DIEGO GARCIA

'How low can you get. How intellectually dishonest, how morally duplicitous can you get. I've spent my life, 40 years now, with this, and everything about it sickens me. Sickens me. And it goes on, and it goes on, it goes on'.

Professor David Stoddart, Berkeley University, California.

In brief:

2,000 inhabitants of the Chagos Islands, whose ancestors had lived and were buried there, were forcibly deported by the British Government over 40 years ago, in order to make way for an American military base. They were removed by deception, intimidation and force to Mauritius, where they have been living mostly in conditions of extreme poverty ever since. These are 'British citizens' (just like the Falklanders, whom we went to war to 'save')

The deal with the Americans was kept secret - even from Parliament - but we were given a $14 billion discount off nuclear Polaris as a hidden payment for the deal. In the meantime, the British and the Americans went out of their way to 'maintain the fiction' (their own term) that there was no indigenous population on the Island:

'There is a civilian population in practice however I would advise a policy of quiet disregard. In other words, let's forget about this one until the United Nations challenges us on it'

Foreign Office memo, November 1965.

In November 2000 the British High Court ruled that the Islanders should be allowed to return. Blair didn't like that, so off he went to see the Queen, again bypassing Parliament. She kindly agreed to overrule the High Court decision.

This year - 2007 - the High Court once again ruled in favour of the Islanders. Although they cannot return to Diego Garcia, they should now be allowed to return to one of the other Chagos Islands. Explaining the decision, Lord Justice Sedley said:

'while a natural or man-made disaster could warrant the temporary, perhaps even indefinite, removal of a population for its own safety and so rank as an act of governance, the permanent exclusion of an entire population from its homeland for reasons unconnected with their collective well-being cannot have that character and accordingly cannot be lawfully accomplished by use of the prerogative power of governance'.

See John Pilger's film Stealing a Nation, available on Google video, for the whole sordid story. Or have a look at his article here.

See the nuggets all together here.