The leader of the Chagos Refugee Group (GRC), Olivier Bancoult, climbed an additional step yesterday afternoon. He appeared before the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee to give oral evidence about the forced removal of the Chagossians from their islands more than 40 years ago.

The objective of the GRC leader was to convince backbenchers from the British government as well as of the opposition to write a report that will be favourable to the return of the Chagossians to the land of their ancestors. He submitted a lengthy document to the committee on their uprooting from the islands as well as the hard life they have been facing in Mauritius since then. The committee will then write a report and submit it to Gordon Brown?s government to try and win the majority of British decision-makers to their cause.

<B>Final ruling still expected</B>

As leader of the GRC, Olivier Bancoult has gone through a series of ups and downs since the beginning of his battle to go back and live on his native archipelago with his fellow citizens. After he successively won legal battles in the High Court in 2000 and 2006 as well as in the Court of Appeal in 2007, which quashed all previous government orders excluding the Chagossians from their homeland, the British government has now lodged an appeal and the final ruling is expected from the House of Lords.

?What you have to remember is that the British have tried their best to destroy Chagossian culture,? he told Dr Sean Carey, a Research fellow at the Centre for Research on Nationalism, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism at the University of Surrey, in issue of Monday 22nd January of The Newstatesman. Asked by Dr Carey, a few days before his appearance before the UK MPs, if that event was a sign of protest, Olivier Bancoult replied. ?Well, I am an optimist. I am looking forward to the opportunity to put our case before the committee members. Of course we are sad ? very sad ? about those who have passed away without returning to Chagos.?

Olivier Bancoult now hopes that his report on the Chagossians? difficulties will help his fellow citizens get the right to return to their homeland. ?We will not miss this opportunity of relating our miseries,? he pointed out before his appearance.

It is a fact that this community has had much difficulty to adapt to their new environment when they were expelled from their archipelago between 1967 and 1972. Olivier Bancoult claims that around 70% of Chagossians of working age are unemployed compared to the national rate of about 9%.

Although life will certainly not be easy there, the Chagossians nevertheless wish to go back to their homeland and start anew there. Amenities will have to be built and the island set up again to enable people to live there but this does not appear as an obstacle for the main concerned. What he knows from what his parents told him is that ?everyone had their own house and a job. After work, people would go fishing; the catch was shared ? it was like living in one big family?, he told the British newspaper.

<B>US and UK keep on passing the bucket</B>

The image might be idealistic but the local government has kept on supporting the Chagossians in their fight, as it also wants to recover sovereignty over the islands. The Prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam, reiterated his government?s commitment to try and win the Chagos back when he replied to Paul Bérenger?s Private Notice Question last November. Discussions will go on ?even if the United Stated keep on passing the bucket to Great Britain while Great Britain passes the bucket to the US?. He, however, made it clear that the sovereignty will not be exercised immediately on Diego Garcia because of the US military presence there.

Diego Garcia appears to be the weak point of the negotiations. The American airbase there is regarded by the US as key to military missions in the Middle East and elsewhere. And the UK might not want to annoy the US about that specific issue?