Falklands, Diego Garcia and the IOPZ

In 1982 the Argentine junta invaded the Falkland Islands. Notwithstanding the fascist nature of the junta, Argentina’s claim to the islands, which they call the Malvinas, was fairly solid.

Argentina, the successor state to the Spanish Empire, settled the islands in the 1820s. In 1833 Britain, going against its Treaty of San Lorenzo commitments not to colonise the islands, captured them and chased away the settlers; Britons were settled on the islands starting in 1841. The Argentine invasion was a gift to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, hitherto a great supporter of the junta. Deeply committed to the demolition of Britain’s manufacturing base, she had the lowest ever post-war approval ratings - her Tory party was in third place in opinion polls after Labour and the Liberals.

Aided with US logistical, telecommunication and diplomatic support, Thatcher sent a task force to re-conquer the islands. She got immense support from the jingoist media, which coined the derogatory epithet ‘Argies’ for the Argentinians. The Argentine defeat helped her to victory in the ‘Khaki Election’ of 1983.

British public

As the 30th anniversary of the war draws near, the Guardian Newspaper published the results of a poll, which found that 61 percent of the British public - most of whom had not known in 1982 that the Falklands existed, let alone their location - thought that ‘Britain should protect the Falklands so long as the islanders want protecting, no matter what the cost’. This indicates how far the British public has been brainwashed by its media. If the protection of islanders was such a great priority, why was there no outcry about the fate of the Chagossians, deported and made stateless by the British government itself?

The Chagos Archipelago (Paeikaana Theevukal in Tamil), which constitutes the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), had been inhabited since before Britain took them over in 1814. Pursuant to an agreement to lease an unpopulated Diego Garcia to the USA as a military base, the entire Chagossian population was deported to Mauritius and Seychelles from the atolls of Diego Garcia, Peros Banhos and Salomon, in 1968-73.

Indigenous population

This deportation was illegal, since it violated article 17 of the United Nations Charter, which states that ‘the interests of the inhabitants of a territory are paramount’ in deciding its status.

The racist attitude of Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) to its own subjects is made clear by a memo written at that time by Colonial Office head Lord Greenhill to the UN British delegation:

‘The object of the exercise is to get some rocks which will remain ours; there will be no indigenous population except seagulls who have not yet got a committee. Unfortunately, along with the seagulls go some few Tarzans and Man Fridays that are hopefully being wished on Mauritius.’ When British MP Tam Dalyell gave notice of a Parliamentary question on the subject, an internal memo of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) was circulated which read: ‘We shall continue to try to say as little as possible to avoid embarrassing the United States administration...We would not wish it to become general knowledge that some of the inhabitants have lived on Diego Garcia for several generations and could, therefore, be regarded as 'belongers'.’

Second World War

In 2006, the English High Court ruled that preventing the Chagossians’ resettlement of the islands was unlawful, and that the Chagossians were entitled to return. This was confirmed by the Court of Appeal in 2007.

However, in 2008 the House of Lords decided that the archaic Royal Prerogative (‘the Queen can do no wrong’) made the prevention of return legal. Interestingly, the precedent on which HMG rested its case was the internment by the Canadian government of its ethnic Japanese population in concentration camps during the Second World War, as was done in the USA. Parenthetically, it could easily have cited the coincidental internment of German Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka!

In 2010 HMG declared the seas around the BIOT ‘the world’s largest marine reserve’. No reference was made to stakeholders who, apart from the Chagossians, included Indian, Maldivian and Sri Lankan fishers who had fished in the area for millennia, but now were excluded. Thus arose the anomaly whereby Indian fishermen were banned, but Indian vessels of war could take part in joint exercises.

The true reason for establishing the marine reserve was revealed by a US London Embassy diplomatic cable leaked by Wikileaks as part of the Cablegate cache, in which the US political counsellor says ‘Establishing a marine reserve might, indeed, as the FCO’s Roberts stated, be the most effective long-term way to prevent any of the Chagos Islands’ former inhabitants or their descendants from resettling...’

Fundamental human right

Diego Garcia is vital to US interests in the region. According to a study published in 2010 in the journal ‘Asian Security’, ‘Although long considered a geopolitical backwater by US strategists, the Indian Ocean has assumed increasing importance in the past decade... The development of Diego Garcia reflects an overall strategy to establish a flexible and enduring presence within a critical and contested space.’ The base has been used for illegal activity such as ‘extraordinary rendition’ flights, which involve the abduction and torture of people the USA considers might be its enemies. Notwithstanding this, the base would be rendered unnecessary if the ‘space’ were no longer ‘critical and contested’.

Minister DEW Gunasekera told Parliament this week that Sri Lanka was planning to revive Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s concept of the Indian Ocean Peace Zone (IOPZ), which had been declared by the 26th session of the United Nations’ General Assembly in 1971 - but which remained in limbo due to the objections of the West. Were the IOPZ to become a reality which, as DEW said, it would enable safe navigation. The irritants ostensibly faced by the US would be removed, enabling the Diego Garcia base to be dismantled. This would allow the Chagossians to return to their homes, which fundamental human right they have been deprived of for four decades.