Marine reserve a plan to keep out ‘Man Fridays’ and ‘sea gypsies’, reveals leaked US cable
07 Dec 2010, 6:46 PM
The UK’s creation of the world’s largest marine park in the Indian Ocean has been exposed as less of an ecological project than a means to “put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago’s former residents” and retain the area for military use.
The Chagos were forcibly evicted from the archipelago after the British bought it from Mauritius for £3 million (US$476,000) in 1965, with then-Mauritian Prime Minister, Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, receiving a knighthood the same year.
The island is presently occupied by the US base at Diego Garcia due to an agreement made in 1966 whereby the UK received favours, including a US$14 million discount on submarine-launched Polaris missiles, in exchange for use of the island until 2016.
The Chagos won a high court victory in the UK in 2000 enabling them to return to archipelago, but the decision was extraordinarily overruled by the Queen’s royal prerogative. In 2008, the House of Lords overturned the high court verdict, forcing the Chagos to appeal in the European court of human rights.
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