Refusal by the United Kingdom and the United States to allow people of the island of Diego Garcia to return to their ancestral island

Doc. 10413

22 January 2005

Refusal by the United Kingdom and the United States to allow people of the island of Diego Garcia to return to their ancestral island

Written question No 452 to the Committee of Ministers

Reply from the Committee of Ministers

adopted at the 912^th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies (19 January 2005)

I. Written Question No. 452 by Mr Masson (Doc. 10269)

Mr Masson wishes to point out to the Committee of Ministers that the Diego Garcia atoll belongs to the United Kingdom. However, a secret agreement of 1961, signed by Harold McMillan and John F. Kennedy, designated it as an Anglo-American "point of strategic support" against the Soviet Union in the Indian Ocean. Washington wanted to establish a communications and refuelling centre there on the dual condition that the Chagos archipelago should be excluded from the decolonisation process London was implementing and that its inhabitants should be evacuated "for security reasons". In exchange, the United States offered a USD 14 million reduction on the price of Polaris missiles the United Kingdom was purchasing.

The "transfer" of the native inhabitants began in the greatest secrecy in the early 1970s with Mauritius and the Seychelles as their destination. London informed the "deportees" that they had no territorial claim on the islands, to which their ancestors had come from other African countries or Indian Ocean islands as "contract workers". The 426 families, who lived from vegetable farming, coastal fishing, livestock rearing and copra production, found themselves stripped of their possessions and without any assistance in the slums of Port-Louis in Mauritius and Victoria in the Seychelles. Alcoholism, drug abuse and poverty ravaged their community while the United States transformed Diego Garcia into a fortress.

For 35 years the "Ilois" have been fighting to reclaim their atoll, a struggle which, in 2000, won them recognition as full British subjects. In November 2000 the London High Court ruled that their "transfer" was "illegal" and recognised as founded their claim to a "right of return" to their ancestral land. However, Tony Blair's government did not understand things that way. Under the pretext of conducting a feasibility study on resettling a community of some 8,500 "Chagossians" it dragged out the inquiry. Its experts have now concluded that the population would be exposed to "natural events of a nature to make their survival difficult". In the longer term, global warming and its consequences on sea levels will allegedly make their lives impossible. This attitude is clearly dishonest, since if rising sea levels are a threat why do the United States cling to their strategic base?

On the basis of this pretext, a legal decree was discreetly promulgated on 10 June 2004, prohibiting the natives of Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos archipelago, to return there.

Mr Masson accordingly asks the Committee of Ministers to serve notice on the United Kingdom to respect the rights of the former inhabitants of the island of Diego Garcia and, failing that, to consider whether the matter should not be referred direct to the European Court of Human Rights.

II. Reply by the Committee of Ministers

1. The Committee of Ministers has noted with interest the question raised by the Honourable Parliamentarian, as well as his views on the matter.

2. The Committee of Ministers does not feel prompted to respond to matters raised in the question concerning a non-member state, the United States.

3. On the other hand, it has examined the issues raised in respect of the United Kingdom, which exercises sovereignty over Diego Garcia. It notes in this respect that the matter of the islanders' displacement and the issue of their return have been the subject of decisions by both the courts and the authorities in recent years. It is also aware that an independent study commissioned by the UK authorities concluded that resettlement would be precarious and costly. It notes that the UK authorities consider that the restoration of full immigration control over the territory concerned is equally necessary to ensure and maintain the availability and effective use of the Territory for defence purposes for which it was in fact constituted and set aside in accordance with the United Kingdom’s treaty obligations. The Committee of Ministers takes note that the UK authorities agreed to a visit by a group of Chagossians to their relatives' graves on Diego Garcia and on the outer islands. It is furthermore aware of on-going debates in civil society circles in the United Kingdom on these questions. The Committee of Ministers will follow this debate with interest.

4. The Committee of Ministers further notes that the United Kingdom authorities have not deposited any declaration under Article 56 of the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Diego Garcia.