Mauritius: Government bombshell hits Chagos Islanders
Since the Chagos Islanders won the right to return to their homeland, following 30 years of exile, by historic Judgment of the High Court in November 2000, the Government has been claiming to know what to do about it. The same day as the Judgment, Robin Cook passed a new immigration law permitting those born on the islands and their children to return to all islands of the Archipelago except to Diego Garica where the US airbase is. But in June the Islanders' solicitor, Richard Gifford, was told, in a shock announcement without prior consultation, that the Government had now passed a new law totally banning all Chagossians from even stepping foot on their beloved homeland. Moreover the ban applied to all 65 islands.
NEW GOVERNMENT BOMBSHELL HITS CHAGOS ISLANDERS
Chagos Refugee Committee appeal
Since the Chagos Islanders won the right to return to their homeland, following 30 years of exile, by historic Judgment of the High Court in November 2000, the Government has been claiming to know what to do about it. The same day as the Judgment, Robin Cook passed a new immigration law permitting those born on the islands and their children to return to all islands of the Archipelago except to Diego Garica where the US airbase is but apart from some preliminary investigations on the “feasibility” of return, nothing has been done to restore the Chagossians to their homeland.
To day, the Islanders’ solicitor, Richard Gifford was told, in a shock announcement without prior consultation, that the Government had now passed a new law totally banning all Chagossians from even stepping foot on their beloved homeland. Moreover the ban applied to all 65 islands, despite the fact that only one has ever been occupied by the UK or the US. The decision is all the more shocking because Olivier Bancoult, the Islanders’ leader who won the Judicial Review nearly 4 years ago arrives in London tomorrow in order to appear in the Court of Appeal seeking leave to appeal a second High Court Judgment last year when the claims for compensation of 4,500 displaced islanders were dismissed by Mr Justice Ouseley.
This new development takes away the advantage gained in 2000 by proving their removal was unlawful 30 years ago.
The Minster based his decision upon firstly the costs of resettling the islands, as supposedly put forward in a preliminary feasibility study which the Government commissioned without any input from the Islanders in July 2002. Second, he referred to “defence interests”. The bombshell announcement was made to the Islanders’ solicitor at the FCO yesterday. Richard Gifford explains what happened.
We had been summoned to a meeting with the Minster, following promises of detailed consideration of the future of the islands. Since the Islanders had commissioned a review of the Feasibility Report, they were optimistic that the conclusions would have been considered by the Government. A review by a Harvard Resettlement Expert, Jonathan Jenness, concluded that “the Chagos Archipelago has a benign environment and that the conclusions of the (Government’s) report were erroneous in every assertion”. The Jenness study concluded that “it is fatuous to imagine that the islands cannot be resettled. They were settled, successfully for several generations, before the population was forced to decamp. The Ilois want to return and have a right of return. The Archipelago is in any case already “successfully settled” by the military and BIOT Administration in Diego Garcia”.
“The (Government) Consultant’s produced no evidence that the cost of maintaining resettlement is likely to prove prohibitive in the long term”.
“All historical evidence suggests the Chagos as benign. There are apparently no historic records of ANY substantial flooding, although localised overtopping is a regularly back shore phenomena….there is only one substantial earthquake in Chagos historic record…there is no other single record of a tsunami doing any damage anywhere in the Chagos. The Ilois are firm in their conclusion that the Chagos is a good place and fair minded reading of the historic evidence is that they are correct”.
As to the question of global warming affecting the islands this is something of a joke. There is no evidence whatever that the US airbase, which has a population of 4,000 at any one time, is proposing to pack up and leave. On the contrary the Americans have recently spent million of dollars building special shelters for their stealth bombers.
Richard Gifford pointed out that it was difficult to take this aspect of the Government’s case seriously. “Until we see the Americans packing up and leaving Chagos, there is no reason whatever to believe that the prosperous economy of Chagos cannot be restored and the Islanders returned to their homeland”.
“I was obliged to inform the Minster that he was acting irrationally and in all probability illegally, and there would undoubtedly be a legal challenge to the validity of the Order in Council. We are already advised by Queen’s Counsel that an Order in Council of the Queen is susceptible to Judicial Review. The Islanders, who have been treated in the most heartless way for a generation are desparte to get back to their homeland. Many of the older folk who were removed are dying, and it is a cynical disregard of their human rights to delay their resettlement in the hope that those with memories on the islands or ancestors buried there will die before they can go back home”.
“There can hardly be a more shameful history of mistreatment of a population in modern times. It is impossible to reconcile the Government’s keenness on applying Human Rights in the Overseas Territories with this cavalier disregard of basic human values”.