Hidden Histories: Britain's ethnic cleansing of the Chagos Archipelago (1968-1973)

jonniebgood1

ejmaztec wrote: »

Their ancestors managed because the plantations hadn't been closed.

I have explained that there wouldn't be anything for them to do, so they would have had no choice.

Of course there would be a choice. New plantations, fishing, small farming, etc for a start. In any case you seem to be swallowing hook & line of the story that all the inhabitants were just simple plantation labourers, the line pushed in secret documents released about the 1970 plans to remove them:

The aim behind the decision to control the islands, noted a Foreign Office official in a document dated September 1966 and marked "Secret and Guard", was to build "defence facilities … without hindrance or political agitation".

In 1970, the Foreign Office told its officials at the UN to describe the islanders as "contract labourers" engaged to work on coconut plantations. "The merit of this line," it noted, "is that it does not give away the existence of the Ilois [the indigenous islanders] but is at the same time strictly factual."

Officials reported the prime minister, Ted Heath, as saying: "Any discussions between the United States and ourselves must remain confidential."

A year later, most of the islanders – about 1,500 in total, of whom 500 lived on Diego Garcia – were deported, mainly to Mauritius and Seychelles.

....

Documents already disclosed show how a senior Foreign Office diplomat noted in 1966: "The object of the exercise is to get some rocks which will remain ours […] there will be no indigenous population except seagulls."

A fellow mandarin, Sir Dennis Greenhill, replied: "Unfortunately, along with the birds go some few Tarzans and Man Fridays whose origins are obscure and who are hopefully being wished on to Mauritius."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/18/archives-diego-garcia

In any case I don't see how your point as you outline it justifies in any way what happened. In fact it seems out of touch and suggesting that the people who had lived there would be leaving anyway as a means of defending their removal is very far-fetched. They seem quite keen to return which belies that particular idea.

A piece here describes some of the ghost towns on the island:

The story of the Chagos islanders' treatment at the hands of the UK government is one for which I am ashamed to be British. It is a story of deceit and tragedy that has been described by some as the darkest day in British overseas policy.


It has transfixed me for over a decade and shaken my very principles on conservation and democracy. It is a story of deceit that has left thousands of British refugees living in misery for the last 40 years, exiled from their island home by a conniving and unrepentant government.


I have been involved with the plight of the Chagos islanders for a decade, since I became one of a handful of people to illegally visit some of the islands within the atoll. It was eerie walking through the ghost towns. They were frozen in time. The vegetation had smothered many of the buildings, choking the stones in the graveyard.


The sunlight streaked through the stained glass windows of the church and the small copra factory remained largely intact. I was horrified to find dozens of international travellers living among the ruins while the islanders themselves remained pariahs, exiled by their own government. Why were these itinerant travellers allowed to stay?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/21/chagos-islanders-plight-ashamed-british

The same article also details a leaked plan to try and prevent the islanders from ever returning to their homes.

7. (C/NF) Roberts acknowledged that "we need to find a way to get through the various Chagossian lobbies." He admitted that HMG is "under pressure" from the Chagossians and their advocates to permit resettlement of the "outer islands" of the BIOT. He noted, without providing details, that "there are proposals (for a marine park) that could provide the Chagossians warden jobs" within the BIOT. 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. Responding to Polcouns' observation that the advocates of Chagossian resettlement continue to vigorously press their case, Roberts opined that the UK's "environmental lobby is far more powerful than the Chagossians' advocates." (Note: One group of Chagossian litigants is appealing to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) the decision of Britain's highest court to deny "resettlement rights" to the islands' former inhabitants. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/207149

I don't think everyone shares the view either that the islanders would not be able to return:

Nick Clegg said before the general election that Britain had a "moral responsibility to allow these people [Chagos Islanders] to at last return home". William Hague, now foreign secretary, said that if elected he would "work to ensure a fair settlement of this long-standing dispute". http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/30/david-cameron-chagos-islands-mauritius

ejmaztec

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Of course there would be a choice. New plantations, fishing, small farming, etc for a start. In any case you seem to be swallowing hook & line of the story that all the inhabitants were just simple plantation labourers, the line pushed in secret documents released about the 1970 plans to remove them:


In any case I don't see how your point as you outline it justifies in any way what happened. In fact it seems out of touch and suggesting that the people who had lived there would be leaving anyway as a means of defending their removal is very far-fetched. They seem quite keen to return which belies that particular idea.

A piece here describes some of the ghost towns on the island:
The same article also details a leaked plan to try and prevent the islanders from ever returning to their homes.

I don't think everyone shares the view either that the islanders would not be able to return:

I don't imagine that they would have had the finance available to set up farms or new plantations, and even worse if they didn't own the land. If the island was bought and paid for by the British government they were probably all tenants with accommodation thrown in with the plantation jobs.

I'm not at all out of touch, and there's nothing far fetched about what I've written.

The fact that they seem quite keen to go back might be a method of upping the compensation that they think is due to them.

We'll see what happens when the lease runs out in 2016. It may well be renewed as I suspect that the strategic importance of DG won't have diminished by then.

Compared to the Planters arrival in Ireland, the eviction of the Sudeten Germans, the re-location of the Chechens, the forcing of the American indians into reservations etc etc.., what happened in Diego Garcia pales into insignificance.