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As „an example of how human rights are subordinated to military interests” the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) described on Friday the decision of the British authorities to allow the deported indigenous people to return for only one day to the Chagos Islands. The British colonial government deported the indigenous population in 1966 in order to establish jointly with the USA the air-force base of Diego Garcia. The Chagos archipelago comprises six atolls with more than 600 small islands.
„It is scandalous that the EU state of Great Britain is preventing the 2,000 indigenous people with all means at their disposal from returning home permanently, although the High Court in London declared the deportation of the Chagosians to be illegal”, criticised the GfbV on Friday.
The authorities of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) are prepared to allow for humanitarian reasons 100 indigenous people to spend one day each on three of the islands after negotiations lasting many years. It will probably be their last visit to the islands on which they were born and on which their ancestors lived since the 18th century. The Chagosians have been contesting their deportation for more than twenty years at British courts, although they and the government of the neighbouring island of Mauritius were compensated with ₤14.5 million by Great Britain. Most of the deported persons now live in Mauritius.
The indigenous people argue that a permanent return would not necessarily mean the closing of the military base Diego Garcia since the air-force base is more than 100 km from the Chagos islands and that they would present no danger for its safety. However London categorically refuses to consider any permanent return.
Today it is mainly US military who are stationed on Diego Garcia. The base is not only of central significance for the control of the sea routes in the Indian Ocean, but also for the US military operations in Iraq and in Afghanistan. In August 2003 it became known that the USA maintained a prison camp on Diego Garcia in the style of Guantanamo Bay and was holding presumed El-Quaeda terrorists there.
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