US blocks British court from British territory
bbc.com
bbc.com
Diego Garcia is an island of the British Indian Ocean Territory, a disputed overseas territory of the United Kingdom also claimed by Mauritius. It is a militarised atoll just south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean, and the largest of the 60 small islands of the Chagos Archipelago.
Portuguese sailors under Pedro Mascarenhas were the first Europeans to discover the island, finding it uninhabited in 1512. After a 1786 British colony failed, the French began using the island as a leper colony and, starting in 1793, coconut cultivation by enslaved labor. It was transferred to British rule after the Napoleonic Wars. It was one of the "Dependencies" of the British Colony of Mauritius until the Chagos Islands were detached for inclusion in the newly created British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) in 1965.
Between 1968 and 1973, the Chagossian (Îlois) inhabitants were forcibly expelled from Diego Garcia by the UK Government so that a joint US/UK military base could be established on the island.
In 2023, Human Rights Watch condemned the action as a crime against humanity.
"The Chagos Archipelago was uninhabited when first visited by European explorers, and remained that way until the French established a small colony on the island of Diego Garcia, composed of 50–60 men and "a complement of slaves"."
That's the kind of thing that the West did to become the dominant powers in the current world. It's easy to mistake the current system as having been responsible for that. Once you're at the top, you can afford yourself the luxury of acting morally, I suppose, as long as you're the one defining morality... and only while doing that does not go against your "security" or somtimes, making a few bucks, of course.
A number of people commenting in this thread, including myself, were born before the expulsion.
This was an act of the current UK Westminster and US Washington systems.
Yet the BBC fails to mention this in their 2024 article, instead they use this language to describe the event: "Britain took control of the Chagos Islands"
In other words: situation normal in the Chagos Islands.
The islands were uninhabited when settled by the French and following a peace treaty with France were transferred to the UK.
But Because Laws, nothing sane is allowed to happen.
And meanwhile, the Britain's just-elected new PM, with a massive majority in the new Parliament, started his legal career as a human rights lawyer.
But when the legal system is working well, this kind of indefinite-prisoners-in-limbo crap does not happen.
I don't think that Starmer can do much for this situation even if it was on his list of priorities. Even if he declared the island(s) to be free from UK occupation, then the U.S. would still be blocking non-military people from accessing it.
Leaving the bottom line the same, either way.
(Yes, there'd be a quid pro quo price to pay, even if word never got out. It ain't 1880 no more - when the Royal Navy ruled the oceans, but even 4th-rate nations could get away with laughing in the US Navy's face.)
Slightly bigger picture? Move the migrants off Diego Garcia by fiat (they are de facto prisoners there) to some tiny British Island, and tell the British court to deal with them there.
The latter would open a can of worms in British domestic politics. The right-ish wing would (at best) want the island to be a lifeless rock with a large glacier or smoking volcano on it - better to send an "emigrants & refugees NOT welcome" message. The left-ish wing would not react well to forced relocation to such a spot.
Between 1968 and 1973, the Chagossian (Îlois) inhabitants were forcibly expelled from Diego Garcia by the UK Government so that a joint US/UK military base could be established on the island.
Many were deported to Mauritius and the Seychelles, following which the United States built the large Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, which has been in continuous operation since then.
In 2019, this action and continued British administration of the archipelago were deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, a ruling the United Nations General Assembly supported.
In 2023, Human Rights Watch condemned the action as a crime against humanity.In the interest of completeness both Great Britain and North America were also once uninhabited.
Also, originally Iceland was uninhabited. The Norse created a colony there of - as you put it - "people and slaves". That equivalent history surely does not affect the legal status of the descendants of those people now living in Iceland. Why should it affect the people now living in the BIOT?
"Britain took control of the Chagos Islands, of which Diego Garcia is part, from its then colony, Mauritius, in 1965. It went on to evict its population of more than 1,000 people to make way for the military base." -- BBC
They "took control" (sound quite nice) and "evicted" (probably also the nicest word they could find). The intend is also clear: kick out the natives to make a military base in a place of the world far from their home-island.
See how this language changes when Russia "takes control" of the Donbas. At least Russia claims to step up to rescue the Russian population of Ukraine that lives in a bordering region that Russia controlled not too long ago.
Hence I consider the BBC to be tax paid UK state propaganda, not much better or worse than RT.com in Russia.
But when the UK "took control" (a.k.a. invaded) there were inhabitants that apparently had to be "evicted" (a.k.a. expelled or forcefully kicked out).
I believe the people that inhabit a place should have some say in their future.
The slaves brought there by the French predate British control.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Chagossians adds that before 1835, the "workers brought to the island by the British" were not really "workers" but forcibly transported slaves, in the same sense that the slaves the English brought to Jamaica were "workers."
You are using exactly the kind of positive wording for horrible things that I was making a point against.
Slavery = job.
Slave = worker
Brought to = forcefully shipped to as slaves
"local" = more local than the policy makers that decided they had to make place for a military base
Human Rights Watch called it a crime against humanity. And it takes quite a bit of evil for them to do so wrt a western countries crimes.
> The Foreign Office stressed it had not been a party to the maritime court proceedings and so was under no requirement to comply with the ruling.
International law, ugh?