Chagos
– an open
letter to the British Foreign Secretary
--
Sean
Carey
Dear Mr
Milband
I
notice that you have been involved in a diplomatic wrangle
with the Israeli government about the export of avocados,
herbs and cosmetically enhancing Dead Sea mud from Jewish
settlements in the West Bank which the UK considers illegal
under international law.
You
will have been well prepared for this when you went to the
Middle East this week.
What
you may not have anticipated, however, was the argument put
forward by Michael Freund writing
in the Jerusalem Post accusing you and Gordon Brown
of "barefaced hypocrisy" for trying to put an end
to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands while doing
next to nothing for the exiled Chagos islanders.
Last
month the law lords decided by a majority verdict to endorse
your appeal and block the islanders’ right of return to
their Indian Ocean homeland. You then issued a statement
saying that the islanders had been paid "fair
compensation".
I
cannot agree.
As
you know the islanders were forced out of their homeland by
a variety of methods including the threat of starvation
between 1968 and 1973 to make way for the US military base
on Diego Garcia. Most were dumped in Mauritius and some in
the Seychelles. All of them were left to fend for
themselves.
And
it is revealing that Diego Garcia was chosen instead of
another suitable Indian Ocean atoll, Aldabra, because of
concerns about the fate of the Giant Land Tortoise and
nesting seabirds which lived there. The obvious conclusion
is that the descendants of former slaves ranked below
wildlife in their claim to a homeland.
But
the results of the forced removal, the loss of their culture
and their position at the bottom of the social pyramid in
Mauritius were entirely predictable -- high levels of
unemployment and a significant amount of alcohol and drug
misuse leading to poor health and premature death for a
significant number of the 2000 or so islanders.
And
can I remind you that it was only when details of what
happened to the islanders started to emerge after a US
Congressional Committee hearing in 1975 that the then
British government was shamed into offering the islanders
any kind of financial help. Each adult received a little
over £2000 in 1982 in "full and final settlement of
all claims… with no admission of responsibility".
I
don’t think that this is a lot of money even in today’s
terms. In fact, I would go further and say that no amount of
money could compensate the Chagossians for what they have
been through.
Since
2000, seven senior British judges unanimously found in
favour of the islanders right of return and variously found
the government's case "irrational",
"repugnant",
"unlawful" and "an abuse of
power".
Unfortunately,
for the islanders three of the five law lords did not agree
with the judgements from the lower courts. We can only
speculate as to what the result might have been had a
different panel of legal personnel been selected.
Nevertheless,
some simple arithmetic reveals that nine senior judges have
found for the islanders and only three against.
So
your government has won a narrow legal victory but I'm not
convinced that it is a fair result. I am not alone.
Members
of the Foreign Affairs Committee which includes senior
parliamentarians like Sir Menzies Campbell, Andrew Mackinlay
and Sir John Stanley recently stated that "there is a
strong moral case for the UK permitting and supporting a
return to the British Indian Ocean Territory for the
Chagossians".
Certainly
the islanders don't show any signs of giving up – an
appeal has been made to the European Court of Human Rights
in Strasbourg.
The
question of how the Chagos Islands, which had been an
integral part of the colony of Mauritius since the Treaty of
Paris in 1814, were excised before the island’s
independence in 1968 in contravention of UN Resolution 1514
which states that all colonial peoples have the right to
independence without preconditions is also relevant here.
For
a variety of political and economic reasons successive
Mauritian governments have been reluctant to press their
territorial claim – but this might be about to change.
Perhaps
it might be better for all concerned if you took seriously
the suggestion of David Snoxell, the former British High
Commissioner to Mauritius, who has asked repeatedly for a
round table discussion between Britain, the US, Mauritius
and representatives of the Chagos communities in Mauritius
and the Seychelles in order to find a solution to what he
has called "one of the worst violations of fundamental
human rights perpetrated by the UK in the 20th
century".
I
realise that dealing with the Bush administration has been
difficult. It must have been very embarrassing for you to
come before parliament earlier this year and admit that the
UK had been misled by the US about the use of the military
base on Diego Garcia for extraordinary rendition on two
occasions.
Perhaps
Barack Obama’s inauguration as US President in January
will provide an opportunity to change current policy towards
the Chagossians. Of course, I understand that the fate of a
small number of politically powerless black British,
Mauritian and Seychelles subjects living in exile a long way
from the American mainland won’t be high on the new
administration’s agenda but you could try and put it
there.
In
any case, this might be a smart PR move since it would
demonstrate that the special relationship between Britain
and the US doesn’t always have to have a narrow military
focus but might, just occasionally, serve the purpose of a
progressive and ethical foreign policy. It would certainly
help in making your criticisms of the Israelis stick.
Who
knows it might even help your political career.
Sean Carey
Dr
Sean Carey is Research Fellow at CRONEM, Roehampton
University.
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