenting were Lord Bingham of Cornhill and Lord Mance.

Marine nature reserve and cable leak

In April 2010, the British Government established a marine nature reserve around the Chagos Islands known as the Chagos Protected Area. The designation proved controversial as the decision was announced during a period when the UK Parliament was in recess.

On December 1, 2010, a leaked US Embassy London diplomatic cable dating back to 2009 exposed British and US calculations in creating the marine nature reserve. The cable relays exchanges between US Political Counselor Richard Mills and British Director of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Colin Roberts, in which Roberts "asserted that establishing a marine park would, in effect, put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago’s former residents." Richard Mills concludes:

Establishing a marine reserve might, indeed, as the FCO’s Roberts stated, be the most effective long-term way to prevent any of the Chagos Islands’ former inhabitants or their descendants from resettling in the [British Indian Ocean Territory].

The cable (reference ID "09LONDON1156") was classified as confidential and "no foreigners", and leaked as part of the Cablegate cache.

Discourse about the Chagossians

Diplomatic cable signed by D.A. Greenhill, dated August 24, 1966, stating "Unfortunately along with the birds go some few Tarzans or Man Fridays."

The WikiLeaks cables also revealed that the U.S.-U.K. discourse about the Chagossians has largely remained unchanged. A cable written by D.A. Greenhill on August 24, 1966 to a U.S. State Department official refers to the Chagossians as "some few Tarzans or Man Friday."

Similar language appears in a 2009 U.S. State Department cable (09LONDON1156), which offered a description of the U.K. government's views about the effect of the Marine Protection Act:

However, Roberts stated that, according to the HGM,s current thinking on a reserve, there would be “no human footprints” or “Man Fridays” on the BIOT’s uninhabited islands. He asserted that establishing a marine park would, in effect, put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago’s former residents.

Internet petition

On 5 March 2012, an international petition was launched on We the People section of the whitehouse.gov website in order to ask the White House in United States to consider the Chagos case.^{[citation needed]}

The petition was as follows:

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.

On 4 April 2012, the required signatures was met. An official response, which effectively failed to address the issue, was published.

See also

• Depopulation of Diego Garcia
• Order in Council#United Kingdom
• Right of Return

External links

• UK Chagos Support Association
• Chagos Islands Site - The oldest site in favour of the Chagos Islanders
• Let Them Return - The Chagos People's Homeland Campaign
• Diego Garcia: Paradise Cleansed by John Pilger
• Spreading democracy, by any means necessary. the US/UK and Diego Garcia
• US/UK BIOT defence agreements, 1966-1982, US Court filing
• The UK Chagos Support Association