Government slammed from all sides in Chagos debate
Thursday 8 July 2004
The government was criticised harshly by MPs from all sides in a parliamentary debate on the Chagos islands on Wednesday 7 July.
The adjournment debate in Westminster Hall was triggered after enough MPs signed the Early Day Motion expressing concern about the Orders in Council banning the Chagossians from their homeland in June.
Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn secured the debate, and Tam Dalyell, who has agitated about the Chagos issue for years, also spoke. Other contributors included SNP leader Alex Salmond, who likened the expulsion of the Chagossians to Scotland's highland clearances, Conservative MP Gary Streeter, Labour's John Grogan, and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Bill Rammell.
Mr Corbyn ridiculed the government's concerns about the cost of resettlement, drawing a comparison with other British dependencies. He also criticised Mr Rammell's summing up of the history of the Chagos islands, in which Mr Rammell said simply that the islanders "departed" and that the economic conditions and infrastructure on the islands "ceased to exist".
Mr Salmond and Labour MP John Grogan both rubbished the feasibility study, pointing out that the American military inhabit Diego Garcia quite happily, and even plan to extend their lease.
Highlighting the government's various reasons why there can be no resettlement, Mr Streeter questioned the real reasons, and asked whether there was external pressure on the government to make this decision.
Many of the participants asked Mr Rammell for an apology for the treatment of the islanders, but Mr Rammell simply said:
“In my view, the decisions taken by successive Governments in the 1960s and 1970s to depopulate the islands do not, to say the least, constitute the finest hour of UK foreign policy. In no sense am I seeking to justify the decisions that were made in the 1960s and 1970s. Those decisions may be seen as regrettable, but the Government must deal with the current situation.”
He continued to refer back to the results of the feasibility study and insisted that resettlement was no longer an option. He said that past compensation had been agreed by all parties to be "full and final".
When asked why the Orders in Council were made secretly with no prior debate, Mr Rammell said that the imminence of the intention to repopulate made it necessary to take "considered action". "There was always going to be an opportunity for these issues to be debated," he said.
Related stories:
17 June 04 - Government defends 'Orders in Council' in parliament
16 June 04 - ALL CHAGOSSIANS BANNED FROM THEIR HOMELAND
The above story was written in October 2004.