Never Again! Reject Shameful Endorsement of Exile & Internment.

By Kevin Akin

With apparent Bush administration approval, the Blair government in Britain is seeking court approval for exiling a whole population based on the Japanese Internment of 1942-1945. Blair's lawyers seek to overturn a ruling giving the Chagossians the right to return to the Chagos Islands, from which they were brutally exiled at American insistence in 1973 before the Diego Garcia military base was built.

At American insistence, the British government expelled all 2000 Chagossians from their homeland in 1973 with considerable brutality, dumping most of them in the slums of the larger Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, and pretended to the world that they were "contract laborers from Mauritius and Seychelles." This was a lie. The Chagossians, mainly descended from slaves captured in Madagascar and Mozambique in the 1700s, had lived on their islands for over 175 years, and have a unique language and culture. In the 1990s the original memos between the British officials who crafted the lie were accidentally declassified, and lawyers for the Chagossians (now numbering 5000) went to court in Britain and won the right to return to their islands. The British government, at the secret insistence of the American government, refused to comply. Tony Blair had the Queen sign an "Order in Council" overruling the courts. The Chagossians went back to court, and the courts ruled that the Order in Council was an illegal violation of Magna Carta, which forbids the sovereign from exiling British subjects.

When the US Congress and the Canadian Parliament voted compensation and apologies for the victims of the Japanese Internment of 1942-1945, everyone said "never again!" But astonishingly enough, Tony Blair's government is appealing the new court decision by claiming the Japanese Internment as a precendent! His lawyers say that since the highest courts approved the internment of Japanese-Canadians, who were British subjects at the time, this means that the government can intern or exile racial groups as it pleases.

Since Blair is acting as an American lap-dog in this matter, as in so many others, we may presume that this hideous racist argument is approved by his American collaborators.

While the Chagossian exile is becoming a national scandal in Britain, most Americans have never heard of it. Since the exile was ordered by the American government, and is maintained in response to American pressure, one important way to end it is by building a movement among Americans for justice for the Chagossians.

The Chagossian exile certainly would not continue if the US Congress adopts a resolution that recognizes the criminal nature of the expulsion, offers fair monetary compensation for three decades of exile, releases the British government from its promise to depopulate the Chagos Archipelago, and orders the declassification and publication of all records relating to Diego Garcia.

Working toward this end, every organization in the United States that favors peace and justice should adopt a resolution demanding justice for the Chagossians, and an end to the Chagossian exile. Whether your organization is a national one with ten thousand members or a local one with ten members, each resolution has a considerable impact. If you send me a copy of the resolution at kevinakin1950@hotmail.com, I will post it on my website, and send a copy to every US Senator and Representative, as well as to the representatives of the Chagossians in Britain. Please let me hear from you soon! -Kevin Akin