An Open Letter to the British Foreign Secretary

From the Mauritius Times

by Sean Carey 

Dear Mr Milband 

I notice that you have been involved in a diplomatic wrangle with the Israeli government about the export of avocados, herbs and cosmetically enhancing Dead Sea mud from Jewish settlements in the West Bank which the UK considers illegal under international law.

You will have been well prepared for this when you went to the Middle East this week.

What you may not have anticipated, however, was the argument put forward by Michael Freund writing in the Jerusalem Post accusing you and Gordon Brown of "barefaced hypocrisy" for trying to put an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands while doing next to nothing for the exiled Chagos islanders.

Last month the law lords decided by a majority verdict to endorse your appeal and block the islanders’ right of return to their Indian Ocean homeland. You then issued a statement saying that the islanders had been paid "fair compensation".

I cannot agree.

As you know the islanders were forced out of their homeland by a variety of methods including the threat of starvation between 1968 and 1973 to make way for the US military base on Diego Garcia. Most were dumped in Mauritius and some in the Seychelles. All of them were left to fend for themselves.

And it is revealing that Diego Garcia was chosen instead of another suitable Indian Ocean atoll, Aldabra, because of concerns about the fate of the Giant Land Tortoise and nesting seabirds which lived there. The obvious conclusion is that the descendants of former slaves ranked below wildlife in their claim to a homeland.

But the results of the forced removal, the loss of their culture and their position at the bottom of the social pyramid in Mauritius were entirely predictable -- high levels of unemployment and a significant amount of alcohol and drug misuse leading to poor health and premature death for a significant number of the 2000 or so islanders.

And can I remind you that it was only when details of what happened to the islanders started to emerge after a US Congressional Committee hearing in 1975 that the then British government was shamed into offering the islanders any kind of financial help. Each adult received a little over £2000 in 1982 in "full and final settlement of all claims… with no admission of responsibility".

I don’t think that this is a lot of money even in today’s terms. In fact, I would go further and say that no amount of money could compensate the Chagossians for what they have been through.

Since 2000, seven senior British judges unanimously found in favour of the islanders right of return and variously found the government's case "irrational", "repugnant",  "unlawful" and "an abuse of power".

Unfortunately, for the islanders three of the five law lords did not agree with the judgements from the lower courts. We can only speculate as to what the result might have been had a different panel of legal personnel been selected.

Nevertheless, some simple arithmetic reveals that nine senior judges have found for the islanders and only three against.

So your government has won a narrow legal victory but I'm not convinced that it is a fair result. I am not alone. 

Members of the Foreign Affairs Committee which includes senior parliamentarians like Sir Menzies Campbell, Andrew Mackinlay and Sir John Stanley recently stated that "there is a strong moral case for the UK permitting and supporting a return to the British Indian Ocean Territory for the Chagossians".

Certainly the islanders don't show any signs of giving up – an appeal has been made to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The question of how the Chagos Islands, which had been an integral part of the colony of Mauritius since the Treaty of Paris in 1814, were excised before the island’s independence in 1968 in contravention of UN Resolution 1514 which states that all colonial peoples have the right to independence without preconditions is also relevant here.

For a variety of political and economic reasons successive Mauritian governments have been reluctant to press their territorial claim – but this might be about to change.

Perhaps it might be better for all concerned if you took seriously the suggestion of David Snoxell, the former British High Commissioner to Mauritius, who has asked repeatedly for a round table discussion between Britain, the US, Mauritius and representatives of the Chagos communities in Mauritius and the Seychelles in order to find a solution to what he has called "one of the worst violations of fundamental human rights perpetrated by the UK in the 20th century".

I realise that dealing with the Bush administration has been difficult. It must have been very embarrassing for you to come before parliament earlier this year and admit that the UK had been misled by the US about the use of the military base on Diego Garcia for extraordinary rendition on two occasions.

Perhaps Barack Obama’s inauguration as US President in January will provide an opportunity to change current policy towards the Chagossians. Of course, I understand that the fate of a small number of politically powerless black British, Mauritian and Seychelles subjects living in exile a long way from the American mainland won’t be high on the new administration’s agenda but you could try and put it there.

In any case, this might be a smart PR move since it would demonstrate that the special relationship between Britain and the US doesn’t always have to have a narrow military focus but might, just occasionally, serve the purpose of a progressive and ethical foreign policy. It would certainly help in making your criticisms of the Israelis stick.

Who knows it might even help your political career.