Until the 1950's, the Chagos Archipelago was a peaceful paradise in the middle of the Indian Ocean, with a large number of indigenous inhabitants. Yet international politics and military interests turned their Paradise Lost into something close to hell. The beautiful lagoon and the palm-covered Chagos island of Diego Garcia are now the site of a major military base and the inhabitants have disappeared from the entire archipelago. However, they still fight for their homeland and for their dream to rebuild their anachronistic Lost Paradise.

The Chagos Archipelago is a group of 65 islands located in the middle of the Indian Ocean close to equator, south of the Maldives and 1,900 miles away from Mauritius. Diego Garcia is the largest and the southernmost of the Chagos Islands. It's a U-Shaped coral atoll just above sea level. The islands were named after the Portuguese explorers who first set foot on Diego Garcia and the rest of the Archipelago at the end of the 16th century (Chagos comes from the Portuguese word Chagas). In 1776, French colons were granted land concessions on Diego Garcia and were allowed to bring in African slaves. The atolls of Peros Banhos and Salomon of the archipelago became a leper colony. The islands were also used for the production of Coconuts and for copra plantations. As copra was then turned into oil, the Chagos Islands were named the Oil Islands. Other natural sources were exploited for local use, such as tortoises, seabirds, fish, and wood… or were exported to Mauritius, Madagascar and La Réunion. After the Napoleonic wars, the French lost Mauritius, Rodrigue and the Chagos Islands. They became the British colony of Mauritius. During the nineteenth century, the British Royal Navy dominated the Indian Ocean. This time period was called the "Pax Britannica." Out of all these islands, only Maurice was used as a staging-post on the road to India.
The population did not stop growing. It was not limited to a natural growth, but also the result of immigration workers from India, Mauritius and Africa. By 1900, Diego Garcia boasted flourishing copra factories, a small coaling station for ships on the Australian run, a church, a hospital, a jail, a light railway, some French Colonial style houses and about 500 inhabitants. The company also had to ensure a minimum health care service for the workers and their families. The inhabitants, the Ilois, developed their own society which had its own rules. They are said to have had a matriarchal society and a system of "free unions". They earned enough money for a trip once a year to Mauritius. The rest of the time, they were cut off from the rest of the world, in a lost paradise in the middle of a forgotten ocean.

The life of the Islands remained peaceful until decolonization. During World War II, Diego Garcia became a relatively important naval port, when Japan invaded Singapore and made plans to take the Maldives, the Chagos, and Mauritius. While Mauritius was granted independence in 1968, a new colony including the Chagos Islands was created in 1965: the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). Despite UN Resolution 1514 on decolonization and the division in public opinion in Mauritius, the island accepted a £ 3 million compensation from Great Britain. It was officially granted independence on March 12, 1968 despite UN General Assembly resolution 2066 XX in December 1965 which mandated that Great Britain takes "no action which would dismember the Territory of Mauritius and violate its territorial integrity". Since then, Mauritius has consistently advocated the "return" of the Chagossians to its sovereignty in international forums, justifying its claim with references to national law and international law .

Why did Britain violate fundamental rules of international law to keep a few islands with little economic interest and located in the middle of a far away ocean?

In February 1964, discussions on the establishment of American defense facilities in the Indian Ocean were held between the British and American governments. The US first decided to use the island of Aldabra, but it would have disturbed the protected animals of the island, so they finally choose Diego Garcia. It was obvious at the time that the military base and the Ilois could not live both on the island. On December 30, 1966 the British authorities signed a defense deal with the United States: they leased the BIOT for defense purposes for 50 years with the option of an additional 20 years. The Independent revealed that the British Government had been paid £5million by the Americans to make the islands available for a base. Since then, the helpless Ilois have been removed from the islands and the main atoll has been turned into a military base.

Why is there a military base on Diego Garcia?

The Paradise Islands were victims of their strategic location. Through the 1960's and the 1970's, the United States feared that China and the USSR would threaten the Arabian Gulf in order to cut off the oil to the West. It justified the decision for a base to be built close to the Middle East.

As a result of the application of the Carter Doctrine (the US was ready to use any means necessary, including military, to "maintain the freedom of commerce" for the US Petrol Supplies), Diego Garcia was gradually turned from an information center into a military base between 1966 and 1973. While the USSR reinforced its military positions in the Indian Ocean, the US and Britain installed a communication center based on satellite communications. After the movement of Islamic radicalization which started in the 1970's and after the first petrol crisis, the military base became operational. The Senate then vetoed funds for the base and on June 25, 1975, hearings began in the US Congress to "examine the reasons behind the decision of the United States to try to develop base support facilities on the island of Diego Garcia" and to know more about the treatment of the Ilois. The Sunday Times revealed that the US had given Britain a $11.5 million discount on some Polaris submarines to help it establish the BIOT. But the affair was soon forgotten and the base was expanded from 1976 to the late 1980's. In April 1981, Diego Garcia was the base used by the US forces as a staging-post for the American Hostages Rescue Mission in Iran. It was able to house aircraft, 4,000 American Marines and 60 Mauritian workers. In the air attack against Irak of January the 18, 1991, the B-52s, which bombed key strategic sites, had taken off in Diego Garcia. In addition Ships used to ensure that the embargo was respected, came from Diego Garcia.

Today, Diego Garcia houses 1,700 military personnel and 1,500 civilian contractors. The island is said to be a joint military base, but only 50 troops are British. The Navy and Air Force contingent on the base are very large. It is presently able to handle KC-Tankers, B-52 and F-111 Bombers. The pittoresque blue lagoon is able to handle 45 warships at a time or even trident submarines.

Diego Garcia is essentially an enormous military reservation. But one must not forget what it used to be. It was a palm-covered island in the middle of a beautiful archipelago, with ideal weather and peaceful indigenous inhabitants. The worse part of the history of the archipelago was still to come.

Why are there no Ilois in Diego Garcia, Peros Banhos and Salomon?

As it was not realistic to develop military activities on an island with civil inhabitants, the 1971 BIOT Immigration Act, also called the Ordinance, legally depopulated the Chagos. The purpose of the immigration ordinance was to: "a. Provide legal power to deport people who would not leave voluntarily; b. Prevent people entering; c. Maintain the fiction that the inhabitants of Chagos are not "permanent" or "semi-permanent population". According to the fact finding mission of the Southern Human Rights NGO, "Between 1965 and 1973, the entire Chagos population of some 2000 people was forcibly evacuated, 1,400 to Mauritius and 600 to Seychelles". Professor Carlson Anyangwe, an international Human Rights Law Expert, classifies this depopulation of the islands as a "mass deportation". He underlines that "Grave and disastrous harm was done to their basic civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, individually and as a group."

Only the Atolls of Peros Banhos, Salomon and Diego Garcia were inhabited. To enhance the depopulation process, the Authorities used four different methods. Some had to go to Mauritius for a trip, such as the Bancoult Family who had to have her daughter operated, but did not know they would not be allowed to come back to their islands. Another method was to buy the only company settled on the archipelago. As the British Authorities had defined the Ilois as "contract labourers" with no property rights, the company was legally allowed to ask them to be removed from the islands. At that time, the British Authorities qualified the Ilois as "contracts laborers" rather than natives (word used to refer to "indigenous people" in the 1960's) to seek to justify their forced removal. Yet according to the definitions of indigenous people in international law and the recent judgement of the British Supreme Court, the former inhabitants of the Chagos islands are indigenous people: "They were an indigenous people: they were born there, as were one or both of their parents, in many cases one or more of their grandparents, in some cases … one or more of their great-grandparents. Some may perhaps have traced an earlier indigenous ancestry". This implies that they have to be protected and that they have natural rights to live in their homeland, which is part of their identity as "Chagossians". The military base of Diego Garcia is inconsistent with Indigenous' Human Rights. According to article 26 of the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, "indigenous have the right to the conservation, restoration and protection of the total environment ... Military activities shall not take place in the lands and territories of indigenous peoples, unless otherwise agreed upon by the peoples concerned."

The third method used by the BIOT authorities was to cut food imports from 1968 to 1973. Finally, the BIOT authorities removed the last Ilois manu militari with a diverted ship on route to Mombasa, the "Nordvaer", in 1973, bound to abandon its goods and left stranded in Mauritius (photo left). In Mauritius, some of the Ilois obtained jobs as dockers or maids or turned in prostitution. Most of them suffered from mass unemployment and discrimination, parked in the slums of Port Louis, the capital town of Mauritius. For example, Mrs Talate was a Chagossian mother who was exiled to Mauritius in 1972 in such harsh conditions that 2 of her 6 children died in the 6 first months. From 1973 to the present, they have asked to return to their homeland and asked for monetary compensation in order to survive and adapt themselves to the Mauritian Society. They have demanded it through petitions, associations (Comité Ilois Organisation Fraternelle, Joint Ilois Committee, the National Support Front for the Ilois, the Chagos Refugee Group), demonstrations and hunger strikes. The British Governement gave them a £650,000 check in 1973 as "a full discharge of HMG's [Her majesty's government] obligations" and proposed to the Ilois a further £1.5 million on condition that the case was dropped and the Ilois would agree to a "no return clause". Only 1,000 signatures were obtained for this compensation, as some realized what the "no return clause" meant. A £1 million plot of land was supposed to be given by the Mauritian Government but it seems that the Ilois did not get it. Finally, the £4 million compensation was given by the British Government to the Mauritian Government as a "full and final settlement", but the Chagossians received it later, after a period of inflation.

Currently, the Chagossians seem to be divided in regard to their claims. Some Ilois ask for more compensation and appear to expect some protection from the Mauritian government. But would the sovereignty of Mauritius mean the closure of the military base? Mr Paul Bérenger, a famous Mauritian politician who always advocated the return of the Chagos Islands to the Mauritian sovereignty, stated: "We will put the same proposals to our American friends and I hope before the next Commonwealth summit in Australia in March 2002". The Chagos Refugee Group claims the return to their homeland. Its leader, Mr. Olivier Bancoult, won a court case against the British Supreme Court to have the Ordinance repealed or declared invalid. On November 3, 2000, the Supreme Court of London ruled that "the Ilois (…) have to be governed: not removed". The Court also reasserted their right to come back to their homeland. "Feasability studies" on their possible return concern only the outer islands, not Diego Garcia. It won't be possible for the Chagossians to come back to Diego Garcia as long as there is a base on the island. On May 21, 2001, the Chagossians officially became British Citizens. It satisfied the Chagos Refugees Group (CRG) but not the Chagossian Social Committee (CSC), but it only allows the Ilois to go to London. However the disagreement concerning their nationality may underline a real problem of identity linked to their recognition.

Will the base close in the next decades?

Diego Garcia is a bit more than 3,000 miles south from Iraq and even closer to Afghanistan. The B-52s have an unrefueling combat range in excess of 8,800 miles, and were used during Operation Desert Fox 1998. Since October 17, 2001, the US has used again Diego Garcia to launch B-1 and B-52 bomber attacks against Afghanistan. On November 7th, 2001 the British journalist from the Sunday Telegraph Simon Winchester visited Diego Garcia and reported that it was the biggest American military base in the world. She saw several nuclear submarines, dozens of tanks, missiles, trucks, destroyers, bombers etc… The coalition between Islamabad and Washington that appeared during the war against the Taliban may worsen the relations between India and Pakistan. The consequent possible nuclear conflict is a big threat to peace in the Indian Ocean. The US justifies the presence of nuclear weapons in Diego Garcia as a deterrent force against such a nuclear conflict. The presence of nuclear weapons on Diego Garcia is in contradiction with the resolution 2832 (XXVI) of December 1971 on the creation of the Indian Ocean Zone of Peace (for which France, Britain and the US did not vote, having military bases in the ocean). It was advocated by non-alignment movements and bordering states such as Sri Lanka in the 1960's, to bring an end to the militarization of the Indian Ocean and to transform the negative concept of "power vacuum" into a positive concept of Zone of Peace. This is the way paradise islands were turned into a military base.

Is there hope that the Chagossians will return to their homeland?

"The high-tech [B-2] bombers (…) were believed headed for the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, bombs dropped from B-2 stealth bombers taking off from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and other warplanes, analysts said." We still don't know exactly to what extent the military base of Diego Garcia was actually used or not in the Iraq War. Yet according to "the National Security Strategy of the United States", there are plans for other wars. So, it is not likely the Indian Ocean is soon demilitarized and there is little hope for the closure of Diego Garcia. The judgement of the British Supreme Court was more than a mere legal issue, it was a recognition of their identity, which is linked to the territory on which their ancestors used to live. Still what is left now? A jungle, an abandoned cemetery, some deserted houses? The islanders used to make a living from the coconut plantations, but Mr. Battle declared that there is no prospect that they will be reinstalled in the foreseeable future. Is their hope to live again as they used to realistic? Is it realistic to dream of coming back to their previous life? Now, there may be bombers flying over the quiet islands; there may be restricted areas such as Diego Garcia; there is no plantation, no company to be in charge of a health care center and no food imports. Their anachronistic paradise unfortunately seems to belong to the past. But maybe there is a different paradise to build there now?

[cecilia gondard]

Further information: http://www.chagos.org