The unusual feeling of success

As I mentioned briefly last week, the Chagossians have once again been victorious in the courts. On Wednesday May 23, the Court of Appeal upheld a ruling in the islanders favour last year. The three judges also ruled that the government should pay legal costs and withheld support for an appeal to the House of Lords. (You can read the judgement in full here.)

Regular readers will be familiar with the Chagossians forty-year struggle to return to the islands from which they were exiled by the British government to make way for a US military base on Diego Garcia. Last week's ruling is clearly an important development, but is the third victory the Chagossians have achieved in the British court system since 2000 and so they've yet to actually return, although a handful were allowed to visit the islands briefly last year.

Richard Gifford, the Chagossian's lawyer opined:

It has been held that the ties which bind a people to its homeland are so fundamental that no executive order can lawfully abrogate those rights.

This is now the third time that Olivier Bancoult, the leader of the Chagossian community in exile, has proved to the satisfaction of English judges that nothing can separate his compatriots from their homeland.

They now call upon the British government for a new start in this abusive relationship and to proceed with the utmost urgency to restore these loyal British subjects to their homeland.

In the course of his judgement, Lord Justice Sedley stated that

while a natural or man-made disaster could warrant the temporary, perhaps even indefinite, removal of a population for its own safety and so rank as an act of governance, the permanent exclusion of an entire population from its homeland for reasons unconnected with their collective wellbeing cannot have that character and accordingly cannot be lawfully accomplished by use of the prerogative power of governance.

Having seen victory turn to inaction on previous occasions, the Chagossians greeted the ruling in silence, but their de facto leader Olivier Bancoult, emerged from court, smiling and making the V for victory sign with his fingers (see picture, above). "I'm very happy for my people," he told supporters and journalists. "We will go back and make Chagos great."

Of course, the Foreign Office less happy saying it was "disappointed," although a spokeswoman conceded that the islanders now had the right to return home, at least "in theory." Unfortunately, there's a very good chance they'll appeal the decision although so far they have merely stated their intention to consider an appeal. The UK Chagos Support Association are encouraging supporters to lobby their MPs and anybody else you can think of to try and forestall this possibility. The Association also notes that the Chagossians don't have the means to resettle the Archipelago on their own and urges the government to support them in doing so.

Even if the Foreign Office decline to appeal, as unlikely as that seems, it should be noted that the Chagossians victory is only partial. It appears that while the islanders have the right to return to 65 of the islands in the Archipelago, this doesn't extend to Diego Garcia, the largest and most famous. Few of the reports I've read are clear on this, but such was the conclusion drawn in the 2000 High Court ruling. Furthermore, as I've noted previously, Bancoult (and perhaps other Chagossians, although this is unclear) has accepted that the Americans are there for the forseeable future.

For what it's worth, I'd be more than happy to see the US evicted from the "footprint of freedom," but the Chagossians are few in number and many of them are elderly. I fully understand why they might be able to take what they can get even if it is less than they might have wanted initially. It's taken them forty-years just to get this far.

Update: Jonathan Edelstein has some excellent analysis of the legal wranglings which got us to this point and of the judgement itself.

Victory!

The Chagossians have won the right to return in the Court of Appeal. Of course, the government are going to appeal. I'm busy at the moment, but I'll write more in due course. In the meantime, enjoy Steve Bell's awesome cartoon from yesterday's Grauniad.

Have you left yet?

This (via) is intriguing:

The President of Mauritius said on Wednesday his country would be prepared to quit the Commonwealth in its row with Britain over the forced expulsion of the people of the Chagos Islands.

In an interview on BBC radio, Anerood Jugnauth said he sympathised with the islanders expelled by Britain from the Chagos archipelago in the 1960s and 1970s who have been fighting for decades to be able to return home.

"I think ultimately we will have to go to court ... to the International Court of Justice," Jugnauth said.

Asked whether he would be prepared to pay the price of leaving the Commonwealth to pursue the legal battle, the president said: "I believe that yes".

Of course, this raises a number of questions. Not least the context in which the issue of Mauritius' exit from the Commonwealth was raised. Was it simply a hypothetical advanced by the interviewer, essentially out of the blue, or is there a real possibility of such a move taking place? The report on the BBC's own website states that Jugnauth "threatened to leave the Commonwealth," (my emphasis) which is clearly a very different thing to merely entertaining the possibility in response to questioning.

Presumably anybody seeking clarification could find it by searching for the interview online using the BBC's "listen again" feature, but it's hard to know where to start looking. The Reuters article gives few clues (in fact there's nothing beyond the fact that it took place on BBC radio on Wednesday), while the BBC's report bizarrely makes no mention of where this so called "threat" was made, not even admitting that the story emerged on its own radio show.

Whatever the provenance of Jugnauth's threat his remarks on Mauritian sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago seem fairly unequivocal: "We have always claimed Chagos from the British. Our position has always been very clear on that," he said. "We were the first victim, we were deprived of part of our territory and this is against all the United Nations resolutions." Whatever the merits of Mauritian victimhood, his claims that the country was the "first victim," is dubious. Mauritius became independent in 1968, by which point the British had already carved off the Archipelago in order to allow the US to set up base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands. The eviction of the islanders began in 1967 when the British government bought out the islands' plantation owners, closed the plantations and stopped the regular supply ship. By my reckoning, that means the Chagossians became victims before Mauritius even existed, hence it is in fact them who get the dubious honour which Jugnauth seeks to claim.

As I've discussed previously (see e.g. here, here and here), the Mauritian government has an ambiguous relationship with the Chagossian struggle to return home. While government officials have got considerable rhetorical mileage out of the islanders' exile, the Chagossians appear to be less than enthusiastic about Mauritius' sovereignty claims:

In August [2000], the leader of the UK Chagossians, Olivier Bancoult, told the UK based Mauritius News that "we are fighting for our rights, and I am concerned with our rights and our own interests", to the thunderous applause of his compatriots. "All the time that Mauritius has been talking to the British Government, the Mauritius Government never bothered to bring in the islanders or to consult with them. Why should we worry about Mauritius?"

Perhaps nowdays, almost seven years later, this relationship is more cordial, but then again, maybe not.

I don't own a motor car, but you should listen to me anyway

The facility to sign petitions on the Prime Minister's website, has been the source of some consternation in recent weeks, after the government made the mistake of treading on the toes of Britain's motorists. Rather less fanfare accompanied the launch of a petition condemning government policy vis-a-vis the Chagossians and demanding that the islander's ancestral homes be returned to them:

We believe that the forced expulsion of the Chagos Archipeligo at the request of the USA for the sole purpose of establishing a military base on Diego Garcia to be a shameful episode in our countrys' recent history.

Perhaps even more shamefully, the UK government now intends to stop the Chagossians from ever returning to their homes. To do this it will have to overturn or ignore two High Court Judgements allowing the Chagossians the right to return. This is in spite of Home Secretary Robin Cooks position of not contesting the decision to allow repatriation in 2000.

It seems the continuing ''War on Terror'' allows for the contiued theft of these Islands, simply for their strategic position in relation to the Gulf and any future campaigns.

This certainly isn't the first petition organised in support of the Chagossian (see e.g. here, here and here) and it's unlikely to be the last, but as the UK Chagos Support Association note, "It only takes a moment and, while it might not change the world, it adds to the pressure, as this recent episode demonstrated." So, what are you waiting for? Go sign it.

The UK Chagos Support Association have a brand spanking new blog. Why not have a gander?

They're at it again...!

Do these shits have no shame?:

More than three decades after British islands in the Indian Ocean were depopulated to make way for an American base, the Government will ask the courts today to ban the inhabitants from ever returning home...

The High Court has twice given the islanders, known as the Chagossians, the right to return and Britain had initially accepted the ruling when the islanders won their first case in 2000.

But today the Government will try and overturn a second ruling in the Court of Appeal.

Way back when in 2000, the Chagossians won the right to return home in the High Court, which ruled that the order used to expel them had been unlawful. At the time Robin Cook, then foreign secretary stated, "The Government will not be appealing" and declined to defend "what was done or said 30 years ago". Following that ruling the government prevaricated until 2004 when on June 10, "Super Thursday," the day of European, local and GLA elections, the Queen signed two Orders in Council which prohibited the Chagossians from setting foot on the archipelago. These Orders were challenged in the High Court last year and once again, the ruling went against the government, much to their chagrin. That's more or less how we got where we are today.

One might wonder why the government is getting so worked up about a few islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean:

"The evidence points to this being done largely at Washington's request," said Clive Baldwin, from the Minority Rights Group, which is campaigning for the Chagossians. "After September 11 and with the island being used as a base for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the military value of Diego Garcia has increased."

Bombers operating from Diego Garcia can strike deep into the Middle East and South Asia. Naval vessels using its harbour can patrol the strategically vital waters of the Indian Ocean and the approaches to the Red Sea. Diego Garcia was a crucial launching pad for the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Some 1,000 American and 40 British military personnel are based there...

A letter of November 2004 from Lincoln Bloomfield, an assistant secretary at the US state department, to Robert Culshaw, a British official responsible for overseas territories, read: "Diego Garcia is a vital and indispensable platform for global US military operations. . . an attempt to resettle any of the islands of the Chagos Archipelago would severely compromise Diego Garcia's unparalleled security and have a deleterious impact on our military operations."

It's worth emphasising here, that although Diego Garcia is the largest island in the Chagos Archipelago, it is but one among sixty and the only one on which there is a military presence. There is no obvious reason why other islands such as Peros Banhos and Salamon couldn't be resettled without having any impact upon the base on Diego Garcia. Indeed, Chagossian leader Olivier Bancoult has averred, "We can agree to co-habit with the Americans." (For what it's worth, my own personal opinion is that the base should be shut down, but a more pragmatic solution is at the very least conceivable.) Certainly nobody has suggested that the Chagossians pose any kind of threat to US military operations. Nevertheless, when the US took out a lease of the island in December 1966, they asked for them to be "swept" and "sanitised", a move described in a secret file as part of "a neat, sensible package".

This isn't to exculpate the British state which has consistently, regardless of which party is in power, shafted the Chagossians and frustrated their attempts to achieve justice. Indeed, it is worth mentioning that when then Mauritian PM Paul Berenger visited the US and UK to discuss the issue of Chagos he received a far more cordial response in the States than he did here. One could argue until the cows come home about who is most responsible for the current situation, but frankly it strikes me as fairly irrelevant. Neither of them has been particularly nice. Both deserve a solid kicking.

The Struggle Continues

BBC News:

Exiled islanders who have protested outside council offices in West Sussex have vowed to fight on after a court ruled they must quit their camp.

The group, from the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, is demanding more help towards finding housing.

Regular readers will be aware of the Chagossian struggle in which this is but the latest set-back.

A judge found in West Sussex council's favour after it served a notice telling the group to leave the camp in Crawley.

More than 50 Diego Garcians, all British citizens with British passports, began occupying land at the town's Centenary House social services offices in August...

A judge ruled on Friday that it was not an infringement of the islanders' human rights for the council to stop their protests.

But Yogi Amin, from law firm Irwin Mitchell, said: "Their local council is preventing them from vocalising their views and raising public awareness about the issues.

"We feel this is a clear breach of their fundamental rights... and intend to appeal the decision."

Councillors spouted predictable platitudes, while attenmpting to exculpate themselves:

[...C]ouncillor Henry Smith, leader of West Sussex County Council, said his authority was not to blame for the "second class" treatment which the islanders claim they have been subjected to.

Mr Smith said: "We have every sympathy with their position, and indeed support it, but they have been protesting outside our offices for some months now and it is time for them to move on and to direct their protest at the government instead."

This is an astonishingly ignorant comment. The Chagossians have been directing protests against the British government for nigh-on forty-years, with only limited success. The protest in question was over the specific question of housing. A number of the islanders have travelled to the UK in recent years (on which see here, here, here and elsewhere on this site) hoping to find better conditions than those they have lived with in Mauritius having been expelled from their homes. Now here, they have struggled to find homes. Hengride Permal of the Chagos Island Community Association complains, "We cannot afford private landlords with the minimum wages that people are making."

There's a petition criticising the government's policy vis-a-vis the Chagossians. Go sign it.

Deported Home for Christmas

Black Britain (via):

Immigration officials have said that the baby and toddler of an exiled Chagossian woman living in Crawley, who arrived in the UK this week to spend Christmas with their mother, are to be deported on December 13.

Marie-Angely Marianne who is in her twenties, had not seen her two children aged 19 months and three years old for nine months – since she came to live in Britain. As the daughter of parents born on the Chagos Islands, she was automatically granted a British passport when she was younger.

But her husband, who is Mauritian and her children – who do not have British passports are not being allowed to stay in Britain, a problem that faces all of the Chagossians, despite the fact that they have only come to live in Britain because of the forced removal of the entire Chagossian population almost forty years ago.