Seven years ago already I first read about what had happened to the Chagos Islanders, kicked out of their home so the US could have their Diego Garcia base there. The inhabitants were a security risk you see. The Ilois, as they call themselves, were therefore dumped in Mauritius, with many of them eventually settling in the UK as well. Over the years and then decades they have always fought for their right to return home, against succesive British governments, both Labour and Tory and in recent years they actually started winning their legal battles. Unfortunately, getting their claims honoured in courts and getting the UK government to do the same is not the same thing… Again, both Labour and Tory governments have done everything to stop or delay their return.
And the latest trick the current government is trying now might be the dirtiest: turning the Islands into a nature reserve:
This week the British government, backed by nine of the world’s largest environment and science bodies, including the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, the Royal Society, the RSPB and Greenpeace, is expected to signal that the 210,000 sq km area around the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean will become the world’s largest marine reserve. If it does, all fishing, collection of corals and hunting for turtles and other wildlife will be banned across an area twice the size of the British isles.
The Ilois of course protested:
Today, Chagossian supporters accused the government of duplicity. “The British government’s plan for a marine protected area is a grotesquely transparent ruse designed to perpetuate the banning of the people of Mauritius and Chagos from part of their own country,” said Ram Seegobin, of the Mauritian party Lalit de Klas, in a letter to Greenpeace seen by the Guardian. “The conservation groups have fallen into a trap. They are being used by the government to prevent us returning,” said Evenor.
They were backed by Clive Stafford Smith, director of the human rights group Reprieve, who has challenged the UK government on the use of Diego Garcia by the US to render suspected terrorists. “The truth is that no Chagossian has anything like equal rights with even the warty sea slug. There is no sense that the British government will let them go back. The government is not even contemplating equal rights for Chagossians and sea slugs.”
The environmental groups supporting the proposal of course deny they’re part of a greenwash, but it is typical of the divide on the left that they could allow themselves to be used this way. They’ve only looked at their own interests and didn’t consider the islanders until they were forced to.