The News Line: Editorial
Monday, 30 June 2008
Chagossians must have the right to return =96 the US base on Diego
Garcia must be closed!
A BIG delegation of the 2,000 Chagossians who are living in Crawley,
plus delegations from the FBU, GMB and POA trade unions will be
picketing the House of Lords this morning from 9.30am.
They will be urging the Law Lords to throw out the Brown government=92s
appeal against three previous legal verdicts that the Chagossian
people have, at least, the right to return to the outer islands of the
Chagos group, in the Indian Ocean.
The Chagos Islands were ruthlessly =91cleansed=92 by the Wilson and Heath
governments of their inhabitants, men, women and children, from 1966
to 1972, so that the islands could be handed over to the United States
to build a huge naval air base from which Somalia, Iraq and
Afghanistan have been bombed.
To encourage the inhabitants to quit the islands, their pets and their
domestic animals were killed before their eyes, and it was intimated
to them, in the best British colonial style, that unless they quit the
islands they could meet the same fate.
They were trans****ted to Mauritius and deposited in the worst of its
slums, without hope, and without employment. Many died from =91sadness=92.
Subsequently, some of the evicted Chagossians have come to Britain,
but in the most distressing cir***stances, where families are split
up, since those who married non-Chagossians, could not bring their non-
British partners with them.
Once in the UK, they have had to fight for access to council housing,
to the JobSeekers allowance and to the old age pension. They picketed
Crawley Council=92s office for months throughout the winter of
2005-2006, for 24 hours a day, to demand access to council housing and
the JobSeekers Allowance.
Britain has not proved to be a paradise for them and they are
determined that they are going to return home, and defeat the Labour
and Tory ethnic cleansers.
However, they have been welcomed by the working class and have the
sup****t of a growing number of trade unions.
They are determined to win the sup****t of all of the working class
organisations in the UK to right the historic wrong that was done to
them and which was initiated by the Wilson Labour government.
They are urging the Law Lords to throw out the appeal of the Brown
government which is fighting a desperate battle to keep the Chagos
Islands as a US nuclear base and a centre for illegally holding people
kidnapped by the US authorities as =91terrorist suspects=92.
They are confident that they will win and that the appeal will be
defeated.
They will then be seeking to organise the return to the outer islands
of all those who were evicted from there with the UK and US
governments bearing the cost.
This, however, will be a partial victory.
The islanders are convinced that, since their eviction from the
islands and the construction of the massive US base was illegal and
done despite the opposition of the UN, they have the right to return
to all of the islands.
They will therefore be considering the organising of a massive
international campaign for their right to return to all of the Chagos
islands and for the US base to be closed, as a contribution to peace
in the Gulf, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean area.
The News Line and the WRP give their full sup****t to the brave and
heroic struggle of the Chagossian people for the right to return to
all of their island homes.
We urge all TUC trade unions to give them the maximum sup****t.
They must have the right to return to all of the islands. This return
must be financed by the UK and US governments. The US base must be
closed, and the US and UK regimes must pay them full compensation for
40 years of suffering.
http://www.wrp.org.uk/news/3321
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