The UK Chagos Support Association

Here’s a recording of Philippa Gregory talking on San Francisco radio station Now 99.7 about her historical novels and her work supporting the Chagos islanders (jump to 11:15 for the Chagos part).

When she tells people the story of Chagos, the usual reply is: “That’s terrible, I didn’t know about it,” Gregory says. She describes the Chagos scandal as “hidden in plain sight”.

New research by the National Oceanography Centre throws doubt on predictions that sea-level rises will make the Chagos islands uninhabitable.

The New Scientist reports that the centre’s Philip Woodworth has conducted a fresh analysis of the data, and questioned the findings of biologist Charles Sheppard of the Chagos Conservation Trust on sea-level rises in Chagos.

Fluctuations in sea level make it difficult to pinpoint the “underlying rise”, and whatever the true measure of past rises, it should not be used to try to extrapolate future sea-level rises, Woodworth says.

That, of course, is exactly what the government has been doing, and one of its main reasons for claiming that a return to Chagos is unfeasible.

Read the New Scientist’s article here. Woodworth’s work is to be published in the journal Global and Planetary Change.

The Ifield Community College Chagossian drummers have won the music award at this year’s Crawley Youth Awards.

The drummers have played music from their community to a wide audience, performing for many local charities and at community and civic events. They have performed all over the UK, including in London, Manchester and Birmingham.

They performed at Chichester Cathedral with the Ifield Community College Choir, the BBC Singers and the West Sussex Youth Orchestra, and took part in the Let the Peoples Sing choral festival, which was broadcast on BBC radio.

Videos from the 2006 visit to the Chagos islands can now be seen on YouTube:
- Part one
- Part two
- Part three

A hundred Chagossians took part in the ten-day trip, organised by the Foreign Office, to Diego Garcia and several of the outer islands. CRG leader Olivier Bancoult said at the time: “We maintain our objective of returning to live in our birthplace. We think justice must be done but this first visit was very successful.”

It’s fair to say you don’t hear a huge amount about Chagos in the mainstream media. So it was great to see poet and author Benjamin Zephaniah bringing up the Diego Garcia story on the BBC’s Question Time last night (it’s on iPlayer here, the relevant bit starts at 43:30).

It was part of a discussion about the royals meddling in politics, prompted by the controversy around Prince Charles being offered a veto on certain new legislation.

Zephaniah said:

“We are told that we elect our politicians and the royal family stay out of it… There’s an island called Diego Garcia, and the British citizens were moved off that island for an American base to come on. In the British courts the people of [Diego Garcia] won the right to return and because of some kind of antiquated rule or whatever, some people went into a room with the Queen and they stood up and the Queen just overruled the decision of the court… We’re not being democratic if politicians make decisions and members of the royal family can veto them.”

He’s right, although it’s worth pointing out that what the monarch rubber stamped that day was drafted by the Foreign Office under the New Labour government. It wasn’t the Queen who was abusing her power – the government were abusing it for her. So the problem isn’t so much the royals being naughty, it’s that their antiquated powers are wide open to abuse.

The result, as we know, is that vulnerable people suffer.

The whole story is brilliantly told in John Pilger’s film Stealing a Nation, which you can watch online here.

The Chagos Islands (BIOT) All-Party Parliamentary Group held its 24th meeting on 19 October 2011.

The Group reviewed the answers to recent Parliamentary Questions and letters from Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) Ministers. Most had simply re-stated standard FCO arguments on feasibility and defence which were neither clear nor compelling. These replies remained unconvincing. The Group was pleased to note that the Foreign Secretary would meet members on 9 November 2011 to discuss the issues.

The meeting discussed the need for talks to be opened with the USA on the future of BIOT well in advance of 2014. The US had never said publicly that it required the Outer Islands for defence purposes, though this was frequently asserted by the FCO. It was felt that the Ministry of Defence should also be invited to express a view – they had never done so. The Group would continue to press for a meeting with the US Ambassador to discuss the threat, if any, that resettlement on one of the Outer Islands might pose to the security of the US base or to military operations on Diego Garcia, 140 miles away. The Group felt that the Foreign Secretary should discuss the matter directly with his counterpart, Hilary Clinton, and if necessary persuade her that resettlement posed no threat to the US base. It was thought that since Robin Cook was Foreign Secretary his successors had not discussed the matter with their US counterparts.

The Group took note of the decision by the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) to consider its request that the jurisdiction of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration be extended to cover the two uninhabited Overseas Territories, British Antarctic Territory and BIOT, since these territories were directly administered by the FCO. In its 7th report of the 2007-8 session the FAC had stated “We conclude that there is a strong moral case for the UK permitting and supporting a return to BIOT for Chagossians…The FCO has argued that such a return would be unsustainable, but we find these arguments less than convincing”.

The Group considered a complaint to Treasury Solicitors by the lawyers, acting on behalf of the Chagossians, that the FCO had failed in its Duty of Candour to the Courts in the litigation. This had seriously damaged the Chagossian Islanders case and may have led to a miscarriage of justice. The Group were puzzled to learn that the FCO had declined to confirm that the Duty of Candour also applied to submissions to the European Court of Huamn Rights.

The Group took note of a recent report of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination urging the UK to include information on the implementation of the Convention on Racial Discrimination, and its recommendation that all discriminatory restrictions on Chagossians entering BIOT should be withdrawn. The Group also noted the address on 24 September 2011 of the Prime Minister of Mauritius to the UN General Assembly, concerning Chagos.

A letter from the High Representative and Vice President of the European Commission, Baroness Ashton, in which she looked forward to a fair resolution of the issue of resettlement was noted. The letter concluded that “should the UK Government decide in favour of a return of the Chagos Islanders to their islands, the EU will closely examine all possibilities of support, if such a request for support is made by the UK Government”.

The Group asked the Coordinator to represent it at the joint meeting on the Chagos MPA of the Linnean Society and the Chagos Conservation Trust on 24 November 2011.

The 25th meeting of the APPG will be on 23 November 2011.

We’re a few days late with this but there’s a great profile of our patron Philippa Gregory in Monday’s Independent, in which she talks extensively about getting involved in the Chagos campaign, and how the treatment of the islanders seems like something from one of her historical novels.

Philippa says: “When it comes to the treatment of the Chagossians, it’s as if the democratic revolution never happened. It is totally tyrannical. I cannot understand why successive British governments would act against their own subjects so consistently over so many years using so many underhand techniques.”

Read the full article here. There’s also a letter from David Snoxell, coordinator of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Chagos, in the following day’s paper.

The Chagos Islands All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) held its 23rd meeting on 7th September 2011.

The Group reviewed developments during the parliamentary recess. Members were pleased that Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) officials had held a meeting on 27th July 2011 with Chagossian Leaders, but noted that the agenda had been restricted to visits, restoration and environmental work; the right of return, resettlement and the proposal for a scientific station supported by Chagossians living in a nearby village (put forward at the Chagos Regagné Conference held at the Royal Geographical Society, London, on 19th May 2011) were excluded by the FCO on grounds that these were ‘political’ issues. While welcoming these on-going projects, the APPG took the view that they could not be a substitute for resolving the underlying issues. The Group also noted that recent press briefings by the FCO had described these ‘initiatives’ as part of of an ongoing ‘strategy’ for BIOT. It was particularly important, in the run-up to the consideration of the Chagos islanders case by the European Court of Human Rights, that this strategy did not distract attention from the fundamental issues before the Court.

The meeting discussed the correspondence concerning the defence security of Diego Garcia between the Chairman, Jeremy Corbyn and the US Ambassador, and the Vice Chairman, Andrew Rosindell and the Foreign Secretary William Hague, noting that both the US Ambassador and Mr Hague had not replied. The Group looked forward to a meeting with the Foreign Secretary which the Chairman had first requested in early February 2011. It was understood that Mr Hague was keen to meet the Group and that a date would be fixed. In June 2011 the Group had asked for a meeting with the US Ambassador.

The Group learnt that the case before the European Court of Human Rights had been delayed, once again at the request of the FCO, by a further month. The date for final submissions on the implications of the Al-Skeini case was now 30th September 2011. In view of the continuing delays to the case, first lodged 7 years ago, the Chagossian lawyers had re-activated the application for a judicial review of the Marine Protected Area.

The next meeting of the APPG is 19th October 2011.

Bandwagon Theatre is bringing its play about the history of the Chagos islands to this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

A Rotten Little Story tells the murky tale of the secret sale by the British government of the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. In a storytelling style suitable for young teenagers and above, the play shows how, at the behest of the US government, Britain kidnapped the islanders during the 1960s and dumped them in the slums of Mauritius where many of them still struggle to survive.

The show is on from 5 to 13 August. Find out more and book tickets here.

The Chagos Islands All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) held its AGM and 22nd meeting on 13 July 2011. The current office holders (Chairman – Jeremy Corbyn MP; Vice Chairmen – Lord Avebury, Lord Ramsbotham, Andrew Rosindell MP; Secretary – Andrew George MP) were re-elected. Henry Smith MP was also elected Vice-Chaiman. David Snoxell and Richard Gifford were respectively re-appointed Coordinator and Legal Adviser.

The Group took note of the progress that had been made since the general election and the evident desire of current  Ministers to find solutions to the long standing issues concerning the future of the Chagossians and the Chagos Islands. The Vice Chairman, Andrew Rosindell, reported on a meeting that he and the Patrons, Chairman and Vice Chairman of UKChSA had held with the Foreign Secretary on 27 June 2011, and on a subsequent exchange of letters in which the Foreign Secretary had listed  on-going initiatives and had expressed the hope that others would be possible. While the meeting had been positive and encouraging, as were the proposed small projects, Mr Rosindell had appealed to the Foreign Secretary to go beyond the constraints of official briefing and deal with the fundamental issues of the right to return and resettlement.

While in opposition, both Coalition parties had expressed a determination to work for a just and fair settlement. The Government had already had more than a year to find an agreeable solution. Members of the Group asked when the  all-party meeting, to which the Foreign Secretary had agreed in early May 2011, would take place. The Chairman said he would remind Mr Hague.

The Group considered the Chairman’s letter to the US Ambassador of 10 June 2011, proposing a meeting with the Group to discuss any potential defence security issues over resettlement. Since no reply had yet been received the Coordinator was asked to remind the US Embassy.

The Group also considered the Chairman’s letter to the Chairmen of the Public Administration and Foreign Affairs Select Committees concerning the jurisdiction of the Parliamentary Commissioner with regard to the Overseas Territories. The Group agreed that the Chairman of the Joint Select Committee on Human Rights should also be seized of the issues.

The Group discussed the ECtHR’s (Strasbourg) judgment of 7 July on the Al-Skeini case (that the UK was responsible under the European Convention for the human rights violations of its soldiers against civilians, since the UK had control and jurisdiction in Iraq at that time). The disposal of the Al-Skeini case cleared the way for the Court to consider the Chagos Islanders case and this was expected in the autumn. The Group felt, however, that this judgment had such important implications for the Government’s case in Strasbourg that it would be prudent, and much cheaper for the taxpayer, for the UK to withdraw from the case and settle out of court.

The next meetings of the APPG will be on 7 September and 19 October 2011.