The UK Chagos Support Association

In a report on the Chagos marine reserve one year on, the Pew Environment Group gives an upbeat account. It talks of the initiation of scientific projects and the ban on fishing in Chagos, but overlooks some pretty important points.

When planning the new marine reserve, the (previous) Government could have done it in a way that made resettlement of the islands practicable. It chose not to.

The Pew Environment Group’s report says that 275,000 people joined the Chagos Environment Network’s call to protect the islands – but doesn’t mention that in a petition organised by Avaaz, more than 250,000 called for the Government to “work with the Chagossians” to protect the area – something the Government failed to do. In fact, another 1,500 signed a petition by the Marine Education Trust which specifically argued for the reserve to allow some fishing in some areas, so the ecosystem could be preserved while still allowing the islands to be resettled. That didn’t happen.

The Pew Environment Group also cites “conservation training for Chagossians” as one of the achievements of the marine reserve, but this has apparently been limited to diving training for two people and “chainsaw safety and management” training for one other.

Finally it mentions that the islands provide a home for the coconut crab. Great news, but we can’t help but note that the crab is not the first interesting creature (in the past it’s been boobies, turtles and sea slugs) to have its rights prioritised over the people of Chagos.

There’s one thing the marine reserve has definitely achieved – continuing to obstruct the rights of the people of Chagos. Documents published by Wikileaks since the creation of the marine reserve reveal that the Foreign Office expected the plan to put paid to the Chagossians’ hopes of resettlement – while claiming publicly that it would make no difference.

The Sunday Telegraph ran a couple of encouraging responses to Ben Fogle’s article on Chagos the previous week, including one from David Snoxell, who co-ordinates the Chagos APPG:

SIR – Coming from a leading conservationist, Ben Fogle’s passionate advocacy of the right of the Chagos islanders (News Review, February 13) to live in their homeland is of tremendous encouragement to them.

The Marine Protected Area is clearly of immense value for the protection of the unique Chagos Archipelago, but must not be at the expense of its former inhabitants or Mauritius, to whom the islands will in time be returned.

WikiLeaks has revealed that a motive for the Marine Protected Area, designated by the last Labour government, was to block the return of the islanders, even though they would make ideal guardians of their own environment.

Before coming to power, both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems were highly supportive of the Chagossians and promised a just and fair settlement. Nine months later, there is little sign of progress towards that goal, despite widespread support for an overall settlement from parliamentarians and the public. Ministers should listen to those views just as much as they listen to officials in the Foreign Office.

David Snoxell
Co-ordinator, Chagos Islands All Party Parliamentary Group
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

SIR – Ben Fogle’s article on the Chagos islanders’ eviction in 1971 from their home needs our support. I did write to my MP a few years ago, but nothing happened. I would urge others to do this, as the treatment of these people is a disgrace.

Alan Tolley
Lincoln

Our patron Ben Fogle had a great article in yesterday’s Telegraph titled ‘My fight for the forgotten islanders’

He tells the whole sordid Chagos story, how he ended up getting involved in the campaign, and how he felt duped after being persuaded to support the Chagos marine reserve – which Wikileaks revealed to have been a sneaky way for the government to undermine the islanders’ chances of getting home.

“We must not allow ourselves to be dazzled by ‘green’ policy, blinding us to the bigger picture,” he writes. Hear hear.

Amalia King has posted this annotated copy of the Wikileaks cable detailing discussions on Diego Garcia.

A very useful way of comparing the private comments with the public ones, highlighting the omissions, half truths and deceptions.

Following the revelations in the US diplomatic cables made public by Wikileaks, Mauritius is suing the UK over the Marine Protected Area around the Chagos islands.

Chagos was hived off from Mauritius to create an air base when the country won its independence in the 1960s, and it has always insisted that it should have sovereignty over the islands.

The Mauritian government has filed a case before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg. AFP quoted Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam saying: “By creating the protected marine area, Great Britain did not take into account Mauritius’ rights and those of the Chagossians it shamefully evicted from Chagos.”

The Wikileaks cables also showed that the MPA was designed to prevent the islanders going home.

Our co-patron Ben Fogle had a letter in the Guardian yesterday responding to documents released by Wikileaks revealing the FCO’s motivation for establishing a marine reserve in Chagos. Here’s the text of his letter:

Forty years ago, thousands of people were forcibly and illegally removed from their homeland, the British Indian Ocean Territory, to make way for Diego Garcia, a US military base. The expulsion has been described by some as UK foreign policy’s darkest day. Since then the islanders have fought for the right to go home. They won it from the high court, but the privy council took it away. It now seems, from US information released by WikiLeaks (Foreign Office accused of misleading public over expelled ‘Man Fridays’, 4 December), that the Foreign Office has no regrets over its illegal action, and has been planning to destroy the islanders’ campaign by making their former home a marine sanctuary, in which no one would be allowed to live.

As a long-term advocate of conservation, I am horrified that the UK government has used this to keep the islanders from returning to their rightful home, and that I was duped into supporting the creation of the marine sanctuary under false pretences. According to the leaked documents, Colin Roberts, the FCO’s director of overseas territories, told the US that there would be no “Man Fridays” on the islands and said: “We do not regret the removal of the population.” The FCO described the all-party parliamentary group campaigning for the Chagos people’s right to return as a “persistent” but relatively non-influential group. I now regret my support of the marine sanctuary and look forward to joining the islanders in their campaign to return home.

The UK Foreign Office misled the UK parliament over its reasons for proposing a Marine Protected Area (MPA) around the Chagos Islands, according to secret US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, and reported in the Guardian. New leaked documents show that the Foreign Office privately admitted its plan to declare the islands the world’s largest MPA would end any chance of the expelled Chagossians being repatriated. The admission completely contradicts public claims by Foreign Office ministers that the proposed park would have no effect on the islanders’ right of return. In fact, the creation of a marine park was a ploy to block their return, as it would make it impossible for them to live there through the ban on fishing, their main livelihood before expulsion.

The disclosure follows years of criticism levelled at Whitehall over the harsh treatment of the islanders, many of whom have lived in poverty in other countries since their deportation. In the past, National Archive documents have revealed how the Foreign Office consistently lied about the eviction, maintaining the fiction that the islanders had not been permanent residents. The latest leaked documents are US state department cables recording private meetings between Foreign Office mandarins and their American counterparts.

In May 2009, Colin Roberts, the Foreign Office director of overseas territories, told the Americans “We do not regret the removal of the population since removal was necessary for [Diego Garcia] to fulfil its strategic purpose,”. Roberts, admitting the government was “under pressure” from the islanders, told the US of the plan to set up the marine park on 55 islands around Diego Garcia, known as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). “Roberts stated that, according to [Her Majesty's government's] current thinking on a reserve, there would be ‘no human footprints’ or ‘Man Fridays’ on the BIOT uninhabited islands,” according to the American account of the meeting. The language echoes the racist terms used in 1966 when Denis Greenhill – later the Foreign Office’s most senior official – described the inhabitants as “a few Tarzans and Man Fridays”. The documents also highlight the cynical calculations on how pressure from environmental groups could be used to support the creation of an MPA, with Mr Roberts stating that the “environmental lobby is far more powerful than the Chagossians’ advocates.”

The struggle for the Chagossians has been long; the UK High Court has ruled numerous times in their favour, the UN has advised on their repatriation and the Organisation of African Unity has appealed that the Chagos people be allowed to return to their homeland where they will undertake and enhance conservation work, and not threaten US security. How is this to become government policy when unelected officials at the Foreign Office appear determined that it shall not be so?

Baroness Whitaker, a member of the All Party Pariamentary Group on the Chagos, recently urged the British Government to implement the “tried and tested model” for Marine Protected Areas (MPA), where they “keep the residents living there, where they help maintain the conservation area”. She goes on to mention that this model has been used for the Galapagos Islands and the American MPA off Western Hawaii, and would “allow the exiled Chagossians to return to their birthplace and put right an acknowledged tragic injustice”.