UNITED KINGDOM: Chagos islanders win court victory allowing them to return to homeland

Record ID: 453068

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Chagos islanders win court victory allowing them to return to homeland
  • Date: 30th May 2007
  • Summary: (AD1) GRAPHICS (FILE) (REUTERS) GRAPHIC SHOWING WHERE CHAGOS ISLANDS ARE
  • Embargoed: 14th June 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Legal System,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA5DDWLI0OWA28D7RFZA4ZFTZQU
  • Story Text: The people of the Chagos Islands, driven from their balmy Indian Ocean home by Britain more than 40 years ago, won a resounding court victory on Wednesday (May 23) that could see them return as soon as they can plan a trip.
    Britain's High Court dismissed an appeal by the Foreign Office against their return, saying the right to go home was "one of the most fundamental liberties known to human beings".
    The Chagossians were removed from their palm-fringed archipelago during the Cold War when Britain, as the ruler of the islands, granted permission to the United States to build an air and naval base on the largest atoll, Diego Garcia.
    Olivier Bancoult, chairman of the Chagos Refugees Group, who has driven the campaign to win the right to return, emerged from court beaming and his fingers held up in a victory sign.
    "I am very happy for my people, because it's a long battle that finally we have a final resolution," Bancoult told reporters outside the High Court in central London.
    "It is a big shame for the British government, who presents themselves as the champions of human rights, not respect the right of Chagossian people to live abroad, to live on his birthplace," he said.
    Diego Garcia has since been used in U.S. military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the British government has argued that on security grounds it would not be right for the Chagossians to be allowed home.
    In its ruling, the High Court also said the government should not be allowed to appeal any longer, having lost three times in various courts, but would leave that decision to the House of Lords -- the country's highest court.
    "It's the third time they've won so we hope this means finally the British government will accept the verdict and rather than waste more money on litigation, spend the money on assisting them return to their homeland and get their lives back," Clive Baldwin, legal director of Minority Rights Group, told Reuters.
    A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said it was disappointed by the court's decision. The foreign minister will "consider the judgement carefully", she said, before deciding whether to seek an appeal in the House of Lords.
    Pending any appeal, Wednesday's decision means surviving members of the 2,000 Chagossians originally removed, and their descendants, could return as soon as they can organise a trip -- not an easy challenge given the remoteness of the islands.
    One Chagossian, elated by Wednesday's decision, said he would go back immediately if he could.
    "Of course, yes. If you say today, I'm going, yeah. You see? Even my child wants to go back.," Jean Paul Selmour, who was born in the islands, told Reuters.
    Much of the forced removal of the Chagossians was done clandestinely, with the people secretly resettled in nearby Mauritius and the Seychelles, in an operation that one U.S. newspaper described at the time as an "act of mass kidnapping".
    Some of the original Chagossians and their descendants have been granted British citizenship and now live in Britain.
    While their income and lifestyle might in some respects be better than it would have been had they remained on the islands, a desire to see their homeland burns inside them.
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