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Writer's pictureThe Commandant Student Journal
Jan 9, 20239 min read

The Creation of Diego Garcia Military Base & the Expulsion of the Chagossians

Updated: Dec 9, 2023



“If we wish to maintain our presence east of Suez without over-straining our resources, we shall need American help, particularly if we lose our footing in Aden and Singapore. But the Americans will not be able to help us in the Indian Ocean unless they acquire facilities there. The present proposals, in addition to their intrinsic strategic value, are admirably fitted both to give them the power, and to put them in the mood, to help us. We may not get another chance” (Kibata 2017, 197).


- Edward Peck, assistant under-secretary of state at the British Foreign Office on April 9, 1965


Introduction


The American military base, Diego Garcia, is one of about 750 military bases that the United States has located around the world (Bledsoe 2022). The base lies on one of the islands of the Chagos Archipelago, which lies roughly 1200 miles away from the island nation Mauritius. Diego Garcia is the biggest of sixty islands that make up the Chagos Archipelago (Snoxell 2008, 120). Since the end of the 1950s, the American and the British governments have desired for a joint military base in the Indian Ocean, and in 1968 construction of an American military base began on Diego Garcia. While the creation of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) was set in juxtaposition to the trend of decolonization (Kibata 2017, 191), the Diego Garcia military base was created to be a “a naval ‘prepositioning’ port and ‘bomber forward operating location’” (Sand 2009, 114). The American military naval base was crucial in military operations in the Middle East including the Gulf War, the Afghanistan War, and the Iraq War (Kibata 2017, 190). The construction of this military base and its continued existence are some of the most controversial topics concerning Anglo-American international relations and military cooperation, owing largely to the forcible removal of the native islanders, the Chagossians.

The BIOT was created by an Order-in-Council on November 8, 1965 to specifically grant the British government sovereign authority over the islands, so that the US military base could be built there. (Sand 2009, 114). As soon as construction for the US military base was approved, the British government took measures to remove the Chagossians from their homes and relocate them to Mauritius and the Seychelles, approximately 1200 miles from their homeland. At the time of the forced expulsion, there were approximately 1500 indigenous islanders present (Sand 2009, 114). Once removed, they were left on the countries’ docks with no aid, no support, and no answers (Vine 2008, 328). Lizette Talate, an islander, remembers the general atmosphere of those exiled. "I suppose we took some hope in the promise that in Mauritius we would be granted a house, a piece of land, animals and a sum of money. We got nothing" (Pilger 2006). It is reported that the remaining Chagossians to this day live impoverished (Vine 2012, 848), and the injustice is still fought by the exiled and their descendants in domestic and international courtrooms.

Short Historical Background on the Chagos Archipelago


After the Napoleonic Wars and the 1814 Treaty of Paris, the Chagos Archipelago—which at the time was a part of Mauritius—was ceded by the French to Great Britain (Vine 2008, 329). The islands’ native population were descendants of enslaved Africans from Madagascar and Mozambique and indentured Indians who were transported to work on colonial coconut plantations (Vine 2008, 328; Vine 2012, 484). Before the Cold War, it seems that the islanders lived a simple but fruitful life. Charlesia Alexis was an islander on Diego Garcia and was interviewed by British journalist John Pilger regarding her memories of her homeland. When questioned on her childhood she answered, “[t]he sense of wellbeing is my fondest souvenir. My family could eat and drink what they liked; we never lacked for anything; we never bought anything, except clothes. Can you imagine that?” (Pilger 2006).


The Decolonizing 60s & the Cold War


The creation of Diego Garcia military base was rooted within the politics of the Cold War. The 1960s was a tumultuous decade for the former empires, especially for the British, as British colonies were demanding independence —in the year 1960 alone, fourteen African countries achieved independence (Walker 2019, 234). In addition, the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States was heating up. After the Suez Crisis of 1957, the United States doubted Britain’s supremacy in the Middle East. and, due to the concern of a westward Communist expansion, the Americans feared a power vacuum in the newly decolonized areas (Kibata 2017,192). As more African countries became independent, they left fewer places for American and British military bases overseas (Vine 2008, 330). According to Steven L. Jensen, “The 1960s were a decade where the colonial, the anticolonial and the postcolonial met and overlapped…Cold War ideological battles were extended to the sphere of international law” (Jensen 2016, 4). As a result, the Americans needed to find new places for military bases and determined that the most desirable spot lay in the middle of the Indian Ocean. A telegram to the London embassy on May 13, 1964 by American under-secretary of state George Ball states:


“In order [to] undercut Afro-Asian, USSR and [East European] Bloc attacks anticipated

on supposed ‘Neo-Colonial’ efforts, we wonder whether HMG could conceive of placing administration of these islands (i.e.,Chagos, Agalega, and Aldabra) directly under London administration, using some other Ministry than Colonial Office (perhaps Admiralty or Foreign Office), on [the] basis [that] problems [of] these islands were now wholly foreign policy or military in nature and did not involve same range of issues which correctly occupy Colonial Office” (Kibata 2017, 193).


The first inkling of interest regarding an American base on the Chagos Archipelago was made in the spring of 1959, but it would not be until May 1961, that a formal proposal by the Americans was considered by the British (Kibata 2017,192). In the summer of 1961, U.S. Admiral Arleigh Burke wrote to Britain on Stuart Barber’s “strategic island concept” which consists of placing an American military facility on an island in the Indian Ocean (Kibata 2017, 191). However, at the time, the top choice was not Chagos, but rather the island of Gan. Nevertheless, the outcomes of the February 25-27, 1964 conferences between the British and the Americans arrived at three conclusions: Diego Garcia was the top choice of land; the British were responsible for acquiring the land and resettling the island’s population; the island would first have to be detached from Mauritius before it could declare independence (Kibata 2017, 192-193). The last point was stressed in the conference by then US Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara and US Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze (Vine 2008, 331). The importance was because this move is prohibited by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514, which outlaws the dismantling of colonies during decolonization. Nevertheless, in 1966, a secret agreement between the Americans and the British secured the construction of a military base along with a fourteen-million-pound payment. On December 30, 1966, the Availability for Defence Purposes of the British Ocean Territory was signed (Kibata 2017, 197). The secrecy in which the agreement was conducted ensured that the governments could bypass and evade standard forms of domestic and international legal processes— along with public oversight (Vine 2012, 848). The agreement solidified the commitment between the two governments and their choice of Diego Garcia for the base.


Bittersweet Independence: The Separation of Chagos from Mauritius


As stated before, in order for the military base to be constructed the island must first be uninhabited. In this endeavour, the Americans and British wasted no time. The 1965 Order-in-Council, along with other legislation, legalised the expulsion of the Chagossians from their homes and barred them from returning (Allen & Monaghan 2018, 1). Beginning in 1967, before the project was even authorised, Chagossians who left the Archipelago’s islands for medical help or vacations found that they were restricted from returning to their homes (Vine 2008, 331). One of the islanders recounts the effects of this policy on them: “My husband was very ill and I decided to take him to Port Louis. When we were ready to return, we went to Rogers & Co and asked for our tickets. They said they had instructions not to let us go back. They said Diego Garcia had been sold. Sold? Yes, that’s what they said. We were tricked” (Snoxell 2008, 119). Islanders such as Oliver Bancoult and his family had to leave their island, Peros Banhos, to get medical aid on Mauritius, unfortunately too late for his sister Noellie, who died. When they decided to go back home, they were told that this was not possible (Murphy 2022). On March 12, 1968, Mauritius achieved independence from the United Kingdom. This was bittersweet because the British government pressured future Mauritius’ Prime Minister Dr. Seewoosagur Ramgoolam to accept independence and three million pounds without the inclusion of the Chagos islands (Vine 2008, 331). All communication with the island ceased. Bancoult’s mother, Rita, would not know her father died until several years later (Murphy 2022). Once the plan for an American military facility was approved, the Americans told the British that they preferred “the total removal of all the inhabitants on the island” (Kibata 2017, 200). Japanese historian Yoichi Kibata stressed that the problem of the inhabitants’ presence on the islands was always present within negotiations since the beginning of the Anglo-American negotiations (Kibata 2017, 200). The Americans and the British’s policy was to never refer to the people of the islands as “inhabitants” but rather as “Mauritians”, “Seychellois”, or simply “migrant labourers” (Kibata 2017, 200). A Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) memo dated July 28, 1965 states, “Our understanding is that the great majority are there as contract labourers on the copra plantations on a number of islands; a small number of people were born there…” (Snoxell 2008, 121). This was to portray the islanders as separate from Chagos and Diego Garcia; as if they were visitors, and not permanent inhabitants. The American Defence Department called the population of the Archipelago as “negligible” (Vine 2008, 331).

On January 24, 1971, islanders were formally told by the BIOT administrator at the time, John Todd, that they needed to leave the island (Kibata 2017, 200). Chagossians were forced, manipulated and coerced to leave their homes. The British stopped food shipments from coming to the island. Talate remembers, “They tried to starve us. The food ships stopped arriving, and everything was scarce. There was no milk, no dairy products, no oil, no sugar, no salt” (Pilger 2006). Then the American and British soldiers went through a variety of methods to kill their dogs, as Talate recounted: “Finally, American soldiers, who had already begun to arrive, gassed them, and the bodies - many still alive - were thrown on to a shelf that usually held the flesh of coconuts as it was cooked ... children listened to the howls of their pets being burned to death" (Pilger 2006).


A Human Rights Void


Peter Sand argued in his 2009 article that the BIOT is a human rights black hole (Sand 2009, 116). Peter Harris, another expert on the expulsion of the Chagossians, likens BIOT to Guantanamo Bay (Harris 2015, 507). Many international human rights laws have no authority on the BIOT—according to English law, the UK Human Rights Act of 1998 does not apply to Diego Garcia (Sand 2009, 116). The UN Human Rights Covenants of 1966, the UN Convention Against Torture of 1984 and the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture of 1987 also do not apply to the BIOT (Sand 2009, 116-17).


The Ongoing Fight for Ownership


In the Chagossians’ first major petition to the British government in 1975, it is written, “Our ancestors were slaves on those islands, but we know that we are the heirs of those islands” (Vine 2012, 849). This along with many other petitions, letters, and protests were ignored and dismissed, but in 2000, the High Court of Justice in London ruled the Immigration Ordinance of 1971 unlawful. This surprising legal win empowered Chagossians to sue the British and American governments in subsequent years (Vine 2012, 850). However, this ruling was overturned shortly after by the British government (Kibata 2017, 190). After a long legal fight, the British Overseas Territories Act 2022 was signed, which granted exiled Chagossians the right to British passports (Kibata 2017, 190; Jeffrey 2011, 36). In 2004, Queen Elizabeth II authorised the barring of any Chagossian to return to their homeland (Vine 2012, 852). In 2019, the UN General Assembly voted in favour of condemning the British government for their occupation of the Chagos Archipelago, with the nations in favour being the United Kingdom, the United States, Israel, Hungary, the Maldives, and Australia (Bowcott & Borger 2019). Since their expulsion Chagossians have been vocal and active on the human rights abuses that they faced, yet, as of today, they have received no compensation, no apology, and no justice (Vine 2012, 847).


References:


Allen, Stephen and Chris Monaghan. 2018. Fifty Years of the British Indian Ocean Territory

Legal Perspectives. Edited by Stephen Allen and Chris Monaghan. 1st ed. 2018. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78541-7.

Bledsoe, Everett. “How Many US Military Bases Are There in the World?” Edited by Brain

Bowcott, Owen, and Julian Borger. “UK Suffers Crushing Defeat in UN Vote on Chagos

Islands.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, May 22, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/22/uk-suffers-crushing-defeat-un-vote-chagos-islands

Jensen, Steven L. B. 2016. The Making of International Human Rights : the 1960s,

Decolonization, and the Reconstruction of Global Values / Steven Jensen, the Danish Institute for Human Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kibata, Yoichi. 2017. “Towards ‘a New Okinawa’ in the Indian Ocean: Diego Garcia and

Anglo-American Relations in the 1960s.” In Britain’s Retreat from Empire in East Asia, 1905-1980, 206–19. Edited by Antony Best. Abingdon: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315889603-23.

Harris, Peter. 2015. “America’s Other Guantánamo: British Foreign Policy and the US Base on

Diego Garcia.” The Political Quarterly (London. 1930) 86 (4): 507–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.12186.

Murphy, Cullen. “They Bent to Their Knees and Kissed the Sand.” The Atlantic. Atlantic

Pilger, John. “Out of Eden.” johnpilger.com. John Pilger, May 29, 2006.

Sand, Peter H. 2009. “Diego Garcia: British–American Legal Black Hole in the Indian Ocean?”

Journal of Environmental Law 21 (1): 113–37. https://doi.org/10.1093/jel/eqn034.

Snoxell, David. 2008. “Expulsion from Chagos: Regaining Paradise.” Journal of Imperial and

Commonwealth History 36 (1): 119–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/03086530801889418.

United Nations. Declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples.

Vine, David. 2008. “Taking on Empires: Reparations, the Right of Return, and the People of

Diego Garcia.” Souls (Boulder, Colo.) 10 (4): 327–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/10999940802523869.

Walker, Lydia. 2019. “Decolonization in the 1960s: On Legitimate and Illegitimate Nationalist

Claims-Making.” Past & Present 242 (1): 227–64. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gty045.



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