The $13 Billion Crime: An Island Betrayed for a US Military Base

More than 2,000 people were secretly and forcibly removed from their homes to make way for one of the world’s most vital military installations.

Imagine having your entire homeland erased from the map, not by a natural disaster, but by a colonial power for geopolitical gain. Human Rights Watch has labeled the forced displacement of the Chagossians a “crime against humanity,” and it’s a shocking stain on the history of the UK and US that demands your attention. This isn’t just a historical footnote; it is a live case study in how global power dynamics crush human rights and dignity for strategic advantage.

The Bombshell Eviction

The story begins in the mid-1960s with a secret pact between the United Kingdom and the United States. The US wanted a highly strategic military base in the Indian Ocean, and the remote Chagos Archipelago, specifically the atoll of Diego Garcia, was the perfect spot. The problem? Around 2,000 Chagossians, a distinct people with their own Creole culture, lived there.

To clear the land and avoid United Nations scrutiny, the UK in 1965 detached the islands from its colony, Mauritius, to create the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). Between 1968 and 1973, authorities systematically forced the entire population off the islands. To justify this expulsion, British officials deliberately re-characterized the islanders as mere “contract laborers” rather than a permanent population.

A Crime Against Humanity

The human impact of this policy is devastating. The Chagossians were abandoned in Mauritius and the Seychelles, often in “abject poverty,” and suffered what they call “sagren”—a profound, crushing emotional devastation from being torn from their homeland. They were promised a better life, but many were left destitute.

As Chagossian exile Haris Elysé once reflected, the trauma is “permanently etched” in their minds. For decades, they have fought for their right to return, a struggle the UK government initially resisted by citing “defense and security interests.” The price of this injustice has been estimated to be as high as $13.2 billion in damages owed to the Chagossian people.

Geopolitics Over People

The reason for this immense human cost is pure geopolitics. The Diego Garcia base is one of the most critical military installations for US global power projection, allowing it to control crucial sea and air routes across the Indian Ocean and into the Indo-Pacific. It is a strategic linchpin for global security, but its existence is built on an illegal act.

In 2019, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered a bombshell advisory opinion, ruling that the UK’s continued administration of the archipelago was unlawful and that the decolonization of Mauritius was not legitimately completed. This ruling put immense pressure on London to correct the historic wrong.

The 99-Year Lease Revealed

This pressure recently culminated in the UK agreeing to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius. This should have been a moment of triumph for decolonization, but the fine print is a stark reminder of where the true power lies.

The deal includes a clause allowing the UK to retain control of the Diego Garcia base through a new, 99-year lease. The base stays, the strategic advantage is secured, and the Chagossians—the people whose ancestors were betrayed—still do not have an unfettered right to return to their home island. They have been passed over once again, the victim of a political deal that prioritizes a military runway over human dignity.

What is the Price of Justice?

The story of the Chagos Islands is a powerful lesson in the brutal calculus of global power: an entire indigenous population can be sacrificed, their culture destroyed, and their trauma ignored, all in the name of a distant military objective. Political anthropologist David Vine noted that this case is one of the most significant legal and moral confrontations of our time.

The question for you, the global citizen, is simple: When a great power commits a “crime against humanity” to secure a strategic advantage, and then structures a “solution” that keeps the base but marginalizes the victims, can we ever truly claim that justice has been served?

---

Original Source: Fair Observer

• Tags:
• News
• Politics
• Current Events