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NEWS & LETTERS, January-February 2004Diego Garcia: island at intersection of many strugglesPort Louis, Republic of Mauritius--On Diego Garcia is one of the biggest military bases in the world. Maybe the biggest outside the U.S. Tarmac and bombs where coconut palms were. Nuclear warheads and submarines where coral and fish were. Clubhouses for different grades and ranks of military men, where peoples’ tiny homes used to nestle in the trees. Civilian companies raking in money from defense contracts, where people used to de-husk coconuts, dry their fish, cook their turtle eggs. So that’s the first struggle involved: against militarism, to close down the military base on Diego Garcia. Diego Garcia is a key base to the U.S. Armed Forces, when it attacks Iraq and Afghanistan. B-52s take off from there. In order for the Pelindaba Treaty for a Nuclear Arms Free Africa to be signed, the treaty had to contain the infamous "dotted lines” around Diego Garcia. The struggle for a nuclear arms-free Africa goes through the struggle to close down the U.S. base on Diego Garcia. The people of Diego Garcia, the Chagossians, were forcibly removed from their beloved land. They were tricked off the Islands first, then those who were not tricked, were frightened off (their 1,600 dogs were gassed in front of them), and the rest of them were starved off Diego Garcia and the other islands. THE RIGHT TO RETURN Two thousand Chagossians, who had lived there for generations were forcibly removed over the period 1965-1973, and dumped on the dockside in Port Louis, Mauritius. Just like that. Homeless. Workless. Disoriented. Never to return to their houses, their bedside cupboards, their hearths, their vegetable gardens, their society. Never to return to put flowers on the graves of their relatives and ancestors. The torture that the Chagossians suffered was inflicted on them by the United Kingdom, the colonizer, and the United States of America, the military base owner. They de-populated the Islands behind the backs of the UN in order to build their base. And they are, with the Bush-Blair axis in power, the most belligerent states on the planet. For 30 years, the forcible removal of the Chagossians was kept "secret,” mainly through the "Official Secrets Act” in the UK, thus hiding the formal proof necessary for legal actions. Only in the year 2000 could the Chagossians finally win their landmark court case in the UK for the right to return. What does this kind of secrecy make of the people of Britain? The legal victory of the Chagossians was thanks to the oldest of all human rights documents, the Magna Carta of 1215, which shows the surprising longevity of the landmarks in the struggle for human rights and democracy. The Chagossians have lost a more recent court case (2003) in the British courts. Now, they are going to appeal against the very bad judgement handed down. The Chagossians also have a reparations case in the U.S. courts for damages involving human rights abuses and genocide. They will not give up. They want to go back to Diego Garcia. STRUGGLE FOR FULL DECOLONIZATION This continued occupation of Diego Garcia means that 20th century decolonization is not yet complete. So, Diego Garcia is the centre of the struggle for the re-unification of Mauritius, something important to Mauritians, Chagossians, Rodriguans, Agalegans. Just like all decolonization, it is the concern of everyone that no-one be colonized. In their struggles for their rights, amongst the Chagossians, it has always been the women who have been in the vanguard. On Diego Garcia there was a matricentral society. The company that ran the islands treated men and women equally at work, for its own reasons, and organized for the older people to look after the children. The women of Diego Garcia have powers that other people brought up in patriarchy do not have, and have transmitted this experience of strength to the women ‘s movement in Mauritius. The struggle of the women of Chagos is a beacon for the worldwide women’s movement. Successive Mauritian governments have used the Diego Garcia issue, and U.S. and British shame about their past actions there, in order to extricate "trade advantages,” either for sugar or textiles, either quotas or price guarantees. This is how trade-related issues, so important today with the World Trade Organization and free trade agreements, intersect with the Diego Garcia struggle. We intend to go to Diego Garcia to confront the U.S. armed forces at their base. We intend to get the U.S. to close the base, the UK to return its stolen islands, the U.S. to stop receiving stolen goods. We stand by the people of Chagos to be granted the unconditional right to return to the whole of Chagos, including Diego Garcia, and we stand by their right to lifetime compensation and full reparations for the damage they have suffered. We want to see the lagoons, the coral and the land itself back in the hands of nature and caring human beings. 'NO U.S. BASES' NETWORK FORMING We are joining hands with other organizations world-wide in a network called "No U.S. Bases” and calling a meeting to be held at the World Social Forum in Mumbai. Please signify your support (as an organization or an individual) by a short e-mail, letter, telephone call or fax to us. We want a list of well-wishers who can follow our confrontation with the U.S. armed forces when we go to Diego Garcia. Please let everyone know about what we plan to do. Meanwhile, please raise the issues in this letter with your elected members of parliament, congress, national assembly. Write articles. Put the issue on agendas of trade unions and associations. Link your struggles with ours. We want your moral support, social support, political support, so that we can bring together all these different lines of struggle, and strengthen them all, here and world-wide. --Lindsey Collen, for LALIT |
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