The World's Jeb Sharp reports on a new book about the history of the US military base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The people who lived on the island were expelled to make way for the base, and many of them are still fighting to go home.
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LISA MULLINS: The United States has a military base in the region that could be key to anti-piracy efforts. That base is already vital to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's on Diego Garcia, a small tropical island in the Indian Ocean. A new book tells how the US base came to be located on Diego Garcia. And as The World's Jeb Sharp reports, it's not a pretty tale.
JEB SHARP: The story begins in the late 1950s. The Cold War is on. Decolonization is sweeping the globe. Newly independent countries are flexing their muscles. US military planners realize the future of some of their bases is tenuous, so they start looking for new ones. The island of Diego Garcia made a perfect candidate, with its easy access to the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia. But there was a hitch. A couple of thousand people lived there. The US Navy said they had to go.
DAVID VINE: I want people to know this story.
SHARP: That's David Vine, the author of “Island of Shame: The Secret History of the US Military Base on Diego Garcia.â€
VINE: It is shocking and deeply sad that so few people in the US know what the US government did, that it expelled this entire people to create a military base.
SHARP: First, however, the United States had to negotiate with Britain, which owns Diego Garcia. In 1966, Britain agreed to lease Diego Garcia and the surrounding islands to the United States. The US paid the British $14 million dollars, and in return the UK agreed to expel the islanders who are known as Chagossians. The expulsions started in 1968.
VINE: Chagossians who were away from the islands for medical treatment or vacations on the western Indian Ocean island of Mauritius were told when they went to return to their homes, “Your islands have been closed.†They simply were barred from returning and marooned in Mauritius, separated from their homes, their properties, their communities, many of their family members.
SHARP: Next, the British began forcing the remaining islanders to leave. First, they restricted supplies to the islands, then they resorted to violence.
VINE: British agents with the help of US Navy personnel began the process by rounding up the Chagossians pet dogs and putting them in sealed sheds and gassing and burning them in front of their owners, traumatized Chagossians. In the course of 1971, the British rounded up the remainder put them on overcrowded cargo ships and deported them.
SHARP: Vine was a graduate student in anthropology when he first learned of the Chagossians eight years ago. He was approached by the Chagossians' lawyers to do research and provide expert testimony on their situation. He makes a point of saying he wasn't paid for that work. What he found was an impoverished and heartbroken people fighting for the right to go home.
VINE: Three times, the British courts have ruled their expulsion unlawful, and in fact in 2000, the British government indicated it was willing to support and begin plans for a return. Subsequently, the British government had a change of heart, and last October, the highest court in the UK, the House of Lords, overturned the lower court rulings, effectively abolished the Chagossians right of return and the right of abode on Diego Garcia and on the Chagos Archipelago.
SHARP: But the Chagossians are fighting on. They're taking their case to the European Court of Human Rights. David Vine hopes they'll get a hearing from the Obama administration as well. He says they don't object to the base and in fact would like the opportunity to be able to work there. For now, though, all they're asking is to resettle the outer islands of the archipelago, far from the base itself. Neither the State Department nor the Pentagon would grant an interview on Diego Garcia and the Chagossians, but back in 2006, State Department spokesman Justin Higgins described the US position in an interview with the BBC.
JUSTIN HIGGINS: As we've said when this matter has come up before, resettlement of the outer islands in the Chagos archipelago would raise potential threats to the US facility on Diego Garcia. This is a longstanding policy we'd prefer to see those islands remain in their current state so they wouldn't impede the operation of the US base.
SHARP: The Chagossians dispute the idea that they would pose a threat or otherwise impede operations at the base, but security expert John Pike thinks it's unlikely they'll ever win the argument. He says it's hard to overestimate the importance of the base to US national security policy.
JOHN PIKE: It's one of the three facilities from which the United States projects military power into the eastern hemisphere. There are only a couple of other bases on the planet that are as important as Diego Garcia.
SHARP: There have even been allegations that Diego Garcia was a CIA black site prison for terrorism suspects. The CIA denies that, but acknowledges it was used as a refueling stop for rendition flights after 9/11. David Vine's book about the history of the base serves as a critique of decades of US foreign policy. But at its heart, it's a plea for the Chagossians to be allowed to go home. For The World, I'm Jeb Sharp.
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