Overlooked: "Let Them Return" »
Posted By Dakota 1 year, 6 months ago in NewsStarting in 1968, the United States and Britain began forcibly removing 2,000 Chagossian people from an island in the Indian Ocean so the U.S. could build a military base.
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Dakota
A reporter for Propeller, Dakota writes the Overlooked column for the web site. If you submitted a story and feel it deserves a second look ...
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Endoscopy1 year, 6 months ago
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Were they paid or not for their land. That was not mentioned in the story. If they were not paid they have a valid complaint. If they were tough. I went through it when I was a kid. I80 went diagonally through our farm. End of farm.
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truthiness1 year, 6 months ago
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you are a citizen of the United States and that is the law of the land.
this was a sovereign nation, with a unique culture, that was forcibly removed.. rounded up, watched their pets exterminated, and then shipped as cargo to somwhere else. exiled from their own home by a foreign power, because it wanted control of their land. how evil. how truly opposed to the ideals of America. shame.
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jordan111 year, 6 months ago
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Given that this is all true, obviously they weren't 'paid.' The manner of their expulsion was barbaric, and completely unwarranted. That would make those who decided on the means for doing it quite evil, & I would have to wonder AGAIN about the mentality of those who have been given positions of power in this country.
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Dionys1 year, 6 months ago
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"Were they paid or not for their land. That was not mentioned in the story. If they were not paid they have a valid complaint. If they were tough. I went through it when I was a kid. I80 went diagonally through our farm. End of farm."
What a disgusting attitude. It's find to steal peoples' land as long as they're paid for it? Is that how you felt when the government took your land?
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hyperbola1 year, 6 months ago
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Why are you surprised by this? The american "elite" does exactly the same thing with americans. Forcing americans to live in nuclear waste dumps is how you get enough corruption backing to be a presidential candidate.
Senator McCain's history of Human Rights Violations
Do No Evil â;; The Dineh-Navajo were literally swept off of lands they'd owned since 1500 A.D. by legislations authored by Senator McCain on a ruse that handed the coal beneath them over to the largest unsustainable energy corporation in America. Forced resettlements have led to disease and early death among more than 7,000 of the Dineh-Navajo.
http://donoevil.propeller.com/story/2008/04/02/...
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Neophile1 year, 6 months ago
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This "Overlooked" entry is about a story originally submitted by berkeley, not one submitted by the Propeller staff.
http://politics.propeller.com/story/2008/04/04/...
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bill29361 year, 6 months ago
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Few erros in the story:
One the american media reports from the island every now and then. (Note the quote saying that they can't get a reporter there)
The people from the Island are the 'Ilois' not 'Chagossian'.
And finally, the origin of the 'Ilois':
Probably the place's prickliest subject is the issue of the 1,200 to 2,000 members of the Ilois, former inhabitants the British moved off the island in the late 1960s. They now live 1,200 miles away on the isle of Mauritus. As the descendants of workers who arrived on the island in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
And one other note, if you look at the map in the article and then a map of were DG is, you will notice that the map show in the article is not even close.
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Charlson1 year, 6 months ago
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Until 1971 Diego Garcia had a native population of 2,000 Chagossians or Ilois, descendants of Indian workers and African slaves who had been brought to the island in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to work on the coconut and copra plantations. They lived in three settlements: East Point, the main settlement on the eastern rim of the atoll; Minni Minni; and Pointe Marianne, on the western rim. The islanders were forcibly depopulated to the Seychelles and then to Mauritius amid starvation and intimidation tactics by the UK government. Since their expulsion the Chagossians have continually asserted their right to return to Diego Garcia. In April 2006, 102 Chagossians were allowed to visit Diego Garcia for a week, to tend to graves and visit their birthplaces.
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Neophile1 year, 6 months ago
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John Pilger did a great documentary about Diego Garcia a couple years back. You can watch it here:
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-3667764...
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jovial1 year, 6 months ago
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I spent many a time on an aircraft carrier off the coast of Diego Garcia. We never got to disembark. We almost always got our mail and supplies sent to us while we patrolled the waters of the Indian ocean. Diego Garcia was the closest base available to us at the time. Our main operating area was known as "Gonzo station". A patch of water in the Northern Indian ocean. Thanks for the story. I never knew that there were indigenous natives there.
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Georgia501 year, 6 months ago
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There needs to be return, compensation, and punitive damages paid to these people.
The US Navy's interests are better served by island-like super structures that can ply the seas, service entire battle groups at a time, and provide 5,000' runways for both military and emergency use.
One per ocean ought to do it.
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dissent1 year, 6 months ago
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yeah, with a great big bullseye on all of 'em! btw.... the US Navy's interests? one per ocean? 5000 runways? you have to be kidding me but in case you're not, what might those interests be, hmmmmm georgia? you planning on having the empire take over the world sometime soon?
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