The USA and the UK are supposedly among the countries that champion democracy and fairness. They want to be the role models of the century. But, when security is of concern, fairness is of no value and consideration to them. They react just the same as Israelis do against Palestinians. This is what the ethics of Western superpowers underline as far as Chagos is concerned. Naming and shaming do not seem to have any impact on these countries that bulldozed the Middle East into chaos in the name of fairness and democracy.

Breaking UN resolutions and Article 73 of the Charter bears no consequence to the superpowers as veto cards are dealt. Jeremy Corbyn (UK Labour MP) asserts the plight of Chagossians to be a very serious issue, touches on honesty in politics and in government, and on issues of Constitution and law and the way Diego Garcia has been grievously treated by UK and the United States for more than 40 years.

Diego Garcia has two of the longest runways that the world has seen and a base from which 4,000 US troops operate. The base was routinely used for bombing Afghanistan and Iraq and the USA considers it a crucial communications facility. The recent explosion at Grand-Bay brought FBI agents to Mauritius because the USA thought this communication facility could be at risk. The USA does not want to protect Mauritius or the Chagossians but their prized strategic bombing location.

The people of Mauritius are getting increasingly concerned about US involvement in the Indian Ocean and using our island, our property to carry out murderous and savage bombing in the Middle East and Afghanistan. The West continues to treat our prime minister as a little nobody, chiding him and refusing to talk to him. The Commonwealth is powerless to influence the Queen who has played a disastrous role in keeping the Chagossians at bay. The comfort of Buckingham Palace shields the Queen when her loyal subjects continue to live outside Gatwick Airport without a roof over their heads. How can her Majesty pluck courage to deliver Christmas messages when she knows she has appointed a commissioner to maintain the people of Diego Garcia in squalor? This commissioner is ensuring that people do not return to their homes in the archipelago. Our message is: we will remain loyal subjects even if you choose to fail us.

The British put the population of the archipelago on a ship and dumped them at Port Louis in Mauritius in terrible destitution. Their dogs were rounded up and gassed, all the animals were killed and the islands left empty and uninhabited to make way for the American base. The injustice, the poverty, the hurt in their eyes at the way they were taken from the islands and dumped on the quayside at Port Louis are still vivid. The suffering goes on. The killing fields of Diego Garcia reek of superpower hypocrisy and ruthless domination. The motto is clearly: ?No British Justice on Diego Garcia? because ?the UK stands shoulder to shoulder with the US? not only in invading countries illegally but in throwing peoples out of their homes, country and history.

Athough people from the archipelago have now acquired UK citizenship; this does not entitle them to any financial recourse. Her Majesty the Queen has signed an Order in Council handing all powers to a commissioner to manage the archipelago. Nobody knows what is happening. Are there any prisoners on Diego Garcia? Is it being used for the sort of American justice seen in Guantanamo Bay? There have been several assertions in the Washington Post among others that prisoners are held on the islands, which are not known to the Western population. Is there another Abu Ghraib hidden in the vicinity of Mauritius? Is there a US death row on one of the islands? Is the US hoarding tons of explosives? Rumour has it that, when US bombers practise their flights, houses in Mauritius feel the tremors. The Black Hawk circled Mauritius two years ago and the people thought the whole island was going to collapse. Such was the vibration felt by just one flight!

What are the options open at present? There is the option of return but, at the moment, even a visit to the graveyard is denied. No Chagossian can hold a job in the archipelago. The disgraceful, underhand and thoroughly disreputable treatment of those few thousand people is continuing. Alex Salmond, the new SNP leader said: ?The analysis that the islands are no longer capable of sustaining occupation because of global warming must be pretty bad news for the American military base-perhaps the runway is about to disappear under water?. The UK began misdescribing the long-settled population as transitory workers to mislead the world into thinking that they had no obligations to that population. When the general problem of the British Indian Ocean Territory was raised with George Brown (the then Foreign Secretary), he told Mr Salmond, in colourful language, to mind his own business. This is the evidence of a long history of treachery, betrayal and duplicity by the UK government.

Article 73 of the United Nations casts a ?sacred trust? on a sovereign power to promote the welfare and advancement of the people, but the government surreptitiously deported the islanders and misled the world about their status. At the United Nations on 16 November 1965, the British representative Mr. F.D.W. Brown, acting on the instructions of the Foreign Office, misdescribed the islands as ?uninhabited when my government first acquired them?. This is a lie. Tony Blair and George Bush are not the only ones to lie but continue a history of deceit, misrepresentation and distortion.

This modern world cannot and will not accept military terrorism from superpowers. Chechnya is an example. The innocent people pay with their lives for the injustice carried out by governments. What would have happened if only Mauritius were a powerful country with military muscle? Would we be suffering the consequences of a coalition force? Would our families and relatives be hiding underground sheltering from UK and US bombs? Mauritians still live in fear because one human mistake on Diego Garcia could blow up the whole of the Indian Ocean. So, the issue of Diego Garcia does not only concern Chagossians but the entire Indian Ocean. That is why the UK and the US have kept the archipelago away from the eyes of the international community. We cannot afford to let the Chagossians fight for their homes on their own because our home is at risk too. And, it is a real risk!

(Extracts of speeches by MPs in the Chagos Adjournement Debate have been used in preparing this paper)