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Homesick for Camp Justice
Exiled to make way for a US military base, the islanders of Diego Garcia have convinced the British courts of their right to return. But the UK is fighting tooth and nail to keep them from coming back.
Thu Aug. 21, 2008 11:00 PM PDT
For once, it seemed, the former inhabitants of the British atoll of Diego Garcia might get a break. It was the last day of June, and the Chagossians, a Kreol-speaking people named for the island chain encompassing their homeland, were packed into Britain's highest court to challenge Her Majesty's government over their expulsion. On three previous occasions lower courts in Britain had found in favor of the islanders, who between 1968 and 1973 were cleared from Diego Garcia by the UK and US governments to make way for construction of what has become one of America's most important overseas military bases. The British government was down to its final appeal. After nearly 40 years of an exile that has garnered almost no attention from the US media, one hearing, and a handful of white-haired British law lords (the equivalent of US Supreme Court justices), would finally determine whether some 5,000 people would be allowed to go home.
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I was in the courtroom because I've been researching the Chagossians' exile and the history of the base on Diego Garcia since 2001, when lawyers representing the islanders in the United States asked me to document the effects of the expulsion on the people's lives. (While I have never been employed by the lawyers, they have covered some of my research expenses.) When I arrived at the House of Lords, about 40 Chagossians were waiting outside the crammed courtroom. More waited outside the Palace of Westminster with signs reading "Everyone has the right to live in his own country" and "We will return to Diego Garcia."
Unlike the US Supreme Court's hour-long oral arguments, brevity is not the English style. For the next four days the Chagossians sat patiently in the surprisingly modest courtroom and listened, in a language few understand, to 17 hours of arguments—spanning at least eight centuries of English jurisprudence—by the robe- and wig-wearing barristers. (Some of the islanders, naturally, fell asleep, as did I, and at least two of the lords.)
Among those eager to return is Mimose Bancoult Furcy, part of a Chagossian delegation that traveled more than 6,000 miles to London from Mauritius, the island far from their homeland where most remain exiled. Affectionately known as Aunt Mimose, she is a shy, short, and plump 53-year-old mother of six who was born in the Peros Banhos atoll, which, along with Diego Garcia, is part of the coconut-palm-covered Chagos Archipelago near the remote center of the Indian Ocean.
In 1968, when Mimose was 13, her family traveled to Mauritius seeking an operation for her three-year-old sister Noellie. When Noellie died from an infection, her mother, Rita, went to book the family's return voyage. When her mother returned, Mimose remembered, she was crying uncontrollably. For an hour she couldn't speak, her heart "swollen" with emotion. Finally Rita blurted out, "We won't be able to return home because it's been sold! The English have taken it and sold it to the Americans!"
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Comments
I like a lot of English people but their government sucks. They would have done this to the Irish if we didn't fight back so consistently.
It's an appalling injustice. Another reason to dislike English justice; it's for the strong and damn you if you're not.
It is disgusting that the British Government took part in this crime! War and the support of war is more important than a good life for these islanders. One can easily see that the British Government has no morality whatsover and will appease the US Government which claims to be a "good friend" of Britian and can now claim Britian as a colony. Roles have been reversed!
Britain is not a friend of the US the Queen owns the US. Has done so since around 1876. The Americans (Britains Laboratory to achieve dirty tricks & divert attention from themselves) have just learning about this over the past 10yrs.
The US along with its lackies have been doing things like this to people around the world for many decades (we stole half of Mexico in a phony war, we stole what remained of the old Spanish empire in another phony war, we have sent in the Economic Hitmen (google John Perkins for some great info), assassins, the military and placed and supported brutal right-wing dictators all over Latin Am., Asia and Africa to make the spread of US corporate capitalism succeed).
Read this interesting article about the USAmerican empire, and how (thankfully) it is now in steep decline - http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/09/09-0
Read the books by John Perkins (a confessed economic hitman), Chalmers Johnson (a professor and expert on "blowback") and Naom Chomsky if you really care about what your government/country is doing to the world, and has been doing for many years.
And we wonder why "they" hate us? Stay ignorant and continue wondering or wise-up and help put a stop to it.
Click on this link to a fascinating interview with John Perkins about how the US has taken over the world through "economic hitmen", assassins etc. It's well worth the 17 minutes.
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Not sure why they would want to go back. I'm sure their paradise has been polluted beyond all recognition and is irreparably sick from all jet fuel and highly toxic products that go along with a disgustingly putrid military environment. The MIC destroys more than lives. It is Natures worst enemy
Indeed, it would be harder for us to take over the world, if we didn't have bases everywhere.
The Brits HAD to kick the natives out. Local witnesses would not be on the project spec list.
CYR? He said that "some" of them got "some" money out of it, so hey. For losing their country, what do they want?
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sxzzs_sst! This is your brain, on teevee.
Denying the inhabitants of Diego Garcia their right to live in their soveriegn land for national interests is realpolitik. In a just world, a big bully would take Rumsfeld, Condi, Cheney, Bush I and II, Kissinger, and the other proponents of doing what you want...Albright, don't forget that toad...and their families and drop them off in the middle of the Sahara. Place them in an environment to which they have absolutely no acclimation. See them die of dehydration, heat stroke, scorpion stings, and desert Bedouins. Imagaine the men chopping up a palm tree for make-shift skies to put on Kissinger's wheelchair! Imagine Condi being forced to become a member of a desert sheik's harem! Sadly though, that kind of justice will not be seen in our lifetimes. Until the American people learn to differentiate how the military relates to the country and the government, things won't change. They need to care out world events to give them a different perspective. Americans don't even care that people in Haiti couldn't afford food so they started eating mud pies to quench their hunger. And that injustice is right on our doorstep. Maybe Obama will motivate people to give a [deleted], but I'm not holding my breath.
For once, it seemed, the
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