Diego Garcia is an African island in the Chagossian archipelago that constitutes part of Mauritius. As a part of the deal to gain its own independence, Mauritius collaborated with Britain to dismember the Chagos Islands, though UN decolonization law forbid the partitioning of colonized territories. Diego Garcia is a remote Indian Ocean island housing US military materials on a nuclear-ready base. Diego Garcia has airfields that handle nuclear bombers, ports for nuclear submarines and two dozen enormous cargo ships prepared with material for multiple simultaneous engagements. The location is perfect for projecting power in a number of key regions, and to keep its operations out of sight - and away from contestation, because the native population was removed from the island in order to construct this base. John Pike, an analyst of the US military, says Diego Garcia "is the single most important military facility we've got." In June 2000, the US State Department described it as "an all but indispensable platform . . . for the fulfillment of defense and security responsibilities in the Arabian Gulf, the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa." Its central and isolated location allows Diego Garcia to function as a stable node for the projection of flexible air attacks, backed up by naval power, and for the deployment of special operations forces. The base has also played a critical role in the CIA's infamous secret renditions program, which transfers US captives to locations where they are then tortured.
The United States and United Kingdom cut a shady deal to preserve the British colonial status of the Chagos Islands, exile all the residents, then lease this prize land to the Pentagon for 50 years. This lease expires in 2016 and the US and the UK must agree by December 2014 whether to affirm the 20-year optional extension. There are no Chagossians, the original inhabitants of Diego Garcia and the surrounding islands of the Chagos archipelago, involved in these negotiations. The details of their story are far from familiar in the United States.
The United States offered Britain a $14 million discount on Polaris nuclear submarines in exchange for a "swept and sanitized" depopulated island, with no native people to contest development of a base. The United States wasn't concerned with facts, namely, that for two centuries, a linguistically and culturally distinct population of Chagossians had been living on these islands. In 1971, Navy Captain E.L. Cochrane explained that the State Department, Pentagon and Navy had calculated the factors of exiling the Chagossians, and concluded that "the advantages to having a station on an island which has no other inhabitants makes it worth the risk to ask the British to carry out the relocation." In 1971, the US Navy's definitive instructions to the British about the Chagossians arrived. A three-word telegram read: "Absolutely must go." The British government via Roberts, the BIOT commissioner, cabled to the White House in 2009, "We do not regret the removal of the population," stating that this removal was necessary for the BIOT to "fulfill its strategic purpose."
Diego Garcia was slowly cut off and fenced in. Supplies stopped coming to the island. Islanders were encouraged to visit Mauritius for food, supplies and medical care, and told when they attempted to buy boat tickets home that they weren't allowed to return as the island had been sold. In 1971, the last holdouts were terrorized by British officials rounding up and gassing to death all of their dogs in front of their children. A few months after US surveyors landed to begin work on submarine ports, the remaining families were herded onto a boat in the night and dumped - mostly penniless - in Seychelles and Mauritius. The trauma of this forcible eviction and abandonment by the government created intolerable stress, anxiety and depression among these exiles, leading to suicides and deaths from what Chagossians call sagren, profound sorrow. In English, they refer to this condition as simply, "the sadness."
Expulsion required excuses. The United Kingdom simply fabricated a story that the only people on Diego Garcia were transient laborers who could just be dumped elsewhere (while admitting in internal memos that this was "fiction"). Such a flimsy story only holds if the actual residents are considered somewhat less than fully human and similar to the situation in the UK island base of the South Mid-Atlantic. Britain has thrown different counter tactics at the Chagossians. In the early '80s, tiny compensation grants were awarded in exchange for tricking islanders into signing away their rights to their homeland. No lawyers explained the contract to people, who were encouraged to sign with a thumbprint if they couldn't read the paper. Many say they'd never have signed away their rights if they had known.
The most recent British obstacle is the 2009 establishment of a "marine reserve" which exempts the military base, but seals out the native population. Colin Roberts, the BIOT commissioner, stated that establishment of a marine reserve might be the best long-term strategy to prevent Chagossians and their descendants from ever returning home.
Diego Garcia is a case of human rights being jettisoned in favor of military might.
Extracted from here
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