Britain blocks islanders ever going home (Diego Garcia/Chagos Islands)

[magellan]

Britain blocks islanders ever going home

By David Blair, Diplomatic Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:08am GMT 05/02/2007

More than three decades after British islands in the Indian Ocean were depopulated to make way for an American base, the Government will ask the courts today to ban the inhabitants from ever returning home.

snip...

At America's request, Britain cleared the islands of all 2,000 of their inhabitants – referred to by one Foreign Office diplomat as "Tarzans and Men Fridays" – between 1966 and 1973. After this, a US naval and air base was constructed on the biggest island, Diego Garcia.

The High Court has twice given the islanders, known as the Chagossians, the right to return and Britain had initially accepted the ruling when the islanders won their first case in 2000.

But today the Government will try and overturn a second ruling in the Court of Appeal.

"The evidence points to this being done largely at Washington's request," said Clive Baldwin, from the Minority Rights Group, which is campaigning for the Chagossians. "After September 11 and with the island being used as a base for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the military value of Diego Garcia has increased."

more... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/05/wchagos05.xml

[DemoTex]

1. Read how the UK and US made a people homeless: "Granta 73".

Read Simon Winchester's excellent essay on Diego Garcia in Granta 73 (Spring 2001)

http://www.granta.com/extracts/1225

[Greeby]

2. Watch John Pilger's award-winning documentary Stealing A Nation

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-3667764379758632511&q=John+Pilger+Stealing+A+Nation

Says a lot about the Blair government that they will ignore the High Court and continue the suffering of people who are British citizens in order to please American corporate and military power

[magellan]

3. Unbelievably sad

I read things like this and can't imagine it happening in recent times. Then I look around and realize yeah, there are lots of people who could do barbaric things like this...and do to this day.

Thank you for sharing that essay.

[madrchsod]

4. this was on tv awhile back

probably link tv.one empire replaces another , there is no end to white man`s burden

[magellan]

5. Link repeats things, I'll look for it

"there is no end to white man`s burden"

Reminds me of the Eagles' song, The Last Resort:

...You can leave it all behind
and sail to Lahaina
just like the missionaries did, so many years ago
They even brought a neon sign: "Jesus is coming"
Brought the white man's burden down
Brought the white man's reign...

I've played that song a lot over the last three years. It's been a part of my political awakening.

[struggle4progress]

6. Records show Diego Garcia link to alleged torture flights (Guardian Jan 07)

Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday January 4, 2007
The Guardian

A CIA jet flew at least twice to Poland from Kabul in Afghanistan, where the US detained numerous terrorist suspects, new details about aircraft involved in "torture flights" show.

The journeys of the aircraft, a Gulfstream registered N379P, are disclosed in a list of more than 3,000 flight logs obtained by Stephen Grey, an investigative journalist and author of Ghost Plane. The same aircraft flew from Washington via Athens to the British Indian Ocean territory of Diego Garcia, the logs show. It is the first time that the British-owned territory, where the US has a large airbase, has been linked to the controversial CIA flights. Though there have been persistent reports in the US that detainees have been secretly held in Diego Garcia, the British government has always dismissed the claims.

Foreign Office minister Kim Howells recently told MPs that the "US authorities have repeatedly given us assurances that no detainees, prisoners of war or any other persons in this category are being held on Diego Garcia, or have at any time passed in transit through Diego Garcia or its territorial waters or airspace". He said the assurance was "confirmed during the 2006 US/UK political military talks held in London on October 17 and 18".

The logs show that the Gulfstream, previously identified as being used by the CIA, flew from Afghanistan in June and July 2003. Later that year, the same aircraft flew from Amman, the Jordanian capital, to Kabul ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1982192,00.html

Yeah, the torture plane flew to Diego Garcia to pick up beer and cheese-its ...

[truthisfreedom]

7. So a country was stolen from its inhabitants so that we could illegally invade another country

and torture people.

Kinda special, don'cha think?