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?

Background and Context

Background and Context

The story of the Chagos Archipelago, renamed the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) by the United Kingdom, is fundamentally a narrative of colonialism meeting Cold War pragmatism. Comprising over 60 low-lying coral atolls situated strategically in the heart of the Indian Ocean—roughly 1,000 miles south of the Maldives and 1,000 miles east of the Seychelles—the islands were first settled and claimed by France in the late 18th century. After the Napoleonic Wars, the islands were ceded to the British in 1814, becoming a dependency of the colonial administration of Mauritius.

For more than 150 years, the islands were home to the Chagossians, or Ilois, a unique Creole population that evolved from African slaves brought primarily from Madagascar and Mozambique, indentured laborers from the Indian subcontinent, and European plantation managers. Contrary to the later claims made by the British and US governments, these were not merely transient workers; they were a self-sufficient, culturally distinct society. Their lives were rooted in the coconut plantation economy, producing high-grade copra and coir fiber. They built churches, schools, and hospitals, maintaining a vibrant community that saw multiple generations born and buried on the soil of islands like Diego Garcia, Peros Banhos, and Salomon. Their culture was rich, distinct, and inextricably tied to their isolated marine environment.

The Geopolitical Imperative

The tranquility of the archipelago was shattered in the early 1960s with the escalation of the Cold War. As Britain rapidly dismantled its colonial empire, the US military sought a permanent, strategically unparalleled base capable of projecting air and naval power across Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa. Diego Garcia, the largest atoll, was identified as the ideal location: geographically isolated, far from existing population centers (which theoretically mitigated political opposition), and perfectly positioned to serve as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier.”

The United States made its intentions clear: the proposed military installation had to be situated on an “uninhabited” territory to guarantee security and operational freedom, without the logistical and political complications of managing a resident population. The United Kingdom, desperate to maintain its strategic alignment with the US and receive favorable defense financing, capitulated to this requirement.

In a move widely regarded today as a clear violation of international law regarding self-determination, the UK secretly orchestrated the detachment of the Chagos Archipelago from the colony of Mauritius in 1965, three years before granting Mauritius independence. This administrative maneuver created the BIOT—a territory whose sole purpose was to serve as a US military base—and paved the way for the systematic removal of its native population.

The Fiction of Erasure

To legitimize the expulsion, British and US officials engaged in a deliberate campaign of legal and factual obfuscation. Internal memoranda dismissed the Chagossians, who numbered around 2,000 people, as merely a “floating population,” “contract labor,” or “man-fridays” whose existence could be conveniently erased through bureaucratic reclassification. The UK agreed to grant the US the exclusive right to use Diego Garcia for 50 years (renewable for an additional 20 years), in exchange for a secret payment disguised as a $14 million reduction in the price of Polaris missile technology—an arrangement that ultimately served as the down payment for what is now one of the US’s most vital and enduring overseas military assets. This calculated administrative erasure was the necessary precursor to the ensuing humanitarian catastrophe, setting the stage for the forced expulsion of an entire nation under the c

loak of geopolitical necessity.

Key Developments

Key Developments

The forced depopulation of the Chagos Archipelago, and the subsequent diplomatic and legal battles, span six decades, characterized by deliberate deceit, systematic human rights abuses, and recent landmark international judgments that have decisively condemned the actions of the UK and US governments.

The Genesis of the BIOT (1965)

The crucial foundational development was the secret creation of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) in 1965. As the United Kingdom prepared to grant independence to its colony of Mauritius, it recognized the geopolitical value of the Chagos Islands to the United States military. The UK insisted on excising the archipelago from Mauritian territory before independence, a maneuver deemed illegitimate by international law. This detachment was formalized under pressure and through a deceptive exchange: Mauritius received a £3 million payment and an alleged secret promise regarding future access rights.

Crucially, UK officials began deliberately constructing a legal fiction to justify the subsequent expulsion. Internal Foreign Office documents show officials repeatedly denying that the Chagossians (who had lived there for centuries) were a permanent, indigenous population, instead categorizing them as mere “transient contract laborers.” This allowed the UK to argue, disingenuously, that the islands were “swept clean” of inhabitants without violating international norms against colonial displacement.

The Systematic Eradication (1968–1973)

Once the legal groundwork was laid, the physical removal of the population proceeded with calculated cruelty. Initially, Chagossians who traveled to Mauritius for routine medical care or supply trips were simply refused passage back home. Their communities were left without leadership, supplies, or contact with those removed.

The most infamous development was the deliberate terror campaign waged against the remaining inhabitants. In 1971, the UK ordered the complete depopulation of Diego Garcia. Ships arrived to seize and murder the islanders’ beloved pets, specifically their dogs, which were rounded up, gassed, and incinerated in front of their owners. This act was designed to shatter the community’s will and demonstrate the authorities’ absolute power. By 1973, the final residents of Diego Garcia were loaded onto the freighter Nordvaer, which dumped them in the Seychelles and Mauritius, where they were left to face decades of poverty, social exclusion, and psychological trauma, having lost their homes and way of life.

Legal Battles and the Prerogative Orders (2000–2004)

For decades, the displaced Chagossians fought in obscurity, but the turn of the millennium brought significant legal victories in the UK courts. In 2000, the UK High Court ruled in favor of the Chagossians, finding the 1971 Immigration Ordinance unlawful and affirming the islanders’ right to return to all islands except Diego Garcia.

This victory, however, triggered a massive constitutional backlash from the UK government. Determined to keep the islands empty for the US base, the British government utilized the Royal Prerogative—an executive power that bypasses democratic parliamentary scrutiny—to issue the BIOT Orders in Council (2004). These orders effectively reinstated the permanent ban on residency, stripping the Chagossians of their legally established right of return and circumventing the High Court’s judgment. This move solidified the government’s position that national security interests trumped the fundamental human rights of the exiled population.

International Condemnation (2019–Present)

The failure of the UK domestic legal system to deliver justice led the issue to the international stage. The most critical recent development occurred in February 2019, when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a definitive Advisory Opinion. The ICJ found that the UK’s detachment of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius was an “unlawful act of colonization” and that the continued UK administration of the territory was illegal. The ICJ advised that the UK has an obligation to end its administration “as rapidly as possible.”

Later that year, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) overwhelmingly endorsed the ICJ opinion, voting 116 to 6 (with the US, UK, and Australia voting against) to demand that the UK withdraw from the territory and complete the decolonization of Mauritius. While the ICJ opinion is non-binding, it represents a decisive moral and legal repudiation of the UK’s sovereignty claim and has isolated the UK diplomatically on the world stage, drastically increasing pressure for reparations and the long-delayed justice sought by the Chagossian people.

Stakeholders and Impact

Stakeholders and Impact

The forced displacement of the Chagossian people—the Ilois—to create the Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia represents a profound violation of human rights and international law, generating distinct and complex impacts across several key stakeholder groups.

The Chagossians (The Ilois): Catastrophic Displacement and Cultural Erasure

The primary victims of this colonial maneuver, the approximately 2,000 native Chagossians, bore an impact of unimaginable severity. Stripped of their ancestral homeland and unique way of life, they were systematically and secretively deported between 1968 and 1973, dumped into poverty-stricken slums in Mauritius and the Seychelles.

The impact was immediate and long-lasting:

• Economic Ruin: They were suddenly transformed from a self-sufficient, employed island community into refugees dependent on meager, often delayed, compensation payments. The vast majority experienced chronic unemployment, homelessness, and endemic poverty in their new environments.
• Psychological Trauma: Displacement generated profound social fragmentation and psychological distress, widely known as solitude or grief for the lost islands. Suicide rates and mental health crises were disproportionately high.
• Cultural Dissolution: The unique Creole culture of the islands, fostered over two centuries, began to dissolve in exile. Crucially, the second and third generations have been born into poverty, separated entirely from their heritage, fueling ongoing trauma and identity crises.

For the Chagossians, the impact is not confined to the past; it is a continuous injustice that demands restitution, sovereignty restoration, and the right to return.

The United Kingdom (UK): Moral Liability and Geopolitical Complicity

As the administering colonial power, the UK’s primary role was executing the displacement via a bureaucratic sleight of hand—creating the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) in 1965 by excising the islands from the territory of Mauritius just before its independence.

The impact on the UK has been twofold:

• International Condemnation: The revelations surrounding the methods used—including starving the remaining population and ordering the mass gassing of their pets (a deliberate psychological tactic to hasten departure)—have resulted in severe damage to the UK’s reputation. Human Rights Watch explicitly labeled the actions a crime against humanity.
• Legal Liability and Financial Cost: The UK has faced decades of costly legal battles in its own courts and, more recently, at the highest international level. The 2019 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and subsequent UN General Assembly votes declared the UK’s continued occupation unlawful, placing immense diplomatic pressure on London and undermining the international legality of the BIOT.

The United States (US): Strategic Dominance and Operational Continuity

The United States is the primary beneficiary of the Chagossian tragedy. The massive strategic impact of Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, often called “the indispensable island,” cannot be overstated. Located centrally in the Indian Ocean, far from hostile populations or political instability, it offers the US unparalleled reach into the Middle East, East Africa, and Southeast Asia.

The impact for the US is purely strategic:

• Military Projection: Diego Garcia serves as a critical staging post for long-range bombers, refueling aircraft, and a massive supply depot (including pre-positioned military supply ships). It provided vital support during the Gulf Wars, the War in Afghanistan, and countless other operations, enabling the US to project power globally without reliance on potentially unstable allies.
• Security of Operations: The unique arrangement with the UK provides operational security and guaranteed continuity. The US has invested billions in maintaining and upgrading the base, which is considered its single most critical strategic asset in the region.

Mauritius and International Law: Sovereignty and Decolonization

Mauritius, as the nation from which the archipelago was illegally severed, is a central legal stakeholder. The ongoing fight to reclaim the territory has a massive impact on the principle of self-determination and territorial integrity in post-colonial law.

The international legal impact is that the Chagos dispute has become a litmus test for completing the decolonization process. The ICJ and UN rulings supporting Mauritian sovereignty validated the claim that the initial excision was illegal. This outcome places direct legal pressure on both the US and UK, as the military base is now widely regarded by the international community as operating on illegally held territory, posing a challenge to the legitimacy of all future lease arrangements.

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