The crisis of Diego Garcia

Imran Ahmed

Diego Garcia is a forgotten name in the rumbles of world issues. Every news is fleeting
these days and does not hog the press for a long time. Moreover, we are living in an era
of ‘goldfish memory’. What happened in Diego Garcia is unheard of; it harkens back to
the ancient world where a conqueror could invade a state at its own sweet will. It is not
like that a peaceful country has been attacked for not dancing to the tune of mighty
superpower; it is not like that a president of an independent country has been dethroned
by another country on pretext of freeing the world from weapons of mass destruction.
The story of this archipelago is more than that.
The plight of the inhabitants of Diego Garcia began in 1960s. This island is located in
the middle of the Indian Ocean and United States found the place very convenient to
fire up their military base. It was then the British colony and the then British Government
agreed to evict the islanders following a secret deal with US government. The whole
process of depopulation took place in very hush-hush manner. The islanders had lived
there for generations but the two powerhouses of global politics distorted this fact to the
UN and banished them from the place they belonged to.
The way the so-called poster boy of civil liberty removed the people from the ancestral
home depicts a decrepit picture of dehumanization. Can you imagine? You wake up in
the one fine morning only to hear that a plane is waiting and you have to board that to
leave the place where you have been living for centuries. You are being banished from
the place of which you are the legitimate inhabitant. USA military made a great haste in
wrapping up this cloak and dagger deal. They just rammed the indigenous population
into the plane and dropped in nearby places with no shelter, no food, no cloth. Even
they had not been given enough time to pack their belongings to eke out a minimum
living in their new destination. US government did not bother to go for minimum
rehabilitation and the innocent Chagossians had been left to perish. The strategical
importance of their land turned out to be bane of their life. Even if they ever manage to
return they can barely expect to bask in the glory of getting home. Their houses razed
into ground, infrastructure ruined by American soldiers to turn the island into one of the
most important military platforms in the world.
Not surprisingly, the injustice inflicted on the innocent inhabitants did not make much
reverberation across the world, the sub-human condition they were put into, faded into
thin air. But this state sponsored ethnic cleansing resurfaced in 2000 when the islanders
confided their right to return in the long arm of law. They took the British government to
court and British court granted their return to home. The hearing revealed how the two
bedfellows in global chess made a mockery of rule of law, demonstrated their ugly fang
of imperialism secretly. After
the historic verdict British government said they would not appeal the ruling. The
hearing let the cat out of the bag and apparently they did not want to open the
Pandora’s box further. But their foot-dragging on appeal soon changed under the
pressure from Uncle Sam. British court rejected their appeal to overrule the original
decision and termed the government’s attempt to prevent the islanders from returning
their home unlawful. During the hearing the court aired the dirty linen of the then
political echelons of Britain in public saying that they got a fair crack of the whip from
USA to make this deal a success.
Couple of years passed since the judgment of British court. But the former residents of
this coral island are still floating around as refugees. They do not have any country, any
cultural identify; they are not citizens of anywhere. They are bearing the brunt of being
born in geographically important place. The racial discrimination, they are facing in
Mauritius, a neighboring country, are marginalizing them to the point where their
ethnicity will be in peril in days to come.
There is no doubt that US government will go the whole hog of keeping Diego Garcia in
their hegemony. This is now one of the important military bases of America and the air
force the US constructed in this forlorn island provided the US military with a
springboard to pounce on Iraq. In this present unipolar world America can give anything
a go-by, be it outcry of international community, or a verdict of a British court. There is
no progress of resettlement in sight from the British Government. The dire straits of the
gullible ethnic community will waft into the air may be for years. Their chance to go back
sweet home, reclaim their land, live their life as original citizen is still a far cry.
Annihilating a community from the world map is not more important than global ambition
of world leaders in this modern world (?).