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According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the forced eviction of indigenous people from the Chagos Islands by the United States and the United Kingdom constitutes crimes against humanity.
The US-based rights group went on to say that, with Washington’s help, the UK’s “racial persecution, and persistent barring of their return home,” constituted a “ongoing colonial crime.”
According to HRW, the two nations must grant the Chagossian people complete reparations, including the freedom to relocate back to their ancestral home in the Indian Ocean’s Chagos Archipelago.
According to the report’s principal author and senior legal adviser Clive Baldwin, the UK is currently perpetrating a heinous act of colonialism by treating all Chagossians as though they have no rights.
“The UK and US, who collectively drove the Chagossians from their homes, should offer full compensation for the devastation they have inflicted,” the statement reads.
A joint military installation between the United States and London was established on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands, in 1965 after London decided to detach the archipelago from Mauritius, which was then a part of the British empire.
Despite the fact that it is still in charge of them, Mauritius, which won independence from the Commonwealth in 1968, has long battled for the return of the islands to its territory and has gained backing from other countries in doing so.
In support of its case, the International Court of Justice ruled in 2019 that Britain should cede authority of the far-flung archipelago.
In a later vote that year, the UN General Assembly unanimously approved a resolution declaring that “the Chagos Archipelago forms an important part of the territory of Mauritius” and urging Britain to leave within six months.
The Mauritian prime minister announced last month that talks with London had started over the sovereignty of the islands after the UK affirmed in November that such conversations would take place.
However, the nations had agreed that the military installation on Diego Garcia would remain operational regardless of the decision, according to Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who made this assertion in a written ministerial statement at the time.
The Chagossians’ right to restitution, including their right to return, had not been explicitly guaranteed, according to HRW, and there had also been “no apparent commitment to meaningful dialogue with the Chagossians.”
For its report, the New York-based organization consulted a wide range of documents, conducted dozens of interviews, including with Chagossians and UK, US, and Mauritian officials.
According to the report, the UK had committed three crimes against humanity: preventing their return home; persecuting them on the basis of their race and ethnicity; and prolonging the colonial crime of forced displacement.
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) of the United Kingdom replied to the allegations by saying, “We admire the work Human Rights Watch performs around the world, but we strongly dispute this portrayal of events.
The UK has made it clear that it deeply regrets how Chagossians were expelled from BIOT in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Requests for comments regarding the HRW report were not answered by the US State Department.
