Some thirty years after their unlawful expulsion from the Chagos Archipelago, the islanders who used to live there (or ?Ilois? as they are often called) have not lost faith and still carry on with their struggle for justice and for the right of return to their homeland to be upheld.

The have been described in the past as the ?Palestinians of the Indian Ocean?. Over the years, however, their plight seems to have been largely forgotten by the international community and significantly also by most people today in Mauritius where the ?Ilois? were forcibly deported in the late 1960s and early 1970s and dumped on the docks in Port Louis. But, fortunately, there are a few public-spirited individuals around and as the ?Ilois? keep demonstrating and chanting protest songs, calling for help and support, one such concerned individual, John Pilger, has just extended his hand to the ?Ilois? in order to make their voices heard around the world. Entitled Stealing a Nation, his film was shown on ITV1 last week (on Wednesday 7 October 2004).

In his opening lines to his film, he sets the scene with the following comments:?This is a shocking, almost incredible story. A government calling itself civilised tricked and expelled its most vulnerable citizens.?

The catalogue of lies, the web of deceit, the top level conspiracy that often surround the brutalisation of a whole people are normally associated with totalitarian régimes. But in the case of the ?Ilois?, we are confronted with those big powers who tell us ad nauseam that they firmly stand for the respect of democracy, the rule of law and human rights. In reality, for purely selfish reasons and political expediency, they will often pay lip service to these doctrines and will even subvert them using whatever legal powers (be they archaic as we shall see) that they have at their disposal.... Thus, with regard to the secret and brutal expulsion of the ?Ilois?, one secret Foreign Office document, now declassified and available at the Public Records Office cynically proclaims: ?We do not regard the UK as bound by the rules.? And it adds: ?We make the rules as we go along.?

After they were forcibly removed and ruthlessly abandoned in Mauritius, many ?Ilois? died out of sadness and despair, others committed suicides, some drowned themselves, young girls turned to prostitution in order to survive? In a letter dated 16 August 1976, one official at the Foreign Office said of these tragic circumstances: ?Although we do not have any information about deaths, some deaths are bound to occur in the normal course of events.?

At least three big lies underpin the manner in which the ?Ilois? were dispossessed and their rights continue to be thwarted to this date. First, it was by ?maintaining the fiction? (to use the subtitle of one of the official documents) that there was no indigenous and settled population on the Chagos Islands, with the exception of? seagulls. Again and again this was the official line (and lie). It sought to maintain the fiction that the only people who worked on the Chagos, including on the largest island Diego Garcia, were contract labourers who had come from elsewhere ? a ?floating population? as the propaganda machine put it.

But then, some of the top officials working at the Foreign Office started to become nervous about this. One of them wrote on a secret memo that unfortunately along with the birds [seagulls] are a ?few Tarzans or Man Fridays?. In a letter dated 25 July 1968 and addressed to the PM, the then Foreign Secretary, said that he was aware that Diego Garcia had a population going back at least two generations. He nevertheless suggested that the government should lie to the world ? a piece of ?advice? which was accepted by the Harold Wilson government. One option was to ?certify? the people of the Chagos ?more or less fraudulently as belonging somewhere else.? Richard Gifford, the tireless and tenacious lawyer for the Chagos Group led by Olivier Bancoult, said the following about the behaviour of British officials: ?All they were concerned about ? and the documents show this clearly ? all they were concerned about was whether they would be found out!? Before the Americans came, more than 2,000 people lived on the islands, many with roots going back to the late 18th century. There were thriving villages, a school, a hospital, a church, a railway and an undisturbed way of life. The islands were, and still are, a British crown colony. Denis Healey, who was Defence Secretary in the same government, declined to be interviewed by John Pilger saying: ?I fear I have no memories for the Chagos Archipelago. Sorry.? Later, it became clear that Healey had read his Cabinet colleague?s plan when his Permanent Secretary wrote that he ?agrees with its recommendations.? (Letter of 6 May 1969).

The second big lie and excuse used by the British and American governments in order to justify why resettlement of the ?Ilois? back on their homeland could not be done is to say (or make us believe) that the islands are after all not fit for long term habitation. As such, they would present a danger to the ?Ilois?! And they explain (sic) that they are seriously looking into the matter: they have conducted feasibility studies which indicated that there was a problem with the sea level, that there was no drinking water on the islands, etc etc. But the experts are not so easily fooled. Professor David Stoddart of Berkeley University, California said that these feasibility studies (3 carried out by the UK government) are ?a waste of time?.

He argues against the charge of ?no drinking water? given that the Chagos Islands (especially Peros Banhos and Solomon) are among the wettest islands in the world. Richard Gifford points out that there is currently a functional population on Diego Garcia (hundreds of military personnel and thousands of civilian workers) and says: ?They are not going to sink under the wave?. Stealing a Nation then shows American military staff enjoying the breathtaking beauty of Diego Garcia, now one of the largest US military base which the Americans have nicknamed ?Fantasy Island?. And the voice over (by John Pilger) says: ?Far from sinking, they are sailing on it, swimming in it, playing in it and enjoying a barbecue next to it?.

The third big lie, which can be inferred from the official political rhetoric, amounts to something like this: If Diego Garcia is to be rendered fit again for human habitation (!), this would be hugely expensive and the UK government has a duty to the British taxpayers. Again, this is an untenable argument. Leaving aside the existence of a functional population on Diego Garcia, it does not require a huge stretch of the imagination to turn this feeble and offensive argument on its head. A British MP recently asked: ?What would be the anticipated cost?? The reply was: £ 5 million to build the infrastructures and £ 5 million a year to run. ?That?s peanuts!?, says Richard Gifford who adds that ?£ 5 million is the cost of an embassy building in London.?

John?s Pilger?s film then showed the magnificent residence of the British High Commissioner in Mauritius. Pilger notes that it has tennis courts, lavish gardens, security fences, a swimming pool and a Jaguar car ? all paid for by the British taxpayers. But the ?Ilois?, British citizens they may be, were less worthy of taxpayers? money. It must be remembered that the UK government (a) obtained a discount of £ 5 million from the Americans on the purchase of Polaris missiles for the Royal Navy after complying with the US government?s request to find a suitable island for them and to ensure that it is ?swept? and ?sanitised? before the Americans move in to transform it into a military installation and (b) that it has spent £ 2 billion to defend the rights of the Falklands Islanders? Money is not the problem. The reason, says Pilger, is power. American power and their self-given role to dominate the world.

by Noor Adam Essack