Islanders in the way of imperialism
Socialist Organiser1982 1982-07-01Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
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Tony Richardson reviews the World In Action programme on Monday 21st - "Britain's Other Islanders"
THIS programme was about the removal of the population of Diego Garcia by the British government to make way for an American Naval and Bomber base.
The events took place in 1971 but the details were only discovered in 1975 by an American Senator.
The islands were dependencies of Mauritius and the native population of Diego Garcia were the Ilois.
The US government was looking for a base in the Indian Ocean and the British government gave them Diego Garcia in exchange for $14 million off their Polaris Bill.
They could have used another of the islands but that was populated by Giant Tortoises and they didn't want to remove them.
The retired US Navy chief said that the base is the most important outside of the five continents and Pearl Harbour.
This is shown by the fact that the Americans have just spent $2 billion expanding it.
The 1,200 islanders were removed because, as the ex-Navy chief explained, it was better to have no indigenous population because 'Russia would not take advantage of them."
The British government told the Americans that they were all migrant workers, but the programme clearly showed they had been there for at least four or five generations. The lois were given 15 days to get out and they could only take their clothes and a few possessions.
They ended up dumped in the slums of Port Louis in Mauritius.
Ever since then they have been fighting for compensation. After some years they got an offer of 650,000, then in 1979 this was increased to £14 million. This was followed by riots not shown on TV at the time, at which Thatcher's effigy was burned.
Gradually the offer was increased to a final one, made in 1981, of £4 million. In exchange for this the Ilois signed away their rights.
The new government recently elected in Mauritius this week announced the formal opening of a campaign to reclaim Diego Garcia.
Asked why the British government took such an obviously different stance to that of the Falkland Islands, Robin Cook MP replied it could only be because the lois were 'racially different' i e. they are black.
This is obviously correct. But there is more. The Falklanders were not burning effigies of Thatcher. The Ilois did not want to be British, they just wanted to live on their own island.
One old man, asked whether money could compensate, replied "No, we can never forget"
The Mauritius government is not strong enough to drive the Americans out and the world's courts are controlled by the capitalists.
It will be up to the world working class to rectify the injustices to the llois and the countless other populations that have been displaced by imperialism because they were in the way..