Earlier this month, Keir Starmer announced that Britain would be ‘giving back’ the Chagos Islands, one of its last colonies.
But make no mistake: British imperialism has not grown a conscience. It is just as criminal today as it was when it forcibly expelled the population of the islands in the 1960s.
As Starmer himself has said, this move is only to insure the safety of the American military base on Diego Garcia.
Though it might be a victory for Mauritius, the Chagossian people – wrenched from their homes, thrown into destitution, and ignored for half a century – have been left out of the deal entirely.
As per usual, small peoples are but pawns in the great game of the imperialist powers.
Colonisation and expulsion
The Chagos Islands are an idyllic archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
They were first permanently populated in the 1780s, when the French colonised the islands and imported Africans as slaves to work vast coconut plantations.
The Chagossian people – who were finally emancipated from slavery in 1839, 29 years after the British empire seized the archipelago – lived and worked on these islands for 200 years, and developed a language and culture of their own.
Unfortunately for them, the Chagos Islands are at the heart of one of the most strategically important waterways in the world.
80 percent of world seaborne trade passes through the Indian ocean, including 80 percent of world oil and gas shipments.
The islands are also roughly equidistant from the 36 countries which fringe the ocean, which together contain 35% of the world’s population.
In the 1960s, American imperialism sought outposts from which to rule the waves, as it replaced the domination of British imperialism in Asia.
For them, the Chagos Islands – far from prying eyes, and policed by their closest ally – were perfectly located for a military base. But the 1500 inhabitants of the islands were obstacles in their way.
The British, butlers to American interests, were therefore given the responsibility of removing them, or of ‘sanitising’ the islands, as the Americans put it. For its services, Britain received a $14 million discount on American nukes.
In 1965, the nearby British colony of Mauritius was granted independence. As a condition, the Chagos Islands, which were a dependency of Mauritius, were sold and made into the ‘British Indian Ocean Territory’.
Britain then lied about there being no permanent residents on the islands in order to protect the future base from the scrutiny of the UN.
Treated like slaves
From 1967-73, the British state waged a secret campaign to rid the islands of its population. These events were exposed in John Pilger’s 2004 documentary Stealing a Nation.
First, anyone who had travelled off the islands, including for medical care, was blocked from returning.
Then, the plantations – the main sources of employment – were closed, and supplies to the islands were dramatically reduced.
Eventually, residents were threatened with starvation or bombing if they didn’t leave. To send a warning, British authorities shot or gassed all of the islanders’ pets.
Finally, in 1973 the remaining residents were rounded up at gunpoint, told their islands had been sold, and bundled into ships – with one suitcase each – to be dumped over a thousand miles away in Mauritius, the Seychelles, or Réunion.
The Chagossians describe being treated as slaves or animals on the ships. Once they arrived, they were abandoned to live in squalor. As a Chagossian correspondent for The Communist reports:
“They had no place to go, no food to feed themselves, no jobs. They were marginalised and regarded as savages… Some women had to dig in the bins to be able to feed their children. Many families were sleeping in stables. And meanwhile, the Mauritian government did nothing.”
The Chagossians say they were dérasiné or ‘uprooted’. They had their homes, occupations, and possessions snatched, their communities and families broken.
Cast into poverty and on to the margins of society, many died of malnutrition. Others committed suicide or died of sadness, pining for home.
Camp Injustice
But what does that matter to British and American imperialism?
Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos islands, is now home to one of the USA’s most important military bases. The ironically-named ‘Camp Justice’ hosts 2000 troops, two bomber runways, 30 warships and a satellite spy station.
It has been an indispensable staging post for America’s interventions in the Middle East – including its apocalyptic bombing campaigns in Iraq – and a position from which to guard world trade.
It was also recently revealed to be housing a CIA blacksite – a stopover prison for captives on their way to be tortured at Guantanamo.
In the words of the Pentagon, it is “an indispensable platform for policing the world”.
British imperialism has, for half a century, loyally assisted the US by defending this base from the increasing pressure of the rest of the United Nations.
In 1982, it tricked the former residents into signing away their right of return in exchange for a miserly £3000 in compensation.
In 2008, after the Chagossians won a high court case that branded the expulsion illegal, the House of Lords overturned and discarded the decision.
Then, in 2010, Gordon Brown’s Labour government cynically conjured up a ‘marine reserve’ around the islands, a ruse which was, as a leaked cable from the British Foreign Office to the US embassy, explained:
“The most effective long-term way to prevent any of the Chagos Islands’ former inhabitants or their descendants from resettling in the British Indian Ocean Territory”.
The UK was eventually pressured into conceding British citizenship in 2002. But in the UK, these destitute people have been left to fend for themselves.
Still uncompensated, and unassisted with housing, a job, or integration, they arrived into yet more poverty, precarity, and homelessness.
Chagossians betrayed again
But now, in a surprise move, Starmer has opted to give the islands ‘back’ to Mauritius. This has the right-wing billionaire press up in arms, who are calling it a ‘woke surrender’ which will “have the American’s jumping all over the place”!
On the contrary. The plan originated in Washington, which cannot afford to lose this base.
The US pushed for the handover because they feared that Mauritius would successfully apply to the International Court of Justice to take control of the islands, effectively shuttering the air base.
In exchange for Diego Garcia remaining under British and American control for at least 99 years, they are conceding the other islands and paying off Mauritius. As David Lammy explained:
“This government inherited a situation where the long-term, secure operation of the Diego Garcia military base was under threat…”
And, as Starmer candidly put it:
“The single most important thing was ensuring that we had a secure base, the joint US-UK base”
In the bargain, Britain gets to wash its hands of the 56 Tamil refugees who have been stranded and held in a camp on the island for the last three years.
The former British high commissioner to Mauritius has used the so-called ‘left-wing’ billionaire press to claim that this handover “has righted a longstanding injustice”.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. It is a deal between the governments of Britain, America, and Mauritius. The Chagossians are totally incidental to their diplomacy. Once again, they have had no say in the matter. In fact, they found out via the news.
In theory, the Chagossians have the right to return to all the islands except Diego Garcia, which was by far the most populated island. But they will again be denied compensation or assistance.
The Chagos Islands will also be under the control of Mauritius, which is over 1300 miles away, and which has narrow, national interests of its own.
The island of Agaléga, also owned by Mauritius, is currently being transformed into an Indian military base, with the population under threat of expulsion by the Mauritian authorities.
What’s to stop the same happening to the Chagos islands? Or what’s to stop them being prostituted as tourist traps? Under capitalism, profit will decide.
Imperialism
The tragic fate of the Chagos Islanders reveals the cynicism and callousness of imperialism.
In the same decade that the British imperialists spent £2 billion ‘defending the ‘national sovereignty’ of the Falklanders, they were stealing the homeland of the Chagossians.
Now, as they cry about ‘self determination’ in Ukraine, they have traded away the Chagos Islands like a poker chip.
Using high-sounding words like ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’, and the ‘rules based order’ are vicious imperialist powers pursuing their interests by any means necessary.
At best, small nations are used as pawns to satisfy these interests. At worst, they stand in the way and must be crushed.
So long as capitalism remains, there will be no justice for the Chagossian people. Like the Palestinians, they are collateral in the violent struggle of competing powers to carve up the world.
The military base should be dismantled, and the fate of the Chagossian people should be in their own hands. But no amount of diplomatic pressure will convince the politicians in Washington and London to do that against their ‘strategic interests’.
American and British imperialism must be overthrown! Only then can the islands be freed, and the Chagossian people released from their exile.
