Chagossians win back right to return home to Diego Garcia

The people of the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia won their right to return home this month following a 40 year battle with the British government who forcibly dispossessed them from their homeland. Despite the lengthy battle, the ruling was met with silence by the Chagossians in the court who have experienced similar rulings in the past which have simply been over-turned on appeal.

Between 1967 and 1971, in an act of imperialistic criminality, approximately 2,000 Chagossians had their land stolen by the British government and given to the North American air force to enable them to establish a military base. The Chagossians were then deported from the land where their Ancestors are buried to britain, Mauritius and the Seychelles. Diego Garcia was to become a pivotal US airbase to launch American offensive attacks on Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Led by Olivier Bancoult, chairman of the Chagos Refugees Group, the Chagossians won their case in the British High Court. Despite the High Court’s dismissal of a Foreign Office appeal, the British government then asked the House of Lords for permission to appeal against the ruling.

Unhappy with the illegal US occupation of Diego Garcia, the Chagos Refugee Group has also filed a case against Britain in the European Court of Human Rights and is suing America for forced relocation, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and exclusion from visitation based on their ethnic origin. Referring to the North American illegal immigrants in Diego Garcia, Bancoult was quoted as triumphantly saying, "We have people, foreigners, in Diego Garcia. Why can't Chagossians live there too?"