Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia (47 page)

I ended the original edition of
Island of Shame
writing about hope. In the two years since I finished the book, there have been moments, I must admit, when it has been hard to remain hopeful. The House of Lords ruling was a bitter setback. The announcement of the MPA has thrown up yet another hurdle. The intransigence and silence of the two governments is painful. And day by day, the generation of Chagossians born in Chagos loses another member—one more
natif
who has died in exile, never again to see her homeland.

And yet, after more than four decades in exile, the Chagossians are continuing their struggle. “The struggle must continue,” Olivier said to me after the hearing in the House of Lords, “with the aim . . . that [like] all human beings, we have the right to live on our birthplace.”

For anyone reading this—be you a student, a government official, a citizen of any country—I encourage you to get involved, to support the Chagossians’ struggle, to tell others about their story, to help them win the rights they, like all human beings, deserve.

D
AVID
V
INE
Washington, DC
September 3, 2010

NOTES

1
. See David Vine, “Decolonizing Britain in the 21st Century? The Chagos Islanders Challenge the Crown, House of Lords, 30 June–3 July 2008,”
Anthropology Today
24, no. 4 (2008): 26–28.

2
. House of Commons, Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, Seventh Report, Part I, London, July 8, 2008, para. 69.

3
. Jean-Marie G. Le Clézio, “Lavez l’injustice faite aux Chagossiens,”
Le Monde
, October 17, 2008, available at
http://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/2009/10/17/lavez-l-injustice-faite-aux-chagossiens-par-jean-marie-g-le-clezio_1255254_0.html
.

4
. Ram Seegobin, “Open Letter to Greenpeace Not to Fall into UK Trap,” Lalit de Klas, February 8, 2010, available at
http://www.lalitmauritius.org/viewarticle.php?id=993
.

5
. For more on the MPA, see David Vine, “Environmental Protection of Bases?”
Foreign Policy in Focus
, April 22, 2010, available at
http://www.fpif.org/articles/environmental_protectionof_bases
.

6
. Rob Edwards, “Final Destination Iran?”
Herald Scotland
, March 14, 2010, available at
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/world-news/final-destination-iran-1.1013151
.

7
. Reprieve, “US Government Must Reveal Information about Prison Ships Used for ‘Terror Suspects,’” press release, June 2, 2008, available at
http://www.reprieve.org.uk
; Reprieve, “Ghost Detention on Diego Garcia: Report for Parliament,” report, London, May 20, 2009; Roger Hollander, “Floating Guantánamos: In Limbo in CIA Prisons at Sea,” blog post, October 2, 2008, available at
http://rogerhollander.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/floating-guantanamos-in-limbo-in-cia-prisons-at-sea/
; Duncan Campbell and Richard Norton-Taylor, “US Accused of Holding Terror Suspects on Prison Ships,”
Guardian
, June 2, 2008, 1.

8
. Reprieve, “Ghost Detention”; Jonathan Schell, “Torture and Truth,”
Nation
, June 15, 2009, 16.

9
. Richard Norton-Taylor, “Identity of Men on CIA Rendition Flights to British Island Revealed,”
Guardian
, May 31, 2009, available at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/31/cia-rendition-identity-torture-diego-garcia
; Reprieve, “Ghost Detention,” 18.

10
. David Snoxell, “New British Government, New Parliament—A New Policy on Chagos?”
Mauritius Times
, June 3, 2010, available at
http://mauritiustimes.com/index.php/the-news/360-david-snoxell
.
[On disk: Vine_insert_254a.doc]

11
. Sean Carey, “Chagos: Coalition Ditches Promise to Reverse Policy,”
New Statesman
, August 28, 2010, available at
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/08/chagos-mauritius-government
.

12
. Jonathan Freedland, “A Black and Disgraceful Site,”
New York Review of Books
56, no. 9, May 28, 2009, available at
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/may/28/a-black-and-disgraceful-site/
.

13
. Richard Barber, Thomas McC. Chesney, and Jonathan Freedland, “‘Island of Shame’: An Exchange on Diego Garcia,”
New York Review of Books
56, no. 11, July 2, 2009, available at
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/jul/02/island-of-shame-an-exchange-on-diego-garcia/
.

14
. Ibid.

INDEX

Acheson, Dean,
99

Adam, Jean Baptiste,
31
,
32
,
33

Addu Atoll,
56

Afghan war,
9

Afghanistan,
16
,
43
,
194

Africa,
21
,
23

as a source of oil for the United States,
188
–89

“Africa Command” (AFRICOM),
189

AfroMauritians (Creoles),
131
,
135
,
137
,
138
–39,
140
,
143

ti-kreol
(“little Creole”) subset of,
139

Alaska,
246
–47n31

displacement of Aleutian islanders,
66

Aldabra Affair,
98

Aldabra Island,
79
,
85
–86,
96
,
99
–100,
228
n12

Alexis, Charlesia,
168

Alexis, Janette,
143
,
144
,
146
,
157
–58

American Samoa,
48

Andaman Islands,
56

anthropology/anthropologists, and research concerning empire,
210
–11n49

Arab-Israeli War (1973),
121
,
246
n23

Ascension Island,
50
,
53
,
184
,
245
n12,
246
–47n31

Ashworth, Frederick L.,
63

Attu Island,
66

Aust, Anthony,
92

Azores,
50
,
53
,
121
,
184

Bagley, Worth H.,
107

Baie du Tombeau,
147

Bahrain,
53
,
56
,
60

Balad Air Base,
17

Bancoult, Alex,
6
,
140
,
141
,
142
,
148
,
195

death of his wife by suicide,
153

Bancoult, Eddy,
6
,
142
,
148
,
195

Bancoult, Ivo,
132
,
159
–60

Bancoult, Julien,
5
,
6
,
127
,
195

death of, from
sagren
(profound sorrow),
149

illness (stroke) of,
132
–33

Bancoult, Louis Olivier,
141
,
168
,
169
–70,
175
,
177
–78,
179
,
243
n34

on the rights of Chagossians,
191
,
195

Bancoult, Marie Rita Elysée,
1
,
2
,
5
–6,
18
,
20
,
39
,
68
,
132
–33,
141
,
167
,
168

coconut/copra-processing occupation of,
30
–31

on the death of her husband,
149

living conditions of in Cassis,
127
–28

social status of,
137

Bancoult, Mimose,
141
,
142
,
162

Bancoult, Noellie,
5
,
39
,
127

Bancoult, Rénault,
6
,
148
,
195

Bandjunis, Vytautas,
42

Barber, Richard,
197
–98,
205
n5

Barber, Stuart,
4
,
18
,
59
–60,
61
,
68
,
69
,
182
,
184
,
197
–98,
244
n1

and the “Strategic Island Concept,”
4
–5,
41
–42,
49
,
60

Barksdale Air Force Base (Louisiana),
187

“base displacement,”
65
–68,
182
–83

Benedict, Burton,
134

Benedict, Marion,
134

Bikini Atoll,
16
,
63
,
246
–47n31

compensation paid to the Bikinians by the United States,
221
n33

removal of the native Bikinians by the U.S. Navy,
63
–64

Bishop, James,
117

Blood, Hilary,
38