Island Of Injustice
Forty years ago, on Dec. 30, 1966, at the U.S. Embassy in London, representatives of the U.S. and British governments met, as one participant later put it, "under the cover of darkness" to sign an "exchange of notes" giving the United States the right to create what was to become a major military base on Diego Garcia, an obscure British island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. In doing so they made provision for "those administrative measures" necessary to forcibly deport the entire native population of the island and the surrounding Chagos Archipelago.
While Diego Garcia has gained some attention as a key launch pad for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, few know about the expulsion of nearly 2,000 people, called Chagossians, that was eventually carried out between 1968 and 1973 to create the base.… Seguir leyendo »