The right of abode is a creature of the law,” said Lord Hoffmann in the British House of Lords this week. “The law gives it and the law may take it away.” A reasonable remark on the surface. A tenant may move into someone else’s house, but must move out again when the lease expires. 

But this is about Britain creating a new colony, the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) of Chagos, just to be able to rent out Diego Garcia, the largest island of the archipelago, to the US in exchange for Polaris missiles, in the ’60s when it was granting independence to other colonies. In order to pass the islands off as “uninhabited” to the UN, a series of secret notes flew between London’s foreign office and the British mission to the UN. “Witty” officials referred to the Chagossians as simple coconut farmers of African and Indian origin who had lived on the islands for five generations, as “Tarzans” and “Man Fridays” and therewith dispensable.   

The Chagossians were first terrorised and then forcibly stuffed into the holds of ships and dumped: on the shores of Mauritius and Seychelles. Meagre compensation was paid and the seemingly grand offer of British citizenship made, which few were able to take up. The US got just what they were scouring the globe for: a large island with a deep, natural harbour to build a military base, on lease all the way till 2016. Now, the Chagossians, who after 30 years of living on the fringes of mainstream society as refugees and plagued by depression, alcoholism, joblessness and discrimination, want their home back. But with the US military active in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, Diego Garcia has become the largest and most important US overseas air, naval and army base; the Pentagon has no intention of vacating the rental island, not now, nor when the lease expires.

... contd.