It is May 26, 1973.
A cargo ship left the Chagos Archipelago headed for the coast of Mauritius.
It carried one of the last remaining groups of Chagossians,
the Indigenous population of the Chagos Islands.
Chagossians describe life on the islands as paradise, living like one big family.
They had thriving villages, an abundance of fresh, local produce,
schools and an undisturbed way of life.
But now, they were being forcibly removed from their homes,
not allowed to bring much with them,
packed like animals on the bottom of a cargo ship.
The story of what happened to the Chagossians still isn’t widely known.
Why were they being displaced?
Being treated so inhumanely?
It begins with the U.S.
setting its eyes on their land for a military base,
and the U.S. conspiring with the UK to do whatever it took to get that land.
So this whole story has been shaped by secrecy,
a lack of transparency and, indeed, lies - a series of fictions
about the Chagossians and about really every stage of the process.
It’s been 50 years since the last ship left Chagos,
but Chagossians are still fighting for their right to return home.
Since the late 18th century, this set of 58 remote islands
in the Indian Ocean
was home to the Chagossian people.
They call it Chagos.
Remember this island here — it’s central to this story.
The roughly 2,000 islanders that lived there worked
mainly on coconut plantations for European companies.
The Chagossian people are mainly of African and Indian descent,
with their own Creole language, music and culture.
But by the end of 1973, their entire population
was forcibly expelled from their ancestral land by the UK and the U.S.,
who changed the name of the islands to the British Indian Ocean Territory.
What happened to us,
it's more purely like slavery.
The way of uprooting people, forcing people to leave their country.
That's Olivier Bancoult,
the leader of the Chagos Refugees Group,
a group his mother and other Chagossian women
created to advocate for the rights of the Chagossian people.
Since 1997, the group has sued the British government
multiple times for denying Chagossians their fundamental rights.
This included a win in 2000, when the British High Court
ruled the expulsion of the Chagos islanders was illegal.
What we as Chagossians are asking,
we are asking to be able to return to our birthplace,
which is not a crime.
And we condemn what had been done to us,
which we consider a crime against humanity.
Under international law, a crime against humanity is
In 2023, Human Rights Watch declared the UK and the U.S.
had committed three crimes against humanity in relation to Chagossians:
To fully understand these crimes, we have to go back a few decades.
If you know anything about U.S. imperialism,
then you know staying in control is always the goal.
As the Cold War intensified, the strategic location of Chagos
caught the attention of the U.S. Navy.
U.S. government officials
in the era of decolonization
were growing concerned about losing control of the world.
And Diego Garcia became the prime
island on which they wanted to build a base.
But wait.
Diego Garcia is part of Chagos, which was governed as part of Mauritius,
which had been under British colonial rule since 1814.
Enter the secret deal.
The U.S. agreed that if the UK could get them Diego Garcia,
their $14 million debt for submarine missiles would be settled.
There were a few conditions, though.
First, everything about this deal had to remain top secret
to avoid protocols that required the UK to report to the UN about its continued
colonial rule over a country with a permanent population.
Secondly, the U.S.
insisted that the islands had to be cleared of Chagossians.
The UK assured, “There will be no Indigenous
population except seagulls.”
But again,
Diego Garcia is part of Chagos, which was part of Mauritius.
And Maritius was about to gain its independence from the UK.
Enter more scheming from the UK.
The UK coerced Mauritius to give Chagos up as a condition
for independence, and Mauritius agreed.
In 1965, Britain
established the British Indian Ocean Territory,
commencing the violent removal of the Chagossian people.
UK authorities began by lying,
claiming that the whole Chagos community, which had been there for generations,
was made up of contract laborers and not a permanent population.
This was to fabricate proof, suggesting no population needed to be consulted.
I was born on Diego Garcia.
You can’t offer the U.S.
government my place of birth without my consent.
That's not fair.
In a matter of eight years, all Chagossians
were uprooted from the land they had called home for generations.
Families were separated, and their tight-knit community was torn apart.
They were loaded onto ships and transported to Mauritius
and the Seychelles with promises of better lives and compensation.
Three of us in the house in one room.
I recall that quite clearly.
One room like this one - tiny room.
All of us in that room.
The Chagossians were left stranded in unfamiliar countries,
forced to live in foul conditions.
What was promised to
them was never delivered, leaving them without the means to rebuild their lives.
My mom left Diego Garcia without my birth certificate.
And it was hard
to go to the doctor - to go to places
because I don't have a birth certificate.
I can say that I don't have an identity.
Many Chagossians firmly believe that the emotional trauma
of being forcibly separated from their homeland and families, coupled
with the harsh realities of poverty, caused some in the community to die early.
So much death. And yet, still to this day, Chagossians have to fight
for their losses to be recognized and their right to permanently return home.
After years of protests and legal battles, the British government finally acknowledged the
quote, “shameful,” nature of its actions towards the Chagossians.
However, reparations were a different story.
Rather than directly compensating the Chagossians, it offered a meager
sum of about $3,100 to Chagossian adults through the Mauritian government.
To make matters worse, the UK imposed a condition on receiving the money:
The Chagossians had to sign documents renouncing their right to return to their homeland.
The form was in purely English
legal content. That means that most of our people don't speak English.
It was very difficult for us to know
the exact meaning of the content.
Chagossians who were sent to the Seychelles have received nothing as a collective group.
And of course, the U.S., which played a significant role
in this story, has also given nothing.
Racism shaped every step of this sad, appalling story.
You have a group of almost entirely white Euro-American officials
making decisions about a population of African and Indian ancestry
and deciding, simply, that their rights and their interests are unimportant.
The British also refused to give Chagossians
British citizenship until 2002, allowing some to move to the UK.
But because of restrictions, some were not eligible.
Due to their displacement, Chagossians aren’t sure
how many of them and their descendants exist today.
But it is believed there are fewer than 10,000, with the majority
living in Mauritius, the UK and the Seychelles,
where they continue to face extreme discrimination.
So, after years of ignoring the Chagossians’ demands,
the UK has finally made an announcement
stating its willingness to engage in negotiations with Mauritius
regarding the sovereignty of Chagos, and the Chagossians’ right to return.
But many are worried Chagossians won't be properly consulted,
and their voices won't be properly heard.
How do I feel?
Frustrated.
Where is my right?
You negotiate with somebody on my behalf
without my consent.
I never gave my consent to anybody to negotiate on my behalf.
I want them to stop the negotiation
or include us in.
We want to sit on that table because we have our voice.
In the past, we didn’t have a voice.
Now with the evolution, we have a voice.
We want to know what's going on, and they have to listen to us.
We are the natives.
We are the Chagossians of Diego Garcia,
Peros Baros, Salomon Island and all the other groups.
It belonged to us.
We are the ones suffering, not the British government.
Neither Mauritian government.
We Chagossian people are suffering.
While Chagossians may have differing opinions on who’s responsible
for their displacement
and what should come next, there's one thing that stays consistent.
They want the right to permanently return home.
If you want to learn more about the base on Diego Garcia and why the U.S.
owns 90% of military bases in the world, check out this explainer next.