The UK Chagos Support Association

ALL CHAGOSSIANS BANNED FROM THEIR HOMELAND

Wednesday 16 June 2004

In a shock announcement with no prior consultation, the government has banned anyone from even setting foot on any of the Chagos islands without permission.

The law, passed on Thursday last week, came as an order in council - a back door method of legislation for overseas territories. It overrides the decision in 2000 which struck down the original immigration order. A written statement by Under Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Bill Rammell says the order was made to maintain the use of the territory for defence purposes, and claims that resettlement is impracticable anyway.

The announcement comes just days before a group of Chagossians are due to come to the Court of Appeal to seek the go ahead to appeal a 2003 decision denying them compensation for their ordeal.

The UK Chagos Support Association asked the Foreign Office why this order was made with no public consultation or prior announcement, rather than coming through parliament. A spokesman said: "Obviously this was discussed at length within the Foreign Office and it was decided through our legal advisers that this was the most appropriate way. To do it any other way would have taken an inordinate amount of time. It’s not something that hasn't been done before, there is a legal process that has been gone through."

In his reasoning for the order, Mr Rammell relies on the British Indian Ocean Territory's 2002 feasibility study whose conclusions have been described by a Harvard resettlement expert as "erroneous in every assertion". Jonathan Jenness, who reviewed the feasibility study independently, said "the consultants produced no evidence that the cost of maintaining resettlement is likely to prove prohibitive in the long term". The study says resettlement would get more difficult over time due to floods, earthquakes and the effects of global warming - but no substantial flooding and only one significant earthquake have ever been recorded in the history of the islands. Richard Gifford, the solicitor representing a group of Chagossians, called this aspect of the government's case "something of a joke", since a settled population thrived on the islands for generations, and American troops are living there now. "Until we see the Americans packing up and leaving Chagos, there is no reason whatever to believe that the prosperous economy of Chagos cannot be restored and the Islanders returned to their homeland," he said.

Mr Rammell's statement gives a history of the Chagos islands but neglects to mention that Britain evicted the population, (numbering in the thousands) illegally, that they were offered no help on arrival at their destinations, that this was all covered up by the British government, or that it was done in return for a multi million dollar discount on nuclear submarines.

Mr Gifford said Mr Rammell was acting "irrationally and in all probability illegally" and that the order would undoubtedly be challenged, by way of judicial review.

Mr Gifford said: "The Islanders, who have been treated in the most heartless way for a generation are desperate to get back to their homeland. Many of the older folk who were removed are dying, and it is a cynical disregard of their human rights to delay their resettlement in the hope that those with memories on the islands or ancestors buried there will die before they can go back home. There can hardly be a more shameful history of mistreatment of a population in modern times. It is impossible to reconcile the government's keenness on applying human rights in the Overseas Territories with this cavalier disregard of basic human values."

When asked whether the Foreign Office felt the need to make amends to the islanders, a spokesman said that significant compensation had already been paid on two occasions, in consultation with the Chagossians, and added that Mauritius also gave them land worth around £1 million.